Do they still do celebrity Christmas specials on TV? I ask because…who watches terrestrial network TV anymore? I know I don’t. Perhaps more to the point: do we even have the kind of celebrities nowadays that could pull off one, or have ones we’d care to spend a holiday evening with in our homes?

By Paul Mavis

During network television’s heyday, the biggest stars in their fields used to oblige us with yearly Christmas spectaculars on the boob tube (Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, etc.), featuring equally big movie and TV stars dropping in to do a quick comedy bit or a duet and some soft shoe with the host, before scooting out into the Los Angeles heat, check firmly in hand as they headed out for one of David Janssen‘s sex parties in Malibu.

These were no-brainer gigs that reached huge television audiences, keeping the hosts and guest stars in the viewers’ consciousnesses for another year, minting lots of coins for the networks and sponsors, while taxing the V.I.P.s’ time and talents to a relatively minimum degree. Could that happen today?

First of all…who are the stars today that are tops in either music or movies who not only match the decades-long loyalty of the above-mentioned performers, but who also have a long-term relationship with television? And what, exactly, are their talents?

I keep hearing, rather astoundingly, that Tom Cruise (jesus…) is the last true movie star we have right now. Can you imagine that utterly amorphous, frighteningly opaque automaton headlining a traditional hour-long holiday TV special, where he warbled a few Christmas tunes in front of a fire, inbetween jack-assing around with Hollywood pallies like Brad Pitt and George Clooney? Xenu, in the Seventh Dynamic, would not be amused.

What we call “celebrities” today are overwhelmingly these piteously one-dimensional “talents” who are lacking, along with hard-earned variety skills like singing and dancing, the one performative aspect needed above all else to pull off these TV Christmas specials: the balls to put themselves out there, for purely entertainment purposes, for the average Joe audiences in TVland, looking for an hour’s distraction from this lousy world we inhabit.

Today’s “talent” is so coddled, so carefully cultivated and so infrequently doled out to his or her fans, that they would never agree to a relatively small-budgeted TV project, put together in a matter of weeks, where its success was largely predicated on the star’s ability to deliver a confident, diversified, professional performance.

And don’t get me started on those grievously incompetent, grotesque creatures called “reality stars.” May they shriek and squeal in terror at the first rays of a new pop culture sunshine, and slink back toward an unmarked, uncelebrated primordial ooze, to decay into a fetid, purulent film upon the mud.

No such worries with multi-talented Donny and Marie Osmond (yes…that’s a segue). I’ve written before about that 70s dynamic duo, so to increase our site’s eyeballs, I’m not going to summarize their appeal―just click here and learn (as my editor marks off another box on his, “Things Paul Must Include In His Reviews” checklist…right above, “Make Rueful Joke about Committing Suicide,”).

Click to order The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show on DVD:

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Donny & Marie certainly had the musical and dancing and comedy skit chops to pull off one of those Christmas TV specials…which, rather ironically, The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show, a 2006 R2 Entertainment disc we’re looking at here, isn’t.

The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show was clearly marketed back in 2006 as one of those stand-alone specials (and fans seem to remember it as a stand-alone special, as well)…but it’s really just a holiday-themed episode from the last season of their ABC Donny & Marie variety show.

Airing on December 15th, 1978, it no doubt got creamed in the ratings against CBS’s The New Adventures of Wonder Woman and NBC’s Diff’rent Strokes―a guess, in this case…but considering Donny & Marie‘s last season garnered a pathetic 62 Nielsen rating, it’s a guess I’m willing to put money on (and yes, technically, it makes my opening paragraphs totally irrelevant, particularly since there are no celebrity guest stars, but you come up with this shit when you have to revamp a 19-year-old review and you got zero ideas and the old lady is yelling at you because you left the back door open by accident, purely by accident, so that the cat ran away and you’re down to maybe a shot or two of Johnnie Walker Black Label before the bottle runs dry).

Technicalities aside (jesus..let it go), The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show is fairly representative of the numerous Christmas specials that one could typically choose from back in the 1970’s. Since this special stars the Osmond family, the emphasis is squarely on music, family and God―a far more limited focus when compared to other more secular Christmas specials from that time period.

The snow-bound Utah settings for The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show are admittedly spectacular. Imposing mountains and snowy valleys open the show, with the Osmond family making their way through a real snow storm. There’s certainly nothing fake about that snow―no painted corn flakes being thrown around in a hot LA  soundstage―and it easily puts you right in the Christmas mood.

After Donny & Marie tell the viewer that this particular special will be an “all-Osmond only” special (including the first appearance of the Osmond Wives singing, as well as Mother and Father Osmond, and older brothers Virl and Tom performing), the action switches inside to a big set depicting a western-style cabin. Here, the Osmonds perform various songs including Let’s Have an Old-Fashioned Christmas, and Cooking Christmas Dinner, while Donny introduces his then-new bride, Debra, singing a duet with her (still going strong after 47 years of marriage).

