ASC Announces Television Nominees

Netflix’s Marco Polo and Fox’s Gotham reaped multiple nominations in the television categories for the 30th Annual Outstanding Achievement Awards handed out by the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). The awards will be handed out on February 14, 2016.

“These talented individuals have earned the admiration of their fellow cinematographers for their tremendous artistry,” says Daryn Okada, ASC, who chairs the organization’s Awards Committee. “There is a lot of truly outstanding and innovative imagery being created for television, and the work of these directors of photography exemplifies the high standards being set.”

This year’s nominees are as follows:

Episode of a Regular Series

  • Vanja Cernjul, Marco Polo – “The Fourth Step”
  • David Greene, 12 Monkey – “Mentally Divergent”
  • Christopher Norr, Gotham – “Strike Force”
  • Crescenzo Notarile, Gotham – “Scarifaction”
  • Fabian Wagner, Game of Thrones – “Hardhome”

Television Movie, Miniseries, or Pilot

  • Martin Ahlgren, Blindspot pilot
  • Pierre Gill, Casanova
  • James Hawkinson, The Man in the High Castle
  • Jeffrey Jur, Bessie
  • Romain Lacourbas, Marco Polo pilot

Trailer: Bill Murray and Netflix Bring ‘Christmas’ Cheer

In what has to be one of the strangest, most potentially wonderful, holiday specials this side of The Star Wars Holiday Special, Bill Murray is teaming up with Netflix to bring A Very Murray Christmas. The general plot of the special revolves around Murray (playing himself) trying to put together a holiday special with the help of about 45 celebrity friends including George Clooney, Miley Cyrus, Rashida Jones, Michael Cera, and Amy Poehler, among others.

Murray co-wrote the special with Mitch Glazer and Sophia Coppola with Coppola directing. The special drops on Netflix December 4.

Fey & Poehler to Host Holiday ‘SNL’

As if a gift from the gods of television, it was just announced that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will be returning to Saturday Night Live to host the annual holiday episode on Saturday, December 19th. The beloved comic duo (who, sadly, won’t be hosting the Golden Globes this year) have Sisters coming out the previous day. You know, something other than Star Wars is being released in December, and I’m sure Fey and Poehler wouldn’t have it any other way.

SNL tweeted the above picture to make the announcement. It wouldn’t be horrible if they took over the writer’s room as well as hosted, am I right? Lorne Michaels should at least have the thoughtfulness to allow Fey and Poehler to kick Colin Jost and Michael Che off the Weekend Update desk to show them how it’s really done.

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X-Files Flashback: ‘Trevor’

Season 6, Episode 17
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Jim Guttridge, Ken Hawryliw

Beat for beat, The X-Files “Trevor” feels remarkably close to the seminal 1978 film Halloween. Is it just me? It wasn’t until the end that I made the full connection when the villain of the piece – Wilson “Pinker” Rawls (John Diehl) – silently stalks Scully and his prey, the titular Trevor. “Pinker” is the unstoppable force through the episode, mercilessly killing those in his path. Now, I’m not claiming “Trevor” is as good as John Carpenter’s brilliant horror film, but it definitely has a toe in that pool of blood.

The episode begins at a prison farm in rural Mississippi before the onslaught of a tornado. “Pinker” works to reinforce an open window with plywood when he is taunted by a fellow inmate. Undeterred, “Pinker” drives a nail through the offending inmate’s hand, warranting solitary in the yard within a busted old shack that resembles an outhouse. Once the tornado is over, neither the shack nor “Pinker” are in the general vicinity, and the warden who consigned him to the shack was mysteriously cut in half, middle section seemingly cauterized. Mulder and Scully are brought in to investigate, but neither can agree on a cause of death with Scully actively/humorously anticipating Mulder’s X-Files-influenced cause of death (spontaneous combustion).

Meanwhile, “Pinker” leaves a trail of bodies (thanks to his ability to literally pass through most any object) in his quest to locate June, his ex-girlfriend, who long-ago discovered $90,000 left over from the crime that originally incarcerated him. She used that money to give herself a better life, and everyone presumes “Pinker’s” quest is to recoup the lost money. However, we later discover that June had a child by “Pinker” and gave the child to her sister to raise. “Pinker” eventually shows up at June’s sister’s house and terrorized the women in an attempt to kidnap his son. When Mulder and Scully show up, Mulder tries to shoot “Pinker” with rubber bullets (“Pinker’s” transparency is aided by electricity which cannot be conducted through glass or rubber), but “Pinker” escapes and goes after Scully and his son, Trevor. Locking herself and Trevor in a phone booth, Scully tries to save the child from his father when June unexpectedly runs him over, splitting his body into multiple pieces.

