Small screen running out of yule steam
You can’t say television doesn’t embrace Christmas with gusto. It’s just the timing I can’t figure.
Starting sometime before Thanksgiving we’ve had ample opportunities to watch Charlie Brown, Rudolph, the Grinch, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” any number of Scrooges and several generations of Frosty.
But it’s hard not to get the impression that Christmas on television tends to peak sometime around Dec. 17 or that programmers tire of the holiday before it even arrives.
There isn’t a single Christmas special on network television tonight, and the offerings on cable have all the hallmarks of a half-off sale at a day-old bakery. With Christmas and Hanukkah still two days away, why do I get the impression that we’ve reached the bottom of the holiday barrel?
Now, I’m not going to say that the 2004 special “Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas” (8 p.m., Disney) is just not up to “Grinch.” You can easily see that for yourself.
The Family Channel offers the 2002 Rudolph update “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys” (7 p.m.), and the Cartoon Network presents a number of eponymous and self-promotional specials from years past, including “A Johnny Bravo Christmas” (8:30 p.m.) and “Bill & Mandy Save Christmas” (9:30 p.m).
Even Lifetime appears to have run out of midlife crisis holiday romances. The best it can offer is the 1999 fantasy “If You Believe” (9 p.m.), starring Ally Walker as a burned-out editor who gets a pep talk from her inner child. Good grief!
The best, and most original, holiday offering of the night is “Creature Comforts: Merry Christmas Everybody” (8 p.m., BBC America). From the creators of “Wallace & Gromit,” this charming series “stars” more than 100 animated animal characters that appear in short vignettes based on actual interviews with members of the British public. The combination of natural speech patterns, including halting observations, mumbling and overlapping dialogue, with animated animals is consistently hilarious, particularly when a menagerie of dogs, pigs, birds and cats tries to figure out the words and meaning of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”
If you’ve never seen “Creature Comforts,” give yourself an early holiday treat. It’s as if the cast of “This is Spinal Tap” hijacked Gumby and Pokey and took them for a wild ride.
Other highlights
An institutionalized patient is haunted by her dead twin on “Ghost Whisperer” (8 p.m., CBS).
Howie Mandel hosts “Deal or No Deal” (8 p.m., NBC).
The voices of Ray Romano and John Leguizamo appear in the 2002 animated fantasy “Ice Age” (8 p.m., Fox).
Scheduled on “Dateline” (9 p.m., NBC): a small Florida town reels from a drunken-driving accident. Postponed from an earlier date.
Calvin Cambridge (Bow Wow) stars in the 2002 basketball fantasy “Like Mike” (8 p.m., WB).
An opportunity to save an innocent woman’s life may jeopardize a case against a predator on “Close to Home” (9 p.m., CBS).
The death of a judge’s wife on “Numb3rs” (10 p.m., CBS).
A car-bomb tragedy casts light on a family’s shadowy past on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (10 p.m., NBC).
“Movies that Shook the World” (10 p.m., AMC) glances back at the impact of director Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci fi drama “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
A Victorian miser (Reginald Owen) receives a lesson he’ll not soon forget in the 1938 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (7 p.m., TCM).
Actress Julianne Moore discusses her career on “Movies 101” (10:30 p.m., AMC).
Cult choice
Two disaffected teens (Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson) fall into the lonely orbit of an oddball record collector (Steve Buscemi) in the 2001 adaptation of the graphic novel “Ghost World” (5 p.m., Independent Film Channel).
Series notes
Working parents with three kids need help on “Supernanny” (8 p.m., ABC) … Wrestling on “Friday Night SmackDown!” (10 p.m., UPN) … Truth serum in the dentist’s chair on “Hope & Faith” (9 p.m., ABC) … Ava feels tempted on “Hot Properties” (9:30 p.m., ABC).