# Forgotten Christmas specials/movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 6, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157 "2012-12-06T04:34:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/101 "2012-12-11T15:54:43Z")
ALF also had a Wonderful Life episode. 'Course, this is ALF so that means the Tanners were better off _without_ him! ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/102 "2012-12-11T18:02:48Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Oh, man…that reached right down in my subconscious and yanked a handful of memories out! > > MY contribution is [Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor,_The_Long-Eared_Christmas_Donkey) I nominate this one as well… except instead of a wiki entry, I give you the entire movie via [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMbRKRHxhN8)! ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/103 "2012-12-17T01:27:49Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **A Carol for Another Christmas** , written by Rod Serling. Think of it as _A Twilight Zone Christmas_. It had an impressive cast, was directed by Joseph Mankiiewicz, and scored by Henry Mancini. As far as I know, broadcast only once in 1964, and never available on video. You could see it if you went to the Museum of the Moving Image in New York (now the Paleyy Center), and nowhere else. > > According to Wikipedia, it’s going to be broadcast this year (!): > > [Carol for Another Christmas - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_for_Another_Christmas) > Unfortunately, I don’t get TCM. This is on right now. ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/104 "2012-12-17T03:18:49Z")
My favorite forgotten Christmas movie is “The Cheaters” (1945). > **[The Cheaters (1945) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037588/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)** > > The Cheaters: Directed by Joseph Kane. With Joseph Schildkraut, Billie Burke, Eugene Pallette, Ona Munson. An eccentric wealthy family facing bankruptcy schemes to steal an inheritance, but an alcoholic ex-actor they take in for Christmas charity... ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/105 "2012-12-17T04:49:57Z")
The pilot for “The Waltons” TV show was the 1971 TV movie “The Homecoming, A Christmas Story”. I still cry like a little girl now that I finally found it on DVD. ---
**Author:** ![ScatteredFrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@ScatteredFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScatteredFrog)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/106 "2012-12-17T05:00:10Z")
Wow…I totally missed this thread and started another… > **[Weird, poorly-animated Christmas special??](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=675789)** > > I was just thinking about this recently… At least twice in my childhood – once on TV, and once in school from a film projector – I saw an odd, short Christmas cartoon…very roughly animated…I’m guessing it’s from the mid-'60s or later… It was a... Anyway…for those of you who don’t want to click the link, at least twice in my childhood (once on TV, once in school…this was in the early '80s, but I suspect the cartoon was made in the '60s), I saw a very short animated cartoon…very CHEAPLY made…in which a boy is in his bedroom and sitting on his floor, telling his dog the story of the nativity. All I remember was that at some point, the boy and the dog actually LEVITATED to the bed (again, this was cheaply made!), and that it ended with what I swear was “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” from _A Charlie Brown Christmas_. I didn’t see it listed in the Wikipedia list of Christmas specials…I’m guessing this might have been on some religious TV channel…(plus, I went to a Catholic school, which would explain why they showed it to us in school)… ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Not\_Appearing\_In\_This\_Film](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Sir\_Not\_Appearing\_In\_This\_Film](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Not_Appearing_In_This_Film)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/107 "2012-12-18T07:12:32Z")
Looking through the ABC Family offerings, came across a Rankin-Bass special I’ve never seen before: **Rudolph and Frosty’s Chrstmas in July** Kids and I watched it tonight; truly awesome and horrible simultaneously. Frosty has kids? And the Snowman family is now rendered Rudolph-style? Rudolph’s Red Nose was not a genetic mutation but rather a gift from Lady Boreal, Queen of the Northern Lights? And the bad guy has dragon guardians! In his icy fortress? Did we think this through? What rock have I been living under to have missed this glorious acid flashback every Christmas? ---
**Author:** ![A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/108 "2012-12-18T07:51:18Z")
Back in the mid-1960s there was some movie with the Devil trying to hurt Santa Claus but I have no memory of the title. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/109 "2012-12-18T12:52:40Z")
