SpongeBob, Peanuts stop by Christmas Eve
Well, here we are on Christmas Eve and things are fairly quiet.
Hopefully, the stockings are hung by the chimney with care and not a creature is stirring and we’re all settling down to watch such traditional fare as It’s a Wonderful Life or A Charlie Brown Christmas, or maybe even the MythBusters marathon on Science Channel that began Wednesday at 11 p.m. and runs far, far into the foreseeable future.
Sometimes it’s a relief not to have so many choices.
How many programming choices do we have? It’s my job to try to keep up with TV, and it’s almost impossible. There are only so many hours in the day.
FX head honcho John Landgraf started a heated discussion last summer when he pontificated there was “simply too much television,” arguing that the glut of programming was responsible, in part, for an industrywide trend in overall declining ratings, and that this volume of scripted originals could not be sustained in the long run.
FX decided to count them all and found that there were a record 409 scripted shows in the U.S. in 2015. That’s almost twice the number from a mere six years ago and up from 376 last year.
The tally counts broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, etc.), pay cable channels such as HBO and Showtime, basic cable networks such as AMC and USA, and online streaming outfits such as Netflix and Hulu.
And it doesn’t even include reality shows, news programs, sports events, made-for-TV movies, specials, daytime dramas or children’s shows.
But here on Christmas Eve, the main choices boil down to two old favorites and one old favorite with a (relatively) new holiday offering. Let’s start with that.
It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! The half hour airs at 6:30 p.m. on Nickelodeon.
The series follows the adventures of our hero, a cheerful and goofy, square, yellow sea sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea in the town of Bikini Bottom.
Other than SpongeBob, the show’s main characters are Plankton, owner of the Chum Bucket restaurant; Mr. Krabs, owner of the Krusty Krab, where SpongeBob works as a fry cook; Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel who wears a diving suit; Squidward Tentacles, an octopus; Patrick Star, a dimwitted starfish; and Gary, SpongeBob’s pet snail.
It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! originally aired on CBS on Nov. 23, 2012, and shows the chaos that ensues after Plankton turns everybody in Bikini Bottom from nice to naughty by feeding them his special jerktonium-laced fruitcakes in an effort to get his Christmas wish — the secret formula for Krabby Patties.
Unlike its usual animation process, this offering was produced in stop motion, so it looks like those classic Rankin/ Bass animated specials we remember from years ago.
Charlie Brown. For many, it’s not Christmas without one final visit with the Peanuts characters on Christmas Eve. Thanks to ABC, you can begin at 7 p.m. with A Charlie Brown Christmas and follow that at 8 with It’s Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown.
In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Linus reminds the gang of The True Meaning of Christmas in this beloved holiday classic that CBS first aired on Dec. 9, 1965.
There’s something pure and simple about these old animated productions that’s lost in the fancy computer-generated spectacles available today. Maybe leaving more to the imagination frees us to be more child-like. Or maybe it just reminds us more of when we were children.
And that’s what host Kristen Bell does at 8 p.m. with It’s Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown. If you missed the hour retrospective the first time around, be sure to catch it tonight.
The performances include the music of Vince Guaraldi, Kristen Chenoweth singing “Happiness” from the 1967 Broadway musical, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and a performance from Matthew Morrison of an original song, “Just Like Me.”
Other guests are Sarah McLachlan, Boyz II Men, Pentatonix, David Benoit and The All-American Boys Chorus.
Ring that Bell. It’s a Wonderful Life airs at 7 p.m. today on NBC. It’s interesting how this initial disappointment, at least for the studio, has become one of the most beloved films of all time.
And thanks to the movie, we all know what happens when a bell on the Christmas tree rings. It means an angel has just earned his wings.
Hunker down. Finally, the annual A Christmas Story marathon begins at 6 p.m. today on TBS and 7 p.m. on TNT and runs for 24 hours.