Again, maybe it’s just me, but once I had the Halloween association in my mind, I could not let it go. Here’s a criminal who escapes incarceration to return home in search of a blood relative. He is seen as wildly unstopped and extremely bloodthirsty. Is June’s fate tied to “Pinker’s” as Laurie’s was to Michael Myers? It certainly appears that way. In the end, it is beauty that killed the beast rather than the intervening Dr. Loomis / Fox Mulder. But the parallels are remarkable and unmistakable, right down to the eerie chase scenes at the episode’s end in which “Pinker” is seemingly an unstoppable force. Either the writers or the director had Carpenter’s classic in mind when they made this episode.

But as a stand-alone episode of The X-Files it’s just an average outing. It’s intense, sure, and well-made, but it doesn’t really offer anything significant on which to chew. Plus, by naming the episode “Trevor,” the creative team undercut the power of the revelation that Trevor was “Pinker’s” son. Knowing Trevor factors into the episode somehow, even a casual viewer could make that association. Mulder and Scully kind of fall to the background, which is fine given the usual focus on the characters, but I never like it when they feel interchangeable with an average cast member of C.S.I. Jersey City.

Still, they did grace us with this fantastic exchange upon examining the prison warden’s severed body:

Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?

Mulder: Yes, we should. But not for this.

There’s the Mulder and Scully we know and love.

Early Review: History Rewritten in ‘High Castle’

Amazon Studios has recently made available a series of television pilots for popular consumption and voting with an idea toward involving the public in the series order process (we cover 2015’s crop in this week’s Water Cooler podcast). While it remains to be seen how closely popular votes as tallied by Amazon match what makes it to series, The Man in the High Castle was one such series to survive that process. Premiering on Amazon Prime this Friday, High Castle is a gloriously epic small screen production, harkening back to the days of such great 1980s historic war miniseries like War and Remembrance and The Winds of War. High Castle is a beautifully filmed and meticulously created series that boasts a huge and hugely talented cast that could rival HBO’s Game of Thrones for period drama supremacy.

High Castle, in its own way, is as much of a fantasy series as HBO’s record-holding Emmy winner because it dares to reimagine the results of World War II. Here, the Germans and Japanese won the war, splitting the United States into three sections: the Japanese-owned Pacific States, the Great Nazi Reich of the Midwest and East, and a neutral territory called the Rocky Mountain States. The action of the series begins in 1962 with various characters operating within and investigating the American resistance. Much of the action revolves around two characters: Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos), a Japanese-friendly woman caught up in an act of espionage, and Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank), a new recruit to the American resistance.

The action of the series revolves around the transfer of a series of newsreels called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy that depicts an alternate reality in which the Axis powers lost the war to the Allies. The most touching moment of the pilot shows Juliana crying as she watches one of the films, having just seen her half-sister shot dead after giving her the film. Juliana watches what is effectively a propaganda film (although we know it to be reality) with a palpable sense of wonder and wistful longing for the freedoms such a victory would guarantee. The scene is the lynchpin of the pilot, giving the illegal newsreels a vital sense of importance as many die and/or double-cross others in search of them. Aside from spy thrills, the series also pulls back to illustrate a higher level of political intrigue as Adolf Hitler is rumored to be suffering from Parkinson’s disease, and, should he die, his next in command would almost certainly start another war to wipe out America.

The performances within are all accomplished and effectively rendered against the period. As this is a pilot, all of the expected character motivations, relationships, and even identities still haven’t quite jelled yet. You know the main players, but some of the many supporting cast members haven’t fully popped yet. I do expect Rufus Sewell as SS Obergruppenführer John Smith to feature heavily in the series with a potential towards awards attention should the series fulfill its great promise. The true star of the pilot, though, is the filmmaking prowess. Aside from the complex art direction (re-imagining America as either Nazi or Japanese states is eerily and effectively rendered here), the entire production is shot in an amber hue reminiscent of the late 60s/early 70s spy thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen such grand spectacles as The Man in the High Castle on American television. The scale and spirit of those 80s-era militaristic miniseries that captivated audiences are represented well here and translate to the Amazon streaming screen in tact. In fact, it’s a bit of a shame that the series is rendered on the small screen. A project with such ambition and scope should be seen on the big screen which has lately lacked similar examples.

