🍍 I’ve hidden a pineapple somewhere in this episode, and if you can find it… you get nothing. Sorry. 

The Advent Calendar House is back for Christmas Podcast Day. This year, a bunch of your yuletide podcast pals are dropping episodes themed to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and that gave me a premonition to take a closer look at a very merry episode of “Psych” from 2010. 

🎙️ Gerry Davila from Totally Rad Christmas joins this examination of our superego, taking the form of renowned actor Tony Cox as himself… kind of. 

Find more “Wonderful” episodes in the Christmas Podcasts directory. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“Psych’s Take on ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Changed Shawn’s Character” (Collider, 2023) 

Maggie Lawson (Jules) on “Boy Meets World.” 

Corbin Bernsen (Henry) has a collection of over 8,000 snow globes. 

Today’s TV Trope: Good Angel, Bad Angel. 

Keshia Knight Pulliam as Gus’s sitcom wife. 

Behind-the-scenes photo of dream sequence Jules, Lassie, and Chief Vick. 

Skyler Gisondo as Young Shawn. 

The Canadian Motion Picture Park Backlot standing in for the least Miami-looking Miami. 

Oh, there’s the pineapple. 

“This Is Christmas” by Curt Smith. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Corn Pops: “Pops Locked in the Car” commercial starring Dulé Hill (1994) 

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“Psych” and “The Polarizing Express” © 2010 Universal Network Television, LLC. 

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s15 #2010s #itsawonderfullife

🎄 We wrap up Christmas in July with an old-fashioned scary ghost story. 

🎙️ Adam Pope and Donnie Storms join the trip aboard the Mystery Machine back to 1984 for Scooby-Doo’s very first Christmas special, in which the gang tries to save an orphanage with the power of pageantry, and stop the mysterious Ghost of Christmas Never. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries opening was riding the “Thriller” wave. 

Beetlejuice’s Graveyard Revue. 

Mr. Wizard and the Talking Head Illusion. 

Our experience with Christmas pageants, including some unfortunate elementary school play featuring the song, “Santa Claus, Santa Claus, you are much too fat.” 

The elf costumes look like Tingle. 

The Mystery Sleigh! 

Go-Gurt + Scooby-Doo = Ro-Gurt! 

Today’s TV Trope: Read the Fine Print. 

The Scooby-Doo Character Reference Guide. 

“The PTA has disbanded!” 

The Little Rascals (1994) boys crash the ballet. 

Mr. Burns collapses on a sundial after being shot. 

Scooby Apocalypse. 

Adam’s stitched Scooby-Doo portrait. 

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📼 Commercials: 

The Kodak Disc (1984) 

Remember That Show? 

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“The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries” and “The Nutcracker Scoob” © 1984 Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. 

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s14 #1980s #hannabarbera

🎄 We’re snowed in a bit earlier than expected, so we’ve hunkered down to have a Christmas feast from around the world with the WJM TV family in a 1974 non-Christmas Christmas episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” 

🎙️ Joining the party is film critic and author Alonso Duralde, who recommended this episode. A newly Revised and Updated edition of Alonso’s book, “Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas,” is being released in September, but you can pre-order it now. 

You can also find Alonso at The Film Verdict; check out his other book, Hollywood Pride; and listen to Linoleum Knife, Maximum Film, Breakfast All Day, and Deck the Hallmark. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Pre-order the Revised and Updated Edition of “Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas.” 

IMDb’s photo gallery for this episode has 20 screenshots of Mary in a towel. 

Betty White’s amazing Christmas dress. 

Harrison Ford recalls what he told George Lucas while shooting the first “Star Wars” movie. 

I couldn’t find a recipe for “soufflé tour légende,” but here’s one for “Mr. Grant You Took Half Veal Prince Orloff!” 

Today’s TV Trope: Social Semi-Circle. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Burger King Gift Certificates Christmas Commercial (1974) 

Season’s Eatings. 

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“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Not a Christmas Story” © 1974 MTM Enterprises, Inc.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s14 #1970s

🎄 Santa falls off the roof, and a guy who acts like a caveman takes over his job. 

🎙 Gerry Davila from Totally Rad Christmas and Sean Sotka from the Christmas Podcasts Podcast join us as we close out another countdown to Christmas in July with a sleigh ride back to the Stone-Age Year of Our Lord 1977. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Our episode on the Fruity Pebbles Christmas Commercial. 

I found a Flintstones chronology on, of all places, Flickr. 

The Internet Archive’s VHS Vault. 

Domino Rally.   

I want to know more about Santa’s reindeer turn signals. 

“Daze Before Christmas” for Super Nintendo and Mega Drive (Genesis). 

Virginia Gregg (Mrs. Claus) was the uncredited voice of Norman Bates’s mother in the first 3 Psycho movies. 

Santa’s workshop should have gotten Flintstone Theming. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Fruity Pebbles: Rapping Barney (1988) 

Voice Command Crusher RC Car (1993) 

Behind the Bells. 

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“A Flintstone Christmas” © 1977 Hanna-Barbera Productions. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1970s #hannabarbera #flintstones

🦃 We’re talking turkey as we dig up and dig in to a 1983 Thanksgiving special from puppeteer Paul Fusco, the creator of ALF. 

🎙️ Chad Young, Tommy Coombs, and Jayme Kilsby join us the follow a turkey’s dream of stardom that ends with dogs and cats living together. 

📺 You can watch “A Thanksgiving Tale” on Youtube, with curated retro Thanksgiving commercials. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Imagicom Productions’ Holiday Specials Collection. 

Fred Travalena as the Joker in the 1989 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

A November 16, 1983 TV listing in an archived New York Magazine. 

Paul Fusco’s “Space Cats.” 

David Lander in “Funland.” 

Mental Floss’s Oral History of ALF. 

Today’s TV Trope: Invited as Dinner. 

The “You Bet Your Life” Duck. 

The art of making puppets fight: Throw them into the air from behind a fence. 

We compare the Thanksgiving play in this special to the one in Addams Family Values. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Butterball Turkey Commercial (1985) 

Christmas Time in the City. 

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“A Thanksgiving Tale” © 1983 Imagicom Productions, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1980s #thanksgiving #puppets

🦖 It’s the most wonderful time of 60 million years ago, so come in and buy paint. 

🎙️ Lindy Kempe joins us with frying pan ready to celebrate Refrigerator Day with the Jim Henson Company’s “Dinosaurs,” which is somehow the Advent Calendar House’s first TGIF episode. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“The Simpsons” parodies “Dinosaurs.” 

We go from talking about the “Økėÿ Døkęÿ Køøkïñ” segment of “Muppets Now” to Netflix’s “Nailed It!” 

Sally Struthers (Charlene) for International Correspondence School. 

A brief history of the Christmas bonus, or “thirteenth salary.” 

Sam McMurray in the very short-lived “A League of Their Own” sitcom, and my own pitch for a TV adaptation on Nerd Lunch’s Fourth Chair Army Invasion. 

Pons Maar (Roy’s body actor) as the original voice of The Noid. 

Unisaurs: The Dinosaurs equivalent to the Anything Muppet. 

The biggest gifts we ended up returning. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Talking Baby Dinosaur and Dinosaurs Figures (1991) 

TGI Podcast. 

**** 

“Dinosaurs” and “Refrigerator Day” © 1991 The Walt Disney Company. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1990s #muppets

🎄 I know what we’re going to podcast about today! 

🎙 James Riley and Brandon Medley join us for a toboggan ride without even getting out of bed back to 2009 to watch Phineas and Ferb save their very nice town’s Christmas Vacation. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Ferb) in “Love Actually” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” 

The time James accidentally knocked over Ben Stiller. 

The Sears Wish Book catalog. 

Today’s TV Trope: Look Both Ways. 

“What Does He Want?” was cut for time and restored later. Also, it sounds like the “Monster Mash.” 

Doofenshmirtz’s Naughty-inator reminds me of the Riddler’s Brain Box from Batman Forever. 

“We Are the World.” 

Walt Disney World’s Candlelight Processional and Raglan Road. 

“Christmas Is Starting Now” by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.   

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📼 Commercials: 

Sears Wish Book (1992) 

Merry Britsmas. 

