12 Days of Watching (2024) #12: Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962)

I like to use this "12 Days of Watching" feature to spotlight videos I have not seen before, or at least not for a long time, but it's crunch time now, and my viewing of the old reliables has been way off pace this year. So I have but a few days to watch a lot of my favorites!

I watched Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol for the first time in a couple years, and I am glad I did. It's a true classic and a landmark in TV history as the first animated TV Christmas special--that is, the first created for TV. I can't post a link because the misers at the company that owns the special haven't seen to fit to make it available this year except for purchase or rental (I see it may be available on Sling), but here is a clip:

I watched my old DVD copy and had a blast. For me, Quincy Magoo is Ebeneezer Scrooge. Everyone talks about the 1951 Alistair Sim movie as the definitive adaptation of Dickens' classic story, but when I was a lad, Magoo was on each year. If Sim was, I wasn't aware of it, and, hey, where is that version shown nowadays?

Oh, wait, I took a minute to look it up, and Tubi and Plex and other streamers have it. Well, all right, then! That makes it all the more appalling that the Magoo version isn't there!

Anyways, I loved this as a kid, and I loved it now. It's a real shame Quincy Magoo didn't do more work in the legit theater. His Scrooge is a heartfelt performance, loaded with pathos and fire without being treacly. Magoo has issues getting to the theater, but once he is there, he is a master. How lucky we are to have such a faithful recording of the Broadway experience in the form of this special.

12 Days of Watching (2024) #11: Archie Bunker and a bunch of other characters celebrate the holiday

When we prepared to talk about All in the Family for our season opener this year, I sampled a bit of Archie Bunker's Place, a series I was aware of back in the day but never focused on much. It really feels like a different show, especially when you get to the fourth and final season, which is the source for this Christmas episode Sony posted on YouTube:

Archie Bunker is the heart of All in the Family, but in this setting, I find myself asking, who are these people? It's like, OK, I came to terms with Archie playing off a little girl named Stephanie. In this episode, she seems much older. And just when you are used to her, here comes Billie. Wait, who's Billie? And who's this nebbish who is dating her (No offense meant, and none taken, I would assume, given that Barry Gordon made a great living playing nebbishes).

And those are just the regulars! "Father Christmas" brings us another Bunker relative--Archie's brother, Fred. He's Billie's dad, and she doesn't want to see him, so much so she is willing to go on a ski trip with Barry Gordon (just kidding) to avoid spending the holiday with her father. 

The story goes for emotion, but it's a little clumsy in parts. There's a side plot in which Stephanie laments not hearing from HER dad, and Archie handles that in a sweet but predictable fashion. What really gets me is when they have a tense family dinner and start talking about Fred abandoning Billie years earlier. At one point, Billie makes a cutting remark about Fred's serial divorcing, and Archie puts down his fork and says, "Well, gee, this suddenly stopped being funny."

For some reason, that remark really hits me the wrong way. It's true enough in that Billie has finally killed Arch's attempts to maintain light conversation and inject some humor. But it feels too obvious and like something Archie shouldn't say--not because he's Archie, but because he's the main character. At least I think he is, but it's hard to tell in this episode. This is the kind of line the sidekick blurts out loud. Allen Melvin as Barney could sell that line and make it seem right, but he's in a minor subplot about playing Santa Claus.

So while I appreciate the effort and enjoy the novelty of a series I am not familiar with, Archie Bunker's Place just seems strange to me. "Father Christmas," despite great intentions, is no exception.

12 Days of Watching (2024) #10: Ernie Anderson would have made a good Santa Claus

Today's clip isn't all Christmas, but it has enough! You get to hear Ernie Anderson say, "Christmas Comes to Pacland!" And the Joanie Loves Chachi holiday episode preview is so nice you gotta watch it twice!

I think I want to see that Too Close for Comfort episode mentioned during the Happy Days end credits and then shown in a promo. That episode of It Takes Two looks ridiculous. 

The Benson clip has promise of holiday hijinks. It all ends with Ernie Anderson teasing Dr. No in part with his silky smooth utterance of "Ursula Andress."