The Man in the High Castle debuts on Amazon Friday, November 20.

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NBC Eases on Down to ‘The Wiz’

WizUzo

I am the first to admit that I am snarky and sarcastic. When I don’t like a movie or an episode of television, I can be a bit vicious. It’s in my nature, I guess.

There are two types of people that watch the new NBC live musical tradition: people that are tuning in for a fun night with their families and the bitchy ones who want to have a good time making comments on Twitter. During The Sound of Music Live! and Peter Pan Live! I fell in the latter camp. This year, NBC is mounting The Wiz, and they have a pretty impressive cast. Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, and David Alan Grier are ready off to see the wizard with newcomer Shanice Williams leading the way. With every piece of material that is released, however, something is changing. This live production seems truly spectacular.

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WizLatifah

Not only were images of Latifah (as The Wizard), Common (as the Emerald City gatekeeper), and Uzo Aduba (as Glinda) in costume released today (courtesy of Entertainment Weekly), but a video of Williams and Stephanie Mills (the original Broadway Dorothy and Aunt Em in the NBC version) singing the signature tune “Home” made the rounds this weekend. It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a true star in Williams. Her voice just soars in the video, and it doesn’t seem like she is letting loose yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs77wDxPNU4

The Wiz Live! will be broadcast on NBC on December 3rd.

X-Files Flashback: ‘Alpha’

Season 6, Episode 16
Director: Peter Markle
Writer: Jeffrey Bell

Scully: Don’t underestimate a woman, Mulder. They can be tricksters too.

I’m not thrilled with “Alpha,” the latest “monster of the week” episode of The X-Files, because it very lazily relies on the irrational fear of either wild/rabid dogs or wolves to convey much of its frights. Ignoring the obvious disapproval from PETA, it’s particularly low form of horror ripped straight from Stephen King’s Cujo but with a very specific twist. “Alpha” is effectively made – not a surprise given the level of talent and money behind the show at this stage – but it’s a lazy, lethargic episode that fails to cleanly define the human relationships involved.

“Alpha” opens on a cargo freighter where two Asian men circle a mysterious crate with an animal inside. Quick shots of the contents show a pair of glowing red eyes staring at them from the darkness. Foolishly, the men unlock the container and explore its contents. Later, their bodies are discovered in the now-locked shipping container, and Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate the mysterious deaths. The main players here, other than Mulder and Scully, are Dr. Ian Detweiler (Andrew Robinson who played “Scorpio” in Dirty Harry) and Karin Berquest (Melina Culea from The A-Team). Detweiler owns the crate and claims to have captured a Wanshang Dhole, a species thought to be extinct. Berquest is a sort of Mulder fangirl who calls upon him to investigate the deaths. Scully, of course, is immediately suspicious of the quiet and vaguely autistic woman.

After multiple murders and near-death maulings at the hand of the Dhole, Mulder determines that Detweiler somehow gained the ability to shape shift at night from his many travels to the East. Detweiler attempted to stop the transformations by acquiring high-powered tranquilizers from a local vet to little effect. In the end, it is Berquest who challenges Detweiler as death dog, and they both plummet out of her bedroom window to the ground below. Detweiler is impaled on a fence during the process. After mourning the loss of his fan, Mulder receives a package from her animal sanctuary: she has sent Mulder her “I Want to Believe” poster as a replacement for the one lost in his office fire.

Aside from the extremely conventional stalking/murder sequences of the episode, the biggest problem here to me are the human relationships that are designed to drive the action and character motivations. Scully’s knee-jerk reaction to remain suspicious of Berquest is played off as a near-joke – there’s old maid Scully getting jealous over Mulder again. Yet, her suspicions (as referenced in the earlier quote) are proved to be well founded. Berquest does indeed have designs on Mulder and used the convenience of Detweiler’s tragic shape shifting to involve him. It’s an odd way of getting someone’s attention for sure, but it proves effective for a bit. Additionally, the other central pairing between Berquest and Detweiler is ill-defined and unsure. She apparently knows a great deal about what he’s capable of but chooses to have Mulder guess the truth rather than tell him outright.

