The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow

The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow
(Rankin Bass Productions, 1975)
Run time: 22 minutes

I talked about wanting this lesser-known Rankin Bass special on DVD last year but decided it deserved to be recognized on its own. It originally premiered on NBC and then was later aired on CBS before being released on VHS. The last (only?) VHS release was in 1993. While the official title is The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow, it is sometimes referred to simply as The First Christmas (as evidenced by the title card and VHS box art).

For the last few years ABC Family has been airing it as a part of their 25 Days of Christmas but I have read that this year it is not on the schedule at all. It STILL has not been released on DVD so if you want to watch this special nowadays you’ll either have to track down a VHS copy or download it somewhere (I have NO CLUE how you would go about doing that). I have seen it on YouTube though. Warner Brothers still owns the rights to this special so you’d think they would’ve thrown it in as a bonus with some of the other RB specials they release year after year. At the very least they could give us the benefit of selling it at the Warner Archives site where every DVD is made to order. They gave us Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos for Pete’s sake! We can’t get The First Christmas?

VHS Cover Art

As for the special itself it is narrated by and featuring Angela Lansbury (as Sister Catherine and she sings a nice version of “White Christmas”). And The First Christmas isn’t about Baby Jesus as you might think. Instead, the special centers around a young shepherd boy, Lucas, who was involved in a lightening storm that caused him to go blind and the nuns who take him in.

The abbey that the nuns live at is putting on a Christmas pageant and Lucas is cast as one of the angels, despite his eyesight. Lucas has never seen snow and Sister Catherine, having grown up in the mountains, tries to describe it to him (the story takes place near a sea, where it never snows). During the course of the pageant, snow begins to fall and then another miracle occurs when the boy’s eyesight returns.

It’s a good tale but not the usual peppy, colorful Rankin Bass effort that we’ve come to expect from the Frosty, Santa or Rudolph specials. Still, I recommend it for anyone that enjoys the other Rankin Bass stop-motion specials.

Buy ‘The First Christmas’ on VHS at Amazon.com

Television Favorites: Step By Step – DVD Review

Television Favorites: Step By Step (Warner Home Video, 2006)

Step By Step was one of my favorite TV shows from the early & mid ’90s. Friday nights were THE night to watch TV as far as I was concerned. And why? Because of ABC’s “TGIF” block of comedies. I loved TGIF. I would neither hold nor go to sleepovers on Friday nights because I just had to see what Larry & Balki, Urkel, the Lubbock girls, the Tanners, Mr. Cooper and the Lamberts were getting into on any given week.

Step By Step came from the same production team that gave the world Perfect Strangers, Full House and Family Matters so this slightly dysfunctional twist on The Brady Bunch had tons of potential. All of those shows actually exist in the same universe: Family Matters was a spin-off from Perfect Strangers while Family Matters’ Steve Urkel character would guest-star on episodes of Full House and Step By Step.

Anyway, since there’s apparently no interest from Warner Bros. in releasing complete seasons of Step By Step, they did the next best thing in 2006 by compiling six episodes of the show for their Television Favorites DVD series.

The episodes are:

- “Pilot” (Season 1 – 1991)
- “Rules of the House” (Season 1 – 1991)
- “J.T.’s World” (Season 2 – 1992)
- “Christmas Story” (Season 3 – 1993)
- “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (Season 4 – 1994)
- “Your Cheatin’ Heart”  (Season 7 – 1997)

What really brought me to check this DVD out was the Christmas episodes but I think it’s odd to see two of them as a part of this set. I will agree the first three episodes listed deserve to be included but it seems like the last three were chosen randomly. You’d think they’d want to show off an episode that centers on Cody. Like the one where he beats up some dudes in a bar.

It was interesting to look back at the pilot plus another early Season 1 episode, “Rules of the House”. Both brought back fond memories of the show and this time in my childhood.

