TVSquad

Hey, it's December!

That means that the Christmas specials are about to start, if they haven't started already. Tonight we have How The Grinch Stole Christmas (8:30pm on ABC) and on Wednesday we have Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (8pm on CBS). And still to come, of course, are It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and many more. Not to mention all of those Lifetime Christmas movies where someone falls in love around the holidays, plus all of the Christmas episodes of our favorite TV shows. I think Heroes is going to have a special episode where Santa goes up against Sylar.

I would have to say that after all of these years, It's A Wonderful Life is still my favorite. I love The Grinch and Rudolph and A Charlie Brown Christmas as much as the next person (Frosty has never been a favorite, though), but It's A Wonderful Life is the movie I have to stop and watch if I come across it channel surfing.

This is 35 kinds of awesome.

Stephen Colbert appeared on Martha last Friday (repeated tonight at 8 on Fine Living Network) and now the video is available online (after the jump - might take a minute to load). Stephen and Martha talk about his new Christmas special and even make a mistletoe ball together. Colbert gets a lot of good lines in (when Martha says she's upset he didn't call her to be on the show, Colbert says he did and she told him "to go to hell") and it's just really funny to see Colbert's persona go up against Martha's prickly persona. It's also great how Colbert says a simple phrase like "hot fudge." (I love the part - and so does the audience - where Colbert puts glitter on the mistletoe part, though I think Martha is kinda ticked he's using so much.)

I want a red and green sweater with a giant "S" on it. Though I fear people will think I'm making some sort of Superman reference and not a Christmas reference.

You would think that the highest-rated Comedy Central show of all-time would either be an episode of South Park or one of the nightly news satire programs, The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. It's actually none of those. The biggest audience-getter was a Christmas special featuring various puppets.

The Sunday debut of Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special grabbed 6. 6 million viewers. South Park held the record before and is now in second place.

The BBC broadcast the pre-title sequence (about two minutes) of the Doctor Who Christmas Special slated for Christmas Day 2008 for their Children In Need special on November 14th. It can be viewed here on the BBC website. One word of caution: it can only be viewed from a European IP address, possibly even only a British one.

Fortunately, I have managed to avail myself of those two minutes and I'm already excited about the episode. While I look forward to seeing a new face as the Doctor, it's still a shame that next year is likely David Tennant's last year in the title role.

Based on his brief appearance, David Morrisey could be a potentially good Doctor. However, I am of the opinion that anybody who can have fun with the role can be a good Doctor, since the Doctor can be anybody. I'm very much looking forward to the day after Christmas, when I can download the...uh, I mean hear about the Christmas Special from those who have watched it.

I'm one of those suckers who really loves a good holiday episode of a TV show. Whether it's Friends or The Simpsons or The West Wing, I get all choked up when a couple gets together or a family learns the true meaning of Christmas and a carol is played at the end. I still remember the Christmas episodes on Guiding Light in the 80s, with Nick visiting and helping out Philip and Beth and Rick and other Springfield citizens. (Wow, not only do I love Christmas on TV, I love Christmas on soap operas...yikes).

AOL has a 10 question quiz about Christmas TV. How much do you know about The Wonder Years, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Home Improvement? This is the best I've ever scored on one of these AOL quizzes. I got 9 out of 10. Damn you, Grey's Anatomy!

Not even Christmas is safe from reality show producers.

The people who brought you Dancing with the Stars have another show up their sleeves: Clash of the Choirs. It will pit five celebrity singers who will go back to their hometowns and try to build a choir. Once the choirs are built and perform live, viewers will vote for them via phone (of course). The winner gets to pick a prize for their hometown (I suggest maybe passing a law that says no reality shows can be filmed in their hometowns). The four episode show will run just before Christmas, December 17-20.

Every year since 2004, The Venture Bros. have released fantastic covers of Christmas classics on the Internet to spread some holiday cheer. It has become quite the fun tradition for us fans to look forward to! The first year, The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend gave their rendition of "Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy", and last year, The Monarch returned with his trusty henchmen, Numbers 21 and 24, for Dolly Parton's "Hard Candy Christmas". This time around, a whole slew of Venture characters have chimed in to recreate the Band Aid single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Since a few of the actors (actors, not singers) voice multiple characters, there was no way for them to sing the song all together. Well, where the song lacks in harmony, it makes up with Christmas spirit, right?

This is the way the web works.

I'm over at Adjab today doing some work, and I put up a post about favorite and least favorite christmas commercials. So I start to list mine, and I remember that classic ad for Folger's coffee they used to run every year. The one where "Peter" comes home early in the morning and wakes his family up by making coffee. So I surf around to see if I can find a video of it. No such luck. But in my search I came across this Yahoo answers page, which has some info about the commercial (it first aired in 1982!), including the names of the cast. Peter was played by Greg Wrangler, so I head on over to the IMdb and check out his resume. He's been on a ton of stuff, including Friends, ER, All My Children, The West Wing, The King of Queens, and recent gigs on Heroes and CSI:NY.

If anyone can find a link to a video of the commercial, let me know. I saw it last year but haven't seen it this year yet.

Update: Reader Hmmm let us know there is a video of the commercial here.

1. Just when I thought Dr. Phil was the most annoying person in the McGraw family comes...oh, wait, Dr. Phil is still the most annoying person in the McGraw family, but the other night I was watching that HGTV special where they show the White House being decorated for the holidays, and it was hosted by Robin McGraw. She has all the personality of a used bar of soap.