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#88. The Substandard Micro Christmas Episode
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Dudes Chatting — Christmas traditions and A Christmas Carol adaptations: A holiday micro-episode opening with a clip from the Six Million Dollar Man Christmas special. The hosts rank their favorite A Christmas Carol adaptations: Sonny puts Scrooged at number one, arguing it improves on Dickens, with A Muppet Christmas Carol close behind; JVL's top pick is the Batman Noel graphic novel; Vic goes with the 1999 Patrick Stewart version. All three take shots at the wave of live television musicals (The Sound of Music Live, A Christmas Story Live). The conversation turns to holiday traditions: Vic's family has Hickory Farms spread on Christmas morning; Sonny's household does a traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast; JVL's approach is characteristically contrarian. Brief discussion of Christmas morning versus Christmas Eve as the main celebration.
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00It's Lee Majors, the $6 million man.
Guest00:00:04Santa, is there a back way out of this place? Of course there is, Lee, but this is one Santa that's going out the front door. Look at no matter a hill of beans what happens to me. The world couldn't afford it if anything happened to you. Now you stay put.
Vic00:00:15Oh, that's very nice of you, Lee.
?00:00:18And Lee, you're being a real good boy this year.
Vic00:00:27Hello and welcome to another micro-episode of The Substandard, sponsored by Casper Mattress. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last at Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of The Substandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. So, this is our Christmas episode. Today, Thursday, yes? Yes. Two days after that blowout main episode. Just right around the corner. And we're taking a much-needed break, yes? Yes. Some of us longer than others, maybe.
Sonny00:00:59Vic says he's never going to do another episode again. So, if you want to... Merry Christmas! If you want him to come back... Ah, a bug! Better send him some tweets or whatever.
Vic00:01:09We, uh...
Sonny00:01:10Yeah, it's fine. They'll be fine without me.
Vic00:01:12We thought we might discuss something Christmas-themed, as Christmas is only three, four, five days away or something like that.
Sonny00:01:20Some number of days. I have something I'd really like to talk about about Christmas.
Vic00:01:23Yeah, sure, please.
JVL00:01:25Sonny? Yeah, go for it. Why do you celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? Presents. I love the honesty.
Vic00:01:34I love the honesty.
Sonny00:01:36Sorry, that's all I really wanted to... I mean, I don't know what you want me to say. What's the proper answer there? Ah, who could say? Who could say?
Vic00:01:45Who could say, really? Okay, but we were talking about A Christmas Carol and their various iterations. Everybody likes A Christmas Carol, I think. And they even turned it into a book, I heard. So, anyway, but we want to discuss which ones do we like. And I'm going to go to Sonny first. I'm curious what Sonny... I think I know what Sonny's going to say, but go ahead, Sonny.
Sonny00:02:09All of the standard adaptations of A Christmas Carol run totally together for me. I like the George C. Scott or Alistair Sim or even the Albert Finney one, the musical one. All the same. They're all the same. I don't care about them. Number... The second best adaptation of... Of A Christmas Carol is A Muppet Christmas Carol. And the number one is Scrooged. Scrooged is the best... Scrooged is not only the best cinematic adaptation of A Christmas Carol, it is better than The Dickens. Charles Dickens is a piker compared to Richard Donner.
Vic00:02:42You know, did it... Bill Murray. Bill Murray. It reminds me that we just never got a lot of Karen Allen in Hollywood. I mean, that was... Whatever happened to her? I don't know. And I remember she went first, so obviously Animal House, and then she really hit her stride in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Sonny00:02:56Animal House, Raiders. And Scrooged. And then that's kind of all I can remember.
Vic00:03:00And then Until the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Right. I saw her. She had a very quick cameo, ready for this, in A Perfect Storm. She was on the little boat with the father and the mother. I think the three people were stuck on a boat in the middle of the storm. And you're like, wait a minute, that's Karen Allen, which is slightly distracting, obviously, because she was a big star. And here she is with almost no dialogue. But, you know, that happens. Two favorite scenes for me from Scrooged, or things I remember, I should say. There's a lot of great stuff in there. One of them is when he goes to Christmas Past. And it's supposed to be a very sad scene. The heartless father, who is a butcher, gives him for Christmas, what does he give him? Like veal. Veal, right. Five pounds of veal. Prime cuts of meat. And I thought to myself, you know what, that'd be a great Christmas present.
