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The holiday season isn’t complete without the magic of Christmas TV specials.

These timeless classics are more than just festive entertainment — they’re a part of our holiday traditions.

From heartwarming stories to laugh-out-loud comedies, these specials remind us of the joy, nostalgia, and occasional chaos that make this time of year so special.

(NBC/Screenshot)

Whether you’re snuggled up with hot cocoa or reliving childhood memories, these Christmas specials are the perfect way to get into the holiday spirit.

So, let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit the best Christmas TV specials to rewatch every holiday season.

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year, isn’t it?!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) (Warner Bros./Screenshot)

There’s a reason this animated gem has stood the test of time: it’s pure holiday magic.

From Boris Karloff’s unforgettable narration to the...

Early on in Jim Henson: Idea Man, director Ron Howard‘s admiring and affecting biographical portrait of the genius behind the Muppets, Henson‘s longtime collaborator Frank Oz recalls, “He was so internal and quiet that his inner life must have been sparkling.” I can attest to that. One of my fondest memories is an interview I conducted with Henson in his company’s fabulous New York townhouse (dubbed the “Muppet Mansion”), including a visit to the Muppet Workshop, in advance of 1987’s A Muppet Family Christmas, a terrific special that featured lovable characters from The Muppet Show, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock (among others) all gathering at Fozzie Bear’s mother’s house for the holidays. We had only been talking a few minutes when I realized my tape recorder had barely inched forward. Turns out it was set on voice activation, and it had only picked up my questions,...

In the spring of 1992, the legendary singer-songwriter Paul Williams was walking in a park in the Los Angeles sunshine, thinking about Christmas. Sixteen years after first working with the Muppets, he was about to return to their colourful world, but he was apprehensive. Years of rock ’n roll debauchery having finally caught up with him, The Muppet Christmas Carol would be the first project he’d worked on sober in forever. Three decades later, he tells Empire, he needn’t have worried. “I sat on a bench and Scrooge’s song suddenly started coming to me: ‘Bom-bom-bom-bom… When a cold wind blows it chills you…’ I think I got as far as ‘There goes Mr Humbug, there goes Mr Grim / If they gave a prize for being mean, the winner would be him’ before I paused at all. I was like, 'Hey, that’s pretty good!' I was so...

After a successful return to the big screen with 2011's The Muppets and last year's sequel Muppets Most Wanted, The Muppets are returning to the small screen with a new TV series from The Big Bang Theory co-creator Bill Prady and Anger Management writer-producer Bob Kushell. ABC has ordered a comedy pilot presentation for the new Muppets TV series, which Deadline reports will be set behind-the-scenes of a late-night talk show. Both Bill Prady and Bob Kushell will executive produce, with Bob Kushell serving as showrunner, should it get picked up to series.

Disney-owned The Muppets Studios is co-producing with ABC Studios. Disney bought the Muppets character rights back in 2004, but this is the first we've heard of a new Muppets TV series. Of course, the franchise first started on the small screen with several of the characters appearing on Sesame Street when it debuted in 1969, before creator Jim Henson...

Wil Jones Dec 16, 2019

Yes, The Muppet Christmas Carol is wonderful, but children of the '80s might remember another classic Muppet special...

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

The Muppet Christmas Carol is wonderful. It’s perfectly pitched, sharp and witty, yet also genuinely moving. It’s genius lies in how seriously it takes the material. It lets the full horror and pathos of Dickens’ original tale fill the screen, letting the Muppets maneuver around it, instead of dominating, so it’s just as riveting as it is hilarious. But without wanting to get heretical here, it might not actually be the best holiday themed Muppet special. I’d argue that title actually falls to a criminally under-seen 1987 ABC television special, called A Muppet Family Christmas.

Adored by those who’ve seen it, it’s been mostly keep out of circulation due to a copyright mess. A mess...

Yes, The Muppet Christmas Carol is wonderful, but children of the 80s might remember another classic Muppet special...

