Your Favorite Holiday Special

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

It occurred to me today that the "I have a machine gun now. Ho-ho-ho" scene in Die Hard is kind of D&D-ish. Just the whole looting a better weapon off of a slain enemy thing

And then the Malkavian art in 1st Edition Vampire The Masquerade wore it on a shirt, kinda coming full circle there.

Let's see: Does "That Christmas" on Netflix count? A cute animated Christmas flick based on stories written by the screenwriter of "Love Actually." It's become an annual watch for my family. (It debuted at BFI London, but went straight to Netflix).

"Muppets Family Christmas": all of the then- Muppets on screen at once (Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and even a touch of Muppet Babies). It's on YouTube.

And since I can't pick "Muppets Christmas Carol'" I'm going to pick "Emmit Otter," my wife's favorite.

I'd also vote "Hogfather," but I literally just started watching it for the first time this morning.

Honorable mentions to "Prep and Landing" (My wife's other favorite), "Phineas and Ferb's Chrismtas Vacation!" (A favorite of our kids), and "Charlie Brown" (for nostalgia factor).

Further info: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChristmasSpecial

 

[Tonguez]

It's more a Christmas movie than Die Hard

Batman Returns is absolutely a christmas movie, but I'd dispute if its "more" so than Die Hard!

 

[jian]

Scrooge checking in I guess but I can honestly say this wasn't hard for me because I cannot think of a single "holiday special" TV show which is actually positive for me. There are some Who Xmas ones which aren't bad, but they're still worse than like, a decent normal episode of Who (at least all the ones I can think of). Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't too bad I guess!

I don't say this out some genuine anti-Xmas (or other holiday) curmudgeonly-ness - there are countless good Xmas movies or non-special Xmas episodes of shows.

Yes, I'm pretty much with you here. Like everyone else I've seen thousands upon thousands of Christmas specials but none of them are really as good as a good episode of what they're based on. Here are some honourable mentions:

• Blackadder's Christmas Carol comes close (and has a solid premise) but it's really not as good as what came before or after (Forth being the best series, obviously). And the New Year special that followed was unmentionably execrable.
• The various Dr Who specials have been fine - they're best when they're less about Christmas and more about bridging plot, such as The Runaway Bride - but none of them are a patch on a good episode or two-parter.
• Party Games (Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister) is really a series bridging episode; it's good but no better than a typical episode.