“J.T.’s World” is what you’d imagine it to be given the year was 1992 — it’s (openly) a Wayne’s World rip-off. Even as a kid I thought it seemed desperate to try to associate with something else that was hot in pop culture at the time. The show would do it again when Beavis & Butt-Head became popular by creating two characters who appeared to be real-life incarnations of the characters. They are even referred to as Beavis & Butt-Head in “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. How this show didn’t get sued by MTV, I don’t know.

That particular episode is okay and I remember that one too but, man, the J.T. character became so lame after the first two or three seasons. That or I just can’t stand Brandon Call (I wonder if he regrets leaving Baywatch for this show). It seems like Call’s acting abilities (which weren’t strong in the first place) deteriorated as the series went on. Oh, and speaking of actors on the show, I didn’t notice her at the time but looking back Staci Keanan was incredibly hot throughout this entire show’s run.

Season 3′s “Christmas Story” I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Even though it was incredibly silly and illogical it fits the mold of being a classic feel-good Christmas sit-com episode. It has Don Knotts in a fun guest-starring roll as Deputy Fife (pronounced “Feef”, he tells us, correcting Frank after being called “Fife”). I’m surprised they didn’t make an in-joke about the Three’s Company connection with Suzanne Somers.

The final episode just flat-out sucks. I’m not sure why they’d want to take an episode from Season 7 (the final & worst of the series) after rightfully avoiding Seasons 5 & 6. The series really started coming unglued with Season 5 when they introduced Lilly (who has aged about 4 or 5 years since being a newborn in Season 4′s finale) and J.T.’s friend Rich, who would later go on to become a regular cast member and start dating Dana. Rich is such an annoying character and the guy that played him, Jason Marsden, is someone else just annoys me so much in anything he does (Full House, Boy Meets World).

Final Thoughts:

This show was never a hit on the level of Perfect Strangers, Family Matters or Full House but it still found seven years of success as a Friday night sitcom. Imagine a network trying to run a sitcom block on that night these days! I think this DVD is worth checking out just for the first 5 episodes (taken from best seasons) with an emphasis on watching the two Christmas episodes.

Buy this DVD at Amazon.com

1987 CBS Promo for Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales & Santabear’s High-Flying Adventure

This is CBS promo from 1987 for the beloved Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales and Santabear’s High-Flying Adventure (which was premiering that year).

I can’t recall ever hearing of Santabear but after a quick look at it on YouTube, that’s probably for good reason because it’s very offbeat and has lots of awkward silence. There’s not much in the way of background music. But, when you’ve cast John Malkovich as your Santa Claus, you’re probably going for offbeat & awkward in the first place. I mean, seriously, why was this guy at one point considered a great actor? He’s awful and/or hammy in every performance I’ve ever seen.

Still, had my dad deemed it worthy of being recorded, I have to admit I probably would have grown up loving it. I’m not sure if it’s ever seen a video release or aired any time after 1987.

Oh, and yes, there were be a review of Looney Christmas Tales coming later this month so that’s why I’m not saying much about it.

Oops! Zombies Ate This Page!

This is why Turner Classic Movies is awesome. I came across a ‘page not found’ in September while snooping around their website and got this image. I’m not sure if they use this image all year round or if they were only doing this for the Halloween season but either way this made me smile.

Turner Classic Movies Horror Movie Schedule for October 2011

Really good looking month this year with the Hammer films taking center stage for most of Halloween while John Carpenter programs a night of classics and there’s a night dedicated to Val Lewton. There’s even some Vincent Price movies thrown in, the original Night of the Living Dead, Universal’s Frankenstein & The Wolf Man and really old classics like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

On top of all that goodness it looks like there’s a new one hour special called ‘TCM Night at the Movies: Horror’. Lots of replays during the month for that one and I’m a sucker for any horror movie retrospective, so I’ll definitely be checking that one out.

