My 10 Favorite Christmas Moments in Film & TV

Some say Christmas has become too commercial (well, Charlie Brown has been saying that since 1965). The Thanksgiving turkey is barely out the oven before we're bombarded with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales and radio stations convert to 24-hour holiday music marathons. But that's ok by me -- even if we do get sidetracked from the true meaning of the season, whatever your belief, it's a time that hopefully we find ourselves coming together with friends and family. And for the movie and TV buff among us, we can check out those holiday moments from the big and small screen that strike a chord with us. With a happy 50th anniversary nod to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which airs tonight on CBS, my 10 favorite moments...

1. Ralphie Meets Santa

 

There are so many funny memorable moments in the beloved A Christmas Story: the tongue on the icy pole, the leg lamp. But this scene reminded me of my mother taking me to Manhattan's Macys and Gimbels to check out the department store Santas when I was kid (they just weren't quite as scary).


2. The Miser Brothers - They're Too Much!

 

From the Rankin-Bass catalog of stop animation, The Year Without A Santa Claus ages best, in no small part to the Heat Miser / Cold Miser brothers and their catchy song (which even was featured in the Batman and Robin film).

 

 

3. Peanuts Dance Party

 

 

Yes, the Charlie Brown Christmas features the heartfelt "meaning of Christmas" speech by Linus but do you anticipate any scene more than the Peanuts gang dancing to Schroeder's jazzy tune?

 

 

 

4. You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch

 

 

How bad is the Grinch? His "theme" song tells it all, from Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas (fun fact: it was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft who also voiced Kellogg's Tony the Tiger).

 

 

5. Bedford Falls Helps Out George Bailey

 

 

For the record, I'm impatient. So I get annoyed by how long it takes George Bailey to realize he is not dreaming or getting pranked by Clarence the angel-in-training in It's A Wonderful Life. Still, when the townsfolk come together and donate their hard-earned money to save George's bank, well, that IS the meaning of Christmas. 

 

 

6. End Scene - Bad Santa & The Stuffed Elephant

 

 

Bad Santa is not for kids or even some adults. It is one raunchy, envelope-pushing black comedy. And just when you think the title character, played by Billy Bob Thornton, has no redeeming qualities, he surprises you in the final scene of the film.

 

 

7. Santa! I Know Him!

 

 

It's a scene from Elf that lasts but a few seconds, but when Will Ferrell expresses extreme jubilation once the department store announces Santa's arrival, it still works as the catalyst to one of the film's funniest moments.

 

 

8. Soldiers vs. Bogeymen

 

 

 

It may not officially be a holiday film, but the Laurel and Hardy Babes in Toyland-based March of the Wooden Soldiers features a climatic battle between the life-size soldiers and the evil bogeymen.

 

 

9. The Island of Misfit Toys

 

 

The classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is filled with many memorable moments and characters, including these playful oddities which eventually find their way inside Santa's sack of toys. Hey, what was wrong with the doll, by the way?

 

 

10. Tonto, Frankenstein and Tarzan

 

 

 

This 30-second Saturday Night Live skit featured Tonto, Tarzan and Frankenstein singing a barely recognizable Away In A Manger. This spot-on parody captured the holiday greetings from staff that played on our local station WPIX New York as well as many other local stations across the country.

 

 

Honorable Mention: The Yule Log

 

 

Speaking of WPIX in New York City, the channel's annual tradition, that began in the 1960s, was to broadcast this burning log against the soundtrack of popular holiday music. Like Grandma's fruitcake, it wasn't really the Christmas season without it (fun fact: it was originally filmed in Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the New York City mayor).

 

 

I'm sure there are others I would have liked to add (sorry, Frosty), but there you go. What's your favorite?

 

 

 

 

© 2014. Tom Quash

 

 

 

 

8 Questions for Chris Cathcart - The Spirit of Giving Back

The Spirit of Giving Back

8 Questions for Chris Cathcart
Activist, Communicator, Author

Christopher Cathcart is a published author; public relations, marketing and brand development expert; and a noted social entrepreneur. In 1995, Cathcart founded OneDiaspora Group, a Los Angeles and Washington, DC-based communications consulting firm whose clients have included Jaguar Cars, Hidden Beach Recordings, UniWorld Group, Inc., Heart & Soul magazine, among others. His first book, The Lost Art of Giving Back, a how-to guide to volunteerism, was published in 2007. Before starting OneDiaspora Group, he was an executive at some of the world’s leading entertainment and media companies, including CNN, Motown Records, and Warner Bros. Television. Beyond the world of communications, Cathcart is also highly respected in the advocacy and service communities. He works tirelessly in promoting HIV/AIDS awareness and education, as well as mentorships for at-risk youth. He is the co-editor of the new book, HBCU Experience - The Book: A Collection of Essays Celebrating the Black College Experience.

 

Your passion for giving back is woven throughout all that you do, and have done, through your adult life. What drives you?

I’ve always been committed to dedicating my time and resources and talents to improving the environment I’m in – my community, the nation, the world – however you want to define it. I just think we have a responsibility to make sure we leave this place a little better than we got it. And this goes back to my Howard University days; working with student groups in an effort to try and improve whatever conditions we found ourselves in and in trying to enlighten people so that they felt some responsibility to do the same. No matter what I did professionally or what I do professionally, it’s always been geared toward some form of service and giving back.

 

How can we make an impact?

There’s so much need out there that it’s easy to identify things that can use your input or support. The trick is, as individuals, finding the things that we might be passionate about and feeling compelled enough to go beyond our comfort zone and actually get involved. There is no debate about whether you should do something. The debate is really what you do. And that is an individual decision. I tell people all the time, you don’t have to do what I do. But you have to find some way that you can make a difference. Because we are all beneficiaries of the people who came before us; those who experienced some level of sacrifice so that we’re able to do the things that we’re able to do today. This journey is not over; we’re just at this precise point of it, so it is still our responsibility to ensure that those that come after us have an easier way to go. They’ll still have their challenges but hopefully they will overcome some hurdles so that they can go on and fight new battles.

