However creating a Christmas classic certainly requires a magical mixture of ingredients.  A few cups of sentiment, a drop of imaginary wonder, spoonfuls of yuletide joy and unforgettable quotes that make it a definitive holiday trademark.

15. “Elf” - “Buddy the elf, what’s your favorite color?” Will Ferrell stars as Buddy, who thinks he is one of Santa’s little helpers, but is clearly out of place. One of the most hilarious Christmas stories ever written and Ferrell at his finest.

14. “A Christmas Carol” (Original B&W Version) - The 1951 British classic stars Alastair Sim as Scrooge and has its share of darkness and happiness as old Ebenezer is haunted by three spirits on Christmas Eve. The funniest moment is when Scrooge’s housekeeper Mrs. Dilber awakes him on Christmas morning and he raises her pay from 2 shillings a week to 10, she responds almost half frightened, “Merry Christmas Mr. Scrooge. In keeping with the situation!”

13. “The Office” – Season two’s “Christmas Party” is the show’s first Christmas episode and overall best holiday installment in the series. Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) turns the Secret Santa gift exchange into a “Yankee Swap” because he’s angry he blew the $20 limit on his giftee by getting an iPod, therefore he ends up with Phyllis’ DIY potholders, and Jim’s carefully selected gift that was supposed to go to Pam ends up going to Dwight.

12. “The O.C.” - I absolutely loved this show growing up! It was the perfect teen drama for my years in high school. One particular episode comes to mind around the holiday season, ”The Best Christmukkah Ever”, where Seth (Adam Brody) creates a holiday that celebrates his Christian and Jewish faith. In one memorable scene when things start to go awry at the family party, Ryan (Ben McKenzie) says to Seth, “You better pray for a Chrismukkah miracle.” Seth responds, “I’ve got Jesus and Moses on my side, man.” Plus, who can forget the Santa hat yarmulkes?

11. “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” – By far, the best out of the three, if you even count the third. When I think of ”Home Alone 2,” the Bird Lady, Duncan’s Toy Chest, the sticky bandits and Gangster Johnny all come to mind. But the one moment that sticks out is when Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) stands in front of the tree at Rockefeller Center, wishing to see his family again. Even though the film is a comedy, there is just something so touching about that moment when his mom runs and hugs him. Also, who can forget the short cameo of Donald Trump in the Plaza hotel?

10. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” – This TV special defines Christmastime.  When Hermey, the elf who desperately wants to be a dentist, and Rudolph meet for the first time in the snow bank, Hermey says, “Hey, what do you say we both be independent together?” One of the best on-screen friendships was formed.

9. “Jingle All the Way” – Before Arnold went loopy, he played Howard, a father who decides on Christmas Eve that he’s going out to get the most sought-after Christmas toy ever for his son. He runs into Sinbad, Robert Conrad and James Belushi on the way, before turning up as actual Turbo Man himself at the Christmas Parade.

8. “Friends” – “The One with the Holiday Armadillo” is probably the best “Friends” episode of all-time. Ross (David Schwimmer) doesn’t have any luck finding a Santa outfit around Christmas, and he wants to get his son excited about Hanukkah. So what’s the next best thing at the costume shop? An armadillo outfit, of course!

7. “A Christmas Story” – I could make a whole list of favorite moments just from this movie, but the leg lamp is a classic scene that everyone loves.

6. “The Nightmare Before Christmas” - Tim Burton’s wonderfully animated classic can be watched from October to December. The film tells the story of Jack Skellington, the king of Halloweentown, and how the spirit of Christmas wins him over. If Christmas can win over the Pumpkin King, it must be a magical holiday.

5. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” - That moment when Charlie chooses the weakest tree in the bunch and the other moment when the Peanut gang start decorating the tree and it grows 50 more limbs in 10 seconds.

4. “Love Actually” – One of my favorite movies ever and a film that has a huge cast of characters whose lives interwine and is played out beautifully. The scene when Mark (Andrew Lincoln) admits that he’s in love with his best friend’s girl (Keira Knightley) via poster board makes girls swoon everywhere.

3. ”How the Grinch Stole Christmas” - If you say you didn’t like this TV special, you’re lying. The 1966 animated short film is narrated by the talented Boris Karloff, who wasn’t even included in the original credits! It’s one of the few Christmas specials from the 1960s that is regularly replayed on television today. The character of Cindy Lou Who (who was no more than two) is seriously underestimated. It wasn’t just the singing of the Whos that got the Grinch to rethink his evil plan, it was Cindy Lou Who who first pulled those heartstrings from the moment he saw her.