Ultimately, “Alpha” is as boring of an episode as Berquest is a character. Nothing truly makes sense here, and it’s the kind of dud typically seen earlier in the series. After a span of creatively inspired episodes, it’s disappointing to encounter such a fundamentally flawed outing.

Call it a dog of an episode, if you will…

Review: AMC’s ‘Into the Badlands’

It’s been a while since there has been a really good martial arts series on TV. Sure, shows like Daredevil have had brutal, visceral action and we can usually expect at least one large-scale action sequence per season of Game of Thrones and True Detective, but the martial arts genre has its own special magic. The fight choreography of films like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, or The Grandmaster functions like a dance, telling its own story and often expressing the motivations of the characters as well as any expository dialogue could. AMC’s new martial arts series Into the Badlands has ambitions to reach that level of greatness but bogs its story and characters down in so much derivative mythology that I often found myself just waiting for something to happen in order to get the story moving again.

Set in a vaguely-defined post apocalyptic America, Into the Badlands follows Sunny (Daniel Wu, The Man With the Iron Fists) as a warrior in service to one of the five Barons who rule the Badlands. The pilot’s opening sequence shows Sunny single-handedly wiping out a group of nomadic warriors who had attacked a convoy that was headed towards his fortress. He then discovers that the group was holding a hostage, a teenage boy named M.K. (the wonderfully named Aramis Knight) who understandably isn’t all that interested in opening up to the man who had just slaughtered a half-dozen people without breaking a sweat. Knowing that there had to be a reason for the nomads to kidnap M.K. (and believing they were hired to do so by a rival Baron), Sunny takes him back to the stronghold so he can join the ranks of teenage recruits. Sunny also introduces the lad to Baron Quinn (Martin Csokas, Sons of Liberty), who runs his stronghold like a 19th-century slave plantation and delivers his dialogue as if he’s auditioning to be the next actor to play Colonel Sanders in those KFC commercials.

It’s admittedly a fun idea to turn a post apocalyptic setting into a mashup of Medival, Antebellum, and Wuxia settings, but creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville) and director David Dobkin (Samurai Noon, Samurai Knights) don’t really do all that much interesting with it. All of the characters are playing archetypes with Mysterious Pasts, and the land and buildings seem way too neat and tidy. I don’t demand that all characters in a post apocalyptic setting have rotting teeth and filthy clothing, but this place is so well-lit and free of dirt and grime that it barely seems lived in, let along dystopian (even the tattoos on Sunny’s back seem painted on) There is some vague dialogue about there being danger “beyond The Badlands”, but that’s the only clue we are given to some sense of danger inherent in the setting, apart from the characters themselves.

That said, the conflicts between the characters are defined and implied well enough to make it pretty fun to try and figure out where their loyalties lie. Quinn’s major rival is The Widow (Emily Beecham, 28 Weeks Later), who controls The Badlands’ oil production, which Quinn needs to be able to fuel his own plantation. The power dynamic between the Barons is something I hope to see more of in future episodes, as they all appear to be controlling a different, essential part of life and as such are in a forced and uneasy alliance. The idea behind that is more interesting to me than the fraying loyalty of Quinn’s son (Oliver Stark) and the tension between his wives (Orla Brady and Sarah Bolger). Sunny and H.K. both have motivations of their own as well, of escaping to a city beyond the Badlands that they have vague memories of, but little idea of how to find it.

Daniel Wu makes for a charismatic and appealing hero, even when he’s saddled with clichéd dialogue, and he’s more than up to the task of the action sequences. While the opening sequence is almost cartoony in how easily Sunny is shown to be able to dislocate limbs and break necks, a sword fight in a rainy city street later in the episode has a much greater feeling of beauty and danger (even if it is blatantly derivative of The Grandmaster). Aramis Knight also does a good job of giving personality to his character, even if he hasn’t yet received much shading beyond being a living MacGuffin as of yet. Beecham and Bolger also make strong impressions even though, again, they did not have a whole lot to do in this episode.

