Mike Westfall

🎄 It’s time to dust off the cobwebs and get the Advent Calendar House ready for Season 2, featuring a new episode every day from December 1 through Christmas Eve, 2018.  In between commercial teasers for all 24 episodes coming in Season 2 (though not necessarily in order) the members of the all-new Christmas Podcast Network share stories of Christmas music traditions:  ****  🎙 Guests:  Brian Earl (Christmas Past)  Tim Babb (Can’t Wait for Christmas)  Craig Kringle (Weird Christmas)  Duane Bailey (Tinsel Tunes)  Joseph Wade (Christmas Creeps), with Libby Cudmore  Anthony Caruso, Julia Colburn, and Thom Crowe (Tis the Podcast)  ****  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s2 

🎃 The Advent Calendar House presents a dazzling display of magical mischief.  🎙️ Chad Young creeps in to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Witch’s Night Out,” an often remembered, then forgotten, then re-remembered Halloween classic from 1978.  📺 You can watch “Witch’s Night Out” on Tubi.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  WitchsNightOut.com, the official website.  Anytown Series, a planned sequel, and other holiday specials in development.  Toys “R” Us TV commercial from 1980, featuring ”the Big Bird Halloween costume and the Yoda Halloween costume.”  Ghostbusters Fright Features action figures.  Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?  Malicious’s food may or may not have been inspired by Joys of Jell-O.  ****  “Witch’s Night Out” © 1978 Leach/Rankin Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1970s #halloween #anytown

🎆 We’re back for a surprise summertime episode on the 1986 animated movie, “The Adventures of the American Rabbit.”  🎙️ Chad Young from the Horror Movie BBQ joins our cross-country adventure through a star-spangled box-office bomb from Fred Wolf Films and Toei Animation, starring the voices of Donatello, Garfield, Baby Piggy, and King Triton.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The late Stewart Moskowitz’s archived gallery and current website, operated by his family.  Too-Loose, the Chocolate Moose.  Ping Pong, the Gorilla who ate Garfield.  ****  “The Adventures of the American Rabbit” © 1985 Wolfkill Productions, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1980s #4thofjuly

🐰 We’re back! This surprise springtime episode covers the 1976 Rankin/Bass special, “The First Easter Rabbit,” which despite its name and main theme, still relies heavily on Christmas.  🎙️ Brandon Medley hops by to discuss this special’s very obvious and very uncredited connection to “The Velveteen Rabbit,” Easter Valley’s odd location next door to the North Pole, and Rankin/Bass’s habit of giving bad directions.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  They named the talking snowball “Br-r-ruce,” a joke I didn’t notice until just now!  ****  “The First Easter Rabbit” © 1974 Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1970s #easter #rankinbass

🎄 In our Christmas Eve season finale, the Advent Calendar House is haunted by 3 spirited guests  — Sue London, Jonathan MacFarlane, and Joey O. — as we each draft our own casts of “A Christmas Carol” from a pool of characters from Christmas past.  ****  🎩 “A Christmas Carol” versions mentioned, in chronological order:  1951: Scrooge (starring Alastair Sim).  1954: Shower of Stars’ A Christmas Carol.  1962: Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol.  1970: Scrooge (musical, starring Albert Finney).  1978: Rich Little’s Christmas Carol.  1979: Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol.  1983: Mickey’s Christmas Carol.  1984: A Christmas Carol (starring George C. Scott).  1986: The Real Ghostbusters: Xmas Marks the Spot.  1987ish: Honey Nut Cheerios Christmas Commercial (starring Bill Gavin).  1988: Scrooged (starring Bill Murray).  1992: The Muppet Christmas Carol.  1993: Animaniacs: A Christmas Plotz.  1994: A Flintstones Christmas Carol.  1997: A Christmas Carol (starring Tim Curry).  1999: A Christmas Carol (starring Patrick Stewart).  2003: A Carol Christmas (starring Tori Spelling).  2009: Disney’s A Christmas Carol (starring Jim Carrey).  2011: Batman: Noël.  ****  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #scroogesunday

🎄 Joey O. returns to the Advent Calendar House bearing the gift of his favorite regional holiday commercial. Join us as we spend 17 times the length of a 30-second lottery commercial talking about the spot that had a whole commonwealth singing “Five Cash Fives!”  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The original Pennsylvania Lottery Christmas Commercial from 1992.  The updated commercial from 2012, remade shot-for-shot like 1998’s Psycho.  PA Lottery’s Holiday Ad Gets Makeover (CBS Philly, 2012)  “Move Closer to Your World,” the greatest broadcast news theme song ever composed.  Philadelphia Eagles fans’ longing for kelly green football uniforms.  Major League Baseball’s endless array of ugly hats for every holiday.  ****  “Snowfall” © 1992, 2012 PA Lottery.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1990s #2010s #commercials

