“The Night The Reindeer Died” (1988)

“It’s Lee Majors!”

Admittedly, this isn’t a short film, or music video, or TikTok or anything. It’s a part of a scene from the 1988 movie SCROOGED from director Richard Donner. It’s a parodic take on the nihilistic and brain dead fare of cable television that cashes in on the holidays while going to further and goofier extremes.

It’s also VERY similar to a bit of media we’ll be discussing later today.

While the scene itself (and the entire movie following it) is hilarious and awesome, it also is a fun reminder that TV was looked down upon for decades by film people. Only has-beens ended up being leading men on shows. If someone was TV famous and popular they were expected to make the jump to features and never look back.

Part of this was due to budgets and aesthetics, with television not really having a lot of money or production value for many years. Plus the small screen in a house made it seem literally smaller than the grand adventures on the big screen of a movie theater. I’m sure it was on Richard Donner’s mind after his own conversion from TV director to movie director (having directed a Christmas-set action film himself the previous year with LETHAL WEAPON).

Nowadays, prestige television is a real thing that embraces thematic imagery and artistic visions while using cinematic tech and gear to deliver complex stories (or at least bracingly innovative in shocking violence)…a bit more often than many major film studios’ outputs. It’s likely this was also a shot across the bow at Ted Turner and then rising dark lord Rupert Murdoch who were intent on dumbing down their audiences through things like colorization of classic black & white films or having 50% of the punchlines on one of their most popular sitcoms being flushing a toilet and refusing sex.

Strange times. Anyways, enjoy 1988’s “The Night The Reindeer Died” from SCROOGED.