The spirit of Frank Capra has clearly inspired two very silly holiday offerings, “It’s A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie” (7 p.m., NBC) and “The Brady Bunch in the White House” (7 p.m., Fox).

“Muppet Christmas” opens with a nod to “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Kermit falls into an existential funk caused by his failure to save the Muppet Theater from its grasping landlord, Rachel Bitterman (Joan Cusack). An ambitious angel named Daniel (David Arquette) bucks his bureaucratic boss (William H. Macy) to take Kermit’s case directly to the celestial big chief (Whoopi Goldberg) to convince her to intervene on behalf of the forlorn frog. The first made-for-television Muppet movie, this genial family film also includes cameos by Carson Daly, Kelly Ripa and the cast of “Scrubs.”

• If Mr. Smith could go to Washington, why not Mike Brady? Fans looking for really dumb fun could do no worse than “The Brady Bunch in the White House.” The polyester-clad family of innocents find themselves thrust into the spotlight after Mike Brady (Gary Cole) returns a found lottery ticket worth $67 million. Shelley Long reprises her role as his slightly dim but entirely devoted wife, Carol. After a series of unseemly scandals, the president picks Mike to be his running mate because Brady is perceived as America’s last truly honest man. When the president is undone by his own crooked deeds, Mike takes the oath of office in a double-knit tuxedo. He later chooses Carol as his vice president after she serenades the Senate with a patriotic musical show-stopper.

The plot is ludicrous, but who cares? It’s fun to watch the Day-Glo Bradys as they navigate Washington’s shark-infested waters. Saul Rubinek appears as a scheming Speaker of the House, who attempts to overthrow Mike. But Mike is too absorbed in his family’s intrigues to even notice. Marcia (Autumn Reeser) throws a slumber party; Jan (Ashley Drane) carries on a tortured interior monologue and communes with a talking portrait of Abraham Lincoln; and the Brady boys break a precious Ming vase that was a gift to Richard Nixon from Mao Tse Tung. At two hours, this film, the first made-for-television “Brady” spoof, is about 40 minutes too long. Maybe it’s time to give this nostalgia franchise a rest.

• U2 wraps up its 2002 tour with the hourlong special “U2’s Beautiful Day” (9 p.m., CBS), taped earlier this year at Ireland’s famed Slane Castle. The band will perform some of its biggest hits, including “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Closer to home, Alan Jackson takes the stage at the Grand Ole Opry House in the holiday special “Alan Jackson: Let it Be Christmas” (7 p.m., CMT).

• A reporter (Cynthia Gibb) spends the holidays hunting down a child who wrote a letter asking Santa for a new mother in the 2002 holiday movie “Mary Christmas” (7 p.m., PAX).

Tonight’s other highlights

• Scheduled on “48 Hours” (7 p.m., CBS):
• Ricardo Montalban hams it up in the 1982 sequel “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (7 p.m., UPN).
• “Biography” (7 p.m., A&E) profiles Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
• Mike helps a minister find his runaway teen daughter on the pilot episode of “Hack” (8 p.m., CBS).
• “No Man’s Land” (8 p.m., Sundance) won the 2002 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for its exploration of the undying ethnic hatreds between Bosnians and Serbs.
• Judith Light and Keir Dullea guest star on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (9 p.m., NBC).
• Scheduled on “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC):

Cult choice

A mystical alien presence inhabits a ship in deep space in Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci fi gem “Solaris” (8:30 p.m., Turner Classic Movies).