As varied as this assortment of TV entertainment is, it reminds of how I was talking the other day about CBS being number one for the holidays in the Eighties. It gave us Peanuts, Rudolph, Frosty, and more. ABC gave us Christmas Comes to Pacland.

12 Days of Watching (2024) #9: Christmas in Washington (1984, NBC)

Let's go back 40 years to a better time, when politics was divided, yeah, and people had issues with elected officials, but we could still get a special like Christmas in Washington where everyone could at least pretend to get along for an hour and have some holiday fellowship.

The special was an annual tradition for years, taped at the historic Kennedy Cent--Wait, no, the National Building Museum. How about that? It's loaded with casual religious references, traditional music, and respect for the institutions of Washington D.C. If you aren't down with any of that, don't bother with these. And I don't just mean political institutions as targets for respect, either, this 1984 edition has an odd segment with Roger Mudd saluting journalism, then doing a bit on how TV news would have covered the Nativity!

The whole thing is formal and a bit awkward, but isn't that part of the magic of Christmas? It's nice to have at least one component of the holiday revolve around donning uncomfortable clothes and listening to choirs sing archaic lyrics as you hang around people you don't normally see in person. It works because it's Christmas!

That's part of the fun of this special and others in the series. Hal Linden is an amiable emcee who radiates sincere warmth (Not bad for a guy born Harold Lipshitz) and sings several numbers, including a duet with a big-shot opera singer. There is some gentle comedy, a Naval Glee Club, and everything just looks classy. You even get The Osmonds, for heaven and nature's sake!

Nell Carter appears and is introduced as "irrepressible," which isn't as cool as "force of nature," but we will take it. There is a segment with First Lady Nancy Reagan introducing footage of gingerbread housemaking at the White House. It all ends with a warm set of remarks from the president himself, Brandon Tartikoff. No, it's Ronald Reagan.

I wouldn't want to watch a bunch of this each year, but one of them hits just right. This 1984 version is a great piece of entertainment in itself and also a fun trip back to a different era.

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!

12 Days of Watching (2024) #7: Chico and the Man, or just the Man

We are looking today at a show we covered just this season: Chico and the Man! However, it's a fourth-season effort, and that means no Freddie Prinze. Raul fans are in luck, though!

In fact, the episode, "The Proposal," begins with Raul trimming the tree and getting the garage decked out. This goes a long way towards creating that Christmas cheer I love in TV episodes. Only we soon find out Raul is starting early; it's not even Thanksgiving. 

Ed is in a grouchy mood, though, so everyone rolls with it and decides to hold a holiday party to cheer him up. Ed takes a bottle of tequila and spikes Della's punch, and then Raul gets the same idea and spikes it himself (He uses Ed's bottle, not his own, and to his credit, he declines Della's invite to try the punch).

After the opening scene, this is not so much a Christmas episode as a "Drunk Bit" episode. Ed gets blotto, Della gets hammered, and he proposes to her for some reason, and she actually accepts. They then spend valuable network airtime going through the motions prepping for a wedding even though neither one of them wants to do it.

if you enjoy seeing pros do drunk bits, you will like this, though a little goes a long way. The real highlight is seeing Jack Albertson do a Hangover Bit. Even then, it's not so much the groaning and shuffling as the spectacular delayed spit take he does when he finds out about the proposal.

Della Reese's character wouldn't be around much longer; it's as if when Charo came in, they figured the garage wasn't big enough for both of them. They didn't really tease much of anything between Ed and Della "Rogers," but there are a few glimpses that they might have actually been crazy enough to go that direction at some point.

12 Days of Watching (2024) #6: CBC promos from 1981

Let's go up north today and enjoy some seasonal promos and ads from CBC, apparently CBC Newfoundland from December 17, 1981 (according to a commenter)!

Many times I enjoy watching old clips on YouTube because they bring back memories. This time, I hardly know any of this!

Olden Days Coat? Tukiki? Super Music? I know Dallas, but some of the other programs...

12 Days of Watching (2024) #5: Amen

Hat tip to my cousin Kevin for bringing this one up in pur Facebook group: Amen's Season 1 Christmas episode, "Your Christmas Show of Shows." It's a no-brainer for a show set at a church to have a holiday episode; in fact, Amen has one for each season, including a two-parter!