2. “The Muppet Christmas Carol” - A dedicated performance by Michael Caine as Scrooge and the full cast of Muppets make this movie the best version of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ even though we still have no idea what kind of animal Gonzo is.

1. “It’s a Wonderful Life” - Frank Capra’s classic black and white film is the ultimate of Christmas movies! When Clarence the angel (Henry Travers) appears on that snowy bridge, just as George Bailey (James Stewart) is contemplating jumping off it on Christmas Eve, goosebumps spring up on my arms every single time. Clarence then takes George through all of the significant points in his life where he’s touched the lives of others. and George really does find that he had a “wonderful life.” The most memorable scene in the movie is when George runs back to the bridge, begging Clarence to give him his life back. It starts snowing and George realizes he’s back in Bedford Falls and reunites with his family. The best “feel-good” movie that ever existed.

Now that my four-year-old daughter has been asking to watch some of them, I began thinking about the actual content. Here’s a run down of my impressions of a few of the TV specials. (If I get some of the details wrong, excuse me, but I’m not going to go back and re-view every one. My memory should be good enough, having watched all of them annually for more than ten years.)

A Charlie Brown Christmas

I did watch this one recently–I picked up a DVD and settled in with my daughter and a bucket of popcorn. I was surprised at a couple of things. For one, its only 30 minutes long. I remember it as a feature length film. I guess it seemed more of an epic tale when I was a kid. Also surprising, there are several threats of physical violence in the show. Not that I mind a little fighting in children’s programming–it just came as a surprise that the Peanuts gang seemed to resolve many of their conflicts by simply punching each other in the face. When my daughter asked about it I just said, “I think these kids are from California.”  I know it made no sense, but it put an end to the conversation.

What did not surprise me about the Charlie Brown special was the now de rigueur message about the over-commercialization of Christmas. I guess this was a quaint theme in 1970 but I think we’ve heard enough of it by now. Can we all just admit that commercialization puts food on everyone’s table and is basically the engine that drives everything that is good, convenient, tasty, and comfortable about our lives?

But despite this, this is still an absolute classic because of the Vince Gauraldi score. That jazz soundtrack is one of the great contributions to Western Culture, and to me, the sound of the holiday season.

Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town

This is probably the best written of all in the creepy-yet mesmerizing “puppet animation genre” that dominated the Christmas specials of my youth. In it, Santa needs a foil, and when you’re a writer looking for where to go for your villain, it’s an easy choice to stick with the Germans. The evil Burgermeister-Meisterburger (huh?) wants to stop Christmas because, naturally, he’s opposed to toys and happiness. Santa, a rebel, perseveres and brings joy to children everywhere. Excellent.

Standout scene: The Winter Warlock’s upbeat motivational song “Put One Foot in Front of the Other.” A great lesson about about achieving one’s goals by taking baby steps. It sticks with me to this day!

Frosty the Snowman

I’m not letting my daughter watch this one. It traumatized me as a child. The writers decided to up the dramatic stakes of the hit song, making the famed “old silk hat they found” belong to an evil magician, who **Spoiler Alert** proceeds to murder Frosty by locking him in a greenhouse. I know they eventually resurrect him, but I never saw that part. I was too busy weeping into the sofa cushions. To this day arboretums make me claustrophobic.

The Year without a Santa Claus

Where does one begin with this one? Mickey Rooney cancels Christmas, and then Mrs. Claus goes Pagan and enlists the Heat Miser and Cold Miser (as you know, the sons of Mother Nature, who jealously rule over the Northern and Southern Hemispheres) to generally freak out the children of earth so they will trick Santa into going through with the holiday. The hippie writers for Rankin/Bass Studios may have been trying to send kids a coded message about global warming. I guess they were ahead of their time.

The Little Drummer Boy

Here’s where things started to really jump the shark puppet. I know the producers were under the gun to crank out a new one of these specials every year, but let’s face it, the story of the little drummer boy is a little thin to begin with. A boy played a drum. That’s it. Even the writers of the song had to pad the lyrics by repeating “ba rumpa bum bum” every other line.

