Joyous Christmas

This one's supposed to be terrible, so it gets a bit of a pass. It's the 6th installment of Columbia's Joyous Christmas series. It's your standard live in technicolor cavalcade of stars from the 40s/50s/60s being cheesy because they don't know any other way to be.

Highlights include Danny Kaye's ghastly Louis Armstrong impression, Doris Day's atrocious vibrato, a few has-beens and forget-me-soons, real working ensembles (an orchestra with an electric guitarist who isn't sure why he's there), Carey Grant sprechstimme-ing badly with Carlesbad Caverns levels of reverb, Bing Crosby being sappy and condescending at the same time.

Sure it's terrible, but it's the kind of terrible specifically designed to funnel money from the rich back down to actual people. All these celebrities were philanthropists in their own way, and they lived in a world where schlock and schmaltz was considered real show biz. I don't like it, but i can't really hate on it too much.

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