Christmas By Medium - Television Specials and Episodes

Television Specials and Episodes

Before 1962, when Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol premiered, true Christmas specials made for TV were either adaptations of stories such as A Christmas Carol (with live actors), or the Nativity Story, or episodes of variety shows highlighting Christmas music. They were often hosted by such celebrities as Perry Como, Jane Wyatt, or Florence Henderson. That all changed once variety shows began dying out in the late 1980s and Rankin-Bass began producing more and more Christmas specials.

One notable television special usually seen at Christmas was Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera written especially for television. Composed by Gian-Carlo Menotti with a libretto in English by the composer, the opera told of a disabled beggar boy living with his (presumably) widowed mother in the Holy Land. They are visited by the Three Wise Men who are on their way to see the Christ Child, and when Amahl offers his crutch as a gift, he is miraculously cured. Commissioned by NBC, the opera was telecast annually in the U.S. from 1951 to 1966. In 1978, it returned to television, but this new production did not have the spectacular success that previous ones did.