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“Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation” © 2009 Disney. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #2000s #disney

🎄 Garbageman is here for your Christmas spirit. 

🎙️ Tommy Coombs and Chad Young join us as we look happily deranged back to 1996 to follow Pete and Pete’s brother, Pete, on their mission to keep Christmas going for as long as possible, and keep their Christmas tree safe from the evil Garbageman. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Michael C. Maronna (Big Pete) in “Home Alone,” and in a series of Ameritrade commercials circa 1999. 

“Snow Day” was originally conceived as a Pete & Pete movie. 

The first Pete & Pete short, “What Would You Do for a Dollar?” 

The Pete & Pete 20th Anniversary Reunion. 

Danny Tamberelli (Little Pete) as Jimmy De Santa in “Grand Theft Auto 5.” 

Hardy Rawls (Dad) as the Maytag Repairman circa 2005. 

Sludge Central on “Pete & Pete” filming in New Jersey. 

Chad and Michael May talk “Silent Night, Deadly Night.” 

David Johansen sings “Garbageman’s Ballad.” 

The Max Headroom Pirating Incident. 

A mini ode to character actress Marilyn Dobrin as the Wrigleys’ notably loud neighbor. 

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📼 Commercials: 

The Adventures of Pete & Pete: “Mom’s Plate” (1991) 

Christmas Clatter. 

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“The Adventures of Pete & Pete” and “O’ Christmas Pete” © 1995 Viacom. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1990s #nickelodeon

🎃 It’s a wonderful night for eyebrows and the wildest trip to the euphemism we’ve ever taken. 

🎙️ James Riley and Ethan “The Hungry Reader” hitch a ride in our paraphernalia wagon as we wheel it back to 1977 for a Grinch Night we’ll never forget. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

The worst, non-candy Halloween treats. 

“Carlton, Your Doorman.” 

Longtime Sesame Street composer Joe Raposo composed this special’s music. 

Hans Conried (The Grinch) was also the titular character in Dr. Seuss’s The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. 

I badly describe the plot of “Midnight Madness.” 

The Hakken-Kraks in “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.” 

The Euphemism, and other words I thought Dr. Seuss made up. 

“Dr. Seuss Goes to War,” and other creators of great works doing terrible things. 

Bogleech’s gallery of the Grinch’s monsters, and our personal favorites. 

The Vug under the Rug, the Jibboo, and the Birthday Bird. 

“Danse macabre.” 

Is this a prequel, and where does “The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat” fit into it? 

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📼 Commercials: 

Franken Berry and Monster Cereals (1986), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula. 

Holly Jolly X’masu. 

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“Halloween is Grinch Night” © 1977 DePatie–Freleng Enterprises. 

Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1970s #halloween #drseuss

🎄 Happy Back to the Future Day! Set your time circuits to 1845 by way of 1991 for a special Christmas in July episode of the “Back to the Future” Saturday morning cartoon featuring hologram clothes, the hoverboard equivalent to texting while driving, and Bill Nye the Science Guy.

🎙 Joey O., along with Joseph Wade from Christmas Creeps and The O/S/T Party, are our partners in time for a “Dickens of a Christmas,” featuring Dan Castellaneta as the voice of the animated Doc, Thomas F. Wilson as Ebiffnezer Tannen, and Christmas movie all-star Mary Steenburger as Clara. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Mary Steenburger playing “Informer” on the accordion in “Last Man on Earth.” 

Series art director James S. Baker storyboards his own blog. 

The Back to the Future pinball game and its random movie quotes. 

Futurepedia on how Doc’s clothing converter camera works. 

Weird things we did as kids to show our parents we were responsible. 

Some toys in Fedgewick’s shop shouldn’t be there yet in 1845. 

Did “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” exist in 1845? Possibly, but not the version we know. 

Doc’s wad of cash vs. England’s bank notes circa 1845. 

Wilkins’s dog looks like 1980s T-shirt icon Rude Dog. 

My Back to the Future-themed Good Friday and Easter Sunday tweets. 

The closest thing we could find to a Kaiju Christmas movie is 1962’s “Gorath.” 

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📼 Commercials: 

Back to the Future: The Ride at Universal Studios Florida (1996) 

Hi-C Ecto Cooler Commercial (1989), starring David Kaufmann, the voice of Marty. 

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“Back to the Future,” the Animated Series, and “Dickens of a Christmas” © 1991 Universal Cartoon Studios / Amblin Television. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1990s #scroogesunday

🎄 It’s 2014, but this special about a forgotten holiday mascot feels like it’s from the 1990s. Unfortunately, so do some of the jokes. 

🎙 Michael DiGiovanni and Donnie Storms join us on a sleigh ride back through “How Murray Saved Christmas,” which follows Murray Weiner (rhymes with diner) from the hidden hometown of every holiday mascot… but mostly the American ones. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Former “Simpsons” showrunner Mike Reiss’s original books, “How Murray Saved Christmas” and “Santa Claustrophobia.” 

The trimmed half-hour cut of the special removes some bad jokes, but also Murray’s backstory. 

Speaking of super offensive things, Marc Mero as Johnny B. Badd. 

Today’s TV Trope: Santa’s Sweatshop. 

“Vishnu” takes “The Problem with Apu” to a new low. 

Every LBGTQ+ Joke on The Simpsons Ever (as of early 2021). 

There’s an actual National Milkmen Day… on June 26, not August 12. 

All 27 or so Holidays Represented: 
Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Day, Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras, Presidents Day, St. Patrick’s Day, April Fool’s Day, Easter, Arbor Day, Earth Day, Secretary’s Day (maybe), May Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Graduation Day?, Father’s Day (maybe), (American) Independence Day, Bastille Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving… oh, and Jack Frost is there. 

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📼 Commercials: 

McDonald’s McDLT Commercial starring Jason Alexander (1985) 

Tinsel Tunes. 

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“How Murray Saved Christmas” © 2014 Universal Animation Studios. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #2010s

🐰 Who is Easter Bunny? OMG, Bear is Easter Bunny! How can that be?

🎙 Emily Rowley and Alan Johnson join us as we hop, hop, hop back to 1981 for our first trip to Bear Country, which it turns out was built on top of the Easter Bunny’s industrial nightmare factory. 

📺 You can watch “The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise” for free on YouTube. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Yes, we all collectively mispronounced “Berenstain.” 

The VHS cover, for reference. 

“The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter,” being the story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, who is also a bear. 

Inside the Berenstain Bears’ Tree House. 

The widest tree in the world, for comparison. 

Things this special has in common with “Steel Magnolias”: Knowl Johnson and dozens of broken Easter eggs. 

An ode to the Bear Family’s tiny, antique, circular porthole TV set. 

Today’s TV Trope: Packed Hero. 

“Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video,” featuring young Zachary Danziger (Bill Bunny) and a host of way more familiar names. 

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📼 Commercial: 

Kellogg’s Raisin Bran: Morgan the Mockingbird Commercial (1981), preserved from the original airing of this special. 

Mike on Alan’s Two Bad Neighbors podcast for “Marge Be Not Proud” and “Monty Can’t Buy Me Love.” 

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“The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise” © 1981 Joseph Cates Co., Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1980s #easter #berenstainbears

🎄 Tune in as we mysteriously float back to 1983 for an unseasonably warm Christmas adventure through Mexico with our cool grandma and a talking Rubik’s Cube with more powers than Superman. 

🎙️ Gerry Davila from Totally Rad Christmas join us for a puzzling revisit to “Rubik, the Amazing Cube,” a Saturday morning cartoon that lasted an even shorter amount of time than the fad it tried to cash in on. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

The History of Rubik’s Cube. 

The theme song by pre-Ricky Martin Menudo. 

Ángela Moya, the voice of the kids’ mother, played a small but grim part in “Gleaming the Cube.” 

An ode to the family station wagon. 

An archived, early-Internet Rubik fan site. 

Las Posadas. 

Date a TV show by adding a CB radio. 

Rubik ending up in an eagle’s nest reminded me of “The Polar Express.” 