🕎 In the Advent Calendar House’s first Hanukkah episode, we follow the Rugrats on their mission to stop the “Meanie of Chanukah” and make him take a nap.  🎙️ Sarah Shay joins the search and helps count all the misspoken “babyisms” along the way.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Sarah’s top 2 favorite spellings of “Hanukkah.”  E.G. Daily (Tommy) as Dottie in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.”  A tale of 2 panics: Babies climbing up to open flames vs. babies trying to blow out Hanukkah candles.  Stu’s giant, tacky menorah vs. the Miami Marlins’ home run celebration monstrosity.  The TV trope of the Sitcom Arch-Nemesis.  Our worst on-stage mishaps.  ****  “A Rugrats Chanukah” © 1996 Klasky-Csupo, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1990s #hanukkah #nickelodeon

🎄 Ho-ho-ho, I’m hu-hu-hungry! Fill your soul with season’s greetings and another batch of cereal commercials from Christmas past.  🎙️ Uh-oh, here comes Joey O. to revisit a collection of seasonal ads for Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles, starring Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The main attraction: This Fruity Pebbles Christmas commercial, circa 1986, and a redubbed version with Jim Cummings as Santa from the early ’90s.  An older Fruity Pebbles Christmas commercial, dated 1980.  A Newer Cocoa Pebbles “Christmas Carol” commercial.  “I’m the Master Rapper and I’m here to say, I love Fruity Pebbles in a major way!”  The theory I’m going with: Fred and Barney know about Christmas because they live in a post-apocalyptic future.  The Rock’s Fruity Pebbles promo on John Cena, 2011.  WWE’s Christmas in Baghdad opening from 2003, featuring “Stone Cold” Steve Austin disguised as Santa Claus.  ****  Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles cereal commercials © Post Consumer Brands / Warner Bros.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1980s #commercials #hannabarbera #flintstones

🎄 Trudge back to 1974 as we dig up a rare gem, “The Gift of Winter,” which introduces a colorful cast of characters from Anytown, better known from its Halloween sequel, “Witch’s Night Out!”  🎙️ Chad Young from the Horror Movie BBQ joins the quest for an audience with Old Man Winter alongside pre-“Saturday Night Live” Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd.  📺 You can watch “The Gift of Winter” on Tubi.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Treatments for a whole Anytown Series, which includes sequel stories for Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, and Valentine’s Day.  Whenever Bazooey’s not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, “Where’s Bazooey?”  The special’s true heroes: A couple of gay trees.  Every parade should end at the Rocky steps.  ****  “The Gift of Winter” © 1974 Leach/Rankin Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1970s #anytown

🎄 The taste of nuts and honey thaws Scrooge’s icy heart in this 30-second portrayal of Scrooge for a Christmastime cereal commercial.  🎙️ Joey O. stops by to share a sufficient helping of customary gruel as we squeeze every last drop of honey out of this commercial, officially titled “Ebenezer Scrooge Discovers Honey Nut Cheerios,” which ran from around 1987 through at least the end of the 20th century.  Addendum: Thanks to Guy Hutchinson for identifying our Scrooge as actor Bill Gavin!  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  A tale of two Buzz Bees: “It’s Christmas,” vs. “It’s the holidays.”  Arnold Stang, the original voice of the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, Top Cat, and Nestlé’s Chunky candy bar.  A brief tangent questioning the lifespan and ancestral history of honeybees.  ****  Honey Nut Cheerios © General Mills.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1980s #commercials

🎄 How many Muppets can fit inside a farmhouse? We took a head count. It’s a lot.  🎙️ Carlin Trammel from Nerd Lunch stops by the Advent Calendar House to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of “A Muppet Family Christmas,” the shredded wheat and cranberry sauce of TV specials. Together, we try and piece together the various home video cuts over music rights, and wrap around heads around the dizzying continuity issues surrounding the Muppet Babies.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Can you say “OshKosh B’gosh”?  A milk PSA and the world’s most forward-thinking bullies.  Osvaldo el Gruñón, Oscar the Grouch’s Puerto Rican counterpart.  Parting words from the guy with the beard doing the dishes.  ****  “A Muppet Family Christmas” © 1987 Jim Henson Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1980s #muppets

🎄 Happy birthday! Join us as we begin our salute to all holiday specials, but mostly the Christmas ones by attempting to answer questions no one asked about the 1969 Rankin/Bass TV special, “Frosty the Snowman.”  🎙️ Brandon Medley joins the parade as we try to find out how hard it is to escape a locked greenhouse, when something you throw away stops legally being yours, and how long it would actually take to write, “I am very sorry for what I did to Frosty” a hundred zillion times.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Oatmeal is a perfectly adorable name for a snowman.  Frosty Day in Armonk, New York.  A closer look at the absurdly long and zigzagged train route to the North Pole.  The stupidest places we’ve ever been dropped off.  ****  “Frosty the Snowman” © 1969 Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s1 #1960s #rankinbass #frosty

This holiday season, experience the joy of rewatching the same TV specials you watch every year in podcast form!  It’s the Advent Calendar House: A salute to all holiday specials, but mostly the Christmas ones. Revisit 12 holiday TV classics and not-so-classics each December and July.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Full episodes and links at adventcalendar.house.