Of course, it’s a common curse of TV pilots that they often have to spend so much time establishing the story and characters that there’s not always time to create forward momentum. Hopefully, future episodes of Into the Badlands find a way to transcend the derivative nature of the setting and characters. Daniel Wu and impressive fight choreography can only carry it so far.

Water Cooler Podcast: Episode 50 – Peeking at the Amazon Pilot Season

We’re FIFTY! FIFTY EPISODES OLD!!!

Yup. We’re 50. And, like Sally O’Malley, we can kick, stretch, and kick our way through some of the new 2015 Amazon pilot episodes. How’s that for a transition? For the past few years, Amazon has commissioned various pilot episodes for comedy, drama, and kids’ series and made them available for free on their website. The intent is for the viewing public to help Amazon choose what pilots will make it through to a full season order – a more democratic way to sort through pilot season than the largely closed-door network version. This process spawned the upcoming critically acclaimed drama The Man in the High Castle.

On this week’s 50th podcast, Joey, Megan, and Clarence grade each of the comedy and drama pilot episodes. Join in the process from home by viewing any or all of the 2015 Amazon pilots and giving your opinion on their merits in the Comments below!

On a side note, we know you all have many, many options for television and other pop culture podcasts. The fact that you continue to listen to ours and provide such great feedback means the world to each of us. As we approach our first anniversary, we have only you, our loyal listeners, to thank for our unexpected longevity.

So, THANKS to all our fantastic listeners for giving us your ears each week. We love you guys for it!

 

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‘Thanksgiving’ Through the Eyes of a Modern Family

Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published on Awards Daily TV last November.

I have watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving every year for some 30-odd years now. That number’s getting a lot closer to 40 than I’m willing to admit, but, suffice to say, it’s become the definitive Thanksgiving tradition within the Moye household. My wife and I share it multiple times during the Thanksgiving season with our children: Cal, 10, and Ava, 6.

This year, though, it struck me that they routinely watch the special – with its admittedly dated (but completely charming) animation and old school jazz soundtrack – without complaint. In fact, they love it and beg to watch it almost every night around Thanksgiving. We don’t cave to that, fortunately.

Still, I wondered what they’re really getting out of the experience. How does the classic resonate with modern children raised on Phineas and Ferb or Adventure Time?

I decided to sit Cal and Ava down after a recent early viewing and do my best to pose these questions to them. The results were mixed, but I think we extrapolate enough out of the subsequent barrage of stream of consciousness rambling and sibling rivalry to get our answer.

To get them in the right mood, I prepared a traditional Charlie Brown Thanksgiving feast straight out of the TV show: popcorn, pretzel sticks, buttered toast, and jellybeans. It wasn’t until the midst of our family viewing that we realized I’d left out some sort of ice cream sundae the Peanuts gang managed to whip up. Still, they were happy with what we’d created.

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Much like the Thanksgiving special, we did have some slightly uninvited guests crash the party. Once the kids’ friends left, we sat down and chatted briefly about the complete A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, which now includes The Mayflower Voyagers.

Here is the transcript of our conversation (with my commentary).

 

Your mom and I grew up watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving but it came out around the same time we were born. Why do you guys like it?

Cal: Oh, it’s because it tells us an important lesson and gives us the food we need to make our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving picnic out in the garage. Wait no, not in the garage! Inside! But really all it’s about is friendship and caring.

 

What kind of ‘important lesson’ do you think you learned?

Cal: Umm. Umm.

Ava: He doesn’t know.

Cal: Sharing is caring? (Erupting into laughter)

Ava: I liked Charlie Brown’s thanksgiving because everyone is thankful for all the people that died, and it teaches us a lesson… A different one (Pointing to her brother, insinuating that her lesson would be completely different from her brother’s lesson).

 

What’s the different lesson?

Ava: Umm, that you always have to care about the people that died.

Cal: That’s EXACTLY what I said!

 

So who died, Ava?

Ava: The pilgrims.

 

Ah. OK. We’re going to talk about the pilgrims a little bit later. Let’s talk about Charlie Brown. What’s your favorite part about the actual Charlie Brown Thanksgiving episode?

Cal: OHHHH! Mine is when Lucy calls him a blockhead!

Ava: I’m Lucy! Lucy the Great!

Cal: Lucy is mean as heck! Oh, can I say that? (Confusing “heck” with “hell.”)