Reynoldo’s speed cubing skills compared to the real-life Rubik’s Cube world records in 1983 and today. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Cap’n O.G. Readmore (1985) 

Cap’n Crunch Cereal: Crunch vs. Taste (1985) 

An Alpha Bits Cereal commercial that’s clearly still trying to ride the Pac-Man wave, but I’m not complaining (1985) 

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“Rubik, the Amazing Cube” and “Rubik’s First Christmas” © 1983 Ruby-Spears Enterprises, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1980s #rubyspears

🌴 In Part 2 of our “Futurama” Xmas double-header, we meet the only thing worse than an evil robot Santa… two evil robot Santas. 

🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni, Erin Evans, Joey O., and Donnie Storms return for 2001’s “A Tale of Two Santas.”

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“Box Car Blues” (1930). 

Santa’s Death Fortress sure looks like Elsa’s ice palace. 

Coolio’s final acting role before his death was a return as the voice of Kwanzaa-bot. 

An ode to Musicmatch Jukebox and our turn-of-the-century mp3 albums we’re still holding onto. 

My favorite joke in all of “Futurama.” 

“I’m Spartacus!” 

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📼 Commercials: 

America Online Keyword: eBay (2001). 

A Bomb for Christmas: A made-for-podcast Christmas movie featuring your old pal, me. 

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“Futurama” and “A Tale of Two Santas ” © 2001 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. 

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s14 #2000s

🎄 We’re teaching aliens about Christmas again, but this time, George Lucas is watching. 

🎙 Jeff Fox from Name That Christmas Special is our special guest as we go on a domesticated goose chase back to 1977 through “A Cosmic Christmas,” the first fully animated feature by Canadian studio Nelvana. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Jeff’s collection of “A Cosmic Christmas” music and scanned promotional items. 

Joanna Wilson’s Christmas TV History. 

This special got George Lucas’s attention and led to Nelvana producing the animated segment of the “Star Wars Holiday Special.” 

“The Nelvana Story: Thirty Animated Years.” 

Today’s TV Trope: Big Ball of Violence. 

Jellybean looks like the red-eyed Pac-Man on the side of the arcade cabinet. 

Duncan Regehr (Amalthor) as Dracula in “The Monster Squad.” 

Marian Waldman, Mrs. Mac from “Black Christmas,” also has a quick line or two. 

The Castle Thunder stock sound effect. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Burger King Doll Christmas Commercial (1977) 

Weird Christmas. 

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“A Cosmic Christmas” © 1977 Nelvana Enterprises, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1970s #nelvana

🎄 It’s time for toys and time for cheer as the Advent Calendar House begins another 12-episode countdown to Christmas in July. 

🎙 Sean Sotka and Steven join us as we rewind at twice the normal speed back to 1981 to revisit the Christmas special that helped kick off the revival of Alvin and the Chipmunks. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Steven’s story of accidentally erasing his VHS recording of this special, only to find another recording of the same broadcast years later. 

The History of the Chipmunks (RIP The Hourchive). 

“Witch Doctor.” 

R.J. Williams (Tommy), who was 3 years old in this special, later starred in “Wake, Rattle, & Roll.” 

Dave’s 3-story Victorian mansion seen only in this special and never again. 

Yes, the Chipmunks wear pants. 

Vintage Echo harmonicas are real, but good luck finding a gold one. 

Selling photos of Santa with dogs dressed as reindeer looks way more fun than selling dollar store junk door-to-door. 

Clyde Crashcup invented a popular “Simpsons” joke. 

Today’s TV trope: Talking in Your Sleep. 

“Paw Patrol” makes no sense. 

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📼 Commercials: 

A Chipmunk Christmas Soundtrack Album (1981) 

7up Countdown to Christmas Posters (1986)  

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“A Chipmunk Christmas” © 1981 Bagdasarian Productions.  

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s6 #1980s

🎄 It’s Christmas Eve in the Advent Calendar House as we walk through a ring of fire back to 1982 to dance with the Smurfs and watch goodness make the badness go away. 

🎙 Thom Crowe from Tis the Podcast and Gerry Davila from Totally Rad Christmas join us for a heaping help of Greedy Smurf’s cauldron of pink pudding. 

📺 You can watch “The Smurfs’ Christmas Special” for free on YouTube. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

My son thinks the king of Hyrule is Santa. 

I just now learned about Watergate salad. 

The Smurfs in theme parks. 

Danny Goldman (Brainy Smurf) in “Young Frankenstein.” 

Paul Winchell (Gargamel) invented an artificial heart. 

The mysterious Stranger may or may not be the actual Devil. 

Teaser for a new Smurfs animated series. 

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📼 Commercial: 

The Smurfs at Kings Dominion (1984) 

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“The Smurfs” and “The Smurfs’ Christmas Special” © 1982 Hanna-Barbera Productions. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1980s #hannabarbera

🎄 10 years after “The Simpsons” debuted, Matt Groening presented another Christmas special about another Santa’s little helper. 

🎙 Erin Evans and Joey O. joins us on a 2-dimensional flight back to 1999 to revisit “Olive, the Other Reindeer,” a misheard but not forgotten doggie treat. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

The Making of “Olive, the Other Reindeer.” 

“PaRappa the Rapper.” 

“Mr. Lunch Takes a Plane Ride,” the first book by “Olive” creators Vivian Walsh and J. Otto Seibold. 

“The Goonies II.” 

Jay Mohr in “Camp Wilder.” 

Famous mondegreens and the stupidest lyric I’ve ever misheard. 

Dan Castellaneta’s Postman voice sounds like his Robot Devil. 

“You’re no Jack Kennedy.” 

Bullwinkle tried to kidnap my baby. 

R U Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me?, formerly U Talkin’ U2 to Me? and currently U Talkin’ Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head? 

Michael Stipe on “The Adventures of Pete & Pete.” 

The pope gets a Phillies hat. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Amazon.com Christmas Countdown Commercial (1999) 

Santa by the Minute. 

The Christmas Podcasts Podcast. 

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“Olive, the Other Reindeer” © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1990s

🎄 Take a hop, a skip, and a jump scare through the uncanny valley on a trip back to 2009 to rewatch Disney’s feature-length version of “A Christmas Carol.” 

🎙 Matt Weiland joins us for Robert Zemeckis’s motion capture nightmare starring 4 Jim Carreys, 3 Gary Oldmans, 2 Robin Wrights, and a Cary Elwes in a pear shape. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Respect to a Disney movie that jumps from a storybook opening to a corpse’s face. 

Despite being the 5th highest grossing Christmas movie as of 2020, this is also one of history’s biggest box-office bombs. 

Coins on a corpse’s eyes in 19th century England had less to do with paying the ferryman’s toll and more to do with keeping their eyes closed. 

Cary Elwes (one of the “portly” solicitors) is a descendant of John Elwes, the real-life inspiration for Scrooge. 

Christopher Walker forgetting his lines as Captain Hook in “Peter Pan Live.” 

Disney’s Movies website accidentally credited Gary Oldman as both Kermit and Robin the Frog. 

Philadelphia’s Dickens Village. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present flying Scrooge’s entire room around London is a weird mix of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Soarin’. 

Jim Carrey on his various accents. 

“Roundhouse” alumna Julene Renee as Want. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

McDonald’s: Scrooge’s Party (1984), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula. 

Merry Britsmas. 

Yuletide TV. 

**** 

Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” © 2009 Disney. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #2000s #scroogesunday #disney

🎄 Doug uses weaponized cupcakes to break Porkchop out of doggie death row. 

🎙 Gregiffer Stevens from the Pop Arena and Nick Knacks joins us as we skate on thin ice back to 1993 for a very educational trip to Bluffington that I forgot was a Christmas episode while I was watching it. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Disney’s “Doug” was fine, y’all. 

“Doug” creator Jim Jinkins worked on Nickelodeon’s first show, “Pinwheel.” 

Early versions of Doug in a bumper for USA Network and a PSA for Florida Grapefruit Juice narrated by Lorenzo Music. 

Today’s TV Trope: Danger: Thin Ice. 

Alice Playten (Beebe) in “Really Rosie” as Alligator. 

Constance Shulman (Patti) in “Weekend at Bernie’s II.” 

Every car in Bluffington looks like Homer Simpson designed it. 

Greg Lee from “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” voices the now-former mayor White, and boy, am I glad we recorded this after election week. 

“The Phred on Your Head Show.” 