 

From your perspective, have we made progress and where can we continue to improve?

I do believe we have made progress, but there’s a lot more work to be done. I think one of the major hurdles we have to overcome now—and this is my personal belief—is that we live in a very selfish time where it’s very easy to be self-centered about how you approach life. I think that while the advent of social networking and new media in one sense has brought many more people together than could’ve been brought together otherwise, it also allows you to focus very heavily on yourself and your own self-interests. And so we have to overcome the tendency with using all of this new technology to indulge our own individual ideas and wants and needs as opposed to using the ability to connect with so many people as a way to uplift and educate and inspire large numbers of people. We have the tools to be much more effective with doing good and reaching out. If you look at Facebook and Twitter, a lot of these posts are extremely self-serving. And we all have a desire to feel important and stand out, but as Dr. King said, everybody can be great because everyone can serve. So we have to fight that urge to overindulge and try to use some of our energy and skill and passion to try and inspire others.

 
Tell me about your new book, HBCU Experience - The Book.

My partner in this project, Dr. Tia Tyree, [co-editor] and myself both believed that HBCUs [historically black colleges and universities] are still vital. They still have a very important role in our education system and need to be protected and exalted and we need to remind folks of these things. There are already many vehicles out there to discuss black colleges – websites, movies, TV shows. But we thought one of the things that is often lost in the discussion is the actual experience and the experiences of the graduates themselves. And not just the famous people who have attended. The reality is, for the most part, they weren’t famous when they were there. There were certain things perhaps that happened within the context of their time at the HCBU that helped propelled them to the things that they ultimately did.

So what we wanted to do is collect a series of stories from various HBCU graduates from various eras and have them discuss an incident or an experience while they were at school that helped fundamentally shaped who they are today. With these stories, we could share them with other HBCU grads and people who went to predominantly white institutions so that they could get a glimpse of what those who have attended an HBCU have experienced. These can also be shared with high school students who may be entertaining which school to go to and what type of school to apply to, giving them just another piece of information to consider as they make that decision. And most importantly, this effort is to really help underscore that our HBCUs and black colleges are still relevant and play a tremendous role and will continue to play one in educating our people.

 

Does this relevance become more challenging to communicate as some communities become more diverse?

I think that diversity is a challenge but it is a challenge that we should welcome. Black colleges, HBCUs, have to evolve too. The doors should be open, and they are, to people of all backgrounds. There are some people who frown upon those black colleges that are trying to get more non-black students involved. I don’t really feel that way. I just think this offers another opportunity for those who may not want to go to some of the schools they may consider as frontline. It’s important that all young people—particularly people of color, African Americans—at least include HBCUs as they go about the application process for schools. Diversity does make it a little more challenging than, say 40 years ago, when the odds were that you were going to go to a black college if you came from a certain part of the country. That’s not the case anymore. But that diversity shouldn’t be something that takes away from the draw of our black colleges. I never promote just going to black colleges for the sake of going. It still has to do for you what you want it to do. Don’t let the fact that it is a smaller school, maybe not as well funded as some larger institutions, not as diverse as you were lead to believe schools should be, deter you from applying. Because they can fill gaps that maybe some of the other schools and education opportunities don’t.

Howard University, Washington DC

 

Any HBCU experience that stands out for you?

I have a very unique college experience because I came to school on an athletic scholarship. So I played two years as a football player, kept getting hurt, got active on campus and that led to getting involved in student leadership which eventually led to becoming president of student government. Probably the year I spent as president of the student government had a profound impact on me because that was really the first time in my life, from the leadership standpoint, that I was able to really serve. I enjoyed the opportunity to first, serve in that capacity, and secondly, to help raise issues like ending apartheid and getting black studies made mandatory on Howard’s campus, to the point where other people thought they were important as well. And I was able to take the lessons I learned from the many mistakes that I made during that time and apply them when I left school.

 

What’s the one thing most people may not know about you?

People may not know how earnestly I tie up the sense of service and giving as part of my defining character; how hard I am on myself relative to feeling I’m not doing enough. It’s not something I discuss outwardly but I always feel that I should be doing more. I live almost in fear—this may be a bad word—almost in fear that once my time passes on earth I have not done the things I was supposed to do. That may be me pursuing an ever-moving target but I think about that. When all my time is done, I want folks to be able to say, ‘he really tried his best’ and I often fear that I fall short of that.

 

If you could break bread with anyone, living or dead, who might that be?

I’ve often thought about this. Malcolm X. I can tie directly to studying Malcolm in my Afro-American studies class, freshman year at Howard. I did a paper on him: The Evolution of a Black Leader. I got an A- on it but the research for that paper really opened my eyes up and altered my thinking. I attribute a lot of the growth that I had after that to that door being swung all the way open through my reading of his speeches and some of the writings about him and I can draw a line from that experience to a lot of the things I did not only at Howard but afterward.

I think that there are so many people that have such strong feelings about Malcolm X that it clouds the reality of who he was and his journey—personal development, spiritual, political, educational and otherwise. And I would just love to sit down and talk to him and hear from him—the evolution he went through; the arch, where he went from Detroit Red to that unfortunate day in February of ’65 when his life was taken. How was he able to have the courage to make those type of changes when so many of us in life are very reluctant to make any kind of serious changes in our lives. And he did it against tremendous odds. I would just like to know what his journey was like, from him.

 

 

 

 

 

 © 2014. Tom Quash