Even though I saw this many times, it didn’t leave much of an impression. I’m sure it featured an anti-commercialization message, punctuated every ten minutes with a commercial break. (Which I enjoyed–to me it wasn’t Christmas until I saw Santa riding in a Norelco Shaver.)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Departing from their usual humanist/utopian setting for the North Pole, the folks at Rankin/Bass present a draconian world, with Santa as a vindictive industrialist who runs what amounts to a sweatshop. The one elf who has aspirations beyond working in a factory for the rest of his life is thrown out into the cold, where he meets Rudolph, a reindeer who was also banished for deviating ever so slightly from the norm. They make their way to the Land of Misfit Toys, literally an internment camp for handicapped toys, obviously maimed by Santa’s overworked “employees.”

Now, wheres the lesson? Does Santa finally get his comeuppance when he crash-lands on the prison island of his own making? No, the toys run to embrace him! They love him! Then, when the perceived defects of Rudolph and Herbie the Elf prove useful, Santa exploits them, too. In the end, the one creature with an ounce of individuality left in him, The Abominable Snowman, is forcibly de-fanged and given a humiliating once-a-year job as a Christmas tree-topper.

The message of this one appears to be: “If you have something about you that makes you special, hide it until you can be of use to someone in charge.” Pragmatic perhaps, but hardly heartwarming.

Nevertheless, with the exception of Frosty, I’d let my daughter watch any of these. With lessons in environmentalism, anti-commercialism, and conformity–it’s like another day at pre-school.

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5. Johnny Mathis (b. 1935)

A host of other crooners fought tooth and nail for this fifth slot — Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole — but Mathis wins the day via an impressive five Christmas-themed albums, the best of which are immeasurably improved by the melodic mastery of maestro Percy Faith (1908-1976), whose inventive yet unashamedly unambiguous orchestrations make him my favorite instrumental interpreter of Christmas tunes.

The only one of our Top 5 who is still alive, Mathis made his Xmas bones by singing what is, for my money, the single most beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” ever recorded — a feat accomplished when he was just twenty-two. Fifty years on, no one has matched the infectious, jingling energy Mathis and Faith brought to “Sleigh Ride.” And despite a good showing by Andy Williams, I daresay he takes the prize for “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Winter Wonderland” as well.

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4. Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)

A national treasure and one of the twentieth-century’s premier musical icons, Pops’ affinity for Christmas stemmed from the fact that his poverty-stricken youth was utterly bereft of holiday cheer (his grandparents were slaves). Armstrong’s fourth wife once told of the childlike delight he expressed when she presented him, at the ripe old age of forty, with his first decorated tree. In the following decades, his many Xmas performances never failed to capture the singular joys of the season.

Many singers try to out-cool Satchmo in this arena — Dino, Elvis, Frank, et al. — but all of their “red-beaked reindeer” and “big black Cadillac” stuff, fun as it is, can’t match the authentic jazzy hipness of tunes like “Christmas in New Orleans,” “Christmas Night in Harlem,” “Cool Yule,” and “’Zat You, Santa Claus?” His live nightclub take on “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” accompanied by a game Velma Middleton, captures the humorous ribaldry at the heart of the song better than anyone else, making it the only “essential” variant to the classic Margaret Whiting/Johnny Mercer duet.

Even at the end of his life, wracked by failing health, Armstrong knocked several more Christmas standards out of the park, virtually whispering his way through “White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland.” The way his weak, perilously quivering voice evinces holiday enthusiasm despite his palpable pain is quite moving. And in February, 1971 he gave us one last bit of holiday gold: a tender, intimate performance of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (a.k.a. “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”) captured on tape at his home just a few months before his death.

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3. Burl Ives (1909-1995)

A young Boy Scout turned wandering itinerant folk-singer during the Great Depression, a veteran of World War II, a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee (who ticked off his commie folk-singing friends by cooperating with the investigation), and a powerful Academy Award-winning actor in the 1950s, Burl Ives had already led an eventful life before appearing in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964. That stop-motion animated special singlehandedly cemented both his visage and voice in the Christmas pantheon, and his renditions of “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver and Gold,” and the show’s title tune are unlikely ever to be surpassed.