Mr. Dink’s last name is apparently an acronym for “Double Income, No Kids.” 

Don’t wrap pets in boxes! 

What is Pork Chop? 

The topper on the Funnies’ Christmas tree is Mr. Dink’s face. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Nicktoons Pizza Hut Kids’ Pizza Pack Commercial, (1991) 

SequelQuest. 

TGI Podcast. 

**** 

“Doug” and “Doug’s Christmas Story” © 1993 Jumbo Pictures, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1990s #nickelodeon

🎄 Young Conan the Barbarian meets baby Jesus on this episode of the official holiday podcast for people who hate all humans — which, in 2020, is most of us. 

🎙️ Brandon Medley and Michael May join the dance to the beat of our own drum back to 1968 and back into the Rankin/Bass universe for their stop-motion follow-up to “Rudolph.” 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

This was Romeo Muller’s favorite Christmas special he wrote for Rankin/Bass. Also, that link on Rankin/Bass’s website is from 2003 and looks like it hasn’t been touched since 2003. 

Paul Frees voices of 8 different characters in this special, if you count animal noises. 

The song, originally called “Carol of the Drum,” was written more recently than I’d thought — in 1941 — and first recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Family Singers. 

Aaron’s origin story is the same as Conan the Barbarian’s. 

Here’s an isolated recording of “One Star in the Night,” without the narration. 

Burl Ives wouldn’t have felt out of place narrating this special, since he’d go on to narrate one about another caravan. 

The special also mixes up its kings, at least as they’re traditionally named. 

Our definitive versions of the song. 

Young Brandon insists on adding the Little Drummer Boy to a church Nativity pageant. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Kentucky Fried Chicken: Christmas Carol (1989) 

NetfliXmas. 

Feliz Christmas, Merry Navidad. 

**** 

“The Little Drummer Boy” © 1968 Rankin/Bass Productions. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1960s #rankinbass #nativity

🎄 Wrapping, unwrapping, and rewrapping a bow on a comedy classic. 

🎙 Guy Hutchinson joins us as we second-, third-, and fourth-guess ourselves back to 1960 to go Christmas shopping with Jack Benny, the last televised version of a longtime radio favorite. 

🚨 Warning: In one scene, a character shoots himself offscreen. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

The Television Academy Foundation on Jack Benny’s Christmas Shopping show, including a video interview with show writer George Balzer. 

The earliest “Christmas Shopping” recording I could find, from 1937. 

Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, the progression of race relations, and his racehorse. 

Finally I get to talk about Mel Blanc, the real star of this show. 

Adjusting the $1.98 and $40 wallets for inflation. 

A 2002 message board post on JackBenny.org answering whether Jack was a practicing Jew. 

A tribute to Frank “Yeees?” Nelson. 

Dennis Day and the dying practice of actors legally changing their names to their most popular characters’. 

Stupid “the customer is always right” stories. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Norelco Santa (circa 1961). 

Weird Christmas. 

**** 

“The Jack Benny Program” and “Jack Goes Christmas Shopping” ©1960 J&M Productions, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1960s

🎄 We may all exist in the dreams of 2 kids and their dog. 

🎙 Michael DiGiovanni and Christian Nielsen help us responsibly deforest our way back to 1980 to dig up the first appearance of early Disney Channel imports The Raccoons and the greedy Cyril Sneer. 

📺 You can watch “The Christmas Raccoons” on YouTube. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

This special and an accompanying story album were narrated by Rich Little, a “Man of a Thousand Voices,” in his own, regular voice. 

Rupert Holmes (Forest Ranger Dan) is the singer/songwriter behind “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).” 

Tammy Bourne (Julie) and Hadley Kay (Tommy) were both in 1980 movies as children who fall from great heights. 

Today’s TV Trope: Human Snowball. 

Where does the dream end and reality begin? Maybe it’s all in the St. Elsewhere Snow Globe Universe of Tommy Westphall (no relation). 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Canadian Tire’s “Scrooge Approved” Prices (1987) 

Christmas Creeps. 

**** 

“The Christmas Raccoons” ©1980 PFS Christmas Raccoons / PFS Pooled Film Services, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1980s

🕎 Marc Weiner and his puppets won’t stop screaming in Nickelodeon’s first Hanukkah special. 

🎙 April Ryley joins us as we noisily snowmobile back to 1995 to try and figure out what everyone’s yelling about. Unexpectedly, it all started in outer space. 

📺 You can watch “The Weinerville Chanukah Special” on YouTube. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Weinerville.com is alive and well in 2020. 

Marc Weiner as Swiper the Fox and the Map in “Dora the Explorer.” 

Marc Summers on his OCD being “blown out of freakin’ proportion,” and why he dropped his given last name. 

Sour cream vs. applesauce for latke dipping. 

Michael Gunst (Sinrek) may or may not be this puppeteer and mask maker. 

Brian O’Connor (Antidorkus) as Schemer on “Shining Time Station.” 

Thanks to Nickelodeon being under the MTV Networks umbrella, this special featured music by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Miami Sound Machine, and the B-52’s. 

The bulk of this special was filmed at the Summit Lodge in Killington, Vermont. 

Telephone booths still exist at Walt Disney World. 

Liver as a go-to food kids hate. 

Kevin “Diesel” Nash was still WWF Champion during taping, but lost it shortly before the special aired. 

The art of making your own menorah out of household items, recyclable objects, or fruit. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Kmart Holiday Commercial starring Rosie O’Donnell and Penny Marshall (1995) 

Holly Jolly X’masu. 

**** 

“The Weinerville Chanukah Special” © 1995 Nickelodeon. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1990s #hanukkah #nickelodeon #puppets

🌴 The Advent Calendar House has awoken from what feels like a thousand-year slumber and a lame April Fool’s joke. As a peace offering, here’s the first of two back-to-back episodes celebrating Xmas as imagined by “Futurama.” 

🎙️ It’s extra crowded in the cryogenic chamber as Michael DiGiovanni, Erin Evans, Joey O., and Donnie Storms drop in for 1999’s “Xmas Story,” in which we’re introduced to the annual tradition of gift-giving and shelter-taking from a killer robot Santa Claus that awaits our descendants in the year 3000. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“Fresh Hare” (1942). 

Orange Cassidy sleeping through his own wrestling match. 

“Why Chaucer Said ‘Ax’ Instead of ‘Ask,’ and Why Some Still Do” (NPR, 2013). 

“Why is the number 1,729 hidden in Futurama episodes?” (BBC, 2013). 

The classic dangling from a clock tower scenes from “Safety Last” and “Back to the Future.” 

John Goodman’s other appearances as Santa. 

Randy Johnson hits a bird with a fastball. 

Corona Extra’s Christmas palm tree commercial. 

The lyrics to “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” are sinister enough by themselves. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Hess Truck 1999 Space Shuttle Toy. 

Stick to Shorts: A Classic Cartoons Podcast. 

**** 

“Futurama” and “Xmas Story” © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s14 #1990s

🎄 A well-deserved punch in the face that’s a little bit rock ’n’ roll. 

🎙 James Riley joins us on a last-minute flight to the North Pole to catch up with 2001’s “A Johnny Bravo Christmas,” a special that first aired less than 3 months after 9/11, on Pearl Harbor Day, and opens with Johnny unnecessarily calling the fire department to tell them he’s “the bomb.”   

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“’Twas the Night,” a 1997 Johnny Bravo segment which this special accounts for in the show’s continuity… sort of. 

“Larry & Steve,” Seth MacFarlane’s proto-“Family Guy” short film before from before he worked as a “Johnny Bravo” staff writer. 

People on TV who wait till Christmas Eve to start decorating. 

Homer Simpson’s sandwich, and the worst things we’ve found in our couches. 

The latest you can mail something to guarantee arrival before Christmas, according to the U.S. Postal Service’s Holiday Shipping Deadlines. 

Vanessa Marshall (Truck Driver) may or may not have provided the scream of Samus dying in the Metroid Prime games. 

Santa’s village looks like the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle and is cloaked like Wakanda. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

American Online Keyword eBay (2001) 

Season’s Eatings. 

The Retro Network. 

**** 

“A Johnny Bravo Christmas” ©2001 Cartoon Network. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #2000s #cartoonnetwork

🎄 Filmation’s space western gets a dickens of a backstory. 

