#13 - Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)
I know, a lot of people find Ernest P. Worrell to be dumb, annoying, unfunny, and... well, just plain stupid. Well, he's three of those things, but I find the first few Ernest films to be quite funny. And this is the best Ernest film, in my opinion. Not only that, but it's a darn good Christmas film too.
In this film Ernest is a cabdriver who happens to pick up Santa Claus. Now Santa is not in his red suit, but looks like a regular old guy. He's down in the United States to meet a guy who he thinks is just right to take over the job of being Santa Claus. That person is a guy who did a children's TV show that was just recently cancelled, and who is now looking for other work as an actor. Just as Santa is about to ask the guy to take over his job, the guy's douchebag agent blocks him from talking to the actor and has him thrown in jail as a crazy man. Meanwhile Ernest has been fired because Santa didn't pay (he only had fake kid money) and Santa has left his Christmas sack in Ernest's cab. So the girl and Ernest try to find Santa to give him his sack back. After that, the three of them must convince the actor guy to become Santa and get him ready in time to start delivering stuff for Christmas. Think of it as Mrs. Doubtfire meets The Santa Clause, but with a country yokel as the main character.
This movie was a modest hit when it came out in 1988. It was only the second Ernest film, and made 4 1/2 times the amount it cost to make. Ernest films were family-friendly non-offensive entertainment. They made very young kids laugh at Jim Varney's physical humor (and his two in-real-life buddies that were in most of the films are the funniest parts of the films, in my opinion), but adults were usually rolling their eyes at the stupid puns. Never mind that, though. This is a great Christmas film if nothing else. It's not consistently funny, it's not too original, and it's probably not a movie that most children of today would care for. However, to those of us that grew up with it coming on television or renting it on home video every Christmas season, it was great. I don't think it's shown much anymore, but when I was 5-12 years of age, I watched it every year along with other Christmas traditionals. The movie, as I said, isn't funny all the way through. It is quite entertaining though. The Santa in this film is amazing. I agree with That Guy With The Glasses on this one in that he's probably one of the best ones on film. He's so good, nice, and earnest (no pun there, folks). He's not like the angry Santa we see in Rudolph or Santa Claus The Movie. He has hope for everyone, and never once loses his temper. The message the film gives about Christmas is also pretty good. Still, the funny parts are pretty good when they work.
#12 - A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
I'm sure a lot of you figured this one would be closer to the top of my list, but it's not one I really watched as a kid. I always found it rather pedestrian and boring back then. I did watch the 1992 Peanuts Christmas special every year or so though, as we had that one on VHS. Let's just say there's a reason few remember it. It was just a series of interconnected stories based on actual stories related to Christmas from the comic strip. No, the 1965 one is the one to go for. I think the difference is that the original special was made for families, the sequel for kids. The special isn't all that funny, is very corny and preachy, and really is as trite as you can get for a Christmas special. So why is it on my list? It's all due to the making of the special and it's staying power throughout the years. I may not understand the love for it, but it does fascinate me.
The special was made on a very low budget, causing the production to be a bit sloppy (notice that Schroeder will stop playing his piano before the music ends), and the voices/sounds to be improperly recorded and mixed. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz had full creative control over the special, which the studio bosses found quite frightening. This was especially true for the following scene.
No, it's not because there was a war on Christmas in 1965, it's merely due to the fact that he's quoting King James version scripture in something that the studio wanted to market to kids. They figured kids didn't want to be preached to in a cartoon for Christmas. Kids in this time period got that enough from the stop-motion show Davey and Goliath. However, Schulz wanted kids to know the origin and true meaning of the holiday as he and a lot of America saw it. To show that it wasn't about commercialism, greed, and lights. That there was something that was being celebrated, that it was not just a meaningless celebration that it seemed to have become at the time, like Charlie Brown was annoyed at. And this was with the show having corporate sponsers, which the special chastised. The special also didn't use a comedy show laugh track, which was unheard of at the time, and used children to do the voices of the child characters, which was also unheard of. So of course the studio, CBS, thought the special would flop and some thought the end of the Peanuts comic strip as well. (Best try a Family Circus special next year folks! /sarcasm\)
Well, what do they know.... The special was watched on about half of American televisions that night and has been critically hailed since. It's a story of nothing going right, but still being successful, just like the story in the special itself! No matter if you're indifferent to the special as I am, or love it, it's embedded in culture now. The song Christmas Time Is Here, which is heard throughout malls, stores, and commercials was brought about in this special. There's the image of the sad drooping Christmas tree burned into our memories. The first live instance of the 'Snoopy Dance'. It gave birth to 4 feature films, a tv show, and over 40 TV specials featuring the Peanuts gang. I'd say that's pretty darn successful and a good story even for a special that holds little appeal to me.
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