Ava: My favorite part is when Peppermint Patty called Charlie Brown and just invited herself and she just invited Marcie and Franklin.

Cal: I think that’s the main idea of the whole story.

charlie brown thanksgiving football
Do you think that’s polite?

Both: No!

 

Why do you think that’s not polite? 

Cal: Because Marcie picks her boogers.

(At this point, we had to stop because Cal laughed himself into an asthma attack. We resumed after a few minutes.)

 

So, Cal, you said Marcie was a booger picker. I don’t remember that from the show.

Cal: Oh yeah, she totally did like this (Illustrates a sly, profile booger-picking technique)

Ava: (Ignoring her brother) It’s not polite because YOU CAN’T JUST INVITE YOURSELF!!!

(Ava quickly became agitated at the thought of the Peanuts gang inviting themselves over for the impromptu Thanksgiving meal, completely missing the irony of her own friends doing the exact same thing to me.)

 

That’s right, you can’t invite yourself. Although, technically, that’s kind of what the pilgrims did. They invited themselves to the Native American’s land, don’t you think?

Cal: (Indecipherable, nonsensical noise)

Ava: Yeah, but you can’t just invite yourself to Thanksgiving without people saying you can, right???

 

Ok. Let’s move on. What year do you think A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was made?

(Ava’s hand shoots up in a Tracy Flickian manner, but Cal interrupts.)

Cal: 1987! Wait no. 1978!

Ava: Mine is 1972!

 

That’s actually pretty close, Ava. The special originally aired back in 1973.

Cal: Well, I was pretty close.

 

No, you weren’t. Not at all. She was the closest.

Cal: But I said 1987!

 

But 1987 isn’t close to 1973. She wins. So, why do you watch it given that it’s older than Dad?

Cal: Because it’s funny how Lucy says, “You blockhead!”

 

That’s the only thing that you’ve learned from it?

Cal: No. Don’t be naughty to other people. Think of how you want to be treated by others.

Ava: You can be naughty to your brother, right Cal?

Cal: I don’t have a brother.

Ava: Well, I have a brother. That’s you. And I will be naughty to you.

 

So, do you guys think it’s funny… still funny when compared to more modern cartoons?

Cal: Yes. Definitely.

 

What’s the funniest part?

(Tracy Flick strikes again but is interrupted by Cal.)

Cal: Umm…

 

Something other than Lucy calling Charlie Brown ‘blockhead.’

Cal: Aww man!

Ava: It’s funny because Snoopy cooks the popcorn, and it overflows. That’s so funny.

(I agree with Ava, causing her to stick her tongue out at Cal.)

Cal: (Takes the high road) My favorite part…

Ava: I HAVE ANOTHER FAVORITE!

 

Wait your turn, please.

Cal: It’s when Snoopy (Erupts into indecipherable, nonsensical noise dealing with something about Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball video and Thanksgiving bloopers. Something from YouTube, I later gathered.) OK, it’s when Snoopy and Woodstock fight over the pilgrim suit.

Ava: No, it’s when Snoopy fights the chair.

 

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Oh, yes, that’s your mom’s favorite part. Let’s talk about that. Why do you think the chair has its own personality? 

Cal: (Ignoring the question) The funniest part is when we had our actual Charlie Brown feast and when Samuel [Cal’s friend] watched that and we called him Snoopy and we all said ‘You’re getting beat up by a chair’ and we all started laughing. It was a pretty funny moment.

(A pause.)

Ava: You’re a blockhead.

(They begin to fight, throwing a small basket at each other. With a smile on my face so as not to convey seriousness, I threaten to cut the hands off the next child that touches the basket.)

Ava: O-M-G!

(The basket is dropped.)

 

So what do you think about [Charlie Brown’s] Thanksgiving meal?

Ava: OH! It’s SO GOOD. I loved the jellybeans. I don’t love the pretzels. The popcorn… I don’t know, but when I put it in Sprite it tasted really bad. It fell in the Sprite. It was pretty gross.

Cal: I liked the pretzels, but I’d rather have no junk food at all. I want turkey and Honey Baked Ham.

(We’ve never actually ordered Honey Baked Ham for Thanksgiving, so I’m not sure where that came from.)

 

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Do you think you’ll watch Charlie Brown when you have children?