Sonny00:03:45That is really a thoughtful gift. Fantastic, okay. You could eat that for weeks. Oh my gosh. Put it in the freezer. You're done. What a thoughtful father.
Vic00:03:53The second thing I thought was, they're making the movie, of course, The Christmas Carol. It's the movie within the movie, right? Well, they're making the TV show, the live TV show. Yes, with, I believe, Mary Lou Retton. Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim. But my favorite, of course, was who plays Ebenezer Scrooge. Buddy Hackett. Oh, yeah. And I love Buddy Hackett. I can't get enough of Buddy Hackett. He tells jokes that would no longer be appropriate now, in this environment. But you can still go now, if you still have a chance, go to YouTube and look up Buddy Hackett and parking ticket joke. And he tells it. It's a Filipino joke, actually, and it's really funny. You're allowed to say this. I can say this. He tells it on Johnny Carson's show. I showed it to my parents. They thought it was hilarious and very accurate. Okay. JVL.
JVL00:04:40I really like, actually, the Jim Carrey 2009 Christmas Carol. No.
Vic00:04:45It's so great.
JVL00:04:47No, this is sarcasm.
Sonny00:04:49He's being sarcastic, folks.
JVL00:04:51No, my favorite version of the Christmas Carol. I said this last year, and it remains it today. It's not a... Filmed production. It's Liebermay Ho's Batman Noel, which is a Christmas Carol set in the DC Universe. Oh, yeah. I remember talking about it. And it's fantastic. Fan-effing-tastic. Run, don't walk to get it. It's so good.
Vic00:05:13I like Patrick Stewart. I think he does a great job in the 1999 Christmas Carol. I enjoy the payoff of having to sit through a large chunk of movie where he's just a mean old man. And then he... And he turns really nice. And I think Stewart does that better than some others. Is Data in that?
JVL00:05:34Is Data in that? Data? Yeah. Is he in that as well?
Vic00:05:38Oh, no. No, no, no, no. You know who's in it, actually? It's Dominic West, McNulty from The Wire. He plays Scrooge's nephew. And it's pleasant to see him, too. So, there you go.
JVL00:05:51I believe that version of the Christmas Carol has the tallest hat. For Scrooge of any production. His stovepipe hat is a good 14 inches.
Vic00:06:02That's a big one.
Sonny00:06:02I do love that Scrooge is making fun of this kind of live musical TV production of Scrooge. And now that's the whole big thing. This week, they had the Christmas story live. And we're supposed to act like this is not an abomination before the eyes of God and man. This awful singing.
Vic00:06:21It all started with, was it Sound of Music Live? Is that what started this whole trend, Sound of Music Live? It started. And then Peter Pan. Peter Pan Live.
JVL00:06:29No, Peter Pan was after Sound of Music. NBC, I believe, did the first one of these six years ago, right?
Vic00:06:35Underwood, I think. Yeah. Was it six years?
Sonny00:06:38Wow, really? It can't have been that long. Maybe not. Whatever. It only seems like it's that long.
Vic00:06:42But it's hideous. And I saw the Muppet Christmas in the movie theater. Maybe you did too, Sonny. I don't know. You would have been. I may have.
Sonny00:06:49I may have. I was young. I mean, I was like eight or nine, I think. That's right. Because I was going to say we were in high school. We did it on the Lark. I was probably 18 or 19. I was probably right about the age when that is a thing that you would see in the theaters as a child.
Vic00:07:01And of course, Scrooge being played by?
Sonny00:07:04Michael Caine. Oh, right. Michael Caine. Absolutely.
Vic00:07:07I'm here in the studio. I don't know why I was going to say Mike Warren, but Michael Caine.
Sonny00:07:12God, that was the worst. Of all the lowlights of this show that's ending.
Vic00:07:16Not true at all. In case he's listening.
Sonny00:07:18There's a reason we can't have guests on to fill in for when one of our hosts goes away. And it's because of... That's not true at all.
