Nothing says classic television like a laugh track being played on jokes that aren’t even funny. These laugh tracks, the clapping tracks, oh’s and ah’s, and any other sound an audience is supposed to make are all on the shows that have been put on the Classic TV Christmas Collection DVD. On this 4 disc collection there are a total of 10 classic television shows. With each of these shows it’s just a normal episode that was a Christmas themed show. It’s not a collection of Christmas specials that had the cast from the shows and the shows kept their normal time length when the episode was aired.
The 10 shows that are on this DVD collection are, Dr. Kildare – ‘An Exchange of Gifts’, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father – ‘Gifts Are for Giving’, Welcome Back Kotter – ‘A Sweathog Christmas’, Eight is Enough – ‘Yes Nicolas, There is a Santa Claus parts 1 & 2’, Alice – ‘A Semi-Merry Christmas’, CHiPs – ‘Christmas Watch’, Perfect Strangers – ‘The Gift of the Mypiot’, Mama’s Family – ‘Mama Gets Goosed’, Suddenly Susan – ‘The Walkout’, and Veronica’s Closet – ‘Veronica’s Christmas Song’.
Whoa, that was my first impression I got from watching this DVD set. I love Christmas and most of all I love Christmas themed shows and movies. So here I was with a 4 disc collection of classic shows that are all Christmas shows. Some of these shows I actually watched back when I was a kid and remember thinking how good the show was. A few of them I remember seeing on a few stations that play the classic shows but as much as I tried to watch them I just couldn’t. What did I think of these shows?
Well, the first thing that is noticeable is the quality of the picture. I know with some people the first thing they might not quite like about these shows would be the plots and/or the acting. Not for me though, it was with the way the shows was looking. These are old shows that range from 1964 to 1997. Dr. Kildare wasn’t that bad in quality even though it’s the oldest one on the list but I think that is due to it being in black and white. But the others the quality of the picture is dull with colors that looked like they are faded and yellowed. This is one of the side effects of getting used to watching these new shows filmed in HD while watching them on HD tv’s, it makes the old shows look horrible. Even the sound quality on some of the shows was poor. The one I had the most problems with was CHiPs. It just looked so old and the sound was really low where I had to have my volume level up more than usual.
Aside from the poor picture and sound quality of Classic TV Christmas Collection the shows were all that bad. Most of the acting is on a semi par level but it’s not so bad that it’s unwatchable. There’s a good center to these shows, which is what made most of them popular in the first place. If the picture quality was still the same today as it was at the time these shows were made I would bet that they would still be watched more and liked by people who had never seen the shows when they first aired.
However, since this is not the case the shows are still a little on the cheesy side. The problems that some of the plots had to deal with would not be something that most shows would tackle today and the way they are so happily wrapped up at the end was just hilarious to me. I still did enjoy the wholesome feel that the shows were trying to get across with it being Christmas and being such a lover of the season it was easy enough for me to like this collection.