What Was On TV? Sat, Dec 25, 2004
The Queen of Christmas graces Disney World with her present, plus figure skating. Merry Christmas!
20 years ago, America actually had a White Christmas. Even in Texas! If this were real life, I'd be spending Christmas with my family and not watching TV at all. But 2004 me is not real, so she's going to watch some TV.
Morning Walt Disney Christmas Day Parade
Available on YouTube, with commercials and without
This is basically an excuse for Disney to promote their multimedia empire to families around the country, so it offers a fascinating snapshot of the company in this moment. And it doesn't look great! They're hawking Chicken Little, the Lilo and Stitch animated series, and CGI animated Donald Duck. The company looks creaky and desperate. How would they crawl their way out.
The answer lies in two of the parade's hosts: Kermit and Miss Piggy. Disney had acquire the Jim Henson company and the Muppets earlier that year, and here they are, integrated into the Disney promotional machine. So Disney bought other companies out (Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox) until they seemed untouchable. It's kind of depressing! Jump 5 and Raven Symone are here, and I wonder, what if they'd just made candy-colored entertainment for tweens? They were good at that, all by themselves.
But enough about the Walt Disney company! Let's talk about the true star of the show: the Queen of Christmas herself, Mariah Carey. She opens the show with "All I Want For Christmas is You" (of course), performing in front of Cinderella's castle with tumblers and Disney cast members. It takes a special performer to pull that off, and Mariah is that performer. Then you think it's over, only for her to emerge in the highest window of the castle like the pope, letting everyone worship her. She sings "Joy to the World" at the end of the show and that performance is spectacular as well, her vocals are stupendous.
2:00 Holiday Celebration on Ice
Watch on YouTube
There is a lot of musical guest Michael McDonald in this show. But there's also some great skating so it balances out in the end.
I love Kristi Yamaguchi so much. She does a "Frosty the Snowman" program with an actual snowman. I love watching great skaters do kitshcy programs like this. Because even in this piece of silliness, Kristi's greatness shines through. She is a true professional, and she does not phone it in. She does a triple toe (her hardest jump at the time), and the choreography is detailed and legit. And she's totally committed, she never seems above it. Only a truly great skater could pull this off.
Nicole Bobek, a very different sort of skater, is also tremendous in this show. She does her "Whatever Lola Wants" program (one of my all-time favorites), and it is gorgeous and sexy and fun. And her holiday program is to Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Light One Candle." The program is excellent and her song selection puts every skater who has ever participated in a Christmas show to shame.
TiVo Status
The three-hour Masterpiece Theater miniseries The Lost Prince, plus a Kurt Browning skating special. 4 hours with 21 hours of space left.