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.

12 Days of Watching (2024) #4: From all of them to all of you...

I have a deep love of station-produced videos showing their staff waving to the camera and wishing everyone holiday cheer. Here is one showing Chicago's WBBM:

I didn't grow up anywhere near Chicago, but this makes me feel nostalgic anyway!

12 Days of Watching (2024) #3: Card Sharks Celebrates the Season

This episode was probably taped in July, but the festive decor and even the token Christmas-related question ("We asked 100 department store Santas...") make it feel like the holiday season to me! According to a commenter on this upload, it debuted December 21, 1978 on CBS. It's Card Sharks with Jim Perry!

The quality isn't the best on this GSN reair, and I am sure many will be disappointed that it isn't a sharper image when they see Markie Post is one of the models flipping cards, but I am glad to see this. Perry once again proves why he is one of the best: Silky smooth, able to modulate his voice just right to get the questions across, throwing in commentary every now and then, but always focused on the drama of the game as it unfolds in front of him.

What an enthusiastic contestant they have here in Jorge! Laurie suggested he could get his own show. Card Sharks is a simple game but one with plenty of "play along" appeal, and the formula is in fine form here.

Speaking of commenters, note the person who expresses doubt over the legitimacy of the surveys that form the basis of the questions. Is it possible Card Sharks is a work? Say it ain't so!

12 Days of Watching (2024) #2: Bob Hope Christmas Special: "A Snow Job in Florida"

Well, I said I would do it. I said I would watch this, most likely on my own, when I mentioned the recent upload on our Facebook group. This is the December 1987 Bob Hope Christmas Special, A Snow Job in Florida, complete with original commercials:

So there are several ways to approach this. You may love Bob Hope and watch the show that way. You may also think that title is funny in and of itself. You may just love Christmas and tradition and enjoy seeing familiar faces. You may enjoy reliving the Eighties!

I am a mixture of all of that, but I have to admit that A) I watched this alone as Wife of the Show Laurie does not share my admiration for the Bob Hope persona and B) this special is not great without the nostalgia/showbiz love aspect. The 84-year-old Hope is showing his age in this hour, and the format is showing its age, too--maybe more so.

I won't apologize for liking the whole thing, though it's not nearly as good as, say, the special we covered on the podcast. The time capsule experience is too good to pass up. It begins with a long monologue that features topical references galore: E.F. Hutton, Imelda Marcos, Jesse Helms, Again, if you like the "Snow Job in Florida" title, you will appreciate much of this without irony, but Bob seems off for much of the segment, like he needed a bit to warm up.

The rest of the program is a typical mix of music and comedy sketches. I think the musical highlight is the duet Reba McEntire and Bob perform of "Silver Bells," which works despite (or maybe because?) they call attention to the artificial environment and simulated snow. There's a certain charm to this that just works.

Most of the comedy is uneven at best, with familiar faces like Brooke Shields, Morgan Fairchild, and always-game Tony Randall showing up. The All-American college football stars appear for the traditional sequence, and that's pretty much what you expect, too. The Rose Queen does a bit with Bob, and we see Bob at the event know as the Beach Ball in Florida.

It's all a bit scattershot, but there is enough holiday cheer in that traditional showbiz way to keep things moving, if just barely. There's something to be said for tradition, but at this point it's clear we're at the end of the line of Hope's remarkable career in entertainment.  The only problem is, there were 5 more years of official Hope specials, Christmas and otherwise, after this! 

Right now, let's not think about that, but let's kick back and enjoy some Hope and even some vintage commercials. Yes, Texaco is featured, though not with Bob as spokesman. Would you accept an appearance by short-lived Energizer pitchman Jacko?

12 Days of Watching (2024) #1: NYC Christmas commercials

One of my favorite YouTube accounts is run by Hugo Faces, who posts a lot of great clips from the New York City stations I watched as a kid. Here is a recent compilation of several holiday-themed commercials, and I think it's a solid warmup for 12 Days of Watching:

Included here: Several ads for Arthur's, a chain I don't recall even hearing about. There certainly weren't any locations in my area. While watching this clip, Laurie declared no one wanted a vacuum cleaner for Christmas, so that's one thing I can remove from my shopping cart!

