Steve's 25 Days of Christmas Music 2012 - Santa's Sequel Sellouts
In 1933, Walt Disney released a cartoon short as part of his Silly Symphony series. Titled Three Little Pigs, it was critically-acclaimed, financially successful, and won an Oscar. Of course, being a product from Hollywood, it prompted no less than 3 sequels — The Big Bad Wolf (1934), The Three Little Wolves (1936), and The Practical Pig (1939). The response to these follow-up shorts was less than positive on many fronts, prompting Walt to refocus on creating original content by noting, "you can't top pigs with pigs."
Why is there a Home Alone 5?
New ideas have their risks, and in today's media climate, our world seems risk-adverse to fresh concepts. It's often less financially strenuous to franchise a successful brand into follow-up entities, as customers are more willing to risk their limited entertainment dollars on something familiar vs. an unknown. Thus why the company that bears Walt's name has films like Star Wars 7, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, and Iron Man 3 in development. No matter what decade, sequels have long been part of the landscape, often with mixed results. Rarely are you blessed with something like The Empire Strikes Back; often you're stuck with The Phantom Menace instead. Nevertheless, they seem to perform well enough to keep the sequel train rolling down the track!
Christmas Music Isn't Immune
Thus, for our 12th season of Steve's 25 Days of Christmas Music, we'll be exploring obscure musical follow-ups to popular Christmas tunes, movies, and TV shows. Welcome to Santa's Sequel Sellouts, where every day from December 1 through Christmas, I'll be posting a new song that ties into this theme. Fire up the photocopier as we jump into this audio advent calendar. Don't miss these tunes that you probably won't hear on holiday radio anytime soon!
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