Talk:Miracle on 34th Street

From Christmas Specials Wiki

I know this film was remade in 1994 with Mara Wilson, Richard Attenborough and Elizabeth Perkins; and there have also been 3 or 4 different telefilm adaptations over the years. Should each production get its own entry or is this article for coverage of all adaptations? And if this entry is only for the 1947 production, how should all the pages be disambiguated? — WaldoWatcher, 07:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. Would we have enough information to warrant pages for each version? Right now we've got category:adaptations set up for stories that have been redone over the years. I wonder if Miracle would be good as an experiment on building the article up to discuss the different versions, and if it gets big enough, we can decide later to split them off. What do others think? —Scott (talk) 08:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Not to be a Grinch, but I think the original Miracle on 34th Street and things like The Santa Clause series have no place on this wiki at all. When I think of Christmas Specials, I don't think of Christmas films that later are broadcast on television. I think of things originally made for television. I mean, if you're going to start talking about "movies broadcast traditionally during the holiday season", then you're soon going to find yourself talking about Star Wars IV, the James Bond series, and any one of a number of non-Christmas-themed shows that have a regular annual broadcast during the holidays. I personally think that if you're going to expand past the unambigiously-appropriate things like A Charlie Brown Christmas or Frosty the Snowman, then you should spend time tracking down the holiday-themed epsiodes of television series — not in giving voice to theatrical releases. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 09:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's an issue. Star Wars and Bond have no Christmas themes, so they wouldn't belong here anyway. I don't see any harm in including Christmas-themed movies, especially those like It's a Wonderful Life or Miracle which gained particular exposure from perennial viewings. And that's why there's categories to seperate specials from movies from theatrical shorts. Plus, as noted, Miracle on 34th Street was remade several times, including at least three TV versions (I have one of them), so eventually, it would be useful to have all the versions on the Wiki for comparison and contrast. Oh, and we also have Category:Episodes, for the holiday-themed episodes of TV series. It's the smallest group so far, but feel free to add to it! -- Andrew Leal (talk) 17:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to echo Andrew's response. Specials are the meat of the wiki -- Charlie Brown Xmas and Rudolph, etc. -- but branching out into other movies is a fun way to expand on exploring what entertainemnt has to offer the season. Which is true to the spirit of the wiki. —Scott (talk) 18:45, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that television specials should be the main focus of this wikia project, however theatrical films and episodes of television show are also worthy of coverage too. This should not become an all encompassing Christmas wiki, but I think it should be a wiki that focuses on all Christmas-themed film/video productions - specials, movies, direct-to-video, television shows, etc.

• Films that happen to are watched or air around the holidays - such as "Star Wars", "Bond", "The Wizard of Oz", "The Incredibles", "Marry Poppins", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", etc. - are not Christmas productions. There is no reason they should be included in this project.
• However there are some "gray area" productions that involve Christmas and air around the holidays but Christmas is not their central focus - such as "Harry Potter", "Toy Story", "The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe", etc.
• And then there are other winter or holiday specials that don't deal with Christmas specifically, but they have the same tone and spirit as Christmas specials. Often times they feature magical snowmen, other winter holiday celebrations or even fictional Christmas-esque holiday substitutes.

I think establishing a clear definition somewhere to describe what constitutes a Christmas special/movie/episode and what this wikia project focuses on (and doesn't focus on) would be a good idea - especially this early on in the life of this project - in order to prevent "Bond", "Marry Poppins", Christmas albums and books, or any other inappropriate thing from appearing. However this kind of discussion may be more suited for another forum or location. — WaldoWatcher, 21:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I think albums and books should be excluded, but as I asked Scott, I think network *radio* specials might be worth including, not least because some Christmas shows aired annually as traditions before the advent of TV (Lionel Barrymore played Scrooge in A Christmas Carol on radio annually for nearly 20 years), and for a few shows which made the successful transfer to TV (Amos and Andy, The Jack Benny Program, Dragnet), they recycled their Christmas scripts for the TV version, sometimes with different actors (as with Amos and Andy), sometimes with almost the exact same cast. So I think radio stuff might fit in a way that albums should not (especially since we're already including direct-to-video products and theatrical films, unless as a general distinction, we want to limit it to *visual* media), but I'd like to know how others feel about that one. Considering the term "Christmas special" practically originated on radio, I feel like it's worth covering, in a way that documenting every comic strip or fiction book that mentions Christmas would not. I also think a definition for the movies should exclude "grey area* stuff. Father Christmas may play a key role in Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, but otherwise Christmas is hardly a plot point, and Toy Story only has a single Christmas scene at the end. I could argue that something like Ma and Pa Kettle at Home, which follows the characters over several months and includes a significant Christmas sequence, could qualify more than the other examples, but I also don't think it should belong. I think Christmas has to be the main topic or at least main backdrop through all of the film, which could include the holiday, the time period, and the general themes of peace on earth, giving, helping reindeer to keep snowmen from melting or whatever. So a movie in which at some point someone has Christmas dinner or meets Santa, but is otherwise about journeying to Egypt to battle renegade gun-runners, wouldn't belong; a special in which the plot focuses on characters learning about peace and love and giving and snow and so forth, which premieres in December, would count. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 21:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm starting to get concerned about "topic creep" on this wiki. It's drifting really far from the intended topic. Folks are getting bogged down in marginal, off-topic areas, when there is tons of work to be done on the major specials.

I would like to propose that we decide on the six major Christmas Specials -- the heart of the wiki. Off the top of my head, I would suggest:

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
• The Year Without a Santa Claus
• Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
• Frosty the Snowman

And then we say that we're not going to expand the wiki's scope any further until we get some real content for those specials.

• A full, well-written synopsis
• Good articles on the major characters, performers and producers
• Lots of pictures
• Fun behind-the-scenes facts

Those are the six things that people are coming to this wiki for. When we're making the spotlights, those are the ones we're offering. But when a reader clicks on a spotlight that has Heat Miser on it, it turns out that the Heat Miser page is completely blank.

That's embarrassing for us. It's like coming to Muppet Wiki and finding that the Kermit and Miss Piggy pages are completely blank, because the contributors have all been working on the Good Boy page.

So I'm going to say no to absolutely everything except those six specials, until we've filled them out with content. No movies, no radio, no episodes, nothing. Work on those six. -- Danny (talk) 07:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Those are six major specials that should be a central priority for expansion and coverage. And it is somewhat unnecessary to simply waste our time creating a lot of hollow stubs just in an attempt to turn the categories into a complete listing of every Christmas production ever made. However of those major specials you mentioned, I personally don't own many of the ones you listed and I don't really know much about some of them - so there is not much I can do to help. I think expanding articles is important - wikis thrive on the content of their articles, not the number or range of their articles. I think there should be an emphasis on working on building up those kinds of "core" pages that you mentioned, but I don't think there should be a "ban" to any other expansion, or even discussions of such, at this time. I think the "Popular Christmas Specials" listed on the main page should be in-depth articles like you said - it's silly to highlight them right there on the main page and then have the articles themselves fall flat. — WaldoWatcher, 16:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm sorry for being so harsh in that message. I didn't really mean to give marching orders like that; I just saw that the main popular specials were being ignored, and I over-reacted. I stand by the general point of my message, but I apologize for being so heavy-handed about it.

If folks are looking for a way to help fill out some of those specials, there's some nice info at Wikipedia that could be brought over here. We just need to copy-edit, and take out links and templates that don't apply to this wiki. -- Danny (talk) 15:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)