🎙 Joey O. and Sammy Hain saddle up for a Scrooge Sunday edition of the Advent Calendar House looking back at a 1987 Christmas episode of “BraveStarr.” 

📺 You can watch “Tex’s Terrible Night” on YouTube. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

The Fisher-Price Western Town I used as a backdrop for the much larger Bravestarr action figure. 

Joey’s interview with Pat Fraley (Marshal BraveStarr). 

This episode uses flashback scenes from the movie “BraveStarr: The Legend,” which explains why the animation quality isn’t consistent. 

Young Tex Hex looks like a purple Faker from “He-Man.” 

Stampede, the show’s even bigger bad, grants Tex Hex the power of transformation, because Filmation really wanted to teach kids that things that transform are evil. 

The “present-day” husband of Tex’s former love, Ursula, looks like Fred Ward. 

The time BraveStarr found a kid dead of a drug overdose. 

**** 
📼 Commercial: 

Marshal BraveStarr, Tex Hex, and Neutralaser Toy Commercial (1986) 

Christmas Time in the City. 

**** 

“BraveStarr” and “Tex’s Terrible Night” ©1987 Filmation Associates. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1980s #scroogesunday #filmation

🎄 Join us on a stroll down Jim Henson’s dark hall of nightmares to 1986 to rewatch “The Christmas Toy,” an idea no one has repeated since. 

🎙 Beth Cieslik, Adam Jurotich, and Donnie Storms are the newest friends in the playroom who have to learn the horrors of getting caught out of place. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Kermit was cut from the DVD release, but he’s back in the version on Amazon Prime Video. 

Rugby crashing his skateboard into a block tower is the 1980s Muppet version of WWE’s Titus O’Neil tripping and sliding underneath the ring. 

“Teacup Furby.” 

“Mother Goose Rock ’n’ Rhyme” and the song “Gordon (Never Really Learned to Play).” 

Apple is closer to a female My Buddy than Kid Sister, the actual female My Buddy. 

The inevitable “Toy Story” comparison. 

Somehow we worked in a “Christmas Shoes” joke. I’m not linking to that. I just wanted you to know. 

“Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” 

“The Secret Life of Toys,” the short-lived 1994 sequel series. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Kraft Holiday Recipes featuring “The Christmas Toy” poster (1986), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula. 

Crispy Critters Cereal (1987) 

Snow in Southtown. 

**** 

“The Christmas Toy” ©1986 Henson Associates, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1980s #muppets

🎄 Santa’s sleigh is grounded in the original video game crash. 

The Advent Calendar House kicks off another Christmas countdown by rewinding back to 1982, when Santa found himself stranded in Pac-Man’s neighborhood. 

🎙 Lindy and Alicia join us for a stroll through “Christmas Comes to Pacland,” where no one knows about Christmas, but somehow the Ghost Monsters know the words to “Jingle Bells.” 

🚨 Warning: Santa spoilers from 11:25 to 13:30. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Santa is flying with 8 reindeer, including Rudolph. Who got the night off? 

Why some reindeer actually have red noses. 

This might be the first time a Christmas special shows Santa using a computer. 

Russi Taylor’s Pac-Baby has the same voice she later used for Robin in “Muppet Babies.” 

Absent from this special is the Ghost Monsters’ boss, Mezmaron. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Pac-Man Cereal (1984) 

Chef Boyardee Pac-Man Pasta (1984) 

A Bomb for Christmas, made for podcast Christmas movie by Tim Babb of the Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast, co-starring Mike as “Captain Willis.” 

**** 

“Christmas Comes to Pacland” © 1982 Hanna-Barbera Productions. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s5 #1980s #hannabarbera #videogames

🦃 The Gaslighting of Dr. Liz Wilson. 

Join us as badly dancing back to 1989 to celebrate the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. 

🎙️ Jeff Somogyi joins us to dig into “Garfield’s Thanksgiving,” the clear bronze medalist of Garfield’s holiday trilogy, thanks to Jon Arbuckle going from goofy pet owner to hopelessly inept creep. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Orson the Pig from “U.S. Acres” makes a cameo in Liz’s waiting room. 

The dumbest things we’ve done to get a date pale in comparison to Jon holding his breath until Liz concedes to going out with him. Please don’t do that. 

Pat Carroll is back as Grandma in her 2nd greatest vocal performance of November 1989. 

Julie Payne (Liz) was also briefly the voice of another cartoon doctor, Janice N!Godatu, from the other animated segment of “The Tracey Ullman Show.” 

A brief history of sock garters. 

This special confirms Jon can’t hear Garfield speaking, but somehow Garfield’s computerized, fat-shaming scale can. 

The best of Calvin’s dad from Calvin and Hobbes. 

Grandma Arbuckle’s Sweet Potatoes, as prepared by Dinosaur Dracula. 

Cranberry sauce tastes better when it’s shaped like the inside of a can. 

Desirée Goyette, the female singing voice in Garfield’s specials and also the voice of Nermal, also sang the title theme from “It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown.” 

**** 

📼 Commercial: 

Garfield Alpo Cat Food Commercial (1989) 

**** 

“Garfield’s Thanksgiving” © 1989 United Feature Syndicate, Inc./Anderson Digital. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1980s #thanksgiving #garfield #comics

🎄 S-s-season’s greetings-s-s! You better watch out, because today we’re kindly rewinding back to a 1985 Christmas episode of “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero,”

🎙️ Joey O. parachutes in for “Cobra CLAWs Are Coming to Town,” featuring the incredible shrinking Cobra troops and a giant parrot. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

We don’t even get 4 minutes into this before bringing up the U.S.S. Flagg. 

Then we get caught up in the Crossfire. 

A brief history of the G.I. Joe toy line, from “America’s Movable Fighting Man” to the Adventure Team, to “A Real American Hero.” 

“The Toys That Made Us” on Netflix. 

The “opening monologue that explains the show” has nothing on Voltron’s. 

Neil Ross (Shipwreck, Dusty, and Buzzer in this episode) has an audio camero in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “I Can’t Watch This.” 

Joey’s interviews with Pat Fraley (Wild Weasel), Gregg Berger (Firefly), Michael Bell (Duke, Blowtorch, Major Bludd), and Rob Paulsen (Tripwire, his earliest known voice credit). 

“The Viper is Coming” is both our favorite G.I. Joe episode and my dad’s favorite dad joke. 

“King Koopa’s Kool Kartoons,” starring Chris Latta (Cobra Commander). 

We try and find Keystone City, which may or may not be somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania. 

The titular Cobra CLAW (Covert Light Aerial Weapon), an odd name for a Cobra vehicle, because snakes don’t have claws. 

Fenslerfilm’s G.I. Joe PSAs. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

William “The Refrigerator” Perry G.I. Joe Action Figure (1987) 

Weird Christmas.

**** 

“G.I. Joe” and “Cobra CLAWs Are Coming to Town” © 1985 Hasbro, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1980s #hasbro

🎄 On another Scrooge Sunday edition of the Advent Calendar House, we fly back in time to 1978 to revisit Rankin/Bass’s turn at “A Christmas Carol.” 

🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May return to talk “The Stingiest Man in Town,” an animated remake of a made-for-TV musical, featuring the voices of Walter Matthau as Scrooge and Tom Bosley as our narrator, a literal talking Humbug. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

This is specifically an adaptation of a 1956 production on “The Alcoa Hour” starring Basil Rathbone as Scrooge. 

The original special on Sleigh Bell Cinema. 

Michael May’s Christmas Carol Project. 

Sonny Melendrez (Bob Cratchit) in “You and Me, Kid.” 

This has my all-time favorite, super creepy version of Marley’s face appearing on Scrooge’s door knocker. 

This special gets older Belle completely wrong. 

Tiny Tim has skinny robot legs. 

Debbie Clinger (Martha Cratchit) of the Clinger Sisters, a.k.a. Superchick from the “Krofft Supershow” host band Kaptain Kool and the Kongs. 

Rankin/Bass should have made a south seas-themed special called Christmas Island. (Hi from the future! We ended up exploring this idea on After Lunch.) 