Consumers Catalog is another unfamiliar concept, but I did have Service Merchandise. What is this guy doing in that ad for the latter? "Oh, how did you guess?" "Well, it wasn't easy considering you insisted on playing charades instead of just telling me what you wanted."

And of course any video of NYC 1980s ads is enriched by a Crazy Eddie spot!

Power Rankings: Wrapping Up the 12 Days of Christmas Watching 2022

Many of you are off work today, and if you desire some holiday listening, we'd love you to spend part of your day with the podcast. You can find a list of seasonal episodes in this post!

As for me, my holiday watching was a lot different this year, and I wasn't able to get many of my usual specials into the mix, but the 12 Days of Watching gave me a lot of new episodes and plenty of enjoyment! To wrap up the festivities, here is my list of favorites, bottom to top (not counting the commercials):

10) Saturday Night Live: Do I need to see this again? Not unless I am producing a George Foreman documentary. Or a Janeane Garafolo one.

9) Gimme a Break: Nell's Joeymania killed this one for me.

8) Solid Gold Christmas Special 1982: Loved it for what it was, but it might be one and done. After all, I have many other Solid Gold  Christmas episodes to watch!

7) Siskel and Ebert: They just really did not like Christmas Vacation.

6) Hollywood Palace: Can't go wrong with Bing this time of year!

5) Donny and Marie Christmas: I enjoyed this way more than I expected or cared to admit. This is a toss-up with Palace.

4) The Love Boat: Cheesy, corny, often absurd...In other words, classic Love Boat.

3) Wonder Woman: I am not sure this will be a perennial in this house, but what an epsiode! It's more toy-centric than Yule-centric, but I loved watching it.

2) The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet: A tremendous episode that I can see revisiting in future years.

1) Sale of the Century: Call me crazy...crazy for DEALS! I had a blast watching this episode, and though I may not need to see it again anytime soon, this was minute for minute the most Christmasy fun I had in the 12 Days.

12 Days of Christmas Watching 2022 Day #12: Love Boat brings us home!

What better way to end this "12 Days of Watching" adventure than with a look at what I like to call the quintessential TV show of the BOTNS era, The Love Boat? The program didn't produce as many holiday episodes as you might expect given its 9-year, 250-episode run, but it created one I had never seen: Season 6's "The Christmas Presence," highlighted by BOTNS fave Mickey Rooney.

After a debacle like yesterday's Saturday Night Live experience, I had to turn to a safe bet, and as always, the Pacific Princess brought us through the rocky waters of Christmas--OK, that's a little much because I loved everything except the SNL stuff, but still I am pleased to end this 12-day journey with a Love Boat.

As I said, we tend to love the Mickster around here. Hey, we never had to work with him! He is classic Later Years Mickey Rooney here, actually even underplaying a bit for the fantastical character he plays: Angelarum Dominicus, an elderly but lively gentleman who boards under  mysterious circumstances and proceeds to meddle in the lives of everyone on the ship--well, at least the credited guest stars and the main cast. It's fortunate that he works for the forces of good, albeit with a bit of a Rooneyesque impish bent, because he does magic. I mean, he does literal magic, pointing at things and making them disappear and appear, transmorgrifying things, and doing everything but pulling a rabbit out of Captain Stubing's hat. Folks, MAGIC IS REAL in the Love Boat universe!

I want to talk about Captain Stubing here because, as gracious as he is to Dominicus, he is a bit rough with the crew on this one. More important is his dogged focus on getting the Christmas tree decorated. In itself, no biggie. It IS a Christmas cruise, as Julie announces at the beginning. What disappoints me is that Stubing hasn't planned ahead more. Why is there not a big tree with decorations in place as soon as the passengers board for what is, after all, a themed voyage? Julie has done her part by getting the ship decked out, and Gopher got the tree, but the public should have been able to enjoy a fully trimmed tree from the get-go. Was there some logistical situation that prevented that? I hope so because this is uncharacteristic of Stubing, and perhaps sublimated guilt over it comes out in his riding Julie and Gopher to get that tree done.

