Dial up, savor some forgotten yuletide classics

The countdown is on as Christmas shows glow one final weekend through Sunday on television.

The annual 24-hour marathon for “A Christmas Story,” the throwback classic caper from 1983, begins at 8 p.m. Saturday, on two channels: on TBS and TNT, with screenings every two hours.

Every year, the season’s array of yuletide fare grows, with premieres of movies and specials. Dolly Parton, owner of Pirates Voyage Dinner & Show in Myrtle Beach, has struck gold for two straight Decembers on NBC, last year with “Coat of Many Colors,” garnering the highest viewership for a TV movie or miniseries since 2013, and earlier this month with “Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love,” drawing an estimated 11.4 million viewers. The latter movie, released Tuesday on DVD, will air again, 9-11 p.m. Friday on NBC (WMBF-TV 32, WECT-TV 6, and WCBD-TV 2).

New productions also perhaps trigger a thirst for classics, some that paved the way for the hits of today, and others with a heyday long since forgotten. Look around, though, and uncover some buried treasures. Some are more obscure, without any broadcast times, but don’t let that be an obstacle, for if DVDs exist, sales might be found on the web and in secondhand retailers, especially those specializing in videos and TV series box sets. Also, some episodes and whole movies might be posted on YouTube. A sampling:

‘Christmas with the Kranks’

Tim Allen has solidified his place in cinema classics since the 1990s with “The Santa Clause” and “Toy Story” series – each with two sequels. In “Christmas with the Kranks,” from 2004, with their lone, grown child abroad in the Peace Corps, Luther Krank (Allen) sells his wife Nora Krank (Jamie Lee Curtis) on migrating for Christmas on a Caribbean cruise and skipping their annual Christmas Eve party for the neighborhood and such streetwide traditions such as hauling a snowman figure to stand on the rooftop. However, their daughter calls, saying she’s flying home that night with a surprise.

The biggest revelation results from the patriarch himself, realizing the best gift of all, for the retired couple across the street, coping with recurring challenges from cancer. Never mind Leonard Maltin’s published “BOMB” adjective; “Kranks” has been reborn, airing this past month, and cued up again for this weekend, at 8 and 10 p.m. Friday on FX, and on Lifetime at 9 p.m. Sunday and 1:02 a.m. Monday.

‘JAG’ Christmas Eve trilogy

This series, which ended in 2005 after a decade – its first year on NBC, the rest on CBS – came with a trilogy of episodes of Christmas episodes, all centering on Navy Lt. Cmdr. Harmon Rabb Jr. (David James Elliott) and Marine Corps Lt. Col. Sarah MacKenzie (Catherine Bell, also known for “Army Wives”), with closely knit workmates.

In “Jaggle Bells” from 1998, a Christmas Eve snowstorm gets complicated as they try to help an orphaned girl, but the squall lifts in multiple ways. “Ghosts of Christmas Past,” 1999, takes viewers back to the Vietnam War in 1969, paying tribute to Bob Hope and the USO, also covering how Harm’s fighter pilot father made a lasting difference for others before he went missing in action. “Answered Prayers,” from 2001, deals more than just with a restored red Corvette that goes missing and a petty officer accused of stealing money while in Santa’s garb. The episode lets the world stop for a moment in church as a retired Navy chaplain from the Vietnam War sermonizes about fathers – including scripture’s description, and the more or less unknown details, of Christ’s – and their value in people’s lives.

‘Olive, the Other Reindeer’

The animated tale from 1999, for which the producers include Matt Groening – best known for “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” – follows the dog Olive’s quest to reach the North Pole after a hearing on the radio about Santa canceling his annual journey because of an injured reindeer. No one sways Olive (Drew Barrymore) either, from the refrain she that misheard the words “all of the other reindeer,” and in the end, that’s just whom she joins, overcoming all the obstructions posed by a disgruntled letter carrier (Dan Castellaneta).

The human characters’ drawings might prompt thoughts about flounder – fish whose eyes wind up close to each other on side of the head in adulthood – but this production carries a creativity that really shows in a “making of” documentary of all the genuine fun the cast, musicians and crew must’ve had through the whole process.

‘Snowden on Ice’

This ice skating showcase debuted in 1997, but never came out in any other known means beyond VHS tape. The skaters comprise two Canadians – Kurt Browning, who claimed four world figure skating championships more than two decades ago, and three-time national gold medalist Josee Chouinard – as well as two Olympic winners: Scott Hamilton (1984) and Ekaterina Gordeeva (1988 and ’94), natives of Ohio and Russia, respectively.

Watch as Browning dazzles in footwork during a workout with a young hockey team, getting in the way of Chouinard’s spirals and form emphasized with her figure skating students, and how a snowman named Snowden comes to life, in a special ice routine with Gordeeva’s real-life daughter from her first husband and pairs partner, the late Sergei Grinkov. Amy Grant, Anne Murray, Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Rogers, B.J. Thomas, and the late Lou Rawls, score perfect marks with each of their own recordings for this show, footage for which includes a Via Rail passenger train rolling through the Canadian mountainside.

