Customer Reviews

Christmas on Television (The Praeger Television Collection)

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This is a book that will be fun for both the casual television fan and the television historian. I found it informative and entertaining. There are no two stronger cultural icons in America than Christmas and television and the author did an extraordinary job weaving the two together.

The first thing that struck me about Christmas on Television is that there was another person out there who has as much fondness for old holiday episodes of TV shows as I do. Each year I find myself watching Christmas episodes of TV shows that I do not even watch regularly. This wonderful book from Praeger Publishers and written by Diane Werts is the Holy Grail for fans of holiday themed TV. I don't know if she mentions every Christmas episode of every TV show but I bet she comes pretty darn close. Werts begins with a look at early shows such as Ozzie & Harriet and Father Knows Best, and early specials like the 1953 Liberace Holiday show where he is joined on the set by members of his family...which would become a common theme in many future specials.

Rather than just go chronologically through the years Werts takes a different tack, instead looking at these shows through the many different themes that were used over and over through the years such as shopping, decorating, feasting, being away from, or coming home for the holidays. Werts sites an unending supply of examples for the various themes such as the Partridge Family bus breaking down in a ghost town on Christmas Eve in a 1971 show or Tim Taylor being stuck in an airport during a storm in a 1995 holiday episode of Home Improvement. The theme of a working Christmas was explored in a 1970 Mary Tyler Moore show when Mary finds herself alone in the newsroom until the rest of the cast show up to bring the Christmas party to her.

One of my favorite themes is the one where Santa is proven to be real. In a 1964 Christmas episode of Bewitched, Samantha takes a little boy (played by Billy Mumy) all the way to the North Pole to prove to him that Santa is real. The same year also gave us the Flintsones show where Fred helped out an ailing Santa by delivering gifts but forgets his own family's presents. The desire for an old fashioned Christmas and lamenting commercialization has been a common theme from the days of A Charlie Brown Christmas right through the 2003 Christmas episode of Bernie Mac. And Dickens' A Christmas Carol has played out numerous times over the decades on shows like The Odd Couple, Sanford & Son, and The Simpsons. Thank God for TV land who runs blocks of these old Christmas shows every year!

Of course what would Christmas on TV be without mentioning the great, and regrettably now missing variety shows. Bob Hope did his first Christmas show on NBC in 1950 and continued for over forty years. His most famous shows were those he spent entertaining our armed forces throughout the Korean, Viet Nam, and first Gulf Wars. His 1970 and 1971 specials from Viet Nam are still ranked among Neilsen's Top 30 shows of all-time. Besides Bob there were so many other great variety shows...who can forget the annual Bing Crosby and Andy Williams shows, or even the Muppets. Werts also takes a look at the great animated shows like Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer. While many classic Christmas episodes are forgotten and variety shows are no more, the classic animated specials never get old or lose their luster.

Werts' book is filled with a comprehensive bibliography and index making it easy to find your favorite old Christmas episode. There is also a short, but enjoyable photo section. Truly a fantastic book! My highest recommendation!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Diane Werts' "Christmas on Television" is astonishingly well written, remarkably thorough, and utterly invaluable as a basis for future scholarship in this area. Every paragraph reads like the progeny of intense and loving research, yet the text flows and entertains in the manner of a first-rate episode of, say, "M*A*S*H." If the average pop culture survey were a tenth as good as this, mass-media scholarship would be sitting pretty. Such is hardly the case, but maybe if we're especially good, Santa will bring us more works of this quality.

Ms. Werts does an excellent job in taking scholarly research to new levels as she investigates how the medium of television has treated the most commercialized and well-loved holiday season of the year.

The text focuses on the basic history and various trends of the Christmas specials and episodes for the past forty some years of the genre. Segments include: the variety specials, the animated classics, the "anti-sentimental" specials, the mixed faith episodes, Dickens and A Christmas Carol, etc.