Back to the guests: A bearded Donny Osmond pouts because wife Maureen McCormick is late. Never get a wife with a career, he whines, because she will, like, show up late for stuff. A pair of nuns (Teresa Wright and Jan Rooney) brings a boys' choir on board after having to cancel their tour due to the lead singer's throat issues. A couple of suspicious "businessmen," Keenan Wynn and Henry Gibson, are apparently smuggling gold. The Mickster involves himself in all these situations, plus provides an assist on that tree thing AND ensures Isaac can talk to his mom for Christmas. What about Doc? Well, let's just say Adam Bricker gets to show he is more than just a lothario and display some actual medical skills.

I KNEW I could count on Love Boat for the holiday cheer that I lacked yesterday! Unlike most of the series' efforts, this has one single story credited to one pair of writers. It's appropriate since The Mickster appears in all of the various stories and really sticks his nose everywhere he can (Talking about the character, not the actor...I think).

And look at the Christmas splendor on display in this Getty Images pic:

We get it all here--laughs, tears, relationship drama, life-or-death drama, and the mystery of a whimsical stranger on board. And it all ends with a goofy but charming shot of Merrill Stubing's big blue eyes gazing up at the stars and acknowledging the same higher power that Dominicus had addressed moments earlier:

Merry Christmas, everyone!

12 Days of Christmas Watching 2022 #11: I'm gonna watch a Christmas SNL one way or another, dadblast it!

I was determined to see a new-to-me (or at least in the last 25 years or so) Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live this season. I had to step outside our BOTNS time frame, and even then I ended up seeing a notorious bomb of episode, one that didn't have a lot of Christmas atmosphere, anyway!

I tried first with a 1984 Season 11 episode from December with Jay Leno. Well, Peacock says it is from December 22, 1986, but in fact the airdate is FEBRUARY 22.  No wonder I didn't see a lot of Christmas!

I didn't see a lot of anything in the episode because Peacock edits it to a ridiculous 22 minutes. The cold opening is gone. The monologue is there. Weekend Update is (for the most part) there with the first appearance of A. Whitney Brown. There is an amusing sketch with the observational comedy guys ("I mean, HEY!").

That's about it! Missing are both Neville Brothers performances. No surprise there, but also cut are 6 sketches not counting the cold open, including one with Randy Quaid as Lyle Alzado! What a tragedy! This sample of the Quaid/Anthony Michael Hall/Robert Downey Jr. season is barely there.

So I time-jumped to 1994 and Season 20's ninth episode, starring George Foreman and Hole. This one actually DID air December 17, 1994, so, yay, Peacock, for getting that right. The stage is decorated.  The first sketch has the Clintons in front of a Christmas tree. 

That's as far as it goes, though, and not only is this a terrible episode, but Peacock cuts the most interesting bad segments and leaves us with barely over a half-hour. Missing are Foreman going back in time to box Adolf Hitler and Foreman as the Hulk ripping on the writers for making lame sketches. I'd rather see either of those than what is left, even the sketch with my guy Chris Elliott getting George to read a bedtime story (I liked parts of that, actually).

I won't go into detail, but it starts poorly and doesn't improve much. The opener has Bill and Hillary--so Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks, right? WRONG! They are not here anymore. It's Michael McKean--great but miscast here--and Janeane Garafolo, who is ALL over this episode (I mean like in almost every segment that exists in this version) and ineffective throughout. If your kids ever ask you why she was "a thing" in the Nineties, this is not good evidence.

I love Big George and was a huge fan when he won the Heavyweight boxing crown in 1994, but he was much better as a broadcaster on HBO later. This is not his best work.

NOTE: I later saw that the Leno episode was situated between two other episodes that did have proper dating, so it was obvious looking at the whole season that it was out of place. Also, Season 11 did have an actual Christmas episode with Terri Garr. So I missed out on that...all 24 minutes of it. Peacock, you deserve a spot on the Naughty List. You can get off it by adding Quincy in January.

We cannot end this season of watching on such a sour note. We need something truly Christmasy to get this SNL debacle out of our chimneys, something that will give us surefire entertainment and help us maintain those holiday smiles. Yes, we have to turn to one of the heavy hitters, and it just so happens it has a Christmas episode I have not seen. Be here tomorrow as I unwrap the 12th present and close out our 12 Days of Watching!

