December on TCM is chock-full of must-see programming, so much so that we couldn’t fit it all into one email. So, we’re presenting you with our December round-up to provide more insight into this month’s programming and notable films to tune into all month long.
Hanna Barbera: December 3 and 10
A celebration of Hanna-Barbera kicks off the month, beginning December 3 at 8pm ET, hosted by Jacqueline Stewart and two-time Grammy Award nominee Greg Ehrbar, author of “Hanna-Barbera, the Recorded History: From Modern Stone Age to Meddling Kids.” Named after its creators, animator and voice actor William Hanna and animator and cartoonist Joseph Barbera, Hanna-Barbera operated from 1957 to 2001. In their 50-plus years as an animation studio, the duo’s cartoons all but raised a generation, cornering the market of Saturday Morning cartoon blocks, which aired weekend mornings on ABC, CBS, and NBC. These shows—including “The Flintstones,” “The Jetsons,” “Scooby Doo, Where Are You!,” “Jonny Quest”—became staples of American culture and spawned numerous spinoffs, movies and remakes. Hanna-Barbera found continued success through syndication on cable networks as the years progressed, allowing their shows to be discovered by and shared with newer generations.
Night one features the TCM premieres of Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear (1964); The Man Called Flintstone (1966); and A Christmas Story (1972), followed by MGM’s wartime musical Anchors Aweigh (1945). Directed by George Sidney and written by Isobel Lennart, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra star as sailors on temporary leave in Hollywood, who meet a young boy and his singer aunt, for whom they try to get an audition with MGM conductor José Iturbi. The film is best remembered for its dance sequence with Kelly and Hanna-Barbera creation Jerry the Mouse of “Tom and Jerry” fame, using rotoscope animation to place live dancing into animated form. Tom the Cat has a cameo as a butler. Tom and Jerry reappear in the Esther Williams musical Dangerous When Wet (1953) as underwater dancers alongside the aquatic star. Kelly and Hanna-Barbera returned as collaborators in the 1956 dance film Invitation to Dance, directed by Kelly. Featuring three separate stories and no dialogue, the film’s third sequence is entirely live-action mixed with animation from the duo.
Our second night is made up mostly of all TCM premieres, including another Gene Kelly collaboration, Jack and the Beanstalk (1967). The made-for-TV film won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program. Charlotte’s Web (1973) follows. Based on the popular children’s book by E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web became the first in a two-picture theatrical deal for Hanna-Barbera. The film became one of only four made by Hanna-Barbera that did not originate from their animated cartoons. One of those other films was C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979), the pair’s first live-action feature film. Joseph Barbera penned the story and led the production with American International Pictures, bringing his story of a mechanical watchdog to life. Other films in the night include The Gathering (1977), Baxter! (1973) and Holiday in Mexico (1946).
Kid Fans: Sundays at 8pm ET
We bridge the gap between generations of classic movie lovers every Sunday evening with our Kid Fans programming, where films are chosen by our young guests ranging from 8 years old to 15. Starting the month-long showcase is Ben Mankiewicz’s own daughter, Josie. The 12-year-old picked Christmas in Connecticut (1945), a film she’s watched with her parents every year since she was born. Findlay is 13 years old from Tennessee and chose A Night to Remember (1958), the dramatic retelling of the 1912 Titanic tragedy, which he first watched on FilmStruck. Eight-year-old Mansa from California is a big fan of Charlie Chaplin and monster movies and chose The Gold Rush (1925), the first classic film he thinks he ever watched. Sisters Rosemary and Elizabeta, 13 and 11 years old respectively, were discovered on the 2025 TCM cruise and chose Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) for their night.
Henry is 13 years old from Georgia and the son of a film professor, and he chose the pre-Code musical Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). Simone is a 15-year-old California native who published a book on classic Hollywood from a teenage perspective, and she chose the Clara Bow talkie Call Her Savage (1932). Georgia native Rosemary is 8 years old and enjoys flamenco dancing and ballet, so it’s no wonder that she chose Singin’ in the Rain (1952). Ella from Minnesota is 14 years old and attended the 2024 TCM Classic Cruise. She’s a big Elvis fan, which is why she chose Blue Hawaii (1961).
Dick Van Dyke 100th Birthday: December 13 at 12pm
One of December’s greatest gifts to the 20th century was the birth of Dick Van Dyke on December 13, 1925. This month, we celebrate the comedy legend and entertainer on his 100th birthday with three of his most iconic movies at midday at 12pm ET, starting with Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Having starred in the original Broadway production in 1960, Van Dyke plays Albert Peterson, a struggling songwriter whose career plans are deterred when teen idol Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) is drafted into the Army. Albert plots with his long-suffering girlfriend to have Conrad sing a song of his own on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” which leads to a series of shenanigans. The Broadway role shot Van Dyke, who at the time performed as an entertainer and comedian, into stardom and earned him a Best Actor Tony Award. The success of the stage play landed him the starring role on the 1961 Carl Reiner sitcom, “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which ran for 5 seasons, won 15 Emmy Awards and launched the career of co-star Mary Tyler Moore.
