I’ve been wondering this, every Christmas, for several years now: how come they never show the movie White Christmas on TV anymore?
It is my favourite Christmas movie by far, and I don’t get to see it. I can see Bad Santa at various times of the day, but never White Christmas. I get several log-burning channels (my parents have satellite) but no Bing Crosby sitting in front of it.
I’m wondering if it’s some licensing problem, like whichever channel showed the movie would have to pay a small fortune to the Irving Berlin estate or something. The movie is over 50 years old, though; shouldn’t everyone involved be dead by now?
An internet search on the topic brought up nothing, so I don’t know if there is any legal snafu or conspiracy theory behind me not getting to see the movie. It could just be that people suck and have bad taste in movies. That sounds more plausible.
Or maybe it’s just that life isn’t fair and everyone else gets to watch it on TV but for whatever reason I miss its airing due to my annual trip to Mom’s, just like I missed sex ed in high school because I switched schools in such a way that I missed it twice. I regret never getting to put a condom on a banana in front of my classmates.
What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah. Any ideas about my Christmas movie miss-out?
I dunno why it’s not airing, but a Google search for “white christmas torrent” returns a lot of results…
It’s on CBC on December 26th at 1:00am. They have a habit of showing the classic Christmas movies at insanely early times in the morning (“It’s A Wonderful Life” is usually on Christmas Eve/Day around the same time).
There are a lot of movies that don’t seem to air as often (just try finding Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn – I dare ya!)
Having said that, I’ve opted to invest in the movies I love best so I can view them whenever I want. If you can’t get White Christmas at a reasonable viewing time, email me – I’ll be happy to share my copy.
I see Cin pointed at the rarity of Holiday Inn which I was going to point out also has the Bing-meister singing that song (not that I would know, but my wife watched it recently and told me.)
Do you guys in civilization get netflix? Holiday Inn is available on-demand for online streaming from them. Plus you get the added bonus of Fred Astaire’s dancing.
I’ve seen Holiday Inn but I prefer White Christmas, possibly because of Danny Kaye. Also the colour is ridiculously saturated: gotta love old film.
My mom actually has the VHS tape of White Christmas but for me to see it I’d have to go find a VCR and hook it up to the TV in my bedroom, and this is a big house. I guess I just find it weird it’s not on TV, since everything else seems to be. I saw the original Miracle on 34th Street nearly a month ago.
Gillian
Off topic here, I hope you keep this blog up, because I like to pop in now and then and if you go. I’ll miss you.
I moved back and forth from Newfoundland and Texas in such a way that I missed both Canadian History and American History. I know how to play with bananas but I have no idea what happened before 1979.