12/07/04

A Charlie Brown Christmas, ABC
According to Jim, ABC
Rodney, ABC
Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, MTV


A Charlie Brown Christmas

Never my favorite Charlie Brown. Maybe it’s the length; the story could probably be handled in a half-hour as opposed to the hour it takes. Maybe it’s the fact that the story, unlike many televised Christmas “specials” does put a bit of Christ back in Christmas.

Yes, I realize the name of the holiday comes from the celebration of the birth of one Jesus of Nazareth. But the reason the holiday is a holiday is that winter celebrations have been around for thousands of years, and that Christianity was plugging their guy in the middle of it to take advantage of the holiday mojo going on around them. Jesus’ birth wasn’t noted at the time because births weren’t recorded at the time and I’m pretty sure they weren’t celebrated either. Christmas as we know it, from St. Nick to the tree to gifts and the crass commercialism got there start in the 19th century.

A great thing about many of the other classic Christmas specials is that they present secular Christmases. The Grinch is possibly at the pinnacle of the pantheon, and I get a kick out of the crazy setup and songs of A Year without a Santa Claus (the one with the heat miser and cold miser, and the walking song is totally Taoist). While it’s new, Olive the Other Reindeer has some possibilities of staying on through the years. Rudolph is too sappy, and if that red-nosed reindeer had any character, he would have told Santa and the other reindeer to fuck off. They were only using him for his nose, not treasuring his differences.


According to Jim

Jim’s Christmas show. I would never have guessed that he’d be engaged in a petty battle with his across-the-street neighbor.


Rodney

Rodney once again does his predecessor better. He’s trying to score a hot video game for his son, lamely, and then gets pinned in his truck by a Jesus statue. Of course, he learns great values.


Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County

This show, thankfully, had nothing to do with Christmas. Unfortunately, it had everything to do with its subjects. This was the final episode, and it was presented commercial-free. With the interruptions I so desperately needed.

Who would stay together? Who would break up? Who would cry? Would anyone care?

I didn’t. The lives of the kids might have been over the top lux, but their lives were under the bottom boring. No insights, no interesting conflicts, no interesting dialogue, no interesting sights and sounds. Basically, the show is about boring high school kids who can’t get beyond the quotidian and can’t even seem to get much enjoyment of out it.

I can’t imagine having a film crew follow me around in high school. I don’t know if I’d have the confidence or vanity necessary to enjoy the camera. Maybe these kids are savvier than me, believing that all publicity is good publicity, and thus no matter how stupid they look or what idiotic things they do, they’ll benefit from the experience.

After the episode ended, one of the “cast,” a chick that was still in high school, appeared in the MTV studios to reflect as far as she could, and give a little preview of the next season on MTV. Audience members loved her and were effusive in praise.

Guess I’m out of the main stream. Don't know if that means I've been washed ashore, upstream, downstream, on a tributatry, or flushed out to sea. We'll see