While not as prolific a Christmas crooner as some others, Ives followed up Rudolph with some wonderful songs both standard and new. His longstanding love of Christian-themed folk anthems served him in good stead, lending unparalleled emotional authenticity to pieces like “Christmas Child” (“Loo, loo, loo….”), “Christmas is a Birthday,” and “Happy Birthday Jesus,” all of which would have sounded hopelessly corny in other hands. “Snow for Johnny” is one of those songs that should be a popular standard but isn’t, and his “Christmas Can’t Be Far Away” is in my opinion the most underrated song in the entire holiday canon, deserving of a fame comparable to “White Christmas” and “Silver Bells.”

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2. Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

When we think of the classic Christmas sound, the one that conjures up thoughts of our grandparents decorating a tree by firelight in the wake of the Second World War while listening to the crackling radio, we think of Bing and his seemingly effortless warm and inviting baritone.

Whether solo or accompanied by the Andrews Sisters, from the staggeringly successful “White Christmas,” to holiday staples like “The Christmas Song (“Chestnuts Roasting….”), “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “A Marshmallow World,” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” to unheralded gems like “The First Snowfall” “Little Jack Frost Get Lost,” and “The Secret of Christmas,” he’s one of those guys who couldn’t screw up a Christmas song if he tried. Add to that the respectful and reverent Father O’Malley aura gracing his readings of the overtly Christian lyrics of “Silent Night,” “The First Noel,” “Away in a Manger,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Faith of Our Fathers,” and you have the quintessential sound of the season.

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1. Perry Como (1912-2001)

If you’re under forty, you likely don’t have a full appreciation of how central Perry Como is to Christmas. A baritone so influenced by Bing Crosby that the two are often confused, he nevertheless became immensely popular in his own right. Known far and wide as a devout family man (whose marriage lasted sixty-five years), he was also that precious rarity: one of the genuine class acts in show business. The rich, simple, honest voice that powers such perennial favorites as “O Holy Night,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, “Bless This House,” and “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” resonates with the same eternal vibration that courses through our shared recollections of the holiday itself.

But it was his decades of televised Christmas specials that secured his place in the hearts of our parents and grandparents. From 1948 until 1994 — a span of almost fifty years! — he routinely warmed the wintry living rooms of America with his music and personality. That makes him the Iron Man of holiday crooning, hands down, the one singer who can purr “There is No Christmas Like a Home Christmas” and mean it.

I still remember the sparkle that would fill my late grandmother’s eyes whenever a Como tune would play. His was the voice of an era, her era. Her brood of youngsters were long grown and scattered across the country, her husband was dead and gone. But thanks to the miracle of sound recording, Perry Como’s voice remained as vibrant as ever, and his dulcet tones never failed to imbue ol’ Grandma with a deep comfort and satisfaction borne by memories of a life — and many, many Christmases — well-lived.

You know, I never thought I’d be old enough to use the phrase “kids today,” but here goes… With DVD and DVR and all this other digital snap-your-fingers instant gratification, kids today might think they have it better than those of us of a certain age – and okay, maybe they do – but back in the days before America figured out disco and Jimmy Carter sucked, there was something to be said for the pure pleasure of anticipation I had as a child with the Sunday morning arrival of the Milwaukee Journal.

Screw the comics, I’d grab the TV section, squirrel away somewhere with a red pen, pour through it as though it were the Dead Sea Scrolls, and circle everything that needed to be watched that week.  

Yes, kids, this is the way it once was. Believe it or not, there was an era before Internet, DVD, VHS, HBO or DVR when there was only UHF and VHF – 4 networks and one independent station that required a rabbit ear antennae with enough aluminum foil wrapped around it to work as a heat shield for the space shuttle.

It was crazy, especially on Sunday nights when Dad would run the rabbit ears out the window and my sister and I would take turns shivering on the front lawn pointing them south so he could watch “The Honeymooners” on Chicago’s channel 9.

But there was also a shared experience that came pre-digital, especially with an anticipation that didn’t last the length of a download, but for days and sometimes a full week as you waited for those circled gems to finally air. So exciting was the prospect of finally getting to see something you loved once again, that you would talk about it at school with your friends:

“Yeah, man, Friday night’s The Time Machine, Saturday’s Shock Theatre double feature is Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster and Attack of the Mushroom People, and Sunday’s all about Goldfinger, where there’s a nipple in the credit sequence — I saw it last year – for real.”