Van Dyke followed up his success with the Disney film Mary Poppins (1964), premiering on TCM. Co-starring with Julie Andrews, Van Dyke plays a kindly chimney sweeper, street painter and friend to the whimsical and magical nanny Mary Poppins, who is quite literally blown into the household of an Edwardian family in London with two scrappy children. The film was a major success for Disney and further cemented Van Dyke’s popularity and legacy. Van Dyke returned to the Edwardian era a few years later in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), where he plays an inventor who turns an old, wrecked racecar into a magical flying machine that allows him to take his children on a fantastical, otherworldly adventure.
Classic Christmas Marathon: December 19 at 8pm ET
Jolliness and merriment abound during our annual Classic Christmas Marathon beginning December 19th at 8pm ET and continuing through Christmas Day. Cozy up with the classics and enjoy the gift of cinema through our lineup, featuring 75 films from a variety of genres, decades and countries. The Hollywood staples are here: Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan find love in The Shop Around the Corner (1940), while Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). Meanwhile, Ginger Rogers finds a bundle of joy that makes her an unexpected Bachelor Mother (1939). Barbara Stanwyck steals her way into a Christmas romance with Fred MacMurray in Remember the Night (1940).
The tale of the three wisemen is revisited as a Technicolor Western starring John Wayne, Pedro Armendáriz and Harry Carey Jr. in 3 Godfathers (1948), and again in We’re No Angels (1955) with Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov playing dastardly escaped convicts whose presence blesses a struggling family at Christmas. Little Women get their time to shine in both the 1933 version and its 1949 remake. In its TCM premiere, Prancer (1989) finds a small-town Midwestern family experiencing a Christmas miracle when the young child of a grieving widower pledges to care for a wounded reindeer.
Silent Sunday Nights fans need not fret this season. Silent comedian and director Charley Chase stars in another TCM premiere Sunday at midnight, There Ain’t No Santa Claus (1926). Chase plays an unfortunate tenant whose landlord’s greed impedes his holiday cheer. TCM Imports lovers will be happy to know that among our lineup is the French-Canadian Mon oncle Antoine (1971), directed by Claude Jutra, and follows the coming-of-age of a 15-year-old boy in Quebec during the Christmas season. And no Christmas lineup on TCM would be complete without a bit of noir. In Backfire (1950), Virginia Mayo is a military hospital nurse who helps care for Edmond O’Brien, a former GI recently discharged from the hospital and on the hunt to clear the name of his former army buddy, now on the lam after being charged with murder.
New Beginnings: December 31 at 8pm ET
On December 31st, we end the year with a TCM tradition. Our hosts will once again gather on air to introduce a night of films to ring in the New Year, with the special day playing a key part in each film. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) will start the festivities, airing for the first time ever on TCM. Renée Zellweger stars as the titular character, a 30-something-year-old woman whose visit to a New Year’s Eve party sparks the desire to make changes in her personal and professional life, which she chronicles in her diary. Based on the novel by Helen Fielding, the film, also starring Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, spawned three sequels and a musical adaptation. In Only You (1994), also airing in its TCM premiere, Marisa Tomei is a schoolteacher who has believed since childhood that she’s destined to marry a man named Damon Bradley, whom she doesn’t meet until a few days before her marriage to another man. Robert Downey Jr., Bonnie Hunt and Billy Zane also star.
Fate playing a part in a cross-country romance is also the theme of Nora Ephron’s romantic comedy, Sleepless in Seattle (1993), an inspired remake of Leo McCarey’s 1957 romance, An Affair to Remember. When a young Seattle-based boy calls a radio show to wish for a new wife for his widowed father (Tom Hanks), a reporter in Baltimore (Meg Ryan) becomes convinced they’re destined to be together and hopes for a chance meeting at the top of the Empire State Building. Barry Levinson’s Diner (1982) finds a group of friends reunited in 1959 Baltimore for a friend’s New Year’s Eve wedding as they transition into adulthood. Closing out the night is Whit Stillman’s Academy Award-nominated independent feature Metropolitan (1990), which follows a group of upper-class New York socialites whose typical day-to-day is shaken up by an outsider.
At midnight, East Coast time, our hosts will ring in the new year and again at midnight Pacific time. For a full listing of films, check the TCM website schedule.