Vic00:07:28...Michael Caine. He was so nice. Oh, because of Michael Caine, yes. JV, do you have anything? You thought about... There was something you wanted to talk about in the next three minutes about Christmas traditions. You said, oh, we talk about nice traditions. Is there a tradition that you say you use, a favorite tradition of yours? Oh, God. Not to put you on the spot. You had mentioned it yesterday.
JVL00:07:45You know, yeah, I've already forgotten what it was. I guess my question for you guys is, are you Christmas Eve or Christmas morning people? How did you guys... Well, you were allowed to...
Vic00:07:55You were allowed to... You were allowed to open up one present on Christmas Eve, and then I think we always did church on Christmas Day, which, you know, well, to be honest here, it kind of sucked because, you know, it'd be like 11.15 a.m.
JVL00:08:09Yeah, because you're there on Christmas for the presents. Yeah, I know. Wait, I don't understand. Which presents? Wait, I'm sorry.
Sonny00:08:14Capital P presents. I'm sorry. Very good. Is this question about when do we open gifts or when do we go to church? Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
JVL00:08:20No, no, everything in general. No, I meant what is the focus? Is the focus for you guys on the message? The mania of Christmas Eve or the mania of Christmas morning?
Vic00:08:28No, no, no, Christmas morning. I like, and we go to church now Christmas Eve night, right? But not like midnight. And then- Yeah, I can't. It's like the five o'clock mass for kids, right? No, that's insane. So, and then you have the whole Christmas. When we were kids, it would be like, oh, here's your racing center. Here's whatever toy. Okay, now get ready. You got to get changed out. Oh, you know, and it's right there. And then, of course, it was a very long mass, which there's nothing wrong with that, which I want to save that for Christmas Eve for you. You know it was long? I'm getting there. You know it was long?
JVL00:08:56It was a long time hanging on the cross at Cavalry. That was a long time, too. But, you know, I'm sure you sitting through church for 90 minutes is the same.
Sonny00:09:04I say the same thing to the kids. I say the same thing to the kids. Shouldn't you be making this point about the Easter mass? Yes.
JVL00:09:11Oh, I'm sorry.
Vic00:09:12Theology bomb. You know what I look forward to? I look forward to eating on Christmas Day. And I force my mother every year to get me a box of Hickory Farms. I believe I'm the only person. I'm keeping that company in business. What is a Hickory Farms? Hickory Farms is like, you know. Is it a ham? No, it's well, it's like cured meats and cheeses. The cheeses are actually pretty bad. They're all processed. But the beef stick is out of, it's a summer sausage. Why don't you just get a Slim Jim? I like that, too. Please, somebody get me a box of Slim Jims for Christmas. Man, that would be good for Christmas.
Sonny00:09:47Sonny. I would say, so when I used to go out to California on Christmas to see my wife's family, and they do like a classic Italian
JVL00:09:56Christmas day with like pastas and fish and that sort of thing.
Sonny00:09:59It was interesting. It was different, and it was good. I quite liked it. I would say I do, we now just kind of do the ham on Christmas day.
Vic00:10:09Christmas Eve among the Italians, I believe, is a feast of what they call the seven fishes or something like that. Maybe it was Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. I can't remember. That's great. JVL, you're a Christmas Eve, Christmas Day guy. What is the Christmas Eve mania you're talking about? I'm just not really.
JVL00:10:24They're like, you know, so there are people, there are people who will do the caroling plus the church plus like half the presents. Oh, no, no, no. I mean, there are people who will do it all up Christmas Eve, so then Christmas morning is kind of like a hangover event.
Vic00:10:38Christmas morning and-
JVL00:10:39I refer to those people as communists.
Vic00:10:42In Kate's family, I believe the Santa presents arrived on Christmas Day.
JVL00:10:47Right.
Vic00:10:47Well, Santa comes on Christmas Eve, so it would have to, wouldn't it? In my house, I think, coincidentally, Santa always used the same gift wrap as my mother and same handwriting, and it was there for weeks. So, anyway. You people are such amateurs. It didn't matter to me. Spirit of Christmas. I'm sure it's fine.
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