Joanna Wilson was a guest on Reel Travels, and she has given me permission to post the transcript of our interview here. Do you travel to Christmas movie locations? I’d love to hear about it.
Joanna Wilson is the author of several books, including Tis the Season TV: The Encyclopedia of Christmas-Themed Episodes, Specials and Made-for-TV Movies; The Christmas TV Companion; and The Triple Dog Dare: Watching—& Surviving—the 24-Hour Marathon of a Christmas Story. Her website, Christmas tv history.com, is a time suck, but a good time suck. I blame her for my lack of productivity because of her website.
Lisa: Joanna, I actually stumbled across you. I was doing research on the house from A Christmas Story house and I fell in love with your website. You think about Christmas all year long, right?
Joanna: There’s so much Christmas entertainment, so I do my research and writing about Christmas all year long. It’s a nice job to have. For me, it’s a wonderful thing. I think for other people, it might be a nightmare, but I think it’s fantastic. Nothing makes me feel better every day when I know I’m going to watch another happy ending.
At the same time, I had to grow into it. The first couple of years that I was doing it year-round, it was kind of a challenge, but now I just love it. It’s a feel-good motivator every day of the year.
Lisa: How did you get into this?
Joanna: I’m just the biggest pop culture junkie. I got a Bachelor’s degree in film studies. I studied philosophy along the way and I have a Master’s degree in philosophy, but I knew I wanted to be a writer and a researcher and had friends that wrote about film and I was sort of looking for my own culture project. I stumbled across another book that was about the history of the animation company Rankin/Bass. Rankin/Bass did an awful lot of animation but everybody remembers them for their Christmas specials. They did Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and somebody wrote a book about the history of this animation company and I fell in love with it, so I began doing my own research on Christmas entertainment in general and wanted to explore that.
I ended up turning my personal project into something more professional, which ended up being an encyclopedia, Tis the Season TV, and never looked back. There’s more Christmas entertainment made every year so this project could certainly sustain my lifetime.
Lisa: When you were a kid, what was Christmas entertainment like for you? What couldn’t you live without?
Joanna: A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I remember my sister and I were very young, but my sister and I already had a tradition. We loved waiting for the 1971 TV movie, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, which went on to inspire the TV show The Waltons, which we were big fans of, so The Homecoming was a big deal and we had to catch that. And we also had to catch The House Without a Christmas Tree, another TV movie from the early 70s. And if we missed those in the 70s that was it for Christmas.
Lisa: That’s the one thing that today’s generation has that’s better than what we had. If you missed it, you missed it and there was no Netflix and DVRs and even at times VHS to go back and watch it again. Now it’s on my DVR and I can watch it anytime I want. That’s exciting, but do you think it kind of takes away a little bit being able to just watch it at any time?
Joanna: Everybody’s different and everybody’s got their own traditions. I think the point is that it’s a tradition, however you do it. If it’s rewatching it on TV, or on the DVD player, whether you watch it with your kids, or you watch it with your parents, or whatever it is, it just becomes a tradition and setting up those traditions of watching our favorite Christmas entertainments. That’s what Christmas is all about. And that’s how we tap into the Christmas spirit.
Lisa: I love that. Speaking of traditions, A Christmas Story is a tradition for a lot of people who can’t miss it every year. And then a marathon comes on and it’s all day long. Tell me how you came up with watching the 24-hour marathon.
Joanna: Since I’m the writer about Christmas entertainment, I get interviewed an awful lot every year and journalists often ask me about A Christmas Story and say, “Do you watch the 24-hour marathon?” And I always answer that I put it on, it’s my tradition with my family, but I don’t watch the whole 24-hour marathon. Who would do that? I watch it once, maybe twice. We laugh at the same jokes every time, you know. I imagine that everybody as it on in the background while we go about our family celebrating and opening gifts.
I was joking with my editor that I got asked the same question and it sparked something and my editor said go do it. So what I did was I recreated the 24-hour marathon and watched the movie with commercials 12 times in a row back-to-back across that 24 hours just to experience what it would be to watch that. And that turned into its own adventure. I added that sort of commentary, that sort of perspective. What Christmas entertainment is all about and the success story of Christmas movies in general, and added some speculations and that project became Triple Dog Dare, which came out in 2016.
Lisa: You also got to travel and went to the A Christmas Story House and Museum. What was your experience there?
Joanna: Well, that’s a phenomenal trip for someone like me. I actually live 30 miles south of Cleveland, Ohio, not far from the house. And I’m old enough I remember when the film company came to Cleveland, just shooting those exterior shots. I remember my dad reading it in the newspaper.
Little did I ever know I would grow up writing about Christmas movies. It’s a fun place to go, even if you’re not a Christmas entertainment writer. And one of the things I love about going there is you can go anytime of the year and meet people from all over the world. There are people all over that are fans of A Christmas Story and want to connect with them.
Lisa: I saw a picture of you and your pink bunny suit and your boyfriend was also dressed up and you guys ran A Christmas Story 5K race they do every December (not 2020 because of Covid-19).
Joanna: I did it the first year and then last year was the anniversary, so I did it again. And that’s so much fun. It is. Everybody comes in costume and everybody’s there to have a good time. It doesn’t matter that it’s cold every year.
I love to travel, so even if I’m visiting family or friends, I look for a pop culture destination along the way. And sometimes I do just travel just for a TV and film location, or if they’ve got a statue. I love finding statues.
When I was in Denver, I found a John Denver statue. And in my head connecting to you know, the wonderful Christmas TV special, The John Denver Muppets Christmas Special.
I’ve been to Rosemary Clooney’s house in Augusta, Kentucky and went to Dean Martin’s hometown in Steubenville. Ohio. I’ve also found Perry Como his hometown in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, which has a big statue of him at a McDonald’s.
Thank you so much Joanna!
If you’d like to listen to the entire episode where Joanna was a guest, click here. I really did have a blast talking to Joanna and her site is really one of my favorites. I keep going back to it. You should too.
