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🎄 Join us as we slowly slink sideways back to 1983 to celebrate the time someone literally threw an idea at the wall to see if it would stick.  🎙️ Joey O. returns to talk “Deck the Halls with Wacky Walls,” an animated Christmas special about Wacky WallWalkers. But first, we need to talk about the man behind the WallWalkers, Dr. Fad!  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  “The Dr. Fad Show.”  Eight ’80s Xmas Specials You Might’ve Forgotten (Dinosaur Dracula, 2015)  X-Entertainment’s preserved 2003 tribute to the Wacky WallWalker.  This isn’t the right Apple Jacks commercial, but I can’t not mention young Julia Stiles scoffing that it doesn’t taste like apples.  Writer Mark Evanier’s blog.  The WallWalkers’ home planet looks like an M.C. Escher painting.  Darryl’s friend, Kenzo, is named after one of Dr. Fad’s sons. His other son married comedian Ali Wong.  The most expensive things we’ve asked for from our parents for Christmas, which pale in comparison to a $1,000 toy car — which, of course, we then look up its adjustment for inflation.  Waxing nostalgic about popcorn garland on Christmas trees.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Corn Pops Cereal with free Wacky WallWalker inside (1984)  ****  “Deck the Halls with Wacky Walls” © 1983 NBC Productions.  “The Dr. Fad Show” © 1988 Tradex Corp.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s4 #1980s

🎄 Hey, paisanos! Join us as we warp back to 1989 for a double dose of Christmas segments from “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show.”  🎙 Adam Pope joins us to watch Mario and Luigi save Santa in 2 different dimensions: The live-action “Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush,” featuring Santa losing his “transportation” in Brooklyn; and the animated “Koopa Klaus,” featuring a plot to… freeze the North Pole.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Nintendo Power’s preview of “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show.”  I didn’t realize till recently the music in the “Back to the Future” Nintendo game is just “The Power of Love” sped up.  “King Koopa’s Kool Kartoons,” a live-in-studio spinoff show local to Los Angeles and hosted by King Koopa, performed at one point by Chris Latta, a.k.a. Christopher Collins.  Captain Lou Albano’s Wrestling Hotline 1-900 number.  We map out where Mario and Luigi lived in Brooklyn.  “Stunt Dawgs,” an obscure 1992 cartoon featuring Harvey Atkin playing another character with the same King Koopa voice.  “Teeter-totter” vs. “see-saw.”  How tall is Mario? Captain Lou was 5-foot-10, though other sources range from 5-foot-1 to 3-foot-8.  Preview of Super Nintendo World, coming to Universal theme parks.  Finally, I get to talk at length about The Legend of Zelda!  Adam’s SequelQuest episode on the Super Mario Bros. movie, featuring a parody of the Super Show theme song.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Pepsi Nintendo Holiday Game (1989), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.  Nintendo Power Commercial (1990), preserved by RobertDigitalGames.  Christmas Clatter.  ****  “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show,” “Koopa Klaus,” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush” © 1989 DiC Entertainment.  “Super Mario Bros.” © Nintendo Co. Ltd.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s4 #1980s #dic #videogames

🎄 Sail back to 1981 as we dig up Rankin/Bass’s penultimate and possibly most obscure stop-motion Christmas special.  🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May stumble in to imbibe “The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold,” which may or may not only exist because Rankin/Bass had the rights to use the song “Christmas in Killarney” and needed someplace to put it.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Ken Jennings (the voice of Dinty Doyle, not the Jeopardy! guy) in the short-lived Epcot Center attraction, “The Astuter Computer Revue.”  Mag the Hag’s entrance reminds me of Rita Repulsa in “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”  This special keeps adding new rules about how both banshees and rainbows work, like they’re Mogwai.  The Leprechauns’ “phantom island of Tralee” shares a name with an actual mainland town in Ireland, but is closer to Dursey Island, population (as of 2016): 4.  The only thing many remember about this special is its Nightmare Face reveal that a beautiful woman Dinty finds washed ashore is the banshee in disguise.  According to the Christmas Specials Wiki, Arthur Rankin said a promotion was planned involving prizes buried in random places around the United States for children to dig up, but was abandoned for safety concerns.  “Jack O’Lantern,” from Rankin/Bass’s Festival of Family Classics TV series, featuring a leprechaun disguised as a pumpkin.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Gremlins Gizmo Plush Pet (1984)  The Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast.  ****  “The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold” © 1981 Rankin/Bass Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s4 #1980s #rankinbass

