December 02, 2004

Xmas specials

Posted by Henry

Via About Last Night , SF author John Scalzi presents us with the ten worst Christmas specials ever. Starting with Dorothy Parker and gang.

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.

Ayn Rand’s ‘A Selfish Christmas,’ the lost Star Trek special (‘A Most Illogical Holiday’) and the David Cronenberg Canadian Christmas special (‘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’) also excel.

Posted on December 2, 2004 04:15 PM UTC
Comments

This is, bar none, the funniest Christmas-related text of any form I have ever read. “In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as ‘anti-life’”—for this alone, John Scalzi deserves a Nobel. Absolute genius.

Posted by Russell Arben Fox · December 2, 2004 05:31 PM

It reads a bit like TV Go Home (which works best if you’ve watched some British TV and you’ve ever read the Radio Times).

Posted by Simstim · December 2, 2004 05:40 PM

I object. Ayn Rand’s Selfish Christmas is my family’s favorite Christmas show! We especially like the scene where the Grinch sells the who’s down in whoville back their presents at a fair market value.

Slimy who welfare state worms!

Posted by roger · December 2, 2004 06:08 PM

I don’t suppose anyone reading this lived in Chicago in the early-mid 90s and recalls “Ayn Rand Gives Me a Boner” at the Annoyance Theater? John Scalzi is fine but that was beyond brilliant.

Posted by lemuel pitkin · December 2, 2004 06:28 PM

lemuel,

OK, that’s just going too far.

BTW—after I read Walker’s The Ayn Rand Cult, I had a really bad dream where Rand was sitting in my living room, and I was trying to solicit her views on some opinion or other of Murray Rothbard’s without sending her into a frothing rage. During the whole exchange, I kept thinking to myself, “Please don’t let her find me sexually attractive. Please don’t let her find me sexually attractive…”

Posted by Kevin Carson · December 2, 2004 06:34 PM

If you’re in the market for more Rand satire, you could do a lot worse than Mary Gaitskill’s novel Two Girls Fat and Thin, featuring Anna Granite.

Posted by ogic · December 2, 2004 06:37 PM

If you’re in the market for more Rand satire…

Who isn’t?

Posted by Keith M Ellis · December 2, 2004 07:34 PM

They can’t be as bad as this: “Star Wars Christmas Special”

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (Nov. 17, 1978), CBS broadcast a two-hour holiday event called “The Star Wars Holiday Special.”

Never heard of it? That’s because after its ill-fated premiere, “Star Wars” creator George Lucas banished it forever from the realm of human existence. But something of this much weight has a way of reaching the masses.

“Special” is certainly one word for that show. Other words one might choose to apply include “distressing,” “appalling” and “bad.”
Posted by Silent E · December 2, 2004 09:24 PM

Well, this isn’t bad for Ayn Rand parody:

The Benevolent Rape Scene

Posted by Kevin Carson · December 2, 2004 11:40 PM

I think I like the Canadian-Content-Cronenberg story the best.

Posted by Jackmormon · December 3, 2004 04:46 AM

OT: For more Ayn Rand mockery there’s always Making Fun of Objectivism. Especially Bob the Angry Flower, who considers what happens twenty-four hours after the end of Atlas Shrugged.

Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School also has a section in which the semi-autobiographical narrator becomes obsessed with Ayn Rand. If I remember rightly it includes a very funny parody of Rand’s stories written by an obsessive vegetarian and featuring space cows…

Posted by Passing Fancy · December 3, 2004 08:42 AM

The benevolent rape scene is quite hilarious and I have not ever read the work of which it is making light; if I had it would probably be even funnier but I don’t think that is a favorable exchange for me.

Posted by Jeremy Osner · December 3, 2004 07:31 PM

Those transporters would make Santa’s job easier…

Posted by Alan K. Henderson · December 6, 2004 09:13 AM
Followups

→ A Little Christmas Cheer.
Excerpt: Henry of Crooked Timber points the way to John Scalzi's list of little known and little loved Christmas Specials from...Read more at Lean Left
→ Round up.
Excerpt: Ten worst Xmas stories ever, from John Scalzi (from Crooked Timber). These are brilliant: Chomsky deconstructs Christmas; Dorothy Parker...Read more at scribblingwoman
→ Christmas Spirit.
Excerpt: All the cool kids are no doubt linking to John Scalzi's description of the ten worst Xmas specials ever, but that doesn't mean I can't too. via Henry Farrell....Read more at Opiniatrety
→ Christmas Spirit.
Excerpt: All the cool kids are no doubt linking to John Scalzi's description of the ten worst Xmas specials ever, but that doesn't mean I can't too. via Henry Farrell....Read more at Opiniatrety
→ Christmas Spirit.
Excerpt: All the cool kids are no doubt linking to John Scalzi's description of the ten worst Xmas specials ever, but that doesn't mean I can't too. via Henry Farrell....Read more at Opiniatrety
→ Round up.
Excerpt: Ten worst Xmas stories ever, from John Scalzi (from Crooked Timber). These are brilliant: Chomsky deconstructs Christmas; Dorothy Parker...Read more at scribblingwoman
→ Least Successful Holiday Specials of all time.
Excerpt: Whatever: The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time Via Crooked Timber, author John Scalzi lists the least successful Christmas Holiday specials of all time. The scary thing is, compared to this fictional list, the actually-aired animated St...Read more at Blog, Jvstin Style
→ Least Successful Holiday Specials of all time.
Excerpt: Whatever: The 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time Via Crooked Timber, author John Scalzi lists the least successful Christmas Holiday specials of all time. The scary thing is, compared to this fictional list, the actually-aired animated St...Read more at Blog, Jvstin Style

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.