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Most Overplayed Christmas Movies/Specials on TV

T

Tim from Springfield IL

Any Christmas movies or specials you feel are too grossly overplayed during the holidays?

My pick: Although I love the movie, do you think it's overdoing things a bit when TBS has 24 hours of "A Christmas Story" from Christmas Eve night to Christmas night? I sometimes wonder if that is getting a little too old by now (maybe have it a few times during Christmas Eve/Day instead and have some other holiday movies on instead).
 
TBS (and earlier, TNT) has been airing "A Christmas Story" marathon for the last several years, since 1997 -- when it replaced a similar annual marathon of "It's a Wonderful Life", which, until Republic Pictures and NBC got a hold of it, was practically seen on just about every TV channel during the holiday season.
 
It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 film), A Christmas Carol (1984 George C. Scott version) are all played a lot during the holiday season. Plus, I saw that CBS showed Rudolph TWICE this holiday season, once on a Tuesday night (replacing NCIS) and once on a Saturday night (replacing Comedytime Saturday reruns). Frosty was also shown twice on a Saturday night (both times replacing the 8-9pm Comedytime Saturday block).

-crainbebo
 
Even "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" - the original animated special - has been shown more than once over the season, not only on CBS (I believe they're still airing it these days) but Cartoon Network, as well. (In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the Jim Carrey live-action movie is aired on Cartoon Network at some point.)
 
A lot of us agree that A Christmas Story is overplayed now. I used to remember nearly everyone on both pay & OTA TV showing It's A Wonderful Life a lot. The reason that movie was shown so much had to do with the movie being in the public domain. NTA (National Telefilms Associates, who owned the rights in the 1970's) made an error when they tried to renew the copyright, & in 1974, the movie itself ended up being in the public domain. The storyline, score, & a few other things were properly renewed. Republic Pictures (who owned the rights to the stuff that did get the copyright renewed, sued to get the copyright reinstated. Except for the images, the movie is copyrighted until 2044. BTW, NTA was notorious for letting a lot of movies, cartoons, & short films they acquired (thru acquisitions of other companies) to go into the public domain. I will be surprised if that movie gets renewed by the time it's up for renewal again. It's a Wonderful Life is now available in color, as I have the new 2 DVD set, which includes both the original B&W & the colorized version. I wonder if NBC has the colorized version now.
 
I also see little need for marathons of the same thing when DVDs are so cheap and since I'm in Chicago can be rented free from the library And ripped to your computer, though that is illegal in most countries.

In the 80s, when I had cable, the thing I liked is stations would take a break from the commercial aspect. QVC and HSN would go off at Christmas and air things like songs or a marathon of public domain versions of "A Christmas Carol" and such.

And our local channels like WGN and WFLD would not air regular sitcom reruns but do a week of "Christmas Bewitched" episodes and all sorts of Christmas episodes from shows they rarely had shown anymore.

I can agree with airing a special more than once, that's cool because not everyone has a DVR or VCR and may miss it, but after two or three times, it become excessive.
 
"Frosty Returns" on CBS is one of the most stupid and insipid programs I have ever seen.
Even running it once a year is overplay in my opinion.
 
crainbebo said:
It's a Wonderful Life [is] played a lot during the holiday season.
Click to expand...

Unless the film was farmed out to a channel like TCM, I disagree -- ever since NBC got the rights, I only see it on twice -- usually around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Dave said:
I used to remember nearly everyone on both pay & OTA TV showing It's A Wonderful Life a lot. The reason that movie was shown so much had to do with the movie being in the public domain. Republic Pictures (who owned the rights to the stuff that did get the copyright renewed, sued to get the copyright reinstated. Except for the images, the movie is copyrighted until 2044.
Click to expand...

As I read, the film is still technically in the public domain, but the key element of the film -- the music -- was not. Republic Pictures bought the rights to the music and read the riot act to anyone who has shown the film in the past, with NBC getting exclusive rights to show it.

Dave said:
I wonder if NBC has the colorized version now.
Click to expand...

As far as I know -- NBC is still showing only the "drab black and white" original version.
 
