Ghost Town (1988)

 

Perry Como’s Early American Christmas (1978)

    Well this was a bit ... sad isn’t exactly the right word, possibly disappointing is more correct? It’s certainly a different beast from the previous two specials. Something of an air of melancholy pervades throughout and I don’t know if I’m bringing that emotion into this or if it comes from a Perry Como that’s finally starting to look his age. He was 66 as this point, after all, and that’s age 66 over forty years ago when that really was starting to be up there in years.

    This is very firmly not a variety special, at least not in the way it was previously meant. There are no stupid skits, no forced comedy, no trying to be hip to the kids of today. This is a very slow walk through a museum with occasional musical interludes. There aren’t even any egregiously inserted commercial plugs. In a way I got my wish for the focus to be more on Como in the cruelest way of all because without those stretches of inanity the straight musical numbers stop being moments of respite and instead just become stitched-together stretches of tedium.

They didn't seem to sweat the opening credits much.

    This special was shot entirely in the historical city of Williamsburg, Virginia and it makes sure you do not forget that fact for a single second. I happen to have visited Williamsburg with my family as a teenager and as mildly ludicrous as it is to say about a town specifically kept period-authentic it hadn’t changed a bit from when Como wanders its streets. I therefore also know that the city is fairly small with just a couple of main roads. The buildings themselves are rather tiny with cramped interior rooms, and that plus the lack of modern lighting must have made it rather a nightmare to shoot and assemble this special and also explains why almost the entire thing was shot in the daytime.

    The show aired Wednesday December 13^th 1978 an ABC, directly after ‘Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey’ and right before ‘Merry Christmas from the Grand Ole Opry House.’ It also aired opposite a showing on CBS of the tv movie ‘Lovey: A Circle of Children, Part II,’ which is definitely going in my notes as something to check out. It’s guest were Kylene Barker, Miss America 1979, Diana Canova, one of the stars of the sitcom ‘Soap,’ and Eugene Fodor, winner of the Tchaikovsky violin competition in 1974. He plays the violin quite a bit in this special.

    The other big name is John Wayne who pops up several times over the course of the special to amble about being, well, John Wayne. He was about six months from his death by stomach cancer when he filmed this special and it occasionally shows, especially in a scene where he had to read a letter from a colonial soldier and stumbles and loses his place several times. Either this was the best take of several or no one had to the heart to push him to do better. For the most part he’s fine and, well, very much John Wayne.

    The entire special rolls forward at a fairly leisurely pace. It opens with a bowdlerized version of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ that runs down the various shops and stores at Williamsburg and shows the employees pounding out horseshoes, baking, weaving baskets, all that kind of stuff as Como wanders from shot to shot. It is nice to hear the word “milliner” used so casually, that’s nice.

I get why there are sheep in Williamsburg but not why in this shot.

    This leads to a brief roll of the opening credits and then a fife and drums display that of course leads to a rendition of “Little Drummer Boy.” This show is not trying to blow any minds. After a commercial break Como directly addresses the audience to introduce the show looking, I’m sorry, very tired. He wanders into a nearby house and starts sampling a spread of old-timey Christmas food. It’s odd to say but I kind of miss the Kraft Foods guy. He hears a violin and wanders into a room with the aforementioned Eugene Fodor playing Thomas Jefferson, who after getting a compliment for his playing utters the immortal line “Your kind words pleasure me,” and an actor playing George Wythe, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. They spend a few minutes talking about how great Ben Franklin was.

    I suppose it’s unavoidable to have a Christmas special set in Colonial Williamsburg with John Wane in the cast and not have it be pretty patriotic but it’s very awkward to sit here in 2020 and get these pat little speeches about how great American democracy is and how wise our founding fathers were. It’s a bit too on the nose for the times we’re living through.