Because of home video that’s all gone now. Sure, I enjoy being able to pop in a DVD as much as the next person but there was something about those days when you—God I’m old.

No time of year, however, brought with it more anticipation than the holiday season. As soon as there was even a whiff of Thanksgiving it was time to dig into that TV section and hunt down those Christmas specials. Not missing a single one was very important because they were only on once a year and, as Dad would always remind us: “Enjoy it while you can — that asshole in the White House will have us all speaking Russian by noon.“

And how well they hold up! 35 years later … still enchanting. The songs remain catchy, the stories engrossing, the characters memorable, and the jokes funny. Who knows, maybe the only thing holding them up is nostalgia. But who cares, right?  All that matters is that we still love them and love seeing them passed on to children not yet assaulted and made cynical and ironic by MTV and Jon Stewart.

So here they are, my top ten favorite Christmas specials that survive the test of time: 

*****

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965): Not only is this a subdued little timeless charmer, but also a marker of just how far our culture has collapsed. With every viewing I’m startled to hear the words “Jesus” and “Christ” used in a way that isn’t a curse word. Of all the specials Obama would pre-empt for his announcement to the Taliban that they need only hold out for 18 more months, it makes sense it would be this one. I’m sure President Bows-A-Lot is uncomfortable whenever anyone, including cartoon characters, mention that “other” Jesus.

***

2. How Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966): Not to take anything away from Dr. Seuss or anyone else involved in this unforgettable heart-warmer, but a special Emmy should go to whoever came up with the inspired idea of having Boris Karloff narrate.

***

3. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962): Clever and briskly paced , this 53 minute ‘toon doesn’t miss a story beat or a heartbeat.  Now if I could only find some razzleberry dressing….

***

4. The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974): The magic of Rankin/Bass at the height of their stop-motion glory. And the star power, wow!:  Shirley Booth, Mickey Rooney, and of course the marvelous Dick Shawn as Snow Miser. Everybody now: I’m Mr. White Christmas, I’m Mr. Snow – ba-da-ba-da-bum – I’m Mr. Icicle, I’m Mr. 10 below… P.S. Bastards.

***

5. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (1970): A trio of brilliance: Fred Astaire and Mickey Rooney and Keenan Wynn do an unforgettable job telling the origin story of Santa Claus. And who could ever forget Paul Frees as Burgermeister Meisterburger? Side Note: Is it just me, or is young Mrs. Claus kinda hot in that red-headed Ann-Margrock kinda way?

***

6. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964): Burl Ives’ warm songs and narration are just the icing on the cake of an incredibly imaginative story packed with unforgettable characters. It can only be a matter of time before Hollywood dumps all over this with a big screen version. Join with me as we curse them in advance…

***

7. The Little Drummer Boy (1968): Narrated by the legendary Greer Garson:

Aaron’s heart was filled with joy and love. And he knew at last that the hate he had carried there was wrong. As ALL hatred will ever be wrong. For more powerful, more beautiful by far than all the eons of sadness and cruelty and desolation which had come before, was that one tiny, crystalline second of laughter. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

How many meetings has the ACLU had to try and figure out a way to pull this off the air?

***

8. Frosty the Snowman (1969): Jimmy Durante. Nothing more need be said.

***

9. ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974): Remember this one? George Gobel plays father mouse? Santa gets irked by an insulting letter? The town has to build a clock…? The mice help? Oh, well, Netflix it.

***

10. It’s a Bundyful Life (1989): A bit of a cheat I know, but what do you get when The Mighty Bundy Family meets The Mighty Sam Kinison? Everything that made “Married With Children” the greatest sitcom ever: great characters, sharper than sharp writing and no sacred cows. I used to have a VHS with every Bundy Christmas episode on it and it didn’t have to be the holidays to pop that one in.  

Okay, your turn… What’s missing?

Looking back at The Karate Kid (1984), which turned twenty-five years old this week, a thought keeps recurring.

Wow. . . Avildsen made it work twice.

John G. Avildsen is, in some ways, a director of little distinction when compared with well-known marquee names like Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, and Tarantino. The vast majority of his movies are utterly forgotten by the average filmgoer — indeed, he’s been nominated for Worst Director at The Razzies three times. And yet, like Victor Fleming decades earlier with his twin successes The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind (both 1939 — read a great recent article on Fleming here), Avildsen has twice punched way above his weight, netting himself an Oscar for Best Director and giving birth to some of the most memorable moments in motion picture history.

