PBS airs 'National Christmas Tree Lighting'

Let there be light

PBS airs the 88th annual “National Christmas Tree Lighting” ceremony at 9 p.m. Friday on WTTW Channel 11. The first family traditionally plays host to the event.

Xmas compilation

NBC's “Saturday Night Live” compiles a bunch of old holiday sketches into a new prime-time special with “A Very Gilly Christmas,” at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 21, on WMAQ Channel 5. The show features Kristen Wiig's Gilly character.

Holiday jeer

A big bucket of coal to all the major cable and broadcast TV stations especially the previously reliable Cartoon Network for snubbing “Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol,” a disarmingly successful adaptation of the Dickens classic featuring songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill. It is, however, available on DVD and VHS from retailers like Amazon. Viewers will just have to console themselves with “Olive the Other Reindeer,” about a dog with the voice of Drew Barrymore who saves Christmas, with the help of songs sung by the likes of R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, to name one. It's at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18, on Cartoon Network.

Reefer madness

If Cheech & Chong had a baby. and it mated with the progeny of Judd Apatow's sweetly stoopid comedies, it would be “Pineapple Express,” a stoner film starring Seth Rogen, James Franco and Danny McBride (as ever, all but stealing the show, and that takes some doing in this cast). The profane poetry of the dialogue figures to suffer on basic cable, but it's still a hoot if not an extra half. It's at 8 p.m. today on FX.