Anthony Strand

🎄 Fresh from 1996 comes a Christmas tale that’ll make you cry, but only because it’s being told by an onion.  🎙️ Anthony Strand hops along for the ride as we buzz back to the VeggieTales’ first Christmas special, in which the only children’s toy that comes with a working circular saw embarks on a quest to find the true reason for the season.  📺 You can watch the official version of “The Toy That Saved Christmas” for free on YouTube, or the original 1996 version on the Internet Archive.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Differences between the original and the reanimated version from 1997.  “Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus.”  “Most folks call ’em green onions, but they’re really scallions.”  This Mr. Nezzer is not the previously seen Nebby K. Nezzer, but his brother, Wally P. Nezzer, who’s not as cleverly named.  The original vs. the new, improved Bunny Song.  The shelves of Buzzsaw Louies predate the shelves of Buzz Lightyears in “Toy Story 2.”  Ken Cavanagh (Buzzsaw Louie) may have authored this Medium post from 2020: “Leave Jesus Out of It. Viruses don’t care what you believe.”  “The Dead Sea Squirrels,” by Mike Nawrocki.  Today’s TV Trope: Blatant Burglar.  Doctors in the hallway in “Muppets From Space.”  What do you call a group of penguins?  Two More Eggs: CGI Palz.  ****  📼 Commercials:  VeggieTales: “The Incredible Singing Christmas Tree” album (2005)  The Incredible, Edible Egg: Wisecracks (1991)  Mouse Trap (1990)  The Studio Demands It!  ****  “VeggieTales” and “The Toy That Saved Christmas” © 1996 Big Idea Productions.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  Hosted by The Retro Network.

🎄 Cowabunga! In nearly 40 years of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, 2004’s “The Christmas Aliens” is somehow their only animated Christmas episode.  🎙️ Anthony Strand, Shawn Robare, and Jaime Hood join the ride as we follow Michelangelo and a kitty named Klunk on a Christmas Eve car chase to save a truckload of stolen Little Orphan Alien dolls meant for a group of little orphan human Earthlings, all while Splinter makes a sewer full of guests wait for Mikey to arrive before they eat.  📺 At press time, “The Christmas Aliens” is available on Paramount+.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Read the original 1985 comic on Mirage Studios’ old, preserved website.  Our episode on “We Wish You a Turtle Christmas.”  The Lost and Unused Theme Songs of the 2003 series.  Bruce Wayne’s long dining room table.  Similar chase scenes in “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Speed.”  Terence Archie (Silver Sentry) as Apollo Creed in “Rocky: The Musical.”  Ice Cream Kitty!  ****  📼 Commercials:  Happy Honda Days: Ninja Turtles, featuring the original 1980s voice cast (2018).  WIZARDS The Podcast Guide to Comics.  ****  “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “The Christmas Aliens” © 2004 4Kids Entertainment, Inc., and Mirage Licensing, Inc.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 It’s 2010, and I’m hiding in a closet from a flying shark that ate half my screwdriver.  I’ve finally caught up with the timeline of people who have been requesting that I watch the “Doctor Who” Christmas specials.  🎙 Andre Bennett, Jack Ford from the Total Christmas Podcast, and Anthony Strand from ToughPigs.com join me for a twisted take on “A Christmas Carol” starring Michael Gambon in the Scrooge role and the 11th Doctor as at least 2 ghosts of Christmas.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Andre’s review of this episode from 2011.  Anthony ranks all of Steven Moffat’s “Doctor Who” episodes.  Amy and Rory’s outfits may or may not be but probably are a nod to a similar scene in a 2001 “Only Fools and Horses” Christmas special.  Michael Gambon in “Toys,” as the Ultragorgon on Jim Henson’s “Monster Maker,” and as the Ghost of Christmas Present in 2001’s “Christmas Carol: The Movie.”  Abigail is basically Nora Fries from Batman.  Katherine Jenkins on “Dancing with the Stars.”  Danny Horn (Young Adult Kazran) on Bandcamp.  Greenland sharks could live for hundreds of years.  “Abigail’s Song (Silence Is All You Know)”  ****  📼 Commercials:  Tesco Christmas Advert: “Mrs. Belcher” (2010)  Tinsel Tunes: The Christmas Music Podcast  ****  “Doctor Who” and “A Christmas Carol” © 2010 BBC.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 The Advent Calendar House is back in time for a freakin’ country bear jamberoo as a family of Muppet mice risk their lives to bring home the top of the top of the top of the top of a Christmas tree fit for an eccentric future Iron Man. 🎙 Anthony Strand from ToughPigs.com and Tim Babb from the Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast join us for a waltz back to 1995 as Robert Downey Jr. may or may not be holding Kermit the Frog hostage until he gets his perfect Christmas tree. Plus: Shy butler Leslie Nielsen, homesick Swedish maid Stockard Channing, and a pre-Bobo Bobo the Bear!  📺 We watched this 1995 broadcast of “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree,” with 1995 commercials.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree” on Muppet Wiki.  The original book.  An odd TV promo featuring Brian Cummings’ Kermit the Frog impression.  Kermit and Miss Piggy’s music video of “She Drives Me Crazy,” featuring Leslie Nielsen.  Movin’ Right Along talks Kermit: Unpigged.  The Sesame Street Muppets on “The West Wing” with Stockard Channing.  Mama and Papa Bear are Beth from “The Muppets Take Manhattan” and the future Bobo from “Muppets Tonight.”  “Jim Henson’s Animal Show” on Owls… and Humans.  