His first triumph, made on a shoestring budget and a scant few weeks of shooting time, was a little picture called Rocky (1976). He had no money, no stars, no amazing effects, and yet Avildsen used camera, music, and editing to craft scenes of immense power and impact. Has there ever been a film, before or since, that ends on a more rousing wave of uplift? That takes such pains to create identification and empathy with its wide array of characters? That more patiently or expertly builds up to its cataclysmic swell of emotion? That has the guts and sense of timing to fade to black at the exact peak, frustrating our desire to know what happens next even as it leaves us too blissful to care?

Rocky did all of that and much more, and despite its fight scenes now looking like slow-mo hokum compared to the MMA-style mayhem that now rules on TV, it remains the most memorable and effective boxing film ever made. That’s really saying something, given the immense amount of solid competition the genre boasts.

But as other directors began ineptly looting and mimicking Avildsen’s style and innovations, it looked as if everything that made Rocky great would quickly become so cliché as to make a repeat impossible. We all know that sinking feeling when we begin perceiving the clunky wheels of the typical “Hollywood sports plot” turning — that excruciatingly slow crawl towards the utterly predictable final showdown, where the very last seconds of a contest are shamelessly milked until the hero finally hits the last shot/punch/goal/basket. Even the Rocky sequels couldn’t escape these pitfalls, and it would be hard to blame an audience for glumly concluding that Avildsen’s 1976 artistic triumph had spoiled the sports movie for all time.

So who would have guessed that, eight years later, Avildsen would essentially pull off the same trick again? How on earth did he once again make a Rocky-style plot arc work, without the end result becoming a pale pastiche?

He achieved this feat in large part by turning everything we remember from Rocky on its head. Ralph Macchio’s Daniel Larusso is played not as a thickheaded lummox, but as a fast-thinking, bone-skinny teen whose nasal Jersey whine sounds more like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer than Sylvester Stallone. He’s neither a down-and-out fighter with his best years behind him, nor is he looking to “go the limit” to prove something profound to himself. He’s just a kid at the very beginning of his adult life, who for most of the film limits his ambition to simply not getting beat up. Similarly, Elizabeth Shue’s Ali Mills is light years away from Talia Shire’s Adrian Pennino: rich instead of poor, charming rather than an ugly duckling, sociable not shy. And Pat Morita’s unforgettable Mr. Miyagi isn’t washed up or pathetically ambitious like Burgess Meredith’s Mickey Goldmill — he’s the very epitome of contentment and balance and wisdom.

Rocky achieved its verisimilitude with generous dollops of grime, rust, blood and profanity, whereas The Karate Kid is notable for its relative wholesomeness (note how Elizabeth Shue even wears a one-piece swimsuit to the beach instead of the obligatory teen-movie bikini). The music marks yet another telling departure. Rocky’s iconic score, by Bill Conti, was a mix of 1970s funk, heroic brass, and a choir acting as a Greek chorus, all combined into a sonic brew that still ranks as one of the most recognizable and rousing in film history. For The Karate Kid, Conti was once again brought in as the composer. But this time, in between pop songs like Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer,” he chose a light mix of delicate strings, only occasionally allowing them to burst forth into full orchestral splendor. For the training montage, Conti completely eschews Rocky’s reliance on trumpeting brass and instead opts for the lonely skirling of Gheorghe Zamfir’s pan flute, creating a more spiritual and intimate vibe.

Avildsen’s camera, for its part, is probing and observant, often making excellent use of telephoto lenses to highlight what would otherwise be a missed reaction or expression. He achieves true poetry in the training scenes: on the beach among the circling cranes, on the lake amidst glittering golden waters, and even in the fights and strategies that pulse through the climactic tournament. He also warred with the studio when necessary to protect certain crucial scenes, such as the one where a drunken Miyagi reveals his service in WWII to Daniel. That one adds a whole new layer of depth to what was already a touching and authentic relationship, and yet the studio wanted it cut, deeming it superfluous.