One strange thing I noticed is that the premium channels like HBO and Starz seem to have a lack of holiday movies during the holiday season. But then at other times like the middle of the summer they'll air a Christmas movie. I remember "Four Christmases" airing just about every week in July. Makes no sense.
 
azumanga said:
TBS (and earlier, TNT) has been airing "A Christmas Story" marathon for the last several years, since 1997 -- when it replaced a similar annual marathon of "It's a Wonderful Life", which, until Republic Pictures and NBC got a hold of it, was practically seen on just about every TV channel during the holiday season.
Click to expand...
Since I have cable, I was able to see this movie two years ago. Since I have the cheap package, I'm not actually supposed to get whatever channel it was on, and so it's like analog TV was on some stations with rabbit ears. Still watchable.

Otherwise, I would have wished a broadcast network would do what was done with "It's a Wonderful Life".
 
Dave said:
A lot of us agree that A Christmas Story is overplayed now. I used to remember nearly everyone on both pay & OTA TV showing It's A Wonderful Life a lot. The reason that movie was shown so much had to do with the movie being in the public domain. NTA (National Telefilms Associates, who owned the rights in the 1970's) made an error when they tried to renew the copyright, & in 1974, the movie itself ended up being in the public domain. The storyline, score, & a few other things were properly renewed. Republic Pictures (who owned the rights to the stuff that did get the copyright renewed, sued to get the copyright reinstated. Except for the images, the movie is copyrighted until 2044. BTW, NTA was notorious for letting a lot of movies, cartoons, & short films they acquired (thru acquisitions of other companies) to go into the public domain. I will be surprised if that movie gets renewed by the time it's up for renewal again. It's a Wonderful Life is now available in color, as I have the new 2 DVD set, which includes both the original B&W & the colorized version. I wonder if NBC has the colorized version now.
Click to expand...

For the last many years, NBC has been airing the B&W version. Any colorized film loses half its appeal immediately. One might go so far as to call it blasphemy. I have a 2-sided DVD of the film which has ONLY the B&W version along with a documentary about the film and a feature with Frank Capra, Jr. It was there by the way I found out the story of how the film thanks to that clerical error in the early 1970's put the film into the Public domain and turned what was a modest movie (not a hit nor flop) into one of the greatest films of all time. NBC aired "...Life" the day after T'Giving and will air it again Christmas Eve.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
"Frosty Returns" on CBS is one of the most stupid and insipid programs I have ever seen.
Even running it once a year is overplay in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Aw c'mon Freddy...let there be snow!
 
azumanga said:
Dave said:
I wonder if NBC has the colorized version now.
Click to expand...
As far as I know -- NBC is still showing only the "drab black and white" original version.
Click to expand...

Speaking of It's A Wonderful Life airings, I remember one year NBC had the very colorful lower one-third ads promoting some reality show. I find those ads to be very distracting and disrespectful to the film. Unfortunately, it's a sign of the times.
 
ansky212 said:
One strange thing I noticed is that the premium channels like HBO and Starz seem to have a lack of holiday movies during the holiday season. But then at other times like the middle of the summer they'll air a Christmas movie. I remember "Four Christmases" airing just about every week in July. Makes no sense.
Click to expand...

And I've seen Jingle All The Way on one of the Cinemax channels, or HBO Family, in June or July. Not sure why they even show that in the spring and summer.

-crainbebo
 
azumanga said:
As I read, the film is still technically in the public domain, but the key element of the film -- the music -- was not. Republic Pictures bought the rights to the music and read the riot act to anyone who has shown the film in the past, with NBC getting exclusive rights to show it.
Click to expand...

I wonder what music in this film is not in the public domain? It is mostly Christmas carols like Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star and Hark, the Herald Angels Sing. Maybe the Charleston they are dancing to over the swimming pool?
Or Buffalo Gals?

Just another example of too many lawyers screwing-up life, in my opinion.
 
bpatrick said:
I have to agree about "A Christmas Story" on TBS; 24 hours straight
is overkill.
Click to expand...

But I think TBS gets pretty good ratings with it (don't they lead the cable channels in the ratings on Christmas Day with it?). So I don't think they'll stop anytime soon.
 
Nate Wesley said:
FreddyE1977 said:
"Frosty Returns" on CBS is one of the most stupid and insipid programs I have ever seen.
Even running it once a year is overplay in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Aw c'mon Freddy...let there be snow!
Click to expand...
Which reminds me of the repetition within these specials. During a repeat of Frosty the Snowman, we counted eight repeats of "Frosty the Snowman" (the song) during just one half-hour! I believe there were a similar number of repeats of "Let There Be Snow" during Frosty Returns.
 
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