I took the liberty this year of only featuring the prime-time line-up (other than the 30th & 31st, which are all horror all day). There are a few other horror movies here and there throughout the schedule but are placed fairly randomly during the daytime so head on over to turnerclassicmovies.com for details.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 03
TCM PRIMETIME – WHAT’S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: CLASSIC HORROR
8:00 PM TCM Night at the Movies: Horror (2011)
9:00 PM Frankenstein (1931)
10:15 PM Freaks (1932)
11:30 PM TCM Night at the Movies: Horror (2011)
12:30 AM Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1932)
2:15 AM Mark Of The Vampire (1935)
3:30 AM Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, The (1919)
4:45 AM Nosferatu (1922)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 04
6:15 AM Phantom of the Opera, The (1925)

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 05
TCM GUEST PROGRAMMER: JOHN CARPENTER
8:00 PM Thing From Another World, The (1951)
9:45 PM It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)
11:00 PM Curse of Frankenstein, The (1957)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10
TCM PRIMETIME – WHAT’S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: CLASSIC HORROR
8:00 PM Wolf Man, The (1941)
9:15 PM Uninvited, The (1944)
11:00 PM Dead of Night (1945)
1:00 AM I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
2:15 AM Cat People (1942)
3:45 AM Curse of the Cat People, The (1944)
5:00 AM Devil Bat, The (1940)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11
6:15 AM Dead Men Walk (1943)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17
TCM PRIMETIME – WHAT’S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: CLASSIC HORROR
8:00 PM Horror of Dracula (1958)
9:30 PM House On Haunted Hill (1959)
11:00 PM Tingler, The (1959)
12:30 AM House Of Wax (1953)
2:15 AM Curse of the Demon (1958)
4:00 AM TCM Night at the Movies: Horror (2011)
5:00 AM Bucket of Blood, A (1959)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24
8:00 PM Carnival of Souls (1962)
9:30 PM TCM Night at the Movies: Horror (2011)
10:30 PM Dementia 13 (1963)
12:00 AM Strait-Jacket (1964)
1:45 AM Pit And The Pendulum (1961)
3:15 AM Masque Of The Red Death, The (1964)
5:00 AM Devil’s Bride, The (1968)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28
TCM PRIMETIME – WHAT’S ON TONIGHT: EVIL TWINS
8:00 PM Dead Ringer (1964)
10:00 PM Black Room, The (1935)
11:15 PM Other, The (1972)
1:00 AM Dead Men Walk (1943)
2:15 AM Motel Hell (1980)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29
TCM PRIMETIME – WHAT’S ON TONIGHT: VAL LEWTON
8:00 PM Cat People (1942)
9:30 PM Martin Scorsese Presents, Val Lewton: The Man In The Shadows (2007)
11:00 PM Body Snatcher, The (1945)
12:30 AM Isle Of The Dead (1945)
2:00 AM Bedlam (1946)
3:30 AM Seventh Victim, The (1943)
5:00 AM Ghost Ship, The (1943)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30
6:15 AM Leopard Man, The (1943)
7:30 AM White Zombie (1932)
8:45 AM Devil Doll, The (1936)
10:15 AM Uninvited, The (1944)
12:00 PM Berserk (1967)
2:00 PM Dial M For Murder (1954)
4:00 PM Them! (1954)
6:00 PM Forbidden Planet (1956)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31
7:15 AM Reptile, The (1966)
8:45 AM Gorgon, The (1964)
10:15 AM Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)
12:00 PM Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1969)
1:45 PM Curse of Frankenstein, The (1957)
3:15 PM Frankenstein Created Woman (1966)
5:00 PM Mummy, The (1959)
6:30 PM Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, The (1964)
TCM PRIMETIME – WHAT’S ON TONIGHT: CLASSIC HORROR
8:00 PM Village Of The Damned (1960)
9:30 PM Night of the Living Dead (1968)
11:15 PM TCM Night at the Movies: Horror (2011)
12:15 AM Innocents, The (1961)
2:00 AM Haunting, The (1963)
4:00 AM Repulsion (1965)