My lovely wife and unborn, womb-dominating twins joined me in watching Rankin-Bass’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” last night. On actual network television. I like watching Christmas specials on air – even though they’re all available on DVD now – because it takes me back to my halcyon days of youth. The days when we’d sit in front of the TV for an hour beforehand just so we wouldn’t miss that spinning CBS Special logo that heralded the start of the show. The days when if we missed the program, we’d have to wait a whole year to see it.

Which was okay if it was any show involving the Heat Miser; less so if it was Charlie Brown.

Anyway, Hardcastle and McCormick got some sweet, in-utero exposure to Feltamation and I got to rock out to Burl Ives singing “Silver and Gold” and, my favorite, “Holly Jolly Christmas.”

Then this AFLAC ad came on.

Bah. Humbug. I don’t even give them credit for getting the original voice talents – pretty remarkable given the original special is 43 years old. Maybe if they’d shown Hermie as a now-retired dentist cruising in a Buick I’d have chuckled. But no. I get frickin’ Yukon Cornelius mixing it up with Gilbert “The Duck” Gottfried in a campaign that should’ve been eaten by the Bumble long ago.

Where was a focus group when you actually needed one?

At least Burl had the good sense to check out before his 98th birthday.

Guess I better go watch this again to get my yuletide cheer back.

Later,

Fox