Real Christmas

Of all the films, shows, concerts people want to see put on DVD, I somehow doubt “Captain and Tennille: The Christmas Show” ranks high on the wishlist. So why are several Captain and Tennille DVDs being released? Your guess is as good as mine.

The 1976 50 minute Christmas Show consists of performances by the Pointer Sisters, Tennille’s 3 sisters, and Captain and Tennille (obviously), with a few sketches featuring Don Knotts (how could you Don?) and “Happy Days” star Tom Bosley. The songs featured in the program are: “Jingle Bells,” “Little Saint Nick,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/White Christmas/March Of The Wooden Soldiers,” “I’m Saved/Amen,” “Wedding Song,” “Count Basie Medley,” “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” “How Can I Be Sure?,” “O Holy Night,” and “We Never Really Say Goodbye.”

The Captain and Tennille special is, to put it simply, a disaster. In the opening number, Toni Tennille comes out in a hideous dress and sings “Jingle Bells” with a Spanish accent. Keep in mind Toni Tennille is a white southern woman. Not only is using the accent pointless, but I’d wager it’s a bit offensive too. From there on out the special only gets worse. The 4 Tennille sisters murder the classic Beach Boys version of “Little Saint Nick,” Toni Tennille sings a jazzed up/operatic version of “O Holy Night,” Don Knotts appears in several unfunny sketches and looks depressed, and Daryl Dragon (AKA The Captain) acts like a robot as he attempts to act and read cue cards. Throughout the whole special I kept wishing I’d hear a gong to stop the show followed by Chuck Barris walking out on stage escorting Captain and Tennille off stage. Speaking of which, “The Gong Show” is a TV classic that really needs to be put out on DVD, unlike this “special.”

Overall, Captain and Tennille should refrain from playing Christmas songs. I implore everyone to continue listening to the pros instead (like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, etc).

(Excerpt from DVDTalk.com - Click here to read the full review)

Here is the first trailer for Chris Brown’s new movie This Christmas, to be released in November:

Are we mixing our seasons?

Munsters fans know the original 1964 series was followed by two films (now out on DVD) starring the original cast. After that came the second series, The Munsters Today (a.k.a. The New Munsters) in 1988, then the telefilms Here Come the Munsters in 1995 and The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas in 1996. The latter was the final Munstersproduction to date, and the best-received.

Each of those final three productions had a different cast that the previous production, but Scary Little Christmas has been marked by fans as the one closest to the original in many ways. Veteran TV actor Sam McMurray (most recently seen as “Supervisor O’Boyle” in The King of Queens) took on the role of Herman Munster, while Ann Magnuson (Anything But Love) played wife Lily. Comedian Sandy Baron (seen sometimes in Seinfeld as “Jack Klompus”) was the new Grandpa, the lovely Elaine Hendrix (Joan of Arcadia) played Marilyn, and Brandon “Bug” Hall played Eddie.

Many Munsters fans consider this a must-have, and so we are delighted to tell you that Universal has announced the release of this telefilm on DVD! It will be in stores on November 6th, at a cost of just $14.98 SRP. Running time is 91 minutes, video is full-frame (as originally aired), and audio is English Dolby Digital 2.0. There are also English subtitles on board.

Last Christmas we endured the absurd, nearly obligatory annual release of a Christmas-themed farce titled Unaccompanied Minors. Following a now tired formula of kids-left-behind at Christmas, Unaccompanied Minors tells the story of a group of kids who cause havoc at a snowed-in airport on Christmas Eve.

This gem was released by Warner Brothers on DVD this week.

Last year at this time, as previews of the movie were shown promising the arrival of a “sensational bound-to-be-classic holiday movie event”, we were led to believe by the film’s marketers that Unaccompanied Minors was a Christmas movie. But this year, they take a whole new angle with the release of the movie on DVD:

Christmas has nothing to do with it.

There are no elements of Christmas anywhere on the movie box. No trees, lights or cute little snowmen. What was once a “bound-to-be-holiday-classic” on the big screen is completely forgotten on the DVD release.

Why remove the Christmas from a Christmas movie? Especially in a movie as bad as this one where Christmas was the only thing it had going for it?

We’re guessing that it has a little something to do with money. Releasing a Christmas movie for distribution in the heat of summer isn’t exactly a brilliant stroke of business genius. Yes, those of us who are year round Christmas nuts would gladly buy a Christmas movie and watch it right now. But for the common Christmas enthusiast August isn’t exactly peak season.

But comedy — so-called in this case — sells year round. And Christmas takes a back seat to comedy.

Vince Vaughn must really love Christmas. He sure seems to be making more than his fair share of Christmas movies these days.

The rumor mill this week has him signed to star opposite Reese Witherspoon in a relationship comedy about a couple who has to visit four sets of parents for Christmas. The film is tentatively titled Four Christmases.

According to Hollywood Reporter, New Line Cinema is releasing the movie for Christmas 2008 distribution. This particular project dates back to 2004 when Sony Pictures had it but declined to move forward with it then because it could have conflicted with Christmas with the Kranks.

Over the years we have seen South Park break past all barriers of irreverence to tackle just about any topic, including Christmas. Back in 2000 Warner Home Video released a dvd set that had 3 episodes and about 100 minutes of South Park Christmas.

This year, on November 13th, South Park is going Christmas again — this time with 154 minutes of their brand of Christmas merriment. We do not know if this is all new material or merely a release of previously distributed Christmas material.

We do know this: with South Park, nothing is sacred. And nothing is safe. Especially Christmas.  

By 1999 the Internet had well over 500 million daily users worldwide. For those of us celebrating Christmas online back then we stumbled upon a great little download called Elf Bowling — a cheery game made funny by rolling a bowling ball down an alley striking pins shaped like elves.

It was one of the only Christmas-related files to ever take the Internet by storm.

The developers were so emboldened by the sudden success of Elf Bowling that they subsequently packaged and marketed several versions of the game.

In 2004 it was announced that an animated feature of the game would be produced out of a new computer animation studio based in Fiju, of all places. Rumors that a film titled The Great North Pole Elf Strike would hit the big screen in 2005 never materialized. These days, we’re getting word of a straight to DVD release of the project in October 2007 to be titled Elf Bowling the Movie. A trailer of the movie can be seen at this link.

Rights to the game were picked up by various companies as a version was developed for the Nintendo DS and Gameboy. The games featured poor animation and audio so crude that critics universally panned the games and they performed poorly on the marketplace.

Unfortunately, the reason we haven’t heard of this 3-year old movie project before is because of the obviously awful idea behind it. The plot supposes Santa is a former-pirate toy thief kicked off his own ship (a not-so-subtle ripoff of the popularity of pirates made famous by Johnny Depp). How Santa goes from a common criminal to “the greatest children’s hero of all-time” isn’t quite made clear in the trailer.

Perhaps all you need to know about the style and quality of this production is given from this tagline at the end of the trailer: “This is like a chick flick except for smokin’ babes, dude, it’s a munchkin and a fat guy.”  Sheesh.