(I wouldn't mind seeing Randy Quiad as Lyle Alzado as a stocking stuffer)

12 Days of Christmas Watching 2022 Day #9: Donny and Marie and a cast of thousands

Are there too darn many Osmonds? I am not commenting on their religion, their family planning, or anything. I am just observing this 1979 Donny and Marie Christmas special and thinking, man, there are Osmonds all over the place!

The show is built around the stars Donny and Marie, of course, but then you get the B-teamers like aspiring teen star Jimmy (I confess, when he first came out on stage, partly due to the camera angle, partly due to the age of the source video, and partly due to the hairdo, I wondered if he was Billie Jean King). The other Osmond boys show up, too, and dance and sing and even act and tell jokes. We're talking Wayne and, uh...Osgood Osmond. Mordecai...Biff? I'm lost.

Then you throw in the grandkids like little Travis and Amy and...Spot? Again, I am lost. It doesn't help when we see the Osmond wives. Then some random old people come out on stage, and I think they are the Osmond parents, but, heck, I don't know for sure. I guess in 1977 everyone knew everyone in this family. Many see this kind of scene and think family is what Christmas is all about. I think, wow, they can't even face each other in one living room but need two giant ones side by side.

I don't have to tell you that the Osmonds do a lot of holiday caroling and whatnot. They get help from an array of guest stars like Erik Estrada, who enters on a motorcycle and brings his 1977 charisma if not a particular aptitude for singing "Let It Snow." He does it anyway, though, dueting with Marie in one of the show's standout numbers. Why does it stand out? Christmas is only several days away, and I am practicing goodwill!

Other guest stars come by to help out, too. Cindy Williams is game enough to appear in multiple sketches. Dorothy Hamill ice-skates all over the place, sometimes as a backdrop for a musical number. My favorite is Adam Rich, who gets a show-long storyline about assembling props for a "12 Days of Christmas" number. I am going to give away my favorite joke here. After coming up with ridiculous substitutes for items 1-8, Gunther Osmond (I think) asks where the rest of them are, and Adam says, "Where I come from, eight is ENOUGH!"

I should have seen that one coming, but it got me, and I had a genuine laugh.

I'm having a little fun with this special (though I really did enjoy that Eight Is Enough gag), but it's a great watch. The Osmonds may not be everyone's cup of nog these days, but they have undeniable charisma--some more than others, but Donny and Marie are big time here in 1979--and you get great Christmas atmosphere and a host of carols. I enjoyed Marie's wistful yet wholesome rendition of "Blue Christmas."

It's all served up with that family-friendly aura that doesn't mean only "wholesome" content, but actually depicts a large extended family celebrating together. Everyone seems to enjoy each other's company, with a few mild familial jabs here and there all in fun. It's a pleasant sight, and I am not going to research and verify all these wives and kids pictured above stayed together and remained happy forever. I am going to let it be so, at least through the holiday season. This really is the kind of show they don't make anymore, at least not in a sincere way, and I appreciate that we can enjoy it even on YouTube (Thanks, Dave's Osmonds Videos for the upload).

12 days of Christmas Watching 2022 Day #8: $ale of the Century with a holiday classic!

A game show brought me some of the best Christmas watching of the season! We talked about Sale of the Century in our game show episode back in , and there we explained what made it such a good series. This episode from December 23, 1988 takes it up a notch by adding CHRISTMAS to the mix!

\

(Thanks to Sale of the Century Archives for posting the original episode as aired on NBC!)

The producers went all out here. I bet they taped this in, what, August at the latest, but you would never know it. It's not just decorating the set, though it looks lovely, and not just giving Summer Bartholomew a seasonal dress, though she looks lovely. Every question of the trivia-based game is about the holiday--Santa trivia, prominent retailer trivia, toy trivia, and more! 

Even the prizes are themed, including a trip to Santa Claus, Indiana. That may not sound like much, but when Jim Perry throws in hundreds of dollars in spending money and slashes the price to a dollar--well, that's a bargain! It's like a half-hour yule log...only instead of a piece of wood crackling, there are human beings competing for cash and prizes. OK, it's not like a yule log at all except that watching it is awesome.

