Special Presentations

See also specials nostalgia and web specials
Okay. So, this here section is for a number of things, and may include both live-action and animation. When I was a kid growing up, "specials" mostly meant holiday specials. Or, you know, just any sort of one-shots, most commonly a half hour, but they could be more, up to say 2 hours. (Though you may also want to check the TV movies and miniseries sections.) I also want to mention that there were, in my childhood, some theatrical movies that I only saw on TV. Most of these I wouldn't think of as "special presentations," but some I probably did. Most notably, I remember The Wizard of Oz being pretty much an annual tradition (though what time of year it aired may have varied). And the same might be said of various other movies, such as It's a Wonderful Life, though that's been a Christmas tradition for other people since long before I ever saw it, when I was older. I also want to say that when I was a kid, I saw some Charlie Brown movies on TV that I thought were TV movies, which I didn't learn until many years later were actually theatrical movies before they were on TV. (I also considered them specials, because... while I can't remember for sure, I think when CBS aired them, it called them special presentations, unlike most theatrical movies they aired. Probably because they were animated.)

Anyway... in the dim mists of ancient history, I used to have a single page with all my reviews of whatever few animated specials I could remember (both from childhood in the 1980s-90s, and anything that aired after I started doing reviews, in the early 2000s). That page lasted for years, until finally I started changing the layout of my TV reviews, creating different sections that used frames to navigate to individual pages for each review. More years passed, and my "special presentations" section grew, until eventually I decided to split up the one navframe into four navframes. (Actually, I was originally going to do six of them, but I narrowed it down.) So... I shall try to explain each section-within-the-section.

Christmas
This seems pretty self-explanatory, though I should say that there can be some specials under this heading that aren't technically about Christmas. Most of them are, but some might be about winter in general, or the winter solstice, or... stuff like that. There could even be some made-up holidays set in fantasy or sci-fi worlds where Christmas doesn't exist.

Halloween
Again, self-explanatory. And again, I might list things here that aren't specifically about Halloween, but most will be. And if any of them aren't about Halloween, they'll at least have a Halloweenish vibe, and probably will have originally aired on or around Halloween, for that reason.

Other Holidays
Yet again, self-explanatory. Christmas and Halloween are the two main holidays for specials, so the few specials I've seen for other holidays might as well be grouped together.

Miscellaneous
This is the default heading of my specials section, and it's the heading that I think requires the most explanation. It includes three subheadings (two of which I was originally going to give their own navframes, before I narrowed the six buttons down to four). The main subheading is actually just "miscellaneous," which is mostly one-shot specials that aren't related to anything in particular. However, there are some things here that are actually episodes of various anthology series. I'm not real sure whether I'll keep them under this subheading, or someday move them to the "series" subheading, or even create another subheading for anthology episodes. Or... come up with some other plan for them altogether. The miscellaneous subheading can also include pilots that never went to series. Some of the pages under this heading may have reviews of more than one special (like "Garfield" or "Peanuts"), but each special is standalone, not part of an actual series. Oh, I also have links to some musicals, the reviews of which are actually in my TV movies section. But they are special presentations, anyway. (I might someday also make a "musicals" subheading, or not.)

Series specials
This is the second "miscellaneous" subheading, and it may be a bit confusing. (Or maybe I'm just easily confused.) It's for special episodes of regular series (most of them animated, but not all). The thing that's (maybe) confusing about this subheading is that there are also special episodes of regular series that I don't list here, but rather under the holiday subheadings. (Some special holiday episodes have their own reviews, while others are simply listed together on "holiday episodes" pages, if I don't consider them "specials," per se. Because I only consider them specials if they meet certain criteria, such as being longer than a normal episode, or airing at a special time, or taking place outside the regular continuity of the show, or something.) And, as I mentioned earlier, there are episode of anthology series that I list under the "miscellaneous" miscellaneous subheading, instead of this one. So... whatevs.

Documentary/reality
And now we're back to a self-explanatory subheading. This is for pretty much anything that isn't fictional. But it can include one-shot specials, and annual stuff, and limited series that ran for a few weeks or so at a certain time of year. (See also sporting events.)


And now, please enjoy this brief, nostalgic video clip from my youth: