Just finished watching Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol; I have watched this since it premiered on television in 1962. Even as a small child I loved the songs. Today it still holds up well—despite being abridged (nephew Fred is nowhere to be seen), whole passages of dialog are directly from the Dickens text and the music is excellent: it was written by Jules Styne and Bob Merrill, two Broadway veterans. Interestingly enough, the story is mounted as a play being presented on Broadway, with Magoo starring as Ebenezer Scrooge. The usual nearsighted Magoo jokes are woven within the Dickens dialog and sound completely natural (since Dickens at several times mentions Scrooge not seeing properly; it works well).
Broadway veteran Jack Cassidy is the voice of Bob Cratchit and lends his mellow tenor to several songs, including the inspirational "The Lord's Bright Blessing."
The backgrounds are typical sketchy UPA-animation art, but of a period flavor that works well. As an inside joke, UPA cartoon character Gerald McBoing-Boing (who, in his own stories, speaks only in sound effects) plays Tiny Tim and has a voice (and gets to sing about the infamous "razzleberry dressing").
Other Christmas-y stories watched lately: "Christmas at Plum Creek," the first and best of several Christmas stories done on Little House on the Prairie. The series' 70s links are even more obvious now and several anachronisms abound (the Ingalls have a Christmas tree, for example, when the family never saw one until Laura was much older and it was at church; the real Laura and her sisters received only small gifts, delivered in stockings—you can also tell the tree is artificial!), but it's a sweet little story about the family finding ingenious ways to give each other Christmas surprises. Laura's gift is an ultimate heartbreaker.
John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together—always fun: someone commented in a newsgroup that it was appropriate, because John at that time did look a bit like a Muppet. He certainly fits in in this combination of comedy and variety, with some serious overtones including the reading of the Bible story and singing "Silent Night." Miss Piggy, of course, causes most of the laughter, whether it's jazzing up her part in "The 12 Days of Christmas" to singing a round to sucking up to John Denver to get a larger role.
Hill Street Blues: "Santa Claustrophobia"—it's just business as usual at Hill Street station: a series of brutal shootings shakes up the neighborhood, Neil is consumed with guilt over an accidental shooting, Faye is upset (again) over Frank Jr spending Christmas with his dad, and a cynical kid has put the kibosh on Belker's stakeout. Add a hospital Christmas show for sick kids and Renko's infamous "Oh, Lordy God, it's Christmas Eve and I'm gonna be shot dead in a moose suit," and you've got an engaging hour of television.
The Waltons: "The Best Christmas"—the best of the three Christmas stories done on the series. The family plans to make the Christmas of 1937 extra-special for Olivia, then all are separated on Christmas Eve after Mary Ellen and John-Boy help after a car accident, Grandma and Grandpa are stranded after making a hospital visit, and John and Jason help ready the church for the Christmas service after a tree falls through the roof. I know this was filmed on a hot soundstage in August, but the wintry feeling is so well done that you wince and shiver when John-Boy and Harley Foster plunge into the icy pond to rescue a woman and her niece.
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