It's the most wonderful time of the year again, and that means it's time for our holiday special episode! This Christmas season, we decided to revisit a nostalgic animated favorite from childhood, the Rankin-Bass Frosty the Snowman holiday special. We discuss the origins of the song that inspired the cartoon, Jimmy Durante's excellent voiceover, Frosty's place within the Rankin-Bass holiday lineup, and our reactions to rewatching this special after many years. Hop a train to the North Pole with us, and don't forget your magic hat!

This week, our holiday episode is about an obscure little offbeat Christmas film that means a lot to us personally, A Midwinter's Tale - or In the Bleak Midwinter, if you're outside the US. Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed (but uncharacteristically, did not act in) this film about Joe Harper, an out-of-work actor who decides that an independent Christmas production of Hamlet is just the thing to somehow pull him out of his depression and get back on track. Fortunately, the magic of Shakespeare and live performance do come around in the end to remind Joe what life is all about. We discuss the unique relationships formed when working in theater (especially broke indie theater), the high emotions that occur when a group of actors are trapped together for long periods of time, how rehearsal and character work often beget psychological introspection, and this film's place as an unsung Christmas classic that harkens back to better known holiday fare like It's A Wonderful Life. This episode is for the entertainers--the people who are often out there working through the holidays, often for little more than the love of performing, creating family when they can't be with their own. Come tread the boards with us!

We're kicking off a month of non-traditional holiday films with Bridget Jones's Diary, welcoming back guests Kate Duffy and Danny Zeliger to discuss this Sex and the City meets Pride and Prejudice chick flick classic. We talk about the scandal of casting Texas-born Renee Zellweger as a definitively British character, Colin Firth's re-envisioning of his BBC Mr. Darcy as the modern Mark Darcy, Hugh Grant's pitch-perfect though (at the time) against-type portrayal of sleazy Daniel Cleaver, Helen Fielding's brilliant choice to re-imagine Jane Austen in the contemporary era, the movie's perfect balance of humor and romance, John's personal adventures in cooking blue soup, the importance of someone liking you just as you are, and how all four of us see this film as a perfect watch for the Christmas-to-New Year holiday timeframe. Throw on your best reindeer jumper, fill your plate with turkey curry, and give us a listen!