12 Days of Watching (2024) #8: It's not Christmas...It's HBO! Actually, it's both!

CBS was the network of the holiday season for me back in the Eighties by virtue of showing the best animated specials. HBO may have been a close second, though. It has the advantage of being on all day (or most of it) and being able to show programs over and over again. Case in point: Two of the specials showcased in this clip:

Jug Band Christmas is a true classic, and to me it was one of the rites of December. It seemed to be on all the time, often at convenient times to dip in and out of while doing other stuff. Rich Little's A Christmas Carol is another staple of 1980s HBO. That one seemed to fall out of the rotation at some point and not turn up anywhere else, unlike Emmet Otter, but it sure made an impression when it was there. Ha! See what I did there!

Elsewhere in this segment, you see a promo for A Christmas Story when it was still relatively fresh and not the traditional marathon focus it would become. And how about the look at the "classic" 1st and Ten, a comedy that felt like IT lasted forever somehow. 

Welterweight champ Donald Curry is featured in an upcoming title bout, and there's a glimpse of Buddy Hackett in an On Location special. Throw in some clips of mediocre movies and the ever-thrilling transmission test, and you have something that epitomizes not just Christmas in the Eighties, but HBO in the Eighties!