For a lot of us growing up, the holidays meant one thing above all others...TOYS...and for those of us glued to our TVs, nothing stoked the desire for those toys more than the TOY COMMERCIALS (except the half-hour cartoons based on those toys, which of course were really ads, but let's not talk about that)! What better way to celebrate the holiday season and Christmas day than to highlight some of our favorite toy commercials? After you've unwrapped your socks and gift cards and retro TV DVD sets and filled up on eggnog and fruitcake, join us for a little more holiday fun.
On the most recent podcast, we broke down The Zoo Gang, and today we spotlight one of the clips in the episode's video playlist.
You may be asking why this is in the list, but it's just an attempt to get some of the flavor of ITV 1974 (when Zoo Gang premiered) into the mix. I do love this set of promos, though, because of the variety of the subject matter--Benny Hill, followed by a peppy advert for TV Times, the absolute classic Thames TV indent...The only thing that would make this better would be to see an actual glimpse of the sobering epic documentary that followed, The World at War.
1) The Zoo Gang: On this week's podcast, we discuss this bit of 1970s telly, a 6-episode ITV series featuring a group of WWII buddies reuniting to fight wrongdoing. No truth to the rumor that Joan Embery headlined a pilot for an U.S. version in the early Eighties.
2) Christmas movies on TV: So on this night in 1985, CBN showed the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, which is the one everyone says they love but never seems to be on TV anymore.
Some of you may be too young to remember the old joke about It's a Wonderful Life being on all the time every December. Well, CBN showed it before A Christmas Carol. Also, though, it was on a couple hours earlier on...Nickelodeon.
3) Winter: Well, it's finally here, and by that I mean it FEELS LIKE IT'S BEEN HERE FOR WEEKS because it's been really cold here. Oh, well, just the kind of weather that gets you in the holiday spirit...but also makes you want to work up a sweat.
Ahh! Been a while since we posted that clip.
4) Kojak: "How Cruel the Frost, How Bright the Stars" is the name of the episode that aired 50 years ago tonight on CBS. I know what you're thinking: Why did Rick have to post that Alan Thicke song again? But you're also thinking, that title's a bit artsy for Kojak, innit? Well, as I recall, it's a thoughtful Christmas episode, plus it offers bit parts for John Laroquette and Edward James Olmos. I may have to watch this again this week!
5) The Fall Guy: The episode that aired this night in 1985 has a title not nearly as artsy, but 5 times as funny: "Escape Claus." I'm not gonna look this one up. It can't top the title.
6) The Academy Awards: The announcement that the event is eventually headed to YouTube prompted a lot of jokes about who might be presenters or even hots. Laugh all you want, but streaming or not, it's not like Johnny Carson's walking through that door.
I think I came close to a point there.
7) Independence Bowl: Clemson vs. Minnesota: 40 years ago tonight, TV viewers got a random intersectional match-up between two decent teams on a local station. That's the way bowl games oughta be!
8) Julie Andrews Christmas Special: This program aired 50 years ago this weekend on Channel 5 in New York. I believe this was a rerun of her 1973 ABC special, in which Andrews welcomed Peggy Lee and Santa Claus as guests.
9) Crossword Day: I'd like to see Buzzr celebrate by showing a bunch of these:
*Lili Palmer and Rex Harrison were married from 1943-1957. She is indeed in two episodes of The Love Boat! She's in an extended episode/two-parter from 1984, starring with Loretta Swit, Marc Singer, and Catherine Oxenberg.
*Barry Morse is not in The Love Boat, though an unasked-for AI prompt told me he was.
*Might as well play this out: Brian Keith was not on The Love Boat, but John Mills was in an episode with daughters Hayley and Juliet.
*Band on the Run came out in late 1973.
*Shout-out again to The McCartney Legacy, the multi-volume biography written by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair.
*The Zoo Gang novel by Paul Gallico appeared in bookstores in 1971.
*Speaking of that playlist, please enjoy our video playlist for this episode with promos, intros, commercials, and more! It also contains the full episode that we discuss on the podcast as well as a series of promos. Click below to go right to it, or you can always visit our official YouTube page for all of our past episodes and similar lists for each one of them!
In the short-lived British-produced Zoo Gang, an international cast plays a group of French Resistance fighters reuniting after 28 years in the Riviera. They use their espionage skills and friendship to take down bad guys and earn some money for a good cause. In the first episode, they have a target in their sights--the man who sold them out to the Germans. Oh, and Paul McCartney has something to do with all this, too.
