DISPATCHES FROM THE EXTREMELY LITTERAL
on November 30, 2004 at 12:00 am
(No Ratings Yet)Monday's comic generated some interesting feedback. Most notably, this message which I received from J.B. Lee. I thought I would share it with you all.
Great strip, and I'm glad to hear there'll be a little more follow-up. But to those who say to you "GET IN THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT,CURMUDGEON" remind them that It's A Wonderful Life ISN'T A CHRISTMAS MOVIE save only peripherally. It's a "What If" Fantasy that CONCLUDES at Christmas.
It doesn't fit the rules of Christmas Movies, i.e. some Christmas-related miracle (Ghosts of Christmas, Polar Expresses, Santa, Elf, Reindeer, Magic Whatzits) falls into the midst of hard-hearted cynics and wins them over with its innocence and charm.
Clarence the Angel isn't Christmas-related, nor is the disaster that befalls George Bailey, nor the alternate time line that Clarence reveals to him. The conclusion is not an illustration of Christmas Spirit, but of the strong friendships Bailey has made over the years among the people of Bedford Falls,and it should be clear that it would have ended that way had the villainous Potter done his villainy in July.
J.B. goes on to express his admiration and love for It's A Wonderful Life saying "it may be my favorite flick ever." When I asked if I could use his letter in the blog, he cheerfully replied "neither I nor anyone in my family are in the least bashful with our BELLIGERENT, OBNOXIOUS OPINIONS!" I got a real kick out of J.B.'s letter and it got me thinking about It's A Wonderful Life in a whole new way.
I actually did a little bit of research about the movie on the Internet Movie Database and turned up this interesting nugget of information. Did you know we've essentially come to associate the movie with Christmas due to a clerical error that allowed networks to rebroadcast the movie repeatedly without any royalties going to the Frank Capra estate. It's unfortunate because the film was originally a flop in it's 1946 release.
Oh, and for those of you that are curious, I had a couple people get back to me on that $8,000 inflation question.
Patrick Jennings used this site to report that $8,000 in today's money would be $75,488. Bryan Covington used this site to calculate the amount to be $78,191.03 - a difference of a little more than $2,700. In either case, it doesn't seem like a large enough sum of money to hurl yourself from a bridge over. Didn't George have, like... six kids? Selfish jerk...
Expect more It's A Wonderful Life parody tomorrow!
