Jeff Somogyi

🎄 It’s 1991, and Santa Claus is fighting with a talking dog over a park bench.  By some Christmas miracle, this obscure special was rediscovered over 30 years later. For years, people on the Internet tried to identify it on a TV in the background of an old family photo, until finally, thanks to the power of positivity, it was identified as “The Soulmates in The Gift of Light.”  🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni and Jeff Somogyi join us as we meet the intergalactic Soulmates in what seems like a pilot that never got off the ground.  📺 You can watch “The Soulmates in The Gift of Light” for free on YouTube, courtesy of the special’s creator, Gabrielle St. George.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The original Tumblr post: “Can You Figure Out Who This Is?” by Sophie Campbell (2016)  Will Sloan’s tweet of the screenshot, September 2022.  CBC News: Canadian cartoon mystery finally solved after 6 years, thanks to the internet (2022)  “The Littles,” for comparison.  Today’s TV Trope: Mind-Control Eyes.  Soulmates Productions, Inc. defaulted in 2007.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Canadian Tire: Scrooge / Nintendo Action Set Commercial (1991)  Pop Tarts Commercial starring Dan and Dave (1990)  Remember That Show?  ****  “The Soulmates in The Gift of Light” © 1991 Soulmates Productions, Inc.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 It’s the Advent Calendar House’s 5th anniversary, so instead of celebrating one Christmas special, we watched three!  🎙️ Jeff Somogyi and Paxton Holley help us clear the runway as we salute Disney’s trilogy of 2009’s “Prep & Landing,” 2010’s “Operation: Secret Santa,” and 2011’s “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice.”  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Disney’s Prep & Landing Website from 2009 is still up with character and gadget profiles.  “Tiny’s Big Adventure,” a minute-long short starring Magee’s assistant.  Super Golden Crisp Cereal’s Sugar Bear musical Christmas ornament.  Prep & Landing Easter eggs.  Santa’s castle looks familiar.  Noel’s early cameo in “Operation: Secret Santa.”  A hat tip to the Classic Film Jerks.  Captain Avalanche and Snowball’s poster looks like a Batman and Robin Detective Comics cover.  “Naughty, Naughty Children” by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.  “Nuttin’ for Christmas” by the Plain White T’s.  “The Ballad of Nessie,” who makes 2 cameos.  Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” appears.  “Mansion: Impossible,” featuring Wayne and Lanny prepping the Avengers Mansion.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Coca-Cola: Santa Packs are Coming (1994)  Campbell’s Soup: Snowman (1995)  Can’t Wait for Christmas’s reminder to play “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson more.  ****  “Prep & Landing,” “Operation: Secret Santa,” and “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” © Disney.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🦃 The Gaslighting of Dr. Liz Wilson.  Join us as badly dancing back to 1989 to celebrate the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.  🎙️ Jeff Somogyi joins us to dig into “Garfield’s Thanksgiving,” the clear bronze medalist of Garfield’s holiday trilogy, thanks to Jon Arbuckle going from goofy pet owner to hopelessly inept creep.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Orson the Pig from “U.S. Acres” makes a cameo in Liz’s waiting room.  The dumbest things we’ve done to get a date pale in comparison to Jon holding his breath until Liz concedes to going out with him. Please don’t do that.  Pat Carroll is back as Grandma in her 2nd greatest vocal performance of November 1989.  Julie Payne (Liz) was also briefly the voice of another cartoon doctor, Janice N!Godatu, from the other animated segment of “The Tracey Ullman Show.”  A brief history of sock garters.  This special confirms Jon can’t hear Garfield speaking, but somehow Garfield’s computerized, fat-shaming scale can.  The best of Calvin’s dad from Calvin and Hobbes.  Grandma Arbuckle’s Sweet Potatoes, as prepared by Dinosaur Dracula.  Cranberry sauce tastes better when it’s shaped like the inside of a can.  Desirée Goyette, the female singing voice in Garfield’s specials and also the voice of Nermal, also sang the title theme from “It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown.”  ****  📼 Commercial:  Garfield Alpo Cat Food Commercial (1989)  ****  “Garfield’s Thanksgiving” © 1989 United Feature Syndicate, Inc./Anderson Digital.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎃 Put out the oars and surrender yourself to the mercy of the rivers of time as they take us back to Garfield’s terrifying 1985 Halloween special.🎙️ Jeff Somogyi joins us to celebrate the special that turned a generation into scaredy cats.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Jim Davis wanted Garfield’s Halloween Adventure to “at least scare 4-year-olds” (The A.V. Club, 2014)  Samples of the comic book adaptation, “Garfield in Disguise,” from Rotten Ink and Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks, including even creepier drawings of the old man and pirate ghosts.  The first appearance of Binky the Clown!  The time a raccoon broke into Jeff’s attic and left a hornet’s nest inside a Nativity scene shepherd.  Speaking of attics, the Pink Panther advertising Owens Corning fiberglass insulation.  The Roy Ogle of “Roy Ogle’s roots” was a plant breeder at Clemson. They’re sweet potatoes.  The black cat pajamas may be a callback to the killer panther from 1984’s “Garfield in the Rough,” another good special to put on if you want to give your kids nightmares.  Was the ghost of Jon’s grandfather watching all the Christmas festivities in that special?  C. Lindsay Workman (Old Man) as Garfield’s grandfather in “Garfield on the Town” and God in “Garfield: His 9 Lives.”  The “double burn” glowing effect used on the ghosts reminds us of the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence of Fantasia.  We had to ask: Did Garfield and Odie really survive the night, or is everything thereafter really Garfield Minus Garfield?  ****  📼 Commercials:  McDonald’s Halloween Pumpkin Pails (1986)  ****  “Garfield’s Halloween Adventure” ©1985 United Feature Syndicate, Inc./Anderson Digital.  Closing Music: “Witch’s Night Out,” performed by Razoreater, written by Peter Rochon.  Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 Remember ALF? He’s back, in podcast form!  🎙️ Jeff Somogyi drops by as we salute ALF’s two-part Christmas special from 1987, the single most depressing special starring a wisecracking alien puppet of all time.  🚨 Content Warning: In this Christmas special, the goofy alien with the jokes meets a terminally ill child and a man contemplating suicide.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The heartbreaking true story behind “ALF’s Special Christmas.”  A study in human ignorance: Gordon Shumway has a name, which he’s told everyone, yet everyone still calls him HEY ALIEN!  A study in willful alien ignorance: ALF opens everyone else’s Christmas gifts and succeeds in convincing me it’s because he doesn’t know how any of this works.  Talking ALF: The Storytelling Alien.  “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”  ****  “ALF’s Special Christmas” © 1987 Alien Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 Let’s have a good, old-fashioned Christmas down on the farm in 1987’s “A Garfield Christmas Special,” featuring the voices of Squiggy and Ursula.  🎙️ The Advent Calendar House welcomes Jeff Somogyi as we contemplate lasagna as a Christmas food, go long on the dinner prayer, and wonder how Binky, “The Clown Who Saved Christmas,” saved Christmas.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Joey O. interviews Gregg Berger, the voice of Odie.  Dinosaur Dracula identifies all the presents in Garfield’s dream.  Better “Weird Al” Yankovic Christmas song: “Christmas at Ground Zero” or “The Night Santa Went Crazy”?  The simultaneously best and worst line in the history of animated Christmas specials for children: “Whoever invented Christmas trees should be drug out into the street and shot.”  Jeff wanted a ringtone of that blaring trumpet when Garfield looks down from the top of the Christmas tree, so here it is!  ****  “A Garfield Christmas Special” © 1987 United Feature Syndicate, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.