This is the first one, premiering Saturday, December 20, 1986. As a sitcom, it's not the funniest Christmas episode I have seen, but it succeeds in creating a great festive atmosphere.
You see many of the hallmarks of a Christmas episode: Decorations (including a scene built around Reverend Gregory decorating a big tree), carols, a sudden snowstorm, exchange of presents, and a nativity play. However, you also get another hallmark of a Christmas episode: A distinct lack of plot.
Deacon Frye (Sherman Helmsley) is typically meddlesome as the producer of the church's big kids' Christmas play, getting particularly invested when he learns a councilman plans to attend and bring TV cameras with him for a live broadcast. The stuffy director (played well by the stuffy Franklyn Seales of Silver Spoons) quits when a change in schedule means they all have to put the show together overnight for the councilman to attend, and Frye becomes director. Less happens than you might think, and a side story concerning Thelma's vacation to Jamaica isn't all that effective. The less sentimental among you may wince when we get a big "Awww..." from the audience mere minutes into the episode.
Yet it's hard to complain about the typical Christmas episode padding when the kids go out and start their show despite an empty church (snowstorm, you see) and pull off the most dynamic version of "Away in a Manger" I have ever seen. It creates a feel-good ending full of holiday spirit and delivers the cheer you want in this kind of thing. It helps that they take an underused song and make it the showcase part of the performance.
The humor in this episode is predictable, and the series was still early in its run. Anytime you have Sherman Helmsley, though, you have something, and he brings a certain energy in every scene. I never much cared for Anna Marie Horsford's Thelma character, but Clifton Davis is well cast, and Jester Hairston as Rolly steals everything--no small feat in a show with Helmsley.
Amen is streaming for free on Tubi, and while I saw it often in its 1980s NBC run, I haven't watched much of it for a while. I might check out the show's other Christmas episodes this week.
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