 This is the SF Productions podcast network It's the most wonderful time of the year From the pop culture bunker. I'm Mindy and I'm mark you can check out our audio podcast How I got my wife to read comics on itunes more on our website SF podcast network comm Well, we're in the middle of the holiday season and that means Christmas TV 24 hours a day pretty much the first major special was an opera written specifically for TV Amal and the night visitors it was first broadcast live in 1951 and then performed annually and shown again live for over a decade. I think they recently brought it back I'm not sure there was an attempt in the they redid it in color and videotaped it in the late 60s And people didn't like it as much. I'm sure it has been done and it's now done as as a play You know in theaters But by the 60s you saw this plethora of animated specials hit the airwaves Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol in 1962. It's the same age as me. Oh my gosh It's a musical version of the Dickens classic starring the near-sighted geriatric Bring on the raspberry dressing Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer 1964 a story of bullying and revenge Disguised as a kid's movie Very much so I want to be a dentist and Then we have the Charlie Brown Christmas Which includes what today would be far too much religious content and songs now a story? I've always remembered is when I was in college and this was in the days when not everybody had you know instant entertainment in their pocket, yes, and Easy access to everything when these stories were on when these shows were on you had to be basically be in front of the TV Or you missed them or you missed it. So I'm in college and I'm doing some play and We were congregating during a technical rehearsal in the costume shop for some reason and They had a tiny little black-and-white TV and they started showing Charlie Brown Christmas and we were all supposed to get back on stage for something and they're like and we're like no Sorry, we're gonna have to wait because And we all crowded around this tiny little black-and-white set and we all watched Charlie Brown Christmas In 1966 we had the first showing of how the Grinch stole Christmas not the terrible Jim Carrey remake That's right. This was Chuck Jones. It is animated height along with Boris Carlott's great narration and thorough Ravens Cross They're great song Then we have the little drummer boy in 1968 now the main thing I remember About this one was it was sponsored by the gas company Back then things really were I mean, you know, you always saw right Oh, yeah, they were the main sponsors like Presented by your local gas company and it was like they had a little flame on on the on screen and all this and In 69 we had frosty the snowman where a magic hat creates a snow golem who leads kids into dangerous traffic That's basically the story We have the year without a Santa Claus in 1974 and otherwise forgettable rank and bass special with one exception Snow miser and heat miser I Okay, so yeah, like that song When we were kids there are a lot of variety specials take months in advance by big stars who often drank and smoked heavily Yes Radio stars that transferred to TV like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby would have extravaganza almost every year Crosby dragged his family into the specials over time Including wife Catherine and daughter Mary who's later of course the jeopardy answer to the question who shot J.R Bing partnered with Frank Sinatra for a film Special which shifts from a boozy song in Frank's pad to traditional carols in a fake old English town square Crosby's final special shot just before his death and aired posthumously Created a surreal duet with David Bowie that continues to be played decades later Came a big hit on MTV. Yes. They show that every year. I'm sure they still do Hope turned his specials into travel logs as he went to military hot spots like Vietnam and the Persian Gulf They were USO specials. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and let's bring out Lola Heather tonight right here in a while And then one of the next generation of variety stars Perry Como turned his Christmas specials into round-the-world tours Including the Holy Land and Hawaii Andy Williams specials would features real parents and family and the young Osmond family Who would then go on to their own specials later and Steve Allen did a special shot live at his own home Which is just a technical matter Because they at the time the technology wasn't there. So they had these huge cameras lumbering through his his own home Now if you want to be depressed Try the Judy Garland Christmas special shot in a fake version of her home with Judy Visibly out of it slurring her way through her classics But to pep you up after that try Pee Wee play play Pee Wee's play houses Christmas special, which is like eating a box of candy canes By the 80s these specials became few and far between but they're catching on again over the past few years with stars like Michael Buble and the Pentatonix One of our personal favorites is Steven Colbert the greatest gift of all a special from Comedy Central a few years ago It's a parody of the 60s style specials John Stewart asks Steven at one point. Can I interest you in Hanukkah? There are much worse things to believe in is actually a touching song about believing in Christmas Also, Bill Murray did a Netflix special last year. It's a little weird while also being hip Which is kind of what you expect from Bill And then there's regular TV series with Christmas episodes and this went from a rarity to almost a requirement for all TV series Mm-hmm a Frasier episode has Marty pretending to be Jewish in order to impress his girlfriend's mother, which fails spectacularly Futurama introduced robot Santa who was programmed to determine who was naughty or nice and then kill the naughty The Andy Griffith show had a moonshiner locked up in jail, but Andy brought his family to him and celebrated the holiday there The honeymooners had Ralph getting what turns out to be a crappy gift, but it turns into oh Henry's gift of the Magi baby You're the greatest Community had a stop-motion episode parading Rankin basses work or was it a bed's head trauma? The pilot of the Simpsons was a Christmas episode where Homer loses his Christmas gift money At the dog track and winds up with Santa's Little Helper as a pet Mary Tyler more show had Mary stuck alone covering Wjmtv on Christmas Day until the gang came to cheer her up and the odd couple had a metastory with Felix putting on a Christmas Carol play Oscar being all humbug about it and then being visited by three ghosts in his sleep The Henning versus shows Beverly Hillbillies Petticoat Junction Green Acres had crossover Christmas episodes And you even get a shot of all the cast sitting down to Christmas dinner And at one point black and white footage of the cannonball Express decked out for the holiday was reused in a later color Christmas episode well there is also an episode of Petticoat Junction that was a Christmas episode that they did in black and white, right? And then they did the same script That's basically what that was yeah Mm-hmm, and then there's the Brady Bunch and the voice of Christmas Carol Florence Henderson Loses her voice right before the big concert, but miraculously gets it back at the last minute Even the Twilight Zone had an episode where our Carney played a drunk department store Santa who finds a magic bag that keeps generating presents and of course the OC had Christmaca and Seinfeld had Festivus for the rest of us Now the final category is the holiday TV movie The pilot for the Walton's TV series was a TV movie called The Homecoming 1973 remake of Miracle on 34th Street starred David Hartman who then segued from acting to hosting on Good Morning America The Brady's got together minus Susan Olsen for a very Brady Christmas And then there's a gaggle of Christmas Carol remakes and re-imaginings Yes, and now we have a whole network or two That do nothing but Christmas movies during the holidays hallmark and hallmark movies and mysteries It's a watering hole for X TV stars a Branson for TV if you will These run the gamut from single mom meets hunky guy Christmas and falls in love to a single working mom meets hunky dad at Christmas and falls in love The Christmas memes play out in full with themes from It's a Wonderful Life What happened if you weren't there to a Christmas Carol? Here's what happens in the future based on your decision There really isn't a movie. They won't incorporate it into Christmas You know, there's a basically a remake of Groundhog Day called 12 Dates of Christmas There's not much depth there, but it's a nice dish of Christmas cheer something you can wrap presents to exactly Yes And if that doesn't Bring out your Christmas spirit. You can always check out our audio podcast How I got my wife three comics on iTunes or on our website sfpodcastnetwork.com from the pop culture bunker I'm Indy and I'm Mark. Thank you for watching and you all a good night. Oh