The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials

John Scalzi has some fun with the holiday season.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/01/the-10-least-successful-holiday-specials-of-all-time/

*The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time*

By John Scalzi

*An Algonquin Round Table Christmas (1927)*

Alexander Woolcott, Franklin Pierce Adams, George Kaufman, Robert Benchley
and Dorothy Parker were the stars of this 1927 NBC Red radio network
special, one of the earliest Christmas specials ever performed.
Unfortunately the principals, lured to the table for an unusual evening
gathering by the promise of free drinks and pirogies, appeared unaware they
were live and on the air, avoiding witty seasonal banter to concentrate on
trashing absent Round Tabler Edna Ferber’s latest novel,* Mother Knows Best,
* and complaining, in progressively drunken fashion, about their lack of sex
lives. Seasonal material of a sort finally appears in the 23rd minute when
Dorothy Parker, already on her fifth drink, can be heard to remark, “one
more of these and I’ll be sliding down Santa’s chimney.” The feed was cut
shortly thereafter. NBC Red’s 1928 holiday special “Christmas with the
Fitzgeralds” was similarly unsuccessful.

*The Mercury Theater of the Air Presents the Assassination of Saint Nicholas
(1939)*

Listeners of radio’s Columbia Broadcasting System who tuned in to hear a
Christmas Eve rendition of Charles Dickens’ *A Christmas Carol *were shocked
when they heard what appeared to be a newscast from the north pole,
reporting that Santa’s Workshop had been overrun in a blitzkrieg by Finnish
proxies of the Nazi German government. The newscast, a hoax created by
20-something wunderkind Orson Wells as a seasonal allegory about the spread
of Fascism in Europe, was so successful that few listeners stayed to listen
until the end, when St. Nick emerged from the smoking ruins of his workshop
to deliver a rousing call to action against the authoritarian tide and to
urge peace on Earth, good will toward men and expound on the joys of a hot
cup of Mercury Theater of Air’s sponsor Campbell’s soup. Instead, tens of
thousands of New York City children mobbed the Macy’s Department Store on
34th, long presumed to be Santa’s New York embassy, and sang Christmas
carols in wee, sobbing tones. Only a midnight appearance of New York mayor
Fiorello LaGuardia in full Santa getup quelled the agitated tykes. Welles,
now a hunted man on the Eastern seaboard, decamped for Hollywood shortly
thereafter.

*Ayn Rand’s A Selfish Christmas (1951)*

In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands
of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the
world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop,
convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse
of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across
the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services,
acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts — and therefore
Christmas — possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives
raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long
broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four
remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold,
practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts
and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand
sneeringly described these executives as “anti-life.”

*The Lost Star Trek Christmas Episode: “A Most Illogical Holiday” (1968)*

Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears, is hailed as a messiah on a wintry world
where elves toil for a mysterious master, revealed to be Santa just prior to
the first commercial break. Santa, enraged, kills Ensign Jones and attacks
the *Enterprise *in his sleigh. As Scotty works to keep the power flowing to
the shields, Kirk and Bones infiltrate Santa’s headquarters. With the help
of the comely and lonely Mrs. Claus, Kirk is led to the heart of the
workshop, where he learns the truth: Santa is himself a pawn to a master
computer, whose initial program is based on an ancient book of children’s
Christmas tales. Kirk engages the master computer in a battle of wits,
demanding the computer explain how it is physically possible for Santa to
deliver gifts to all the children in the universe in a single night. The
master computer, confronted with this computational anomaly, self-destructs;
Santa, freed from mental enslavement, releases the elves and begins a new,
democratic society. Back on the ship, Bones and Spock bicker about the
meaning of Christmas, an argument which ends when Scotty appears on the
bridge with egg nog made with Romulan Ale.

Filmed during the series’ run, this episode was never shown on network
television and was offered in syndication only once, in 1975. *Star
Trek*fans hint the episode was later personally destroyed by Gene
Roddenberry.
Rumor suggests Harlan Ellison may have written the original script; asked
about the episode at 1978’s IgunaCon II science fiction convention, however,
Ellison described the episode as “a quiescently glistening cherem of pus.”