Ava: Yeah.

Cal: (Interrupting, causing Ava to go into spasms) It won’t even be out on DVD, and it probably will be obliterated in the future.

(Ava takes the floor.)

Ava: I think my kids would really like it if I had any, but if they didn’t then we would never watch it again.

 

Well, it’s kind of a Thanksgiving family tradition for us. You wouldn’t continue that?

Ava: YES! I WOULD CARRY IT ON AS A TRADITION!!!! (Said with the same vocal expression as He-Man’s battle cry “I HAVE THE POWER!!!”)

Cal: I think my kids will hate it because I will show them really cool movies and they’ll be all “It’s old, dad. Put it up!”

 

But you like it?

Cal: Yeah!

 

But in 20 years it’ll be too old for your kids to watch?

Cal: I’m not going to get a wife until I’m 40. I’m going to be “homies” with my friends for a long part of my life.

 

OK. That’s a different conversation. Anything else you want to say about A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving?

(Again, Tracy Flick…)

Ava: I want to say that it’s really nice, and it has a bunch of lessons like both of ours…

Cal: (Interrupting) A bunch of Lexus’s?

Ava: LESSONS, blockhead!

Cal: Oh, lessons. I thought you said Lexus’s.

Ava: Umm. So it teaches us some stuff that we like, and sometimes Lucy’s mean and Charlie Brown has no hair.

 

Why do you think Charlie Brown has no hair?

Cal: I dunno.

Ava: He might have had cancer!

Cal: I don’t think they knew about cancer in the 1987s!

 

OK. Moving on. What about the pilgrims episode (The Mayflower Voyagers)? One of you likes that one better than the traditional Thanksgiving special.

Ava: (Flicking her hand up again.) I like the pilgrims.

 

Why do you like it better, though?

Ava: Oh, because Charlie Brown and all the Thanksgiving people come…

Cal: Thanksgiving people!?!?! But there’s no turkey!

Ava: (Ignoring) Umm. Franklin and Peppermint Patty and Marcie come. But the pilgrims one, they talk about the pilgrims and what they did.

 

So, let me see if I understand. The Peanuts characters are recast as pilgrim children, and you liked that?

Ava: Yeah!

Cal: The peanuts???

 

Well, that’s what they’re all called. It’s the Peanuts.

Cal: Well, that makes no sense.

 

Well, that’s what they’re called. Anyway, Cal, you like the traditional Charlie Brown special better, right? Why is that?

Cal: It doesn’t give as many valuable lessons as the first one. The first one is about don’t invite yourself and don’t be mean to others. The pilgrims one only teaches one lesson and that’s don’t go on other people’s property and kill them for no apparent reason.

Ava: Don’t kill pilgrims!!!

(They erupt into laughter as I try to soldier through the rest of the interview. The attention spans are going the way of the Native Americans at this point.)

 

Well, one of the nice things about this one is that it gives a different perspective of the Mayflower expedition – one from the viewpoint of the children and what it was like to be a child on the Mayflower.

Ava: (Still laughing) Sorry.

 

That’s ok. Can you imagine what it must have been like in the Mayflower like Charlie Brown and the gang?

Cal: It would be very, very, very, very…

Ava: DANGEROUS!

Cal: You stole my thunder!

(The basket goes flying through the air. I ignore this, sensing an end nearing.)

 

It was dangerous and scary. Can you imagine what it must have been like sailing on a small ship not knowing where you were going?

Ava: What if in Disney World there was a ride in that ship???

Cal: There is a ride.

Ava: Really?

Cal: Yeah, it’s the Maelstrom, which was kind of like the Mayflower.

 

No (audible sigh). That ride has nothing to do with the Mayflower. It takes place in Norway.

Ava: Like Frozen!

 

Yes, like Frozen. 

Ava: I like Frozen better than Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving.

Cal: You like Frozen better than you like me.

Ava: That’s true.

 

So, to wrap up, you’ll keep watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving specials because you find they have timeless lessons to teach. Am I summing that up right?

Cal: Yup, and I think Charlie Brown must have chugged some alcohol [after the events of the original episode].

I think I need to chug some alcohol right now.

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and The Mayflower Voyagers will air Tuesday, November 24, on ABC at 8PM EST.

charlie brown thanksgiving title card