Scrooge’s grave morphing into a giant devil face is a reminder in hindsight that this special was animated in Japan by Topcraft, the predecessor to Studio Ghibli. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Glad Trash Bags Commercial starring Tom Bosley (1981) 

Christmas Creeps. 

**** 

“The Stingiest Man in Town” © 1978 Rankin/Bass Productions. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1970s #rankinbass #scroogesunday

🎄 Sail back to 1981 as we dig up Rankin/Bass’s penultimate and possibly most obscure stop-motion Christmas special. 

🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May stumble in to imbibe “The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold,” which may or may not only exist because Rankin/Bass had the rights to use the song “Christmas in Killarney” and needed someplace to put it. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Ken Jennings (the voice of Dinty Doyle, not the Jeopardy! guy) in the short-lived Epcot Center attraction, “The Astuter Computer Revue.” 

Mag the Hag’s entrance reminds me of Rita Repulsa in “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” 

This special keeps adding new rules about how both banshees and rainbows work, like they’re Mogwai. 

The Leprechauns’ “phantom island of Tralee” shares a name with an actual mainland town in Ireland, but is closer to Dursey Island, population (as of 2016): 4. 

The only thing many remember about this special is its Nightmare Face reveal that a beautiful woman Dinty finds washed ashore is the banshee in disguise. 

According to the Christmas Specials Wiki, Arthur Rankin said a promotion was planned involving prizes buried in random places around the United States for children to dig up, but was abandoned for safety concerns. 

“Jack O’Lantern,” from Rankin/Bass’s Festival of Family Classics TV series, featuring a leprechaun disguised as a pumpkin. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Gremlins Gizmo Plush Pet (1984) 

The Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast. 

**** 

“The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold” © 1981 Rankin/Bass Productions. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1980s #rankinbass

🎄 Hey, paisanos! Join us as we warp back to 1989 for a double dose of Christmas segments from “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show.” 

🎙 Adam Pope joins us to watch Mario and Luigi save Santa in 2 different dimensions: The live-action “Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush,” featuring Santa losing his “transportation” in Brooklyn; and the animated “Koopa Klaus,” featuring a plot to… freeze the North Pole. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Nintendo Power’s preview of “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show.” 

I didn’t realize till recently the music in the “Back to the Future” Nintendo game is just “The Power of Love” sped up. 

“King Koopa’s Kool Kartoons,” a live-in-studio spinoff show local to Los Angeles and hosted by King Koopa, performed at one point by Chris Latta, a.k.a. Christopher Collins. 

Captain Lou Albano’s Wrestling Hotline 1-900 number. 

We map out where Mario and Luigi lived in Brooklyn. 

“Stunt Dawgs,” an obscure 1992 cartoon featuring Harvey Atkin playing another character with the same King Koopa voice. 

“Teeter-totter” vs. “see-saw.” 

How tall is Mario? Captain Lou was 5-foot-10, though other sources range from 5-foot-1 to 3-foot-8. 

Preview of Super Nintendo World, coming to Universal theme parks. 

Finally, I get to talk at length about The Legend of Zelda! 

Adam’s SequelQuest episode on the Super Mario Bros. movie, featuring a parody of the Super Show theme song. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Pepsi Nintendo Holiday Game (1989), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula. 

Nintendo Power Commercial (1990), preserved by RobertDigitalGames. 

Christmas Clatter. 

**** 

“The Super Mario Bros. Super Show,” “Koopa Klaus,” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush” © 1989 DiC Entertainment. 
“Super Mario Bros.” © Nintendo Co. Ltd. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1980s #dic #videogames

🎃 It’s the 13th of July, so it’s time for the Advent Calendar House to unearth one of our favorite Halloween haunts. 

🎙️ Tommy Coombs flies in to talk 1979’s “The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t,” starring an exceptionally great Judd Hirsch as Count Dracula. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

This was renamed for its VHS release as “The Night Dracula Saved the World,” except no, he doesn’t. 

Lyndhurst Mansion. 

Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” was never in a Dracula movie. 

Wildwood, New Jersey’s Castle Dracula. 

Jack Riley (Warren the Werewolf) in commercials for Country Crock spread. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

McDonald’s Scared Silly (1986) starring Ronald McDonald and the Chicken McNuggets. 

Weird Christmas. 

**** 

“The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t” © 1979 Concepts Unlimited. 

Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1970s #halloween

🕎 It’s the year 2000, and Christmas and Hanukkah have crossed paths at my doorstep in the form of Santa Claus and his part-Jewish friend… a weird turtle man. 

🎙 Becca Petunia and April Ryley join us as we revisit some old Friends in honor of Christmas Day and the first night of Hanukkah sharing a day on the calendar this year. Plus: An escaped tarantula, a restaurant we may never be allowed in or out of again, and an unforgettable interfaith holiday mascot fit for a new millennium. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

How often does the first night of Hanukkah fall on Christmas? (Vox, 2016) 

What the ‘Friends’ Holiday Armadillo Episode Gets Right About Interfaith Families (Hey Alma, 2021) 

The “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas” drum roll outtake reel. 

A transcript including deleted scenes reveals Ben wants Santa to bring him an ant farm. 

Formication (with an M, y’all), the false sense of feeling like bugs are crawling on you. 

Halloween Adventure is real and still open. 

Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

AT&T True Savings with David Schwimmer (circa 1996) 

The Studio Demands It! 

**** 

“Friends” and “The One with the Holiday Armadillo” © 2000 Warner Bros. Television. 

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s13 #2000s #hanukkah

🎄 Go-go Gadget podcast! It’s time to spring back to 1992 to take “Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas” in for questioning. 

🎙 Chad Young accepts our assignment to investigate the time Dr. Claw took over Santa’s workshop for some reason. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Nick Knacks, a show-by-show video history of Nickelodeon. 

Halloween 1992 was the year of white kids dressing like Steve Urkel. 

Inspector Gadget’s run on Nickelodeon got me into “Get Smart” on Nick at Nite. 

The time Chad got a crew jacket from the set of the “Inspector Gadget” movie. 

The action figure that revealed Dr. Claw’s goofy face. 

The Inspector Gadget Super Nintendo game, featuring the same alternate theme song as this special. 

Maurice LaMarche subbing for Don Adams for Gadget’s weird version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” is similar to Jim Cummings finishing “Be Prepared” for Jeremy Irons in “The Lion King.” 

Where’s the camera Penny’s Not Apple Watch uses to see Brain? 

Jerry “The King” Lawler entering the 1997 Royal Rumble Match in the middle of a sentence, then finishing it after being eliminated in 4 seconds. 

“Disney’s Christmas All-Time Favorites.” 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Cookie Crisp Cereal Christmas Commercial (1992) 

Tinsel Tunes. 

**** 

“Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas” © 1992 DiC Entertainment. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1990s #dic

🎄 Join us as we slowly slink sideways back to 1983 to celebrate the time someone literally threw an idea at the wall to see if it would stick. 

🎙️ Joey O. returns to talk “Deck the Halls with Wacky Walls,” an animated Christmas special about Wacky WallWalkers. But first, we need to talk about the man behind the WallWalkers, Dr. Fad! 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“The Dr. Fad Show.” 

Eight ’80s Xmas Specials You Might’ve Forgotten (Dinosaur Dracula, 2015) 

X-Entertainment’s preserved 2003 tribute to the Wacky WallWalker. 

This isn’t the right Apple Jacks commercial, but I can’t not mention young Julia Stiles scoffing that it doesn’t taste like apples. 

Writer Mark Evanier’s blog. 

The WallWalkers’ home planet looks like an M.C. Escher painting. 

Darryl’s friend, Kenzo, is named after one of Dr. Fad’s sons. His other son married comedian Ali Wong. 

The most expensive things we’ve asked for from our parents for Christmas, which pale in comparison to a $1,000 toy car — which, of course, we then look up its adjustment for inflation. 

Waxing nostalgic about popcorn garland on Christmas trees. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

Corn Pops Cereal with free Wacky WallWalker inside (1984) 

**** 

“Deck the Halls with Wacky Walls” © 1983 NBC Productions. 
“The Dr. Fad Show” © 1988 Tradex Corp. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1980s

🐰 Hello, sunshine! Join us for a hop back to Easter 1986 to revisit the Jim Henson special, “The Tale of the Bunny Picnic.” 