There's some great commentary on the classic Jack Benny-Mel Blanc seasonal skits that started on the radio and was eventually transplanted to television as Jack nearly drives a salesclerk (Mel) mad with constantly changing how he wants his Chistmas present wrapped. From such humble beginnings, Ms. Werts moves unto the black and white period of the fifties (Father Knows Best) to the golden age of the sixties (Rudolph, Charlie Brown, Grinch, etc). As the book evolves into the eighties, brief mentions are made of such episodes as the Nanny Christmas Special and the PeeWee Herman one.

Included is a pretty good summary of the infamous Bundy Christmas in "Married With Children" which may rank up there as one of the first "anti-Christmas" shows. I may even give the "Hebrew Hammer" a try, since its aroused my curiosity. How can it not? With a Jewish super hero trying to stop Santa's evil son from corrupting the holiday.

This closes the chapter, which examines the recent multicultural trend where couples of mixed faiths try to juggle a Christian celebration with a non-Christian faith such as Kwanzaa and Hannakah.

The text moves fast, and helps to refresh the holiday fan of all the different specials and episodes that we have seen over the years.

-- Ms. Werts knows her Christmas specials. An enjoyable read.

Some caveats:

At forty dollars, the book would do better in a paperback edition at about twenty.

There's enough material for a volume 2, even a chapter on forgotten tv specials such as The Great Santa Clause Caper with Art Carney.

The Christmas episodes of "Get Smart," and "The Six Million Dollar Man" were omitted. Ok. I'm being a bit of a stinker here, expecting her to include everything.

Lasty, it's a shame that Ms. Werts fails to recognize the genius that is the Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978. A sure fire classic that the author puts in the "worst" section.

Sincerely,

JThree
carolyn@dia.net

It's hard to describe how poorly conceived this book is--it's a mish-mash of a few sentences here and there about unrelated television shows and the results make little sense.

The author claims to have a giant collection of TV episodes about Christmas (over 800--wow!) but doesn't know what to do with the information. There is virtually no depth and no discussion--she just picks a theme (like "Presents and Shopping" or "Dickens of a Plot") and then strings together short summaries of TV shows from different eras. And I mean short--only a sentence or two in some cases, never more than a paragraph or so. Then she completely skips many major TV series that had big episodes about Christmas.

For example, there's one and a half pages about shows that copy the idea of "Gift of the Magi." She pulls together Little House on the Prairie, The Honeymooners, Who's the Boss, Fame and Sesame Street. In the hands of a competent writer that may have made an interesting discussion, but instead all you get is her giving a couple sentences summarizing the plots of each. So it just lamely sits there.

The entire book is that way. Even her list of the "10 Essential" Christmas episodes is bizarre (Nothing Sacred? Pee-Wee's Playhouse? Northern Exposure?)

It is hard to believe this book got published. Merely listing a few unrelated facts under a theme is not writing. Editors were looking the other way, so don't be fooled. You will learn almost nothing from it, other than that the writer has what she thinks is a big tape collection.

Pretty much chapter after chapter describing all kinds of television episodes centering around Christmas, this book is obviously well-researched and is written by someone who clearly has affection for the subject. Perhaps an actual listing in the back or a chronological breakdown, showing which ones popped up in which year, would have been a welcome addition. It will, however, be helpful to anyone wanting to track down certain episodes of certain series, and I'm sure I will be using for future research.

Christmas on Television is the ultimate stocking-stuffer for anyone who loves television. Just about every TV series has celebrated the holidays in its own special way, giving us some of the most memorable, touching, and truly surreal moments in television history. In this book Diane Werts covers holiday celebrations from almost every show, from the obscure (Something So Right and Martial Law) to the cultish (The Man from UNCLE and Xena Warrior Princess), and from classics (I Love Lucy and Twilight Zone) to recent popular hits (The West Wing and Everybody Love Raymond). Her thorough, engaging, and surprisingly touching examination of yuletide television makes for fascinating reading that reveals the surprisingly deep and emotional connection that exists between viewers and the television characters they invite into their homes--especially during the holidays