We offer up some holiday entertainment to hopefully help make that Christmas travel just a little bit easier this season. Rock legends Donnie Iris and the Cruisers join us with a special performance to set the holiday tone. Joanna Wilson, author of ‘Tis The Season TV and the Christmas TV Companion walks us through the ins and outs of the Christmas special. And, of course, we run down the week in geek, including our quick take on Sherlock 2, some Skyrim bug fixes (less arrows to the knee, we hear), awesome news on the private orbital space flight front, and lots of trailer talk — Dark Knight, Battleship, Snow White, and MIB3 to name just a few. Happy holidays from your friends in Texas, y’all.
Every time I hear someone mention the fact that smartphones these days are more powerful than the Apollo program’s computers:
Are you sure they didn’t just dub in Tommy Lee Jones over the guy playing young Kay in the MIIIB trailer?
Just a lil reminder from the folks at Team Unicorn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UqEhUm2B_8&ob=av3e
HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
Chuck, I remembered your reaction when I posted this picture during Eff This Week, so that’s how I picked out one of the presents.
Thanks! Grunt’s actually a thoroughly awesome action figure – big with lots of detail. He’s been menacing my desk since Saturday. 
wait … “Steve Allen” is trying to get into space?
I think he talked to Frank Zappa too much
I believe the reference was for Paul Allen.
I’d prefer to share a compiler with Paul, and a martini with Steve.
OB
P.S.
Happy Holidays from our family to yours.
I’ll never look at Chocolate cake the same way again…
Cheers!
Mike Ness for president.
If you enjoyed the guests, here’s more…
Donnie Iris & the Cruisers are online at http://www.donnieiris.com/ and http://www.twitter.com/donnieiris
Here’s a bio/story about the group:
http://popdose.com/the-popdose-guide-to-donnie-iris-and-the-cruisers-its-a-rough-world/
And here’s a link to Tis the Season TV:
On Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/tistheseasontv
For what it’s worth, I actually loved The Dark Knight trailer. I watched it several times because of the awesome action and imagery. Admittedly though, I had little concept of what was actually happening.
~Shooter Out
I don’t understand how directly quoting a passage of scripture that defines the holiday that’s being celebrated is “preachy”? I think it’s quite simply stated and even minimalist. Not looking for an argument here at all, I just want to show support for Christianity making an appearance in a Christmas special. Not everyone in the geek community is atheist or agnostic, though we Christians are a distinct minority. I have even heard support from non-Christian geeks for the spiritual content of the CB Xmas Special. I hope I was successful in being respectful, I’m not into getting into people’s faces to argue religion, I just wanted to express my contrary view.
Mickey’s Xmas Carol is a good one. Sure, it skimps on Scrooge’s backstory. But it sets the story up, knocks it down, drives the point home.
I agree with you that it is relatively minimalist as far as it could have been. The rest of the special is pretty bereft of any mention (“Hark the Herald Angels Sing” notwithstanding) of Jesus. When you take it with all the other Christmas specials, it is definitely a stand out in those terms. Most Christmas specials approach Christmas from a relatively secular standpoint. They’re about Christmas in America - Traditions, decorations, presents, etc. So from that perspective, I think A Charlie Brown Christmas could be seen as preachy - it’s just about the only special that does mention the birth of Christ.
The thing that stands out most to me is how people react to it. I think most Christians I’ve come across are pleased and touched that the Luke 2 account is in there - finally a Christmas special that acknowledges the birth of Christ. Whereas secularists, or people of other faiths get mildly annoyed or even offended at this seemingly random insertion of Christian doctrine into their thus-far secular Christmas special.
So I’d say it’s perspective.
It does. I really enjoy the way it mixes in a whole slew of Disney characters. It’s as though the producers said "We’ve got 100 properties here - we want them all in here… all of them. Make it happen.
Did someone mention Bad Santa in this episode? Well did/didn’t people should watch it. Proper xmas story. Made me cry.
Thanks for that thoughtful response. I think people who don’t subscribe to Christianity can at least gain some historical and cultural insight into Christmas by realizing this brief passage of the Bible spawned a worldwide holiday still being celebrated centuries later. If I wasn’t a Christian I’d probably still find that pretty fascinating.