Then, after some sports out in the snow, Donny & Marie head off to give a Christmas concert, complete with an appearance by Santa Claus. After their return home, the family puts on a talent show, and once the kids are put to bed, the grown-ups gather in the family room to sing one more song for the viewer.

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Despite the more traditional approach to the standard network TV holiday special, there’s much to like in The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show. As always, the one quality that comes through very clearly with the Osmonds, aside from their obvious talent, is their sincerity (you really can’t fake that; proof of that is 99.99% of all Hollywood stars come off as disingenuous assholes when they reach for “sincerity”). Unashamedly, the Osmonds put their Christian faith out front (although they’re careful not to be specific about their Mormon beliefs).

This might come as a shock to casual TV viewers today, who have become so used to a prime-time TV land now largely expunged of positive Christian religion references (now that the American Left has finally embraced their virulent anti-semitism, just wait for Hollywood to open the floodgates on Judaism).

The Osmonds also firmly believe in the traditional family unit, with an emphasis on celebrating familial bonds that grow outward to include parents, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, grandchildren and grandparents (yet another social unit that Hollyweird television loves to skewer…as long as the target consists of a White Mom and Dad and 2.5 straight children).

Of course, these principles are nothing new to most Americans; most Americans live these tenets every day. But television, after decades of not only veering away from, but actively seeking to help destroy mainstream, traditional American beliefs, largely eschews them now, painting a false portrait of an America that, on the tube, doesn’t believe in religion or traditional families.

Several of The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show‘s production numbers are quite good. Donny singing to his new wife, Debra, is a nice, quiet moment (she has a fine voice, too)…although it’s hard to hear You’re Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady now without visualizing Seinfeld‘s Newman interpreting it. Marie, too, has a fun moment with some of the Osmond kids, building a snowman while singing Walking in a Winter Wonderland.

Together, Donny & Marie are in fine form for their concert segment (filmed at their then-new Osmond Studios entertainment facilities in Orem, Utah). Whether you like their brand of music or not, their showmanship can’t be questioned, nor their infectious enthusiasm. George and Olive Osmond, referred to here only as Father and Mother Osmond, have a touching moment alone, reminiscing about past Christmases, and there’s a spirited Victorian Christmas-themed number (reminiscent of Mary Poppins) about chimney sweeps.

Not all of The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show, though, is successful. Particularly embarrassing is the production number with just the male Osmonds cooking Christmas dinner. It’s a chaotic mess, with non-existent choreography, and several of the guys mugging terribly.

At one point, Marie promises to show the family at play out in the snow, for the benefit of the viewers at home who may never have experienced a white Christmas. It’s a nice thought, but unfortunately, the footage is framed in ugly, garish graphics listing the names of the people involved, spoiling what could have been a fun segment.

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Perhaps most unfortunate is Jimmy Osmond’s solo stint, singing If Christ Should Come Tomorrow. I don’t have a problem with religious songs on a Christmas special, obviously, nor does it bother me that an image of Jesus Christ is superimposed over the mountains of Utah at the end of Jimmy’s song. After all, it’s a Christmas special with the Osmonds―who do you think is going to be up there? Satan? Or worse, John Davidson?

What does bother me with this particular song selection is the nagging, vaguely haranguing tone it imposes on the viewer. If I’m watching a Christmas special, I want to hear uplifting songs, or nostalgic songs, or just happy songs―secular or religious, it doesn’t matter to me. What I don’t want is to be told what a mess the world is in, and that it’s my fault because I’m not religious enough (If the sky turns black as midnight in the middle of the day / And somehow you knew that Jesus would soon be on His way / Would you have to beg forgiveness?). Entertain me (and if you care to, uplift and encourage me). I’ll thank you for your efforts, because I need them. But don’t lecture me. Not on a holiday TV special.

The habit of watching these kind of Christmas specials seems to be a lost tradition. For many growing up in the 1970s and before, watching the roster of celebrity Christmas TV specials was as much a family tradition as carving the Christmas turkey. It’s popular for new “critics” to condescend to past TV viewers; the elitist notion has long taken hold that past TV viewers were largely unsophisticated rubes, bitterly clinging to their guns and Bibles, who just recently were replaced with a savvy, informed, discriminating (as well as immoral and anti-religious) audience that can smell this kind of obvious tripe a mile out.

That’s bullshit. We were well aware (yes, even that far back) that these were commercialized TV products, manufactured for our amusement, first and last (the commercials were the first tip-off). We took them for what they were, and if the message of the season came through, that was fine, too.

Perhaps we’re more cynical or jaded now, to be sure (or more accurately: it’s just now more acceptable to wear ages-old cynicism on your sleeve). There’s definitely an element of sneering “you expect me to buy this?” pessimism out there in the collective culture that probably makes these kinds of specials anathema to a lot of kids and families, and that’s a shame. The Donny & Marie 1978 Christmas Show is by no means a perfect Christmas “special” (because it’s not a true TV “special,” okay?  Get off it!), but it has its moments, and it’s fine for family viewing at this time of year. And that means something nowadays. Or at least it should.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published movie and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of THE ESPIONAGE FILMOGRAPHY. Click to order.

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