🎄 S-s-season’s greetings-s-s! You better watch out, because today we’re kindly rewinding back to a 1985 Christmas episode of “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero,” 🎙️ Joey O. parachutes in for “Cobra CLAWs Are Coming to Town,” featuring the incredible shrinking Cobra troops and a giant parrot.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  We don’t even get 4 minutes into this before bringing up the U.S.S. Flagg.  Then we get caught up in the Crossfire.  A brief history of the G.I. Joe toy line, from “America’s Movable Fighting Man” to the Adventure Team, to “A Real American Hero.”  “The Toys That Made Us” on Netflix.  The “opening monologue that explains the show” has nothing on Voltron’s.  Neil Ross (Shipwreck, Dusty, and Buzzer in this episode) has an audio camero in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “I Can’t Watch This.”  Joey’s interviews with Pat Fraley (Wild Weasel), Gregg Berger (Firefly), Michael Bell (Duke, Blowtorch, Major Bludd), and Rob Paulsen (Tripwire, his earliest known voice credit).  “The Viper is Coming” is both our favorite G.I. Joe episode and my dad’s favorite dad joke.  “King Koopa’s Kool Kartoons,” starring Chris Latta (Cobra Commander).  We try and find Keystone City, which may or may not be somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania.  The titular Cobra CLAW (Covert Light Aerial Weapon), an odd name for a Cobra vehicle, because snakes don’t have claws.  Fenslerfilm’s G.I. Joe PSAs.  ****  📼 Commercials:  William “The Refrigerator” Perry G.I. Joe Action Figure (1987)  Weird Christmas. ****  “G.I. Joe” and “Cobra CLAWs Are Coming to Town” © 1985 Hasbro, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s4 #1980s #hasbro

🦃 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.  #s4 #1980s #thanksgiving #garfield #comics

🎄 Santa’s sleigh is grounded in the original video game crash.  The Advent Calendar House kicks off another Christmas countdown by rewinding back to 1982, when Santa found himself stranded in Pac-Man’s neighborhood.  🎙 Lindy and Alicia join us for a stroll through “Christmas Comes to Pacland,” where no one knows about Christmas, but somehow the Ghost Monsters know the words to “Jingle Bells.”  🚨 Warning: Santa spoilers from 11:25 to 13:30.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Santa is flying with 8 reindeer, including Rudolph. Who got the night off?  Why some reindeer actually have red noses.  This might be the first time a Christmas special shows Santa using a computer.  Russi Taylor’s Pac-Baby has the same voice she later used for Robin in “Muppet Babies.”  Absent from this special is the Ghost Monsters’ boss, Mezmaron.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Pac-Man Cereal (1984)  Chef Boyardee Pac-Man Pasta (1984)  A Bomb for Christmas, made for podcast Christmas movie by Tim Babb of the Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast, co-starring Mike as “Captain Willis.”  ****  “Christmas Comes to Pacland” © 1982 Hanna-Barbera Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1980s #hannabarbera #videogames