Everyone is in a good mood here. Defending champion Angela is excited to try to go for the car again (and a La Petite grand piano today--hey, how can a grand piano be petite?). Jeff is introduced as "a man of the cloth," and the reveal that his family has had a clothing business for several generations brings the kind of game show jovial reactions you expect. 

And then there's the wine taster Ursula, giving off slight "Andrea Zuckerman after 3 glasses of spiked punch at the off-site holiday party" vibes. She is into it all right, almost too much, but it works for the game because we have the right host in charge.

That host, my friends, is Jim Perry, who gets an exciting game here to show off his skills. He does it all here, from reacting with that appropriate jocularity to the contestants to controlling the game to even sweetening the pot with a little cash when the lead contestant is pondering spending game dollars on a prize. And as the show often has him do, he even throws to break at one point by relating a Bob Hope joke about Gerald Ford golfing. 

I always thought Perry was one oft he most underrated hosts in game show history, and he backs me up in this one. Check out the way he explains a mild "situation" that occurs in the lightning round to the affected contestant: subtle but definitive, and not intrusive on the game. A funny moment occurs halfway through the show when Bartholomew forgets a prop tied to a bargain skit, and Perry reacts with aplomb. It's another outstanding performance by a true pro.

All this adds up to a tremendous Christmas episode, and let me tell you one other thing: The game itself is a thriller. Sale is not as difficult as Jeopardy!, but it provides exciting game play with its speed and the format that encourages close scores. I won't spoil the outcome, but this contest is up for grabs until the very end.

Don't take my word for it, though. Just look at the face of Jeff and his clear elation at getting a Fame Game (sit down, Mike) win and earning not the $15 card that would bring him a huge lead in the game, but an assortment of...lamps. If this doesn't scream, "Ho ho ho and all that jazz," I don't know what does:

12 Days of Christmas Watching 2022 Day #7: Wonder Woman vs. TOYS

For her Christmas episode, the Amazonian heroine fights one of her greatest opponents: TOYS! Yes, toys, like a model plane dropping bombs and a robot duplicate of herself! As a kid, I would have passed on the bombing fighter plane, but, yeah, a Wonder Woman android would have been a cool gift!

The one gripe I have about this episode apart from a ridiculous ending is how biased it is against toys. Its title is "The Deadly Toys." Toys are used as deadly weapons. Perhaps worst of all, toys are seen as juvenile preoccupations. 3 brilliant scientists are mocked for unwinding by playing a war game with miniature soldiers. I think that last one is the worst of all. Granted, 1977 was not a time when "intended for adult collectors" was something you saw on a lot of toys, so collecting wasn't what it has become now, but come on, to each their own, right?

On a totally unrelated note, I just went to the other room to admire my Lynda Carter Wonder Woman action figure.

The plot isn't worth getting into in too much detail because it starts out nonsensical and gets more so. A major is fired up because those 3 men overseeing the XYZ Project for the government are being targeted by someone. They are being replaced by androids! Do you know what it would mean if the XYZ Project fell into the wrong hands? Well, DO YOU?

I actually don't. In fact, I don't even know what it means if it does NOT because at the end, when--spoiler here--the bad guys are foiled, Diana explains to Steve why they should not be detained. You see, if they are caught, then the foreign agents will know it can be done and will do it again. If they are allowed to go free, they will go back to the foreign agents, who will think they did it...until they don't...I totally didn't get that part, sorry. Yet Diana says it with such fervor that I buy it. Really, I think Steve Trevor on some level is just like, "You're so gorgeous that I will go along with whatever you say, Diana!" And just think, that is the "glammed down and bespectacled" version of the woman!

So let's focus on what we DO get in the episode: Wonder Woman vs. Wonder Woman! Yes, dual Lynda Carters, and sometimes Lynda and/or a cool stuntwoman! Cool toys! Frank Gorshin as the old eccentric toymaker/toy store owner! And not only is Wonder Woman is spectacular as ever, but at times there are two of her, sort of. That old toymaker does great work making androids!

There isn't a lot of real action apart from the WW vs. WW brawl in the toy shop basement, but there are transformations, jumping around, magic lasso, deflecting bullets, etc. I swear on more than one occasion Wonder Woman adds a little flourish--an extra leap here, an extra twirl there--to show off a bit and compensate for the lack of a true physical threat.

