​Okay, this is a bit weird (with "a bit" being an understatement), though really quite wonderful.

Last year, Netflix said it commissioned a fellow named Keaton Patti to run 1,000 Christmas movies through a bot and “created our own mathematically perfect Holiday film made entirely by bots.”  Now, of course, it’s possible that this is just a terrible video that they created to be funny.  But it’s really SO nonsensical in insignificant ways that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s on the level.  In fact, the only thing noticeably missing is a bakery, department store and Christmas tree farm.  But otherwise, they've given Hallmark a run for its money...
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Tonight we have a sort of Unknown Harnick Festival with three Christmas songs by Sheldon Harnick that you've almost-certainly never heard.  In the case of this first song, that's because it's for a musical that never made it to Broadway. 

The song is a particular sweet number called "One Family," and it's from a show that Harnick wrote based on none other than...A Christmas Carol.  Harnick is best-known for his work with composer Jerry Bock on such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me and the Pultizer Prize-winning Fiorello!  For this, though, he collaborated on the show with famed movie composer, Michel Legrand, who among many film scores wrote The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, as well as the original film version of The Thomas Crown Affair, for which he won an Oscar for the Best Song, "The Windmills of Your Mind."

Though their production of A Christmas Carol never was produced on Broadway, it's had a bit of a life in community theater.  This number is sung in the show by the Cratchit Family, and it's performed here by Sheldon Harnick, along with his wife Margery Gray (who had a successful Broadway career, including the show Mr. Wonderful that starred Sammy Davis Jr., and oddly enough had music by Jerry Bock before he teamed up with Harnick), and Leigh Beery, who starred as Roxanna opposite Christopher Plummer in Cyrano, a musical adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac.  (She comes in with her main solo at the 1-minute mark.  Margery Gray follows her.)

This (and the two that follow) come from the wonderful CD I've posted several selections from.  Sheldon Harnick: Hidden Treasures, which you can find here.​

​And the final number is probably best-described as a show song, one that really only fits within the context of the musical.  Harnick notes that it was ultimately too complex and didn't work well-enough for that, so it too was cut.  But it's good fun to hear, especially with Harnick filling in the dialogue.  And if you do know the show, you'll recognize that some of the lyrics were saved and able to be used elsewhere in the show, mixed in as a sort of sardonic counterpoint in the song "Ilona."  Here then are Hanick and Bock singing, "Merry Christmas Bells."

Today, we focus more on Fest part of our holiday gala, rather than the music.  But the little-known part is forefront. 

I dearly love The Goes Wrong Show.  It's a BBC-TV series made by the same people who created The Play That Goes Wrong, which I've written about on this site a few times.  It was a hit in London and Broadway and toured to Los Angeles where I saw it -- a play ostensibly put on by a mediocre theatre company, the Cornley Drama Society, in the middle of England where pretty much everything...well, goes wrong.  The show was such a success that they've done several follow-up plays.  And also this series.

The TV series is done by the same people, once again playing members of this same mediocre Cornley Drama Society from the middle of England.  And supposedly they put on a new half-hour play each week (a different genre each time) that is broadcast throughout England.  The shows are a joy and often remarkable.  A couple of them are tour-de-force: one is a courtroom drama called "A Trial to Watch, and the other (a Tennessee Williams-style play set in the hot, steamy Deep South titled "90 Degrees") is almost Shakespearean in its physical comedy, taking slapstick ito an "oh-my-god" level.  

If you don't like physical humor, The Goes Wrong Show is not for you.  Just know, though, that this is physical comedy done as an art form by brilliant craftsmen at the peak of their skills.

The first season should be available on YouTube, and most of season two can be found on a site called DailyMotion.com.  You can also get it on Amazon Prime, though it's not included and has a separate fee.

This is their Christmas special from Season One, "The Spirit of Christmas" (with my favorite part, the 'Nistle and Nostle Song.')  Where pretty much everything...well, goes wrong.

[UPDATE:  Weirdly, when you click on this video below, it said it can't play in this browser.  But if you click on this link here, it will take you directly to the video on YouTube.]

A few weeks back, CNN showed a documentary about Gabby Giffords that I’d read about quite a while back and had been trying to see.  It was wonderful – difficult at times, sad and utterly joyous -- and terrifically structured, going into unexpected, fascinating areas.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find out about its airing until late and didn’t have enough time to pass on that it was airing.  But for those interested, CNN is repeating it tomorrow (Saturday) at 6PM in Los Angeles.  I don’t know what time that will be in your area, but it should start somewhere around 6-9 PM.

It been entered to the Motion Picture Academy for Best Feature Documentary.  Here's the trailer.
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