🎙 Emily Rowley hops into the guest chair for this special, which it turns out is about neither Easter, nor a bunny picnic… but it did introduce the world to Bean Bunny, the Muppets’ Nermal. 

**** 

💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Jim Henson’s original intro to this special. 

“The Jim Henson Hour.” 

Bean Bunny in Muppet*Vision 3D at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. 

Bean was also a late-series addition to “Muppet Babies,” and his picture is on the playroom wall in Disney’s new “Muppet Babies.” 

“The Muppet Musicians of Bremen” and its grotesque, full-size Muppet bad guys. 

Sweetums in “Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince.” 

Bean trying to tell the other bunnies to quiet down or the dog will hear them is also the plot of the first act of “Trolls.” 

Every Easter Bunny costume is terrifying. 

Y’all remember Puffalumps? You do now. 

The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta is home to several Muppets from this special, including both Bean and his Dragon Bunny form from his dream sequence. 

Carlin Trammel’s video tour of the Center for Puppetry Arts’ Jim Henson exhibit. 

**** 

📼 Commercials: 

McDonald’s Muppet Babies Holiday Huggables (1988) 

Christmas Creeps. 

**** 

“The Tale of the Bunny Picnic” © 1986 Henson Associates. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1980s #easter #muppets

🎄 It’s another Scrooge Sunday in the Advent Calendar House as we’re swept through a rip in the space-time continuum back to 1986 for a Christmas Carol-themed episode of “The Real Ghostbusters.”

🎙 Tommy Coombs and Chad Young join the adventure after our heroes accidentally save Scrooge from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Hey, grown-ups! Remember getting lost while driving when we didn’t all have maps of the entire planet in our pockets? 

Scrooge pays the Ghostbusters a mint-condition shilling from 1837, so we looked up its actual value. 

You can actually buy Christmas Carol View Master reels from the 1950s online. 

Rick and Morty talking about Bill Murray and Lorenzo Music comes up and goes… somewhere. 

Egon entering the ghost containment unit looks like the warp tunnel on Space Mountain. 

The other ghosts in the containment unit are callbacks to previous episodes, including Sandman, who bears a passing resemblance to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. 

Santa should not laugh like Megatron. 

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📼 Commercials: 

The Real Ghostbusters Firehouse Playset, Tombstone Tackle, and X-Cop (1986) 

Tis the Podcast. 

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“The Real Ghostbusters” and “Xmas Marks the Spot” © 1986 Columbia Pictures Television. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1980s #scroogesunday #dic

🎄 Mr. Snowman, I don’t feel so good. Rankin/Bass’s Avengers assemble in the studio’s longest holiday special ever. 

🎙️ Brandon Medley returns to marvel at “Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July.” Frosty’s a dad! And Rudolph’s a fake uncle whose nose stops shining at the beginning of this story… but what happens to Frosty and his whole family is even worse. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

King Winterbolt’s genie of the ice scepter, allegedly Thurl Ravenscroft, is the stuff of nightmares. 

“The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus” may be the most metal Christmas special, but this is a contender. 

Rudolph’s entire story gets retconned into a long play to stop Winterbolt’s foggy Christmas Eve from grounding Santa. 

Ethel Merman on “The Muppet Show.” 

Scratcher is a great evil reindeer, but we’d like it better if he was Fireball. 

A couple of songs were cut for time from TV, including “Chicken Today, Feathers Tomorrow” and “I See Rainbows When I Look at You.” 

Walt Disney World’s Candlelight Processional. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Atari Christmas Commercial, aired during a 1981 ABC Movie Special airing, preserved by the Museum of Classic Chicago Television. 

The Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast. 

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“Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July” © 1979 Rankin/Bass Productions. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1970s #rankinbass #rudolph #frosty #4thofjuly

🎄 Happy birthday! The Advent Calendar House kicks off a countdown to Christmas in July by setting the table for Rankin/Bass’s eventual epic crossover, starting with “Frosty’s Winter Wonderland,” the “Weird Science” of Christmas specials. 

🎙️ Brandon Medley belly-whops in to salute this snowy sequel from 1976 starring a strange, tall goblin claiming to be Andy Griffith. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

A brief guide to finding obsure things on Disney+, like “Melody Time,” starring Dennis Day, (Parson Brown) as Johnny Appleseed. 

Barbara Jo Ewing voiced one of the kids in her only known credit, but somehow IMDb knows her height. 

We do the math to figure out how far the wind carried a newspaper from Frosty’s hometown to the North Pole. 

Frosty beat “The Santa Clause 2” to the “gotta get a wife” plot point by more than 20 years. 

Frosty’s “specifications” for his ideal woman are the same as Sir Mix-a-Lot’s. 

At what point do snow people become self-aware? 

Jack Frost’s “winter that almost didn’t end” foreshadowed the real-life Blizzard of 1977. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Freezy Freakies (1984) 

Christmas Clatter. 

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“Frosty’s Winter Wonderland” © 1976 Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s4 #1970s #rankinbass #frosty

How do you do, fellow holiday special enthusiasts? The Advent Calendar House has emerged from its slumber in the Mariana Trench a few months early to celebrate Leap Day! 

🎙️ Joey O. joins the celebration of  the “30 Rock” universe’s most important holiday. As such, nothing that happens in this episode counts, and we’re just your imaginary friends whom no one else can hear, because real life is for March. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Steve Buscemi, whose name I mispronounce right out of the gate, quotes himself at the 2020 Screen Actors’ Guild Awards. 

Steve Buscemi as The Madder Hatter on “Saturday Night Live” in 1998. 

Film School Rejects’ ranking of every 30 Rock episode. 

Jane Krakowski as the Ghost of Christmas Past to Kelsey Grammer’s Scrooge in 2004’s “A Christmas Carol: The Musical.” 

James Cameron is one of a very, very small group of people who have reached the deepest point in the ocean, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. 

A very unscientific look into how many times it would take to order everything on the Benihana menu to use an entire $50,000 gift card. 

Of course there’s a Getty Image of Tina Fey posing with the Ewok behind glass. 

Thad Warmald, the poor man’s Artie Ziff. 

Both human leads from the Sonic the Hedgehog movie are in this episode! 

Kevin Brown’s Wikipedia entry calls him “Kevin ‘Dot Com’ Brown” right at the beginning. 

Guest star Karolína Kurková was almost a Leap Day baby; she was born February 28, 1984. 

Tracy’s word association game that gets to “soup kitcken,” but keeps going before looping back around again reminds us of a similar bit from the 1966 Batman movie. 

A very, very quick look at the Irish Leap Day tradition of women proposing to men, as seen in the 2010 Amy Adams movie “Leap Year,” which couldn’t even be bothered coming out on a leap year. 

As an extra bonus mini-episode at the end of this one, Joey quickly sums up the Leap Day episode of “Frasier” from 1996, “Look Before You Leap.” 

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“30 Rock” and “Leap Day” ©2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s3 #2010s #leapday

🎉 It’s a special, post-Christmas bonus episode for your oversized ears! 

🎙 Joey O. and Brandon Medley help us turn back the years to 1976 and tip an oversized hat to “Rudolph’s Shiny New Year,” Rankin/Bass’s first sequel special, in which Rudolph has to save the Baby New Year from a big, angry bird. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Rudolph devolves into a younger-looking reindeer, because the original model may have been lost. But also he seems to forget he can fly. 

According to our narrator, Father Time (Red Skelton), this story begins “on that very same foggy night.” As in Christmas Eve. When Santa’s kind of busy. 

I learned who Red Skelton was from a joke in a Tex Avery cartoon. 

“The Phantom Tollbooth.” 

Tik-Tok from “Return to Oz.” 

Creepier song about time: “The Moving Finger Writes” from this, or “Older” by They Might Be Giants? 

Ralph Archibold, Philadelphia’s longtime Ben Franklin impersonator. 

Billy Corgan rides a roller coaster. 

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“Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” © 1976 Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s3 #1970s #newyear #rankinbass #rudolph

🎄 It’s the 50th episode of the Advent Calendar House, so it’s time to address the spotted elephant in the room. 