🎄 Join us on a stroll down Jim Henson’s dark hall of nightmares to 1986 to rewatch “The Christmas Toy,” an idea no one has repeated since.  🎙 Beth Cieslik, Adam Jurotich, and Donnie Storms are the newest friends in the playroom who have to learn the horrors of getting caught out of place.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Kermit was cut from the DVD release, but he’s back in the version on Amazon Prime Video.  Rugby crashing his skateboard into a block tower is the 1980s Muppet version of WWE’s Titus O’Neil tripping and sliding underneath the ring.  “Teacup Furby.”  “Mother Goose Rock ’n’ Rhyme” and the song “Gordon (Never Really Learned to Play).”  Apple is closer to a female My Buddy than Kid Sister, the actual female My Buddy.  The inevitable “Toy Story” comparison.  Somehow we worked in a “Christmas Shoes” joke. I’m not linking to that. I just wanted you to know.  “Don't Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”  “The Secret Life of Toys,” the short-lived 1994 sequel series.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Kraft Holiday Recipes featuring “The Christmas Toy” poster (1986), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.  Crispy Critters Cereal (1987)  Snow in Southtown.  ****  “The Christmas Toy” ©1986 Henson Associates, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1980s #muppets

🎄 Filmation’s space western gets a dickens of a backstory.  🎙 Joey O. and Sammy Hain saddle up for a Scrooge Sunday edition of the Advent Calendar House looking back at a 1987 Christmas episode of “BraveStarr.”  📺 You can watch “Tex’s Terrible Night” on YouTube.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The Fisher-Price Western Town I used as a backdrop for the much larger Bravestarr action figure.  Joey’s interview with Pat Fraley (Marshal BraveStarr).  This episode uses flashback scenes from the movie “BraveStarr: The Legend,” which explains why the animation quality isn’t consistent.  Young Tex Hex looks like a purple Faker from “He-Man.”  Stampede, the show’s even bigger bad, grants Tex Hex the power of transformation, because Filmation really wanted to teach kids that things that transform are evil.  The “present-day” husband of Tex’s former love, Ursula, looks like Fred Ward.  The time BraveStarr found a kid dead of a drug overdose.  ****  📼 Commercial:  Marshal BraveStarr, Tex Hex, and Neutralaser Toy Commercial (1986)  Christmas Time in the City.  ****  “BraveStarr” and “Tex’s Terrible Night” ©1987 Filmation Associates.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1980s #scroogesunday #filmation

🎄 We may all exist in the dreams of 2 kids and their dog.  🎙 Michael DiGiovanni and Christian Nielsen help us responsibly deforest our way back to 1980 to dig up the first appearance of early Disney Channel imports The Raccoons and the greedy Cyril Sneer.  📺 You can watch “The Christmas Raccoons” on YouTube.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  This special and an accompanying story album were narrated by Rich Little, a “Man of a Thousand Voices,” in his own, regular voice.  Rupert Holmes (Forest Ranger Dan) is the singer/songwriter behind “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).”  Tammy Bourne (Julie) and Hadley Kay (Tommy) were both in 1980 movies as children who fall from great heights.  Today’s TV Trope: Human Snowball.  Where does the dream end and reality begin? Maybe it’s all in the St. Elsewhere Snow Globe Universe of Tommy Westphall (no relation).  ****  📼 Commercials:  Canadian Tire’s “Scrooge Approved” Prices (1987)  Christmas Creeps.  ****  “The Christmas Raccoons” ©1980 PFS Christmas Raccoons / PFS Pooled Film Services, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1980s

🎄 It’s Christmas Eve in the Advent Calendar House as we walk through a ring of fire back to 1982 to dance with the Smurfs and watch goodness make the badness go away.  🎙 Thom Crowe from Tis the Podcast and Gerry Davila from Totally Rad Christmas join us for a heaping help of Greedy Smurf’s cauldron of pink pudding.  📺 You can watch “The Smurfs’ Christmas Special” for free on YouTube.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  My son thinks the king of Hyrule is Santa.  I just now learned about Watergate salad.  The Smurfs in theme parks.  Danny Goldman (Brainy Smurf) in “Young Frankenstein.”  Paul Winchell (Gargamel) invented an artificial heart.  The mysterious Stranger may or may not be the actual Devil.  Teaser for a new Smurfs animated series.  ****  📼 Commercial:  The Smurfs at Kings Dominion (1984)  ****  “The Smurfs” and “The Smurfs’ Christmas Special” © 1982 Hanna-Barbera Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1980s #hannabarbera

