Kathie Lee Gifford got another hammerlock on Christmas last night and once again tried to throttle it to death. This time, though, she seemed to be attacking it with a little less vengeance and a little less bad taste than usual. "Kathie Lee Gifford: Just in Time for Christmas," her third annual holiday special for CBS, was relatively painless and rarely seemed to call for the rending of one's garments or the gnashing of one's teeth.
The special was an improvement over last year's, and the one the year before that, in that viewers were subjected to a less lethal dose of exposure to Gifford's much-exploited family and fewer scenes designed to show how much they wuvs and wuvs their wittle Supermommy.
Most of the hour consisted of concert footage shot at the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall with the local philharmonic and Gifford's guests the Manhattan Transfer, Kathleen Battle, Christopher Parkening, Amy Grant, Bryan White and Jeff Wood. This was intercut with the obligatory Gifford family follies, this time staged at the home of the star's parents in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Last year, columnist Frank Rich of the New York Times theorized that Gifford drags TV cameras into her various homes so they can be written off as business expenses. If so, she's branching out. Now she's putting her parents' house on the tube, too, and perhaps on her 1040. Maybe next year she can do "Kathie Lee Gifford's Christmas in a Limousine," or tape the special in a private jet.
How about this: "Kathie Lee's Christmas in a Closet," which would allow her to write off every article of clothing she owns, so long as it was glimpsed on camera.
Of the guest stars, Battle was the most musically impressive, accompanied by guitarist Parkening on a quiet carol. A medley of carols ended the program grandly, sung as it was by the entire company with bombastic orchestral and choral accompaniment.
But other parts of the hour were plentiful with sour notes. Gifford burst from the wings at the outset braying "The Christmas Waltz" and when she finished, the first shot of the audience was of her lumpy husband, Frank, sitting in an aisle seat and applauding. Like he had any choice. Gifford in a brief monologue said Christmas was, among other things, the one time of year when we think about "how much we have to be grateful for." Oh, uh, right, but what about Thanksgiving?
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Ah, of course: At Thanksgiving we get to be grateful that Kathie Lee doesn't do a Thanksgiving special.
Soon Kathie Lee was shoving and prodding us down memory lane again: home movies of herself as a toddler, contemporary scenes of her family gathering around her in adoration. In these shots, Gifford seemed to be advertising how much her family loves and needs her, and in the inevitable and rather stomach-churning smoochy shots with Frank, she seemed to be saying, "Look, world, I've got my man!"
Singer Gary Chapman, installed in the living room, sang a song about "Another Tender Tennessee Christmas" from the viewpoint of someone living in Colorado, which made less sense and was actually less pretty than the jingle in the Sunbeam appliance commercial that followed it. Bryan White is a personable enough country star, but he got stuck with that musical no-win situation "The Little Drummer Boy" -- you know, pa-rum-pum-pum-dumb. Back at home, Gifford conducted another of her mini-seminars about raising children. She said she didn't want her son Cody to hate people "and yet I want him to know there is evil in the world." This had to be a thinly veiled reference to television critics, whom Gifford regards as perverted heathen ogres.
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Thus this year's special was withheld by Gifford and CBS from previewing by the press, a very unusual move. Ironically or not, some of the improvements Gifford made in this year's special seem in direct response to nits those mean old Scroogey critics picked last year.
Somewhat sad*stically, Gifford insisted on reminding the Oklahoma City audience of the terrible terrorist bombing there in 1995 and at one point compared the loss of life in the tragedy with the death of one of her friends by cancer. This led her into a fairly affecting version of the title tune, one marred only by the mediocrity of her singing voice and her insistence on adopting a look of pseudo-beatific sacrificial radiance.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Kathie Lee nipping at your nose. Or maybe chomping at the bit. It was often said that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Bing Crosby. But oh brother, would Christmas ever be Christmas without Kathie Lee Gifford. CAPTION: Kathie Lee Gifford: Third time's the charm (all things being relative, and with her they often are).