‘How the Flintstones Saved Christmas’

Originally titled “Christmas Flintstone,” this episode first aired in 1964, during the fifth of six seasons of “The Flintstones,” a pioneering primetime animated series run on ABC. This half-hour installment delves into Fred’s desire to moonlight for extra money to buy Christmas presents, and how he morphs through several positions at the local department store, winding up as its Santa, and later filling in for Kris Kingle on his journey, voicing greetings in native languages of several places where deliveries are dropped down chimneys.

As Fred bounces from job to job, have a laugh with his stint in gift wrapping, when a demanding customer’s request for packaging an umbrellla works out unexpectedly just right. Also, sing along in the round for a cute ditty called “Dino the Dinosaur.”

‘Santa and the Three Bears’

This hourlong movie from 1970, set in Yellowstone National Park – and probably found only in dollar-sale bins with collections of old Christmas cartoons – follows Nana, the mother of twin cubs eager to find out about, and celebrate, Christmas, when they’re supposed to be in hibernation.

Mama Bear, voiced by the late Jean Vander Pyl – best known as Wilma Flintstone from “The Flintstones” – receives help in bringing some cheer for the cubs from a ranger cast by Hal Smith – remember him as Otis Campbell on “The Andy Griffith Show,” and John Hansen, the father in the “Davey and Goliath” children’s series?

‘The Tangerine Bear: Home in Time for Christmas’

The title character in this special from 2000 follows the plight of a teddy bear voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas – the middle Taylor son from Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement” sitcom – who in the factory, has a smile sewn upside down as a frown. This defect brings banishment to a department store’s discount bin on Christmas Eve, but eventually brings the bear a second chance at being loved in a display window, thanks a family store with other misfit toys and wares, and owned by Mr. Winkle (Tom Bosley).

Trisha Yearwood narrates, and sings in, this story about “our little hero,” as she calls the bear, among a cast with Jenna Elfman (from “Dharma & Greg”), David Hyde Pierce (“Frasier”) and comedians Howie Mandel and Marlon Wayans.

Randy Travis doubles up

In the movie “A Holiday to Remember,” which premiered in 1995 on television, Travis plays Clay Traynor, a man stood up at the altar years earlier by Carolyn Giblin (Connie Sellecca), who moves with her daughter from California to the bucolic life in fictional Mayville, S.C. After hearing rustlings in the cellar, Giblin calls the police (also, Travis), and they encounter a runaway boy and his lone friend, a dog. The Giblins welcone the pair to join their household, but Traynor’s girlfriend, heading up the local social services, thinks otherwise.

In “Annabelle’s Wish,” an hour cartoon from 1997, Travis narrates the story about a boy on a farm who, while unable to talk, befriends a cow yearning to fly with Santa’s reindeer, and they later make a trade for life. The soundtrack is so uplifting, especially with Dolly Parton and Alison Krauss each singing selections, and Travis and Beth Nielsen Chapman teaming up on another.

Also, look for the late Rue McClanahan in the first movie, and hear her in the second.

Ditto for Vanessa Williams

Vanessa Williams – singer, actress, and former Miss America – made Christmas movies a decade apart. In “The Kid Who Loved Christmas,” from 1990, her widower (Michael Warren), an on-the-go musician, is second guessed by adoption agency aide (the late Esther Rolle) in their efforts to adopt a young son, but a supportive cast, including Della Reese, Cicely Tison, Ben Vereen, and the late Sammy Davis Jr., help the father to rally as a family, as the youngster ventures on his own channels to connect with Santa in hopes of ending up with his adoptive dad.

“A Diva’s Christmas Carol,” which debuted on VH1 in 2000, adds a 21st-century zip to Charles Dickens’ colossal story, as Williams plays Ebony Scrooge, taken on journeys by ghosts of Christmas past (Kathy Griffin) and present (Duran Duran’s John Taylor). Notice, too, the cameos by Brian McKnight and Chic’s Nile Rodgers in a fictitious VH1 “Behind the Music” episode that Ebony sees in a glimpse ahead after her demise.

Tweety turns into Granny’s gift

A Looney Tunes episode from 1952 stars Tweety bird and Sylvester the cat – both voiced by the late Mel Blanc – in “Gift Wrapped,” from 1952. Sylvester switches the tage for Santa’s gift for him, a rubber mouse, with Granny’s present, Tweety. Key words to remember as Granny (the late Bea Benaderet), already with a pet cat and dog, tries to enjoy Christmas morning: “Drop it! Drop it! Drop it! ...”

This story was originally published December 22, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Dial up, savor some forgotten yuletide classics."