On top of all that, the excellent screenplay by Robert Mark Kamen (who distinguished himself more recently by penning the immensely satisfying kidnap flick Taken) consistently leads Avildsen down novel paths. The teen villains of the story (portrayed by, among others, Steve McQueen’s son Chad and Elizabeth Shue’s brother Andrew) are refreshingly human, at times even gaining our sympathy. Unlike the usual faceless, gormless teens in Hollywood fare, this group is delineated exceedingly well, and remain recognizable as individuals even when hiding behind Ray Harryhausen-esque skeleton makeup in a genuinely chilling night scene. Kamen fleshed out his bad guys so well that the Cobra Kais, led outside the dojo by actor William Zabka’s smirking blond-haired bad boy Johnny Lawrence, now have a sizable fan following among Karate Kid aficionados. One admirer even made a clever YouTube re-edit of the final fight so that Johnny wins:

Meanwhile, a band called No More Kings has made a song about the redemption of Johnny called “Sweep the Leg,” with a fun “Karate Kid continuation” music video written and directed by Zabka himself:

In interviews, Zabka has expressed pleasant surprise that The Karate Kid remains so alive in the popular culture, calling it a “sacred film” and noting that there are even Cobra Kai bowling teams out there. It’s enough to convince me that The Karate Kid II should have been all about Miyagi reforming the Cobra Kais, slowly rehabilitating them into good guys.

In so many ways, Avildsen’s 1984 film is courageous in the way it deviates from the instantly recognizable Rocky formula. How strong must the pressure have been on Avildsen to make the easy, safe choices, mimicking his earlier masterpiece in every detail? His resistance to those impulses does him credit, and hence to dismiss The Karate Kid as a mere Rocky clone is to do it an injustice.

But if there is one overriding secret to the success of The Karate Kid, it is the transcendent performance of Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi. In 1984, most Americans still conceived of the East, at least in cinematic terms, as a mystical wonderland of Kung-Fu magic and swordplay. Hong Kong directors like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam were only beginning to create the explosion of masterful, modernized pictures that would eventually change the entire way the world looked at Asians on film. It’s hard to remember how utterly fresh a character like Mr. Miyagi was to 1984 audiences, completely unexposed as they were to the renaissance happening in Hong Kong. Fully fleshed out, with a compelling backstory and potent motivations, he was written as charmingly colloquial and disheveled, a character who could consistently shatter the stereotype of the “magic Asian” to raucously humorous effect.

Almost always in American cinema — to this day — Asian protagonists are depicted as cardboard caricatures at best and laughingstocks at worst. Avildsen rejected the initial front-runner for the part of Miyagi — the great Japanese actor Toshirô Mifune — and instead bet his entire film on the talents of a thoroughly Americanized stand-up comedian, one who in his salad days used to bill himself in comedy clubs as “the Hip Nip.” Comedians have a strangely robust record of shining in good dramatic roles — think Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, et al. — and they often manage to strike a solid balance between laughs and drama. Morita did exactly that in The Karate Kid: affecting just the right Japanese accent, leavening his character’s power and seriousness with just enough comedy, and always figuring out ways to make you laugh with Miyagi instead of at him.

If you haven’t seen The Karate Kid in awhile, you’re in for a treat — Mr. Miyagi was no fluke, he remains one of the most winning characters in the history of cinema. It was the role of a lifetime for Morita, who garnered a well-deserved Oscar nomination (as it happened, he lost that year to Haing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields, who himself became the first Asian to win an acting Oscar). Any number of others would have played Miyagi as either an embarrassing joke or an irremediably grim Samurai grandmaster. But in his every glare, mannerism, and pose, Morita elevates the character into a veritable Gandalf. Look closely at the scene when he bows gravely to a shocked Daniel (who has just discovered that his hated chores were actually important lessons), or when towards the end he smacks his hands together with such orchestra-enhanced thunder that the audience jumps. In those moments The Karate Kid — so often seen as an also-ran and afterthought to Rocky — breaks away from that film’s orbit and soars free all on its own.

So Avildsen pulled it off not once, but twice — I still can’t believe it. And if he never makes another great movie, he can still sit back and rest easy, secure in the knowledge that two of the very best fight pictures ever made have his name on them. That he did both of them on such low budgets should give hope to conservative filmmakers who assume liberal Hollywood will never give them a chance. There is nothing in The Karate Kid that couldn’t be accomplished on a micro-budget — all you would need is the gumption to dream up the script.

But will anyone take on the challenge, as Avildsen did those many years ago? Only time will tell. Until then: wax on, wax off. . . wax on, wax off. . . .