Ewing Christmas

[James A]

I have just seen the Knots Landing Christmas episode and was wondering why Dallas never thought of doing a christmas special. I feel it would have worked really well and would have been a joy to watch.

A normal day at Southfork was pure joy so just imagine that and the magic of christmas thrown in, i would have been on cloud nine. What do you all think?

[JR Krebbs]

I too think that would have been great. Thoughout it's run, I don't remember DALLAS ever celebrating holidays (even DYNASTY had a Christmas episode with former president Gerald Ford doing a cameo).

However, DALLAS did have annual episodes that one might count as "psuedo" Ewing holidays, such as the Ewing Barb-e-que, and the Oil Baron's Ball.

Take care. :-)

[Pamela Barnes]

Yes I think it would be nice to see the Ewings Christmas but at the same time I can`t help but think that the lack of celebrations was part of the Dallas magic and gave it that edge. Also internationally we were celebrating a Knots Xmas in August or something so it seemed rather odd. Didn`t have that with Dallas.

[Where did Ellie go]

Dallas, along with many other programs, never celebrated Christmas for two main reasons:

First, it could be seen as offensive to Jews, Hindus, agnostics, and other non-Christians who would prefer the secular nature of the show.

Second, when being shown in reruns, it would be absurd to have the "Christmas episode" be shown in, say, June.

[Frankie]

I can understand your first reason, but I wouldn't think it be absurd in reruns.
There are a lot of TV shows that have Xmas eps in reruns on tv now.

To name a few:

Golden Girls
Roseanne
Designing Women

I don't think though that absurtity would hinder the Dallas writers from writing an Xmas ep (ex the Dream) lol

[Sanoahwolf]

Seeing how the producers and creators of Dallas (Katzman, Capiece and Jacobs were Jewish as was Larry Hagman, maybe it was just to sensitive an issue to try and write a holiday episode. I'm not sure what religion Victoria, Linda, Steve, Susan, Barbara, Jim, Charlene or Ken were. Patrick Duffy I know was a buddhist. If it could of have been written so that no one's religion was insulted then I for one would have liked to have seen a holiday episode. For sure J.R. would have ended up with the lump of coal in his stocking :-)

[Anti-Krebbs]

Possible, but...

Linda Gray wasnt an alcoholic, Victoria Principal wasnt a poor girl marrying rich, and Barbara Bel Geddes didnt own a huge ranch in Texas. It's called acting, lol. I am sure, given the script, Hagman and Duffy could look past their religions of choice and act out an episode, lol.

I think maybe it was storyline related. Why break ongoing stories for an one single episode? In almost all episodes, JR was in the middle of some business deal, and week to week, it was hard enough to follow, so why take off a week to sit around a living room drinking eggnog?

Also, I think another reason could be that, other than the presents, a Ewing dinner was the same as Christmas dinner every night. In most other shows, not everyone lived together. But with the Ewings, they all lived under the same roof. The only person that would not be included would have been Cliff, and in according seasons, there would be a Barnes-Wentworth Christmas. The point is, the whole family was gathered every day, and most shows with holidays are like little family reunions. So what was the point?

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"Sleep on little sister, sleep on..."

[Weststar Oil Corp]

No christmas episode? What about no church at all? This is a family from Texas and were suppose to ignore that a family from the bible belt of SMU never goes to church on Sunday, not even Miss Ellie. For shame.