The Muppet Christmas Carol is wonderful. It’s perfectly pitched, sharp and witty, yet also genuinely moving. It’s genius lies in how seriously it takes the material. It lets the full horror and pathos of Dickens’ original tale fill the screen, letting the Muppets manoeuvre around it, instead of dominating, so it’s just as riveting as it is hilarious. But without wanting to get heretical here, it might not actually be the best holiday themed Muppet special. I’d argue that title actually falls to a criminally under-seen 1987 ABC television special, called A Muppet Family Christmas.

Adored by those who’ve seen it, it’s been mostly keep out of circulation due to a copyright mess. A mess that results mostly from it’s greatest selling point - that is the one big,...

Gerard Parkes, the Dublin-born actor best known for playing the sole human character, Doc, on Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock, died on Oct. 19 in his retirement home in Toronto, Canada. He was 90 years old. Parkes was born in Ireland in 1924, and he moved to Canada after World War II, starting his acting career in theater in 1948. Aside from Fraggle Rock, Parkes also acted in children's fare like A Muppet Family Christmas and Shining Time Station. Parkes won best actor at the 1968 Canadian Film Awards for his role as Uncle Matthew in the film Isabel, but it was the role of Doc...

Gerard Parkes, the Irish-Canadian actor who starred in the hit kids series Fraggle Rock during the 1980s, died Sunday in Toronto. He was 90. His agent, Gerry Jordan, told the Canadian Press news service that Parkes died from natural causes in a retirement home. Parkes played the eccentric inventor Doc on Rock — the only regular human character in Jim Henson's live-action puppet show for HBO and the CBC in Canada. He also appeared in ABC's A Muppet Family Christmas special in 1987. Parkes' other TV credits included playing Dr. Cobourne on The Littlest Hobo and Barton Winslow on Shining

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This past week, Lady Gaga hosted a fun, somewhat psychedelic hour of television on ABC: Lady Gaga and The Muppets’ Holiday Special. In many ways, the special transported me back to the mid-80s, when a post-Muppet Show troupe of puppets were still dominating all facets of media at the time. Now that the Muppets are successfully making a comeback, this led me to reminisce about the numerous Muppet holiday films over the years and question which one is my favorite.

Growing up as a kid obsessed with any and everything related to Jim Henson, the magic of the Muppets always brightened my spirits with laughter, wonder and imagination. Christmastime was always a magical time of year, but in my home, Christmas was about more than stuffing stockings with candy. Christmas was about stories, and sharing the wonder and belief of the holidays with friends and family. Every year, like stockings filled by Santa,...

 

Over the holiday season, have a good one and be merry. We will be back blogging in the New Year.

In the mean time have a look at just some of our favourite festive visual treats below, to keep you entertained for the Christmas!

A Muppet Family Christmas

Peace On Earth

 

 Christmas Comes But Once a Year

Star Wars Holiday Special

Nicholas Was

Terry Gilliam - The Christmas Card

Ain't no party like an Arnie Christmas party!

It's December 19. Our enthusiasm for real life things is waning, and our enthusiasm for holiday whimsy is approaching peak levels. Perhaps you feel the same way! To that end, we have collected some of the great moments in the Muppet Christmas canon, mostly musical but some prose. As Muppet Christmas Carol reminds us, "'tis the season to be jolly and joyous." Or just to gorge yourself on the endless charm and emotional poignancy of the Muppets."Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Rowlf and John Denver, John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together If that doesn't make your heart ache, you are made of stone. "Bless Us All," Muppet Christmas Carol Anything with Robin gets bonus points. "Christmas Is Coming," John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together Maracas! "Need a Little Christmas," A Muppet Family Christmas Watch out for the icy patch. "When the River Meets the Sea,...

When it was announced that there would indeed be a new Muppet movie, I had equal feelings of elation and dread. I grew up on The Muppets, be it reruns of The Muppet Show, their first three feature films – The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan – or any number of television projects, like A Muppet Family Christmas, or even Muppet Babies, which still seemed to keep much of the magic that made the group so darned lovable. After the death of creator Jim Henson, there were ups (A Muppet Christmas Carol) and downs (Muppets from Space, The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz ). So it’s not hard to understand why many of us fans were more than a little skeptical about a new feature film. That being said, I was glad to find that The Muppets not only met, but also exceeded any expectations I had.

Throughout the month of December, TV Editor Kate Kulzick and Film Editor Ricky D will review classic Christmas adaptions, posting a total of 13 each, one a day, until the 25th of December.

The catch: They will swap roles as Rick will take on reviews of classic television Christmas specials and Kate will take on Christmas movies. Today is day 13.

A Muppet Family Christmas (1987) (TV)

Directed by Peter Harris and Eric Till

Writen by Jerry Juhl

What’s it about?

A Muppet Family Christmas first aired on ABC on December 16, 1987. In this warm Yuletide, one-hour Christmas special, Fozzie Bear surprises his mother Emily on Christmas Eve by bringing along the entire Muppet gang (including the cast of both Sesame Street and Fragle Rock), to celebrate the holidays. With a blizzard brewing outside, Fozzie’s childhood home becomes the backdrop for a medley of holiday tunes, as Doc and his dog Sprocket...

While others may turn to The Muppet Christmas Carol this time of year, my Muppet holiday movie of choice has always been A Muppet Family Christmas. Yes – it was a made-for-tv movie, but it is pure entertainment from beginning to end. I remember watching with my younger brother back when you would watch TV when it aired and sit through the commercials (remember those days?) and we laughed and laughed at those Muppets’ crazy antics. I have always been a fan of “things spinning out of control” humor – the first scene in “The Injury” episode of The Office killed me and any Griswold movie leaves me in stitches – and A Muppet Family Christmas delivers this in droves when the entire Muppet gang unexpectedly descends on Mama Fozzie Bear’s farm for Christmas, much to the dismay of Doc (of Fraggle Rock fame) and his dog Sprocket who rented the farm for a “nice, quiet...

Anyone who knows me knows that I am an avid fan of The Muppets. I grew up with the zany madcap Vaudeville-style humor of The Muppet Show, have watched all of the movies, and have since introduced them to my children, who love them nearly as much as I do. It’s been 11 years since the lack luster Muppets from Space hit theaters, and apart from a few television and direct-to-video movies (most dismal), we haven’t heard much from those felt-skinned purveyors of comedy. It was with great jubilation that I heard that we would finally get another theatrical treat with this November’s The Muppets. So to tide us all over until then, here’s a handful of what I would consider the best of the Muppet performances (I had to stop myself, or it would have been about 100 clips).

15. “Bear on Patrol" – The Muppet Show

Fozzy Bear at his finest,...

As Toy Story 3 arrives on DVD and Blu-ray, we look at other films in which toys walk and talk under their own power, and they've been doing it for quite a while too!

The Toy Story triumvirate will reign supreme among stories of toys coming to life and it's hard to imagine any single film or series that uses the premise of living playthings ever besting the perfect trio of movies.

But having given the hat trick fair praise, the toys in Andy's room weren't the first to walk and talk under their own control, and other stories feature toys springing to life when their owners aren't around or by the power of dreams and wishes, the magic of midnight or, in one case, the might of military grade munitions chips.

So, if you still have room for more childhood toy fantasies and adventures beyond Woody, Buzz and their crew,...

As Toy Story 3 arrives on DVD and Blu-ray, we look at other films in which toys walk and talk under their own power, and they've been doing it for quite a while too!

The Toy Story triumvirate will reign supreme among stories of toys coming to life and it's hard to imagine any single film or series that uses the premise of living playthings ever besting the perfect trio of movies.

But having given the hat trick fair praise, the toys in Andy's room weren't the first to walk and talk under their own control, and other stories feature toys springing to life when their owners aren't around or by the power of dreams and wishes, the magic of midnight or, in one case, the might of military grade munitions chips.

So, if you still have room for more childhood toy fantasies and adventures beyond Woody, Buzz and their crew,...