Tinseltown - The Holiday Movie Podcast

The Mayor and Colleen discuss Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, by far the superior of the two Sesame Street primetime Christmas specials from 1978. Topics include whether Big Bird and Oscar are technically homeless, why Bob is nice but slightly condescending to both Linda and Mr. Hooper, and why Gordon is everyone's wonderful dad.

Though plagued with technical errors, the Mayor and Colleen have a good conversation about Scrooged, the Christmas Carol take that contains many 80s references that have aged badly, and one that has aged very well. Topics discussed include Karen Allen's doe eyes, whether Bill Murray looks enough like Richard Burton to make a joke out of it, and why John Glover is a smug California monster who defi...

The Mayor and Anton review The Nutcracker in 3D, a movie that takes some... interesting liberties with the source material. Like adding Albert Einstein. And playing the villain as Andy Warhol. Also it's a surprise Holocaust movie.

The Mayor sheds the podcast's usual family friendly image to work a little blue this week, because how else can one effectively discuss "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas"?

The Mayor visits his friend Anton, a professional puppeteer, to discuss those most professional of puppets with A Muppet Christmas Carol, the movie that says "Everyone's going to be judging the new Kermit, so let's make him Bob Cratchit, the most boring character in the story."

The Mayor finally gets to watch a Thanksgiving movie, but at what cost? DEAR LORD, AT WHAT COST?! Anyway, here's Son in Law.

The Mayor sits down to watch the impressively cast, wildly unevenly written, and dreadfully directed dramedy "The Family Stone", a movie that can't quite decide whether it would rather be a dram or an edy.

The Mayor and his brother properly enjoy themselves by watching Die Hard, which yes, is obviously a Christmas movie. They also run into the snag where the movie is so good that it's hard to talk about it. Why are you even listening to this podcast when you could be watching Die Hard? Go watch Die Hard.

The Mayor and his brother take a moment to ponder the horrifying simulacra of humanity that inhabit The Polar Express.

The Mayor's continuing attempts to stop saying "Um" so much are stymied by his brain's inability to fully process a movie which says "Dickens? Yeah, he's okay. But we can do better."   NOTE: This is a lightly edited version of the first upload. I just snipped out a WILD factual inaccuracy. I'll cover it on a future episode.

The mayor once again goes solo to make a deep dive to the nadir of Michael Keaton's career for the very odd film Jack Frost, which makes up for its general mediocrity by having some very weird casting and sometimes allllllllmost being watchable.

The Mayor welcomes his friend Courtney to the mayoral office to review the Christmas (?) classic (?) Babes in Toyland, starring Laurel and Hardy. Topics of discussion include how annoying Tom Piper is, why parts of this movie somehow seem racist, why Bo Peep is the only good character, and what's the deal with the filmmakers' torturing a monkey for our "amusement". If this is the last episode list...

The Mayor courts controversy in his first full episode by saying some not very nice things about The Nightmare Before Christmas, but he's really - OH NO. PLEASE, LET ME EXPLAIN! This is posting earlier than expected, so just FYI, National Cassoulet Day is January 9. Mark your calendars.

In this first episode, the Mayor gets philosophical and then talks about Gremlins, which you should see. Why haven't you seen it? Go see it.