*Bob & Carol & Ted & Santa (1973)*

This ABC Christmas special featured Santa as a happy-go-lucky swinger who
comically wades into the marital bed of two neurotic 70s couples, and also
the music of the Carpenters. It was screened for television critics but
shelved by the network when the critics, assembled at ABC’s New York
offices, rose as one to strangle the producers at the post-viewing
interview. Joel Siegel would later write, “When Santa did his striptease for
Carol while Karen Carpenter sang ‘Top of the World’ and peered through an
open window, we all looked at each other and knew that we television
critics, of all people, had been called upon to defend Western Civilization.
We dared not fail.”

*A Muppet Christmas with Zbigniew Brzezinski (1978)*

A year before their rather more successful Christmas pairing with John
Denver, the Muppets joined Carter Administration National Security Advisor
Brezezinski for an evening of fun, song, and anticommunist rhetoric. While
those who remember the show recall the pairing of Brzezinki and Miss Piggy
for a duet of “Winter Wonderland” as winsomely enchanting, the scenes where
the NSA head explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of
Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen was incongruous and disturbing even
then. Washington rumor, unsupported by any Carter administration member,
suggests that President Carter had this Christmas special on a repeating
loop while he drafted his infamous “Malaise” speech.

*The Village People in Can’t Stop the Christmas Music — On Ice! (1980)*

Undeterred by the miserable flop of the movie *Can’t Stop the Music!,* last
place television network NBC aired this special, in which music group the
Village People mobilize to save Christmas after Santa Claus (Paul Lynde)
experiences a hernia. Thus follows several musical sequences — on ice! —
where the Village People move Santa’s Workshop to Christopher Street, enlist
their friends to become elves with an adapted version of their hit “In The
Navy,” and draft film co-star Bruce Jenner to become the new Santa in a
sequence which involves stripping the 1976 gold medal decathlon winner to
his shorts, shaving and oiling his chest, and outfitting him in fur-trimmed
red briefs and crimson leathers to a disco version of “Come O Ye Faithful.”
Peggy Fleming, Shields and Yarnell and Lorna Luft co-star.

Interestingly, there is no reliable data regarding the ratings for this
show, as the Nielsen diaries for this week were accidentally consumed by
fire. Show producers estimate that one in ten Americans tuned in to at least
part of the show, but more conservative estimates place the audience at no
more than two or three percent, tops.

*A Canadian Christmas with David Cronenberg (1986)*

Faced with Canadian content requirements but no new programming, the
Canadian Broadcasting Company turned to Canadian director David Cronenberg,
hot off his success with *Scanners *and *The Fly,* to fill the seasonal gap.
In this 90-minute event, Santa (Michael Ironside) makes an emergency landing
in the Northwest Territories, where he is exposed to a previously unknown
virus after being attacked by a violent moose. The virus causes Santa to
develop both a large, tooth-bearing orifice in his belly and a lustful
hunger for human flesh, which he sates by graphically devouring Canadian
celebrities Bryan Adams, Dan Ackroyd and Gordie Howe on national television.
Music by Neil Young.

*Noam Chomsky: Deconstructing Christmas (1998)*

This PBS/WGBH special featured linguist and social commentator Chomsky
sitting at a desk, explaining how the development of the commercial
Christmas season directly relates to the loss of individual freedoms in the
United States and the subjugation of indigenous people in southeast Asia.
Despite a rave review by *Z* magazine, musical guest Zach de la Rocha and
the concession by Chomsky to wear a seasonal hat for a younger demographic
appeal, this is known to be the least requested Christmas special ever made.

*Christmas with the Nuge (2002)*

Spurred by the success of *The Osbournes* on sister network MTV, cable
network VH1 contracted zany hard rocker Ted Nugent to help create a
“reality” Christmas special. Nugent responded with a special that features
the Motor City Madman bowhunting, and then making jerky from, four calling
birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree,
all specially flown in to Nugent’s Michigan compound for the occasion. In
the second half of the hour-long special, Nugent heckles vegetarian Night
Ranger/Damn Yankees bassist Jack Blades into consuming three strips of dove
jerky. Fearing the inevitable PETA protest, and boycotts from Moby and Pam
Anderson, VH1 never aired the special, which is available solely by special
order at the Nuge Store on TedNugent.com.


Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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