🎙 Joey O. and Brandon Medley fly in to tackle the 1964 Christmas special that put Rankin/Bass on the map and into our hearts. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Is Santa really this big of a jerk or just hangry? 

The History Channel on the creation of Rudolph. 

Mashable’s 12 ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ facts. 

Burger King and Hallmark’s Rodney Reindeer plushes, which at one point doubled as stockings. 

Rudolph almost had huge, glowing eyes instead of a red nose, and all I can think of is the terrifying original version of Mr. Snuffleupagus. 

The rare and expensive Santa’s Castle play set, which includes Santa and Mr. Claus’s tiny bed. 

A lot of voices in this cast were later part of the 1960s “Spider-Man” and “Marvel Super Heroes” animated series. 

The first mention of Santa having a wife was in a short story by Philadelphia missionary James Rees in 1849. 

The mystery of the head elf’s suddenly changing voice: Wikipedia claims it’s intentional, but we’re not buying it. 

Carl Banas (Head Elf) was also the original voice of Sweetums in “Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince.” 

“Fame and Fortune,” a song that replaced “We’re a Couple of Misfits” as Rudolph and Hermey’s duet from 1965 to 1997. 

You can meet characters from this version of Rudolph at SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and Sesame Place. 

Arthur Rankin Jr. explains why Dolly’s on the Island of Misfit Toys on NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.” 

The original ending included Yukon Corneilius finding a peppermint mine. 

“The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass: A Portfolio.” 

Original figures of Rudolph and Santa were found in an attic and appraised on Antiques Roadshow in 2005. They were later sold and restored. 

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“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” ©1964 Rankin/Bass Productions. 

Closing music: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by the California Raisins, from “Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration.” 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s3 #1960s #rankinbass #rudolph

🕎 Kick off Hanukkah with the objectively better son from “Growing Pains” spinning bad puns like he made them out of clay. 

🎙️Sarah Shay stops by as we shine a light on a 1990 episode of “Shalom Sesame,” an on-again, off-again co-production of “Sesame Street” and its counterpart in Israel, “Rechov Sumsum.” 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“Shalom Sesame” on Muppet Wiki. 

Israel’s Big Bird stand-in, Kippi Ben Kippod, is mistranslated as a porcupine despite clearly being a hedgehog. A similar but unclothed costume was used in Spain’s Barrio Sésamo for Espinete, who’s identified as a hedgehog. 

Jeremy Miller, as Linus, sings “The Vigil” in “Snoopy! The Musical.” 

Yoav Tzafir’s other credits include the Hebrew-dubbed voices of Ninja Turtle Michaelangelo and Super Mario. Later he directed Israel’s version of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” 

The real, actual, annual Hanukkah Torch Relay. 

Moishe Oofnik, Israel’s counterpart to Oscar, looks less like a grouch and more like a standard Muppet monster. Probably because he has a nose. 

Baby Bear teaches Telly Monster how to play dreidel. 

A supposed folktale listed on the Wikipedia entry for sufganiyah may or may not be full of something that’s not jelly. 

Sarah met the head puppeteer from “Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah.” 

Nell Carter, a Jewish convert, appeared on other episodes of “Shalom Sesame” as herself. 

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“Shalom Sesame” © 1990 Children’s Television Workshop. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s3 #1990s #hanukkah #muppets

🎄 It’s Christmas Eve 1986, and the only way Drew Barrymore can save her new friends is to believe in the magic of toys… and Cincinnati. 

🎙 Molly Patton, Becca Petunia, and Adam Pope join us for a bonkers adaptation of “Babes in Toyland” from director Clive Donner and starring Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, and Richard Mulligan as a weird, evil guy who lives in a bowling ball. 

📺 You can watch “Babes in Toyland” on Tubi, the 3-hour original broadcast with commercials, or the unofficial “Director’s Cut” without ads. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Misfits in Toyland (NSFW), an unrelated horror-comedy webcomic. 

Keanu Reeves (Jack) on “Going Great” (1985) 

Googy Gress (Georgie) in “Wayne’s World 2.” 

Today’s TV Trope: And You Were There. 

The Cookie Jar House of South Jersey. 

The Undertaker’s entrance at WrestleMania IX, in the middle of the afternoon. 

Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (and Tripping Daisy’s cover of theme song). 

The Toymaster’s Santa coat looks like Belle’s from “Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.” 

Was It Great, or Were You 8? 

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📼 Commercials: 

McDonald’s: Recital (1986) 

Give ’Em All a Little Pat of Butter (1986) 

TGI Podcast 

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“Babes in Toyland” © 1986 The Finnegan Company. 

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s13 #1980s

🎄 Set your sentient clocks back to 1988 for a very wound-up and thrown out into a pile of junk in another dimension episode of the Advent Calendar House. 

🎙 Chad Young joins us for a one-time-only trip to Tattertown, the holiday brain-child of Ralph Bakshi and Nickelodeon’s first-ever original animated TV program. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“Christmas in Tattertown” sketches from Bakshi Productions. 

Nick Knacks on “Christmas in Tattertown.” 

Cameos by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Flip the Frog, and Popeye. 

Today’s TV Trope: The Up the Real Rabbit Hole. 

A shout-out to the dearly departed Hollywood Video for staying open on Christmas Day for idiots like me who forgot to ask for required accessories like the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak. 

Wawa’s Holiday Gobbler hoagie. 

Bosko and Honey on “Tiny Toon Adventures.” 

A brief introduction to “snoap,” Florida’s fake snow. 

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“Christmas in Tattertown” ©1988 Bakshi Productions, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s3 #1980s #nickelodeon

🎄 Every unstoppable monster has a beginning. 

🎙️ Erin Evans, Joey O., and Brandon Medley squeeze onto the couch to celebrate the 30th anniversary of “The Simpsons” and its series premiere, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” or, as it was introduced to us in 1989, “The Simpsons’ Christmas Special.” 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

The time I accidentally watched “The Tracey Ullman Show,” because I was too sick to get up and change the channel. 

We can’t talk about early Simpsons without mentioning Burger King toys, The Simpsons arcade game, and of course, “Do the Bartman.” 

Bart’s first Butterfinger commercial. 

Al Jean’s 5 favorite Simpsons episodes (The Wall Street Journal, 2014) 

Animator Eric Stefani had already founded some band with his sister while working on this episode. 

The crowdsourced origins of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” and the “like a light bulb!” interjections to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” 

Real, intentionally unfinished “Moth” tattoos. 

The tattoo artist was retroactively named Mervin Monroe, Dr. Marvin’s younger brother. 

Early, strange in hindsight prototypes of Springfield citizens, including a more competent Ralph Wiggum, a cockier Milhouse, and a Ned Flanders who says, “Happy holidays.” 

The time Brandon cut down his own Christmas tree. 

My guest appearance on the Two Bad Neighbors podcast for “Marge Be Not Proud.” 

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“The Simpsons” and “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” ©1989 20th Century Fox Television. 

Closing Music: The Simpsons Theme, performed by Green Day, ©2007 Reprise Records. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s3 #1980s #simpsons

🎄 Of all the animated Christmas specials we have covered and will cover, this is the nearsighted granddaddy of them all. 

🎙 Anthony Caruso and Julia Colburn from Tis the Podcast visit the Advent Calendar House for a very special Scrooge Sunday episode as we nearly-blindly fumble back to 1962 to celebrate “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” TV’s first ever animated Christmas special. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

Jim Backus (Mister Magoo) based his portrayal of Thurston Howell III from “Gilligan’s Island” on another character he played on a radio show hosted by another famous future Scrooge, Alan Young. 

Scrooge’s nephew is cut entirely to make room for a song about Broadway that sometimes also gets cut entirely. 

The ghosts of Christmas Present and Past show up out of order for no clear reason, but an A.V. Club article from 2012 tried to find one. 

Tiny Tim is an English-speaking Gerald McBoing-Boing. 

This special invented a flavor! Razzleberry pie is now a thing that exists, made with raspberries and blackberries. 

The Ghost of Christmas Past looks like Toon Link. 

The last surviving member of the cast, Marie Matthews (Young Scrooge), was on a 2009 panel revisiting the special. 

Is Belle’s hair supposed to look like an actual bell? 

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“Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol” © 1962 UPA Pictures, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house. 

#s3 #1960s #scroogesunday