Sandra Bullock plays the glass harp in “Miss Congeniality.”  An Oreo commercial where a mall Santa takes off his beard way too quickly.  ****  📼 Commercials:Dizzy Grizzlies and Ritz Air Crisps (1995)  “Santa in His Own Words,” a book by Matt Spaulding.****  “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree” © 1995 Jim Henson Productions, Inc.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎄It’s 1984, and Ebenezer Scrooge is threatening to raise his asking price for a warehouse full of corn.  This Christmas Eve episode not only drops on a Scrooge Sunday, but it’s also the Advent Calendar House’s 150th episode! 🎙 Erin Evans, Joey O., and Anthony Strand join us for a Dickens of a celebration with 1984’s TV movie adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” starring George S. Scott, along with the original “Equalizer” Edward Woodward as a sassy Ghost of Christmas Present, and we even spotted our favorite Alfred Pennyworth, Michael Gough, as a not-so-portly gentleman.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  David Warner in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.”  George S. Scott in “Angus” and “Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.”  “God Bless Us Everyone,” this movie’s theme music by Nick Bicât.  Wikipedia and NO ONE ELSE names one Cratchit child “Michael,” played by Susannah York’s (Mrs. Cratchit) real-life son, Orlando Wells.  Michael Carter (Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) as Bib Fortuna in “Return of the Jedi.”  “It’s Corn,” and My favorite “Futurama” joke.  Scrooge’s grave, allegedly a real, reinscribed headstone, at St. Chad’s Church in Shrewsbury.  Twelve Hundred Ghosts - A Christmas Carol in Supercut.  ****  📼 Commercials:  IBM Sponsored Commercial Break from the original airing of “A Christmas Carol.”  George C. Scott “Read More About It” PSA.  The Christmas Podcast Network All-Star Comedy Christmas Show!  ****  “A Christmas Carol” © 1984 Travenol Laboratories Limited.  In memory of Jason Gross (1976–2023).  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  “Christmas in Your Heart” (from “A Garfield Christmas Special”) performed by Todd from Vista Blue/Second Saturday.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 Previously on the Advent Calendar House, we watched a cavemen take over Santa’s job after he fell off the roof in “A Flintstone Christmas.”  This time, our reunion tour of previously podcasted-about characters makes its final stop of the season in Bedrock, where Fred Flintstone is letting the lead role of “Ebonezer” Scrooge go to his head.  🎙️ “Ant-stony” Strand and “Mi-coal” May join us as we watch Wilma do the workload of I lost count of how many victims of the highly contagious Bedrock Bug. We also make the strongest case yet that this Modern Stone-Age Family does, indeed, know about who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  “A Flintstone Family Christmas,” from a year before, was the last appearance of adult Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm.  “The Flintstones & WWE: Stone-Age Smackdown!”  The latest we’ve waited to shop for our spouses.  A grown-up Philo Quartz from “The Flintstone Kids” appears here and then never again.  The Piltdown Man hoax.  How big is the stage, and how are the actors playing ghosts appearing translucent?  They added a “love scene” with Belle, and Maggie Magma is way too excited about it.  Brian Cummings (Ernie/The Ghost of Christmas Present) did a weird Kermit the Frog voice in a promo for “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree.”  Other Dickens characters have headstones in the graveyard.  IMDb credits Rip Taylor as the voice of a Venus flytrap tuba in the orchestra pit.  (These show notes originally included a link to vote on which version of “A Christmas Carol” we’d cover for Christmas Eve! Here’s what won.)  ****  📼 Commercials:  Cocoa Pebbles “Christmas Carol” commercial (1998)  “Dinner & a Movie” makes standing rib roast with “Rockshire” pudding (1996)  ****  “A Flintstones Christmas Carol” © 1994 Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 Previously on the Advent Calendar House, we spent Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Hanukkah on “Shalom Sesame,” and even uncovered the oddity, “A Special Sesame Street Christmas.”  This time, join us as we fly faster than time backwards around the globe to 1996 to watch Elmo save, then ruin, then fix Christmas.  🎙 Becca Petunia and Anthony Strand from ToughPigs.com drop in to watch Elmo’s wish for Christmas Every Day cause economic and environmental disaster in a star-studded special narrated by Maya Angelou and featuring Harvey Fierstein as the Easter Bunny and “Doc Hopper,” himself, Charles Durning, as Santa.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  “Brats of the Lost Nebula.”  Early “proto-Elmo” appearances.  Miss Piggy’s cookbook has a recipe by Maya Angelou.  Baby Bear is Jewish.  14 Karat Soul sings “Down Below the Street.”  Cookie Monster disguised as Ernie.  A petition to remake “White Christmas” with Elmo and Rosita’s military veteran dads.  This special’s unique News Flash logo.  The soundtrack that’s not actually a soundtrack.  Big Bird sings “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” but not THAT one.  Elmo as the ring bearer at Luis and Maria’s wedding.  Ranking all the jokes in “Elmo Says BOO!”  Bert and Ernie meet their “It’s a Wonderful Life” counterparts.  ****  📼 Commercials:  “Elmo Saves BOO!” (1997)  Returning Student, a 40-year-old’s journey to finish the college degree he never got.  ****  “Elmo Saves Christmas” © 1996 Children’s Television Workshop.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.