    We get a number from Diana Canova that’s very adult contemporary, very 1978, something called “My Cup Runneth Over.” It was written in 1966 so it’s the arrangement that turns it to treacle. She wanders around a house in something a little too close to a nightgown to be believably period accurate. The Como joins here for, I shit you not, “It Couldn’t Please Me More (The Pineapple Song)” from ‘Cabaret.’ The justification is that pineapples were very rare in colonial times and would have made a very lavish Christmas gift, which is true but it was still their decision to have a pineapple in the shot and then do a number from ‘Cabaret.’ In a Perry Como special in 1978. I spent this entire song staring at my screen in utter confusion.

Listen, we're all confused.

    There’s a montage of shopping scenes again plugging the tourist traps of Williamsburg during which we get introduced to John Wayne being, well, John Wayne. This segues into a ball scene set to ‘Home for the Holidays’ and another violin solo. It’s a much less weird and forced version of that ballet guy in ‘69. This is when Wayne reads the letter from the continental soldier and although they play it up as all stark and sad Ken Burns has ruined such things for us now and instead it just comes off as kid whining about having to fight.

That sure is John Wayne.

    Another Canova number leads to another duet with Como and it occurs to me that they keep doing this, have Como do a love song duet with whatever female guest he happens to have that year. At 25 Canova is the youngest one yet and it’s hard not to notice that as Como gets older the women get younger. More singing, more vague ballroom dancing, and then it’s apparently the next day and we’re seeing an outdoor auction. Which, again, raises some issues about colonial times that the show in no way intends to be raised. The inevitable Christmas medley begins and at least this time the city has on-staff professional singers to help out. Wayne even joins in for a few audible lines.

    The special ends with perhaps the only part where it feels like Como actually cared. His birth name was Pierino, shortened to Perry, and he was very open about his Italian heritage his entire life and was a fairly devout Catholic. I have purposefully omitted a number of Italian jokes over the course of these recaps. One of the most requested songs over his career was ‘Ave Maria’ which he was always reticent to sing, although he would very occasionally do so, demurring that it wasn’t the time or place. Well, apparently now was the time and place as after a very Catholic procession of choirboys (which I can’t help but feel would not have been period authentic in the incredibly Protestant colonial times, but sure let’s go with it) he very simply and with feeling sings ‘Ave Maria’ in what sounds to me like the original Latin before simply wishing the audience at home a good night, ending the special.

It really is a lovely rendition.

    This is an entirely different animal than the specials that came before and looking at the next couple I can’t help but feel it’s something of a preview of what’s to come. Variety shows were basically dead or dying by 1978 and although with its mix of short sketches of scenes, violin solos, and musical numbers this might fit the technical definition of a variety show it feels a thousand miles away from a drunken Santa nuzzling Kukla and Ollie in front of a Hollywood crowd or Sally Struthers shaking her stuff at the North Pole. While much calmer and more tonally consistent this lacks any of the harebrained loony energy that made the previous specials whipsaw back and forth in at least an interesting way. Como is older, slower, and grayer and the songs are either a mix of the deeply traditional or just odd, not trying to be hip and cool but I guess maybe just recognizable. I have no intention of watching it but I can’t help but feel that ‘Merry Christmas from the Grand Ole Opry House’ felt more contemporary at the time.

    Maybe sad is the right word for this after all, not in an insulting sense but in a kind of gradual recognition of the passing of time and increasing cultural irrelevancy. Melancholy, perhaps. Como still had a prime time special on one of the three networks but this couldn’t have really been appointment television. His yearly specials would last another eight years before either old age or network indifference finally put a stop to them. He’s still not a performer I would ever seek out to enjoy in my own time but he’s very much been the best part of all of his specials. I suppose that should have been expected but apparently I was much more condescending about the past than even I was aware of.

    Oh, and if you’re wondering why I never pointed out an appearance by Kylene Barker, Miss American 1979, it’s because even after watching this twice and literally having a picture of her in the corner of the screen I managed to not notice her at all.