Hallmark Hall of Fame (specials)

Hallmark Hall of Fame is a brand or banner name used by Hallmark Hall of Fame Productions—a subsidiary of the Hallmark trading card company—for the series of specials which they both produce and sponsor. It traces its origins back to the anthology series Hallmark Hall of Fame, of which some (but not all) episodes were produced by Hallmark Hall of Fame Productions, as well as Hallmark Hall of Fame's first production, the 1951 special Amahl and the Night Visitors. Hallmark Hall of Fame has also sometimes picked up movies not made for them and tagged them with the Hallmark symbol and aired them as their specials.

Although early productions—like most productions of that era—aired live and included cutaway advertisements for Hallmark, later productions have been similar to regular TV movies with regular commercial breaks. However, Hallmark also sponsors its Hall of Fame productions, and specials sponsored under this banner thus are noted for their Hallmark commercials, which typically have longer running times and higher production values than most TV commercials. Most of these commercials indeed are almost like one- or two-minute short films which air within the longer two-hour film. In fact, as with the Super Bowl, Hall of Fame productions are noted as being one of the few television programs whose audience members frequently look forward to the commercials almost as much as the program itself.