What we don't get is a lot of Christmas spirit, though there is enough to make it a legit holiday installment of the series. It all takes place in December, there are some seasonal decorations, and at one point Steve asks computer IRAC what he should get Diana for Christmas. The response is, "Ask Wonder Woman," which Trevor assumes is sarcasm or nonsense. I am disappointed to report there is no follow-up on this, no awkward gift exchange at the end. 

The end does have one tacked-on but of Yuletide cheer. After the confusing ending with the bad guys (Please don't make me get into that again), Diana rushes off saying she has one more thing to do. Cut to Wonder Woman spray-painting a message on the window of the toy store:

It is an odd moment...

but a happy one, and I appreciate it!  You, too, Wonder Woman!

12 Days of Christmas Watching 2022 Day 6: Christmas "Adventures"

I love that the old Ozzie and Harriet Nelson show is called The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. It's not like the family is having adventures like Rin-Tin-Tin or Robin Hood. I also love that MPI is releasing quality DVD sets of the entire series AND that the same episodes are appearing on Prime Video.

The sitcom did a bunch of Christmas episodes, and I have seen many of them, but the first-season effort "Late Christmas Gift" is new to me this year. You know who it isn't new to? Those in 1965 who watched this encore presentation of it when it premiered in 1951. Unfortunately, some of the restored episodes are these rebroadcast versions with a little of the original material missing, presumably due to elements issues with the primary versions (I don't think Ozzie preserved all the ones he reworked for later showings).

NOTE: This is a version on YT presented "for educational purposes," but I give a strong recommendation to the official Season 1 DVDs, the licensed streams on Prime Video, or (like me) the licensed streams on Prime Video if you are too lazy to get up and put in the DVD (I had a cat on my lap, to be fair).

Since I am going through the series from the beginning, it's a bit jarring to see the 14-years-older Oz presenting this one. He is a bit older, but, well, aren't we all. And altered or not, this is a great Christmas episode that illustrates some of what I like about the series. It starts with a low-key premise: Ozzie and older son David get their gifts from Grandma Nelson a bit late--a thick geography book and a hip sports jacket. That's pretty much it.

Yet we got a lot of entertainment out of Ozzie trying on the jacket and, after first fretting he is too old to wear such a trendy piece of clothing, loving it, doing some mild boasting about getting smiles from the young girls in the malt shop. The key with Ozzie is it's always mild boasting, it's harmless, and in fact he almost always backs down and admits the truth. He remains likable and just deluded instead of arrogant.

They get a lot of mileage out of this, but one question remains: Did Ozzie's mother really intend to give David the book and Ozzie the jacket? I like the fundamental decency underlying all this. Ricky teases David about being saddled with the book, but David refuses to admit he isn't into it--not just to spite Ricky, but because he wants to appreciate the gift. And Ozzie's reaction and how he handles things when they learn the truth is great.

However, the show is not just decent, but it's funny. Once you get into the rhythms of the series, it's a great watch with sharper observations about everyday life than you might expect if you have never seen it before. "Late Christmas Gift" is an example of why The Adventures works overall and also why it brings us so many solid holiday episodes.

12 Days of Christmas Watching 2022 Day 5: Be careful out there. Santa's watching!

We are going back to the world of commercials today. Hey, that's television, too! Here are a pair of ads posted by Canadian YouTube account bmuz.

First up, a spot for retail chain Zellers that may remind you of a certain Batty-winning television program:

Does the guy in that ad remind you of a certain Genius-award-winning actor? Everyone is trying, and it's Christmastime. I enjoy this commercial and the way it is shot. Maybe it could be a little grittier, but how many large retail chains want to be associated with "gritty"?

Next up, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback with a seasonal Isotoner ad. These commercials were ubiquitous at the time, but the holiday variant is a nice watch:

Marino was one of the highest-paid guys in the league. Were Istoners really expensive? You know what, let's not go there. It's the thought that counts, and with the slogan, "Take care of the hands that take care of you," Marino indicates what is really on his mind: Making sure his offensive lineman keep his butt off the turf.