Sarah Shay

🫓 Previously on the Advent Calendar House, we helped our favorite talking babies stop a true meanie in “A Rugrats Chanukah.”  This time, we’re ignoring the rules of another long-standing tradition as “Rugrats” reimagines the story of Passover.  🎙️ Sarah Shay and Zach Gozlan join us as we witness grown men throwing temper tantrums and ending up locked in the attic.  📺 I found this special hiding in a 4-hour VHS recording of Nick on CBS from 2003.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Pilot House on “I Dream of Jeannie,” which would not be seen the night this premiered.  Fact-Checking “Fact-Checking A Rugrats Passover.”  As of this recording, the Sultan of Brunei in 1995 is still sultan.  “Noozles,” which co-starred Cheryl Chase (Angelica) and was not “The Adventures of the Little Koala.”  The 4 categories of Jewish holidays.  Melanie Chartoff (Didi, Minka) as the principal in “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.”  The controversy over Boris and Minka’s design.  “The Song That Doesn’t End” from “Lamb Chop’s Play Along.”  The Maxwell House Haggadah.  A Haggadah of Our Own.  “Bible Adventures.”  ****  📼 Commercials:  Country Crock Spreadable Sticks (1994), featuring Jack Riley (Stu).  Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards (2003)  The Studio Demands It!  ****  “A Rugrats Passover” © 1995 Viacom International Inc.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🕎 Kick off Hanukkah with the objectively better son from “Growing Pains” spinning bad puns like he made them out of clay.  🎙️Sarah Shay stops by as we shine a light on a 1990 episode of “Shalom Sesame,” an on-again, off-again co-production of “Sesame Street” and its counterpart in Israel, “Rechov Sumsum.”  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  “Shalom Sesame” on Muppet Wiki.  Israel’s Big Bird stand-in, Kippi Ben Kippod, is mistranslated as a porcupine despite clearly being a hedgehog. A similar but unclothed costume was used in Spain’s Barrio Sésamo for Espinete, who’s identified as a hedgehog.  Jeremy Miller, as Linus, sings “The Vigil” in “Snoopy! The Musical.”  Yoav Tzafir’s other credits include the Hebrew-dubbed voices of Ninja Turtle Michaelangelo and Super Mario. Later he directed Israel’s version of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”  The real, actual, annual Hanukkah Torch Relay.  Moishe Oofnik, Israel’s counterpart to Oscar, looks less like a grouch and more like a standard Muppet monster. Probably because he has a nose.  Baby Bear teaches Telly Monster how to play dreidel.  A supposed folktale listed on the Wikipedia entry for sufganiyah may or may not be full of something that’s not jelly.  Sarah met the head puppeteer from “Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah.”  Nell Carter, a Jewish convert, appeared on other episodes of “Shalom Sesame” as herself.  ****  “Shalom Sesame” © 1990 Children’s Television Workshop.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🕎 Hanukkah is here, so here’s a 1995 special starring sock puppets hanging out with Mr. Miyagi, the dad from Growing Pains, and the mayor of Gotham City.  🎙️ Sarah Shay returns to the Advent Calendar House to reintroduce me to “Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah,” which miraculously brings together Pat Morita, Alan Thicke, and Lloyd Bochner as both dinner guests and computer-generated, one-dimensional superheroes.  There’s now a better copy of “Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah” on YouTube. The one we watched for this podcast was from some guy holding his iPad’s camera up to a TV.  Check out Sarah’s albums: “You Have Queer Street Cred” and “The Shay & Shay Radio Hour.”  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Shari Lewis’s amazing single-color red dreamcoat and stylin’ menorah.  Alan Thicke on “Celebrity Family Feud.”  “Lamb Chop in the Haunted Studio,” an earlier Halloween special also featuring Alan Thicke.  Charlie Horse’s prize-winning superhero, the stuff of someone’s very specific nightmares.  They almost make it through a whole Hanukkah special without mentioning Christmas, but blow it at the end for no reason.  ****  “Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah” © 1995 8 Candles Production, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.

🕎 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.