Christmas TV of Yesteryear

See, I was right, wasn't I?  About how shitty the TV Christmas schedules were this year, that is.  In fact, they were even more painful to experience than they were to read about in advance.  Not surprisingly, they resulted in low viewing figures.  I'd like to think that this would stand as a wake up call for the likes of BBC and ITV and that next Christmas they'll serve us up a cornucopia of televisual delights.  But somehow I doubt it.  Looking at the shit we got served up in the guise of 'Christmas' specials, it occurred to me that much of the problem lies in the fact that the main networks no longer make the sort of shows on a regular basis that they used to be able to spin successful and popular Christmas versions off of.  Sitcoms, for instance - there are seemingly so few successful and popular sitcoms in production on the BBC and ITV these days, that the number of Christmas versions wouldn't make a dent on the festive schedules.  Likewise, star comedy shows like Morecambe and Wise or The Two Ronnies - they just don't have modern equivalents, so festive versions of these are also lost to the seasonal schedules.  Instead, we get an endless parade of 'Christmas' editions of brainless game shows and cookery shows, which either means regular editions with a bit of tinsel on them, or 'Celebrity' versions, with a bunch of Z-listers competing for 'charity'.  So, the answer to producing a decent Christmas schedule is to, well, produce decent programming all year around.  Which is something I just don't see happening.

In the event, I got a satisfying dose of the TV Christmas of yesteryear from watching the 'Retro Strange' Roku app.  'Retro Strange' is a free channel that streams a variety of old, public domain weird shit, from movies to public information films.  Thanks to them, I got to experience a slice of fifties and sixties US Christmas TV.  I have to say that 'Miracle on 34th Street' was far more palatable as a forty-five minute TV adaptation than it was as a film (either version, as both feel overlong, stretching out a thin idea to seemingly interminable length).  I also got to meet 'Spunky the Snowman'.  Not, as the title might imply to us Brits, a softcore porn version of 'Frosty the Snowman', but another Christmas-themed cartoon of a slightly earlier vintage aimed at kids.  It concerns an heroic snowman trying to get a child's letter to Santa, despite the efforts of an owl, a wolf and a fox to stop him and steal the letter.  He's assisted in his quest by a bear and a puppy.  Upon a bit of further research, it turns out that 'Spunky' was a re-edited and dubbed version of a Russian cartoon called 'The Snow Postman'.  Even in its truncated form (it was cut down from nearly twenty minutes to a seven minute running time), it is actually a quite charming little film.  Coincidentally, this Christmas I also saw 'Frosty the Snowman' again, for the first time since I saw it as a kid in the early seventies.  I have to say that, as an adult, I found it considerably less charming than I had as a seven or eight year old.   I also stumbled across a sequel to 'Frosty', titled 'Frosty's Winter Wonderland', which I never knew existed.  I wish I still didn't know it existed.  Apparently, it was the first of several such completely unnecessary sequels apparently designed to ruin treasured Christmas memories.