> [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](#): > > Back in the mid-1960s there was some movie with the Devil trying to hurt Santa Claus but I have no memory of the title. It sounds like **Santa Claus** , a Mexivcan film dubbed into English. I actually paid to see it at a Saturday matinee at our local theater. They riffed on it on MST3K, but I haven’t seen that episode. > **[Santa Claus (disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_(film))** > > Santa Claus is a folkloric figure in many Western cultures associated with Christmas. > Santa Claus may also refer to: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/YOH-SS89Y9o/hqdefault.jpg "MST3K - 521 - Santa Claus (1/10)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOH-SS89Y9o) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/110 "2012-12-18T14:58:50Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > Well, if we’re going Henson, how about **The Christmas Toy** , the hour-long Christmas special that [**Toy Story** sorta kinda ripped off years later](http://www.cracked.com/article_19852_5-famous-movies-that-shamelessly-ripped-off-obscure-ones.html). Really, the plots are just about identical: the old favorite toy (Rugby the tiger) is about to be replaced by a new, space-themed toy (Meteora) that doesn’t understand at first that she’s just a toy. Just saw on my schedule that **The Christmas Toy** will be airing twice this week on kids’ channel The Hub (channel 179 on Dish Network): 9 AM EST on 12/23, and 11 AM EST on 12/25. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/111 "2012-12-18T18:45:39Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > Just saw on my schedule that **The Christmas Toy** will be airing twice this week on kids’ channel The Hub (channel 179 on Dish Network): 9 AM EST on 12/23, and 11 AM EST on 12/25. It’s on Netflix as well (or was as of last Christmas). I still like it, but not as much as I did as a kid… I still think Pixar owes A TON of credit to Henson. They could basically take place in the same universe, save for “toy death” not being a part of the Toy Story world. -BTW I didn’t realize they actually made a series based on this movie that followed the characters afterward. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/112 "2012-12-18T19:09:23Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > I have only the haziest memory of it, can’t locate anything about it on [IMDB.com](http://IMDB.com), but it came out in the late 70s - possibly even before “Witches’ Night Out.” Anyone remember it? I don’t but out of curiosity, I googled the names of some of the characters and one of the hits was for an IMDB entry for [The Gift of Winter.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308313/) ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/113 "2012-12-18T19:12:51Z")
I don’t know how “forgotten” these are, but there are a couple of others I can think of: The Night The Animals Talked - it may have been a musical, although I may be confusing it with another animated musical Christmas special (where the animals choose a single “leader” to follow the Christmas star) A Very Merry Cricket - a sequel to A (The?) Cricket in Times Square (about a cricket that makes violin music when it rubs its wings together; there was a third one made for the Bicentennial in 1976) ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/114 "2012-12-18T20:26:04Z")
Has anyone happened to have seen **Karroll’s Christmas**? It originally aired on A&E about 8 or 9 years ago, but gets repeated on various channels in years since. It starred Tom Everett Scott, Wallace Shawn, and the ever wonderful Verne Troyer. It’s not a particularly great Christmas film or anything, but I wrote it, so I get residuals every time it airs, so it’s my personal favorite forgotten Christmas film. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/115 "2012-12-18T21:03:06Z")
I just got my DVD copy of “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol”. I haven’t seen it since I was a little boy in the 1960’s! “And razzle-berry dwessing” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/116 "2012-12-18T21:26:21Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > I just got my DVD copy of “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol”. I haven’t seen it since I was a little boy in the 1960’s! > > “And razzle-berry dwessing” > 🙂 This is my all-time favorite interpretation of \*A Christmas Carol \*(although I’ve never figured out why the ghosts of present and past are switched in order). I was so happy when it showed up on Netflix! We watched _A Carol for Another Christmas_ on Sunday, and it was really an interesting period piece – Rod Serling at his preachy-est with great performances by Peter Sellers et. al. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/117 "2012-12-18T22:52:30Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > They don’t live in our stone age. They live in a future stone age following some dreadful apocalypse. Hence their efforts to copy half-remembered present day technology in stone/wood/live animals and their celebration of Christmas. You really didn’t know this? Precisely. They are the Morlocks to the Jetsons’ Eloi. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/118 "2012-12-18T23:50:47Z")
Just watched Magoo’s. Still brings a tear to my eye. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/119 "2012-12-20T22:27:31Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It sounds like **Santa Claus** , a Mexivcan film dubbed into English. I actually paid to see it at a Saturday matinee at our local theater. They riffed on it on MST3K, but I haven’t seen that episode. > > [Santa Claus (disambiguation) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_(film)) > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOH-SS89Y9o](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOH-SS89Y9o) Oh my God! That looks like it might be it! Thank you, Cal. And the entire thing is on YouTube! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157/120 "2012-12-23T21:33:00Z")
Another one from the dim recesses of memory…I seem to remember that the [popular 1960’s family group (“The Cowsills”) did several Christmas shows-do DVDs of these exist? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forgotten-christmas-specials-movies/643157.md?page=5)