🎄 It’s time for toys and time for cheer as the Advent Calendar House begins another 12-episode countdown to Christmas in July.  🎙 Sean Sotka and Steven join us as we rewind at twice the normal speed back to 1981 to revisit the Christmas special that helped kick off the revival of Alvin and the Chipmunks.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Steven’s story of accidentally erasing his VHS recording of this special, only to find another recording of the same broadcast years later.  The History of the Chipmunks (RIP The Hourchive).  “Witch Doctor.”  R.J. Williams (Tommy), who was 3 years old in this special, later starred in “Wake, Rattle, & Roll.”  Dave’s 3-story Victorian mansion seen only in this special and never again.  Yes, the Chipmunks wear pants.  Vintage Echo harmonicas are real, but good luck finding a gold one.  Selling photos of Santa with dogs dressed as reindeer looks way more fun than selling dollar store junk door-to-door.  Clyde Crashcup invented a popular “Simpsons” joke.  Today’s TV trope: Talking in Your Sleep.  “Paw Patrol” makes no sense.  ****  📼 Commercials:  A Chipmunk Christmas Soundtrack Album (1981)  7up Countdown to Christmas Posters (1986)   ****   “A Chipmunk Christmas” © 1981 Bagdasarian Productions.   Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s6 #1980s

🎄 Tune in as we mysteriously float back to 1983 for an unseasonably warm Christmas adventure through Mexico with our cool grandma and a talking Rubik’s Cube with more powers than Superman.  🎙️ Gerry Davila from Totally Rad Christmas join us for a puzzling revisit to “Rubik, the Amazing Cube,” a Saturday morning cartoon that lasted an even shorter amount of time than the fad it tried to cash in on.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The History of Rubik’s Cube.  The theme song by pre-Ricky Martin Menudo.  Ángela Moya, the voice of the kids’ mother, played a small but grim part in “Gleaming the Cube.”  An ode to the family station wagon.  An archived, early-Internet Rubik fan site.  Las Posadas.  Date a TV show by adding a CB radio.  Rubik ending up in an eagle’s nest reminded me of “The Polar Express.”  Reynoldo’s speed cubing skills compared to the real-life Rubik’s Cube world records in 1983 and today.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Cap’n O.G. Readmore (1985)  Cap’n Crunch Cereal: Crunch vs. Taste (1985)  An Alpha Bits Cereal commercial that’s clearly still trying to ride the Pac-Man wave, but I’m not complaining (1985)  ****  “Rubik, the Amazing Cube” and “Rubik’s First Christmas” © 1983 Ruby-Spears Enterprises, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s6 #1980s #rubyspears

🐰 Who is Easter Bunny? OMG, Bear is Easter Bunny! How can that be? 🎙 Emily Rowley and Alan Johnson join us as we hop, hop, hop back to 1981 for our first trip to Bear Country, which it turns out was built on top of the Easter Bunny’s industrial nightmare factory.  📺 You can watch “The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise” for free on YouTube.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Yes, we all collectively mispronounced “Berenstain.”  The VHS cover, for reference.  “The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter,” being the story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, who is also a bear.  Inside the Berenstain Bears’ Tree House.  The widest tree in the world, for comparison.  Things this special has in common with “Steel Magnolias”: Knowl Johnson and dozens of broken Easter eggs.  An ode to the Bear Family’s tiny, antique, circular porthole TV set.  Today’s TV Trope: Packed Hero.  “Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video,” featuring young Zachary Danziger (Bill Bunny) and a host of way more familiar names.  ****  📼 Commercial:  Kellogg’s Raisin Bran: Morgan the Mockingbird Commercial (1981), preserved from the original airing of this special.  Mike on Alan’s Two Bad Neighbors podcast for “Marge Be Not Proud” and “Monty Can’t Buy Me Love.”  ****  “The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise” © 1981 Joseph Cates Co., Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s6 #1980s #easter #berenstainbears

🦃 We’re talking turkey as we dig up and dig in to a 1983 Thanksgiving special from puppeteer Paul Fusco, the creator of ALF.  🎙️ Chad Young, Tommy Coombs, and Jayme Kilsby join us the follow a turkey’s dream of stardom that ends with dogs and cats living together.  📺 You can watch “A Thanksgiving Tale” on Youtube, with curated retro Thanksgiving commercials.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Imagicom Productions’ Holiday Specials Collection.  Fred Travalena as the Joker in the 1989 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  A November 16, 1983 TV listing in an archived New York Magazine.  Paul Fusco’s “Space Cats.”  David Lander in “Funland.”  Mental Floss’s Oral History of ALF.  Today’s TV Trope: Invited as Dinner.  The “You Bet Your Life” Duck.  The art of making puppets fight: Throw them into the air from behind a fence.  We compare the Thanksgiving play in this special to the one in Addams Family Values.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Butterball Turkey Commercial (1985)  Christmas Time in the City.  ****  “A Thanksgiving Tale” © 1983 Imagicom Productions, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s6 #1980s #thanksgiving #puppets

☃️ It’s 1982, and we’re walking in the air. 🎙️ Adam Parker Sibun from the Merry Britsmas Podcast visits the Advent Calendar House as we melt over a British Christmas classic and a personal favorite I wish was more beloved stateside.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  We have a new theme song! Thanks, Bronwen’s Ghost!  Merry Britsmas episode on Raymond Briggs.  The British Film Institute’s Top 100 British TV Programmes of the 20th Century.  The special’s 3 openings, featuring Briggs, David Bowie, and Mel Smith as Father Christmas.  The original picture book wasn’t a Christmas story.  Other Briggs works mentioned: “Father Christmas,” “Fungus the Bogeyman,” “Ethel and Ernest,” and “When the Wind Blows.”  How The Snowman melted David Bowie’s heart (The Guardian, December 2016)  Duncan Jones finds his dad’s scarf.  Video of an owl flying over snow I eerily shared on Facebook the night David Bowie died.  The Maccabees cover “Walking in the Air.”  The Royal Pavilion and Brighton Palace Pier.  Today’s TV Trope: Polar Bears and Penguins.  The Snowman in a commercial for Barbour outerwear.  Irn-Bru soft drink’s parody commercial, and its sequel.  ****  📼 Commercials:  1985 Toys “R” Us Snowman Commercial featuring Aled Jones covering “Walking in the Air” (sung in the special by Peter Auty).  ****  “The Snowman” © 1982 Snowman Enterprises Ltd.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s7 #1980s

🕎 It’s 1988, and we’re getting lit at Bubbe’s Boarding House for Hanukkah. 🎙 April Ryley joins us for a spin with a bunch of puppets you’ll never hear from again.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  A Simpsons animator designed the puppets for this weird, wonderful ’80s Hanukkah special (Splinter, 2014)  “Caps for Sale”  Anton and his Easter Island head.  April’s very non-kosher latke recipe.  Mayim Bialik explains the letters on the dreidel and other Hanukkah facts.  Calvin getting trolled by his dad in “Calvin and Hobbes.”  ****  📼 Commercials:  1970s/’80s PBS Logo ID.  1985 Teddy Ruxpin “Frankenstein” Commercial, preserved by Dinosaur Dracula. Teddy Ruxpin voice actor Phil Baron co-wrote this special.  Cool Kids Club.  ****  “Chanuka at Bubbe’s” © 1988 Pan-Imago, Inc.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s7 #1980s #hanukkah #puppets

🎄 It’s 1988, and the Care Bears are threatening to take hostages on a quest to save Toyland.  🎙 Lindy Kempe and Karen Flieger join us to stare intensely at the totally nuts series finale of “The Care Bears Family,” the Care Bears’ last TV appearance for 16 years.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The World’s Smallest Tenderheart Bear.  Karen’s awesome Nutcracker socks.  Abby Hagyard (Ms. Walker, and also the mom on “You Can’t Do That on Television”).  “The Wild Puffalumps.”  Billie Mae Richards, the voice of Rudolph, as Tenderheart Bear in “The Care Bears Movie.”  That time a goose flew into Fabio’s face on a roller coaster.  Today’s TV Tropes: Identity Amnesia, Evil Chancellor, Rail-Car Separation.  “The Sad Story of Henry” from Thomas the Tank Engine.  The train runs on soda, like the time machine in the first draft of “Back to the Future.”  When we recorded this, the special’s Wikipedia entry was oddly specific about setting this story in 1967.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Care Bears Drinking Glasses from Pizza Hut (1984)  “The Christmas Book: The Ultimate Guide to Your Favorite Holiday,” by Ed Daly.  Snow in Southtown.  ****  “Care Bears Nutcracker Suite” © 1988 Nelvana Ltd.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s7 #1980s #nutcracker #nelvana

🎄 It’s 1980, and we’re having a hiccuping fit that can literally move mountains.  🎙 Kristi and Bri from Bad Princess Movies join us on a trip back to the World of Filmation for a barely Christmassy Snow White sequel starring Snow White’s daughter, also named Snow White, who meets Seven Friendly Giants, each with their own involuntary reflexes.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Bad Princess Movies on Filmation’s “Happily Ever After.”  “Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation.”  Cash-grab home videos including “The Reef,” “Ratatoing,” and Toei Animation’s “The Little Mermaid,” which I discovered in a Toys “R” Us in 1989.  Larry Mann (Yukon Cornelius) as the Magic Mirror vs. Dom DeLuise as the Looking Glass in “Happily Ever After.”  “The Thief and the Cobbler.”  Am I Hot or Not?  The word CLINK appears as a key is dropped onto a table, but this is the only time that effect happens in the whole special.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Barbie Dreamhouse (1982)  Weird Christmas.  ****  “A Snow White Christmas” © 1980 Filmation Associates.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s7 #1980s #filmation

🎄 It’s 1986, and we’re hiding out in a cabin in the mountains with modern-day Snow White and real-life Christmas angel Dolly Parton.  🎙 April Ryley joins us as we try to wrap our heads around this Henry Winkler-directed TV movie that gets really weird really quickly.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  “Dolly Parton Meets the Kids.”  Muppet doppelgänger Polly Darton.  Dolly Parton saved a girl’s life on the set of “Christmas on the Square.”  Gennie James (Cindy) in “The Hugga Bunch Movie.”  Claude Earl Jones (Bartender) in the Seinfeld episode, “The Race.”  Lee Majors (Mountain Dan) and Jean Speegle Howard (Old Woman Jezebel) in “The Night the Reindeer Died,” the movie-within-a-movie from “Scrooged.”  How South Jersey Keeps Muskrat on the Menu (Gastro Obscura)  ****  📼 Commercials:  Dollywood Commercial (1988)  Christmas Clatter.  Santa by the Minute.  ****  “A Smoky Mountain Christmas” © 1986 Sandollar Productions.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s7 #1980s

🎄 It’s 1984, and the most 1984 pair I can think of, Mr. T and Emmanuel Lewis, are taking us on the most romantic date through New York City on the way to a Christmas party at Radio City Music Hall.  🎙 Guy Hutchinson joins us as we spoil David Copperfield’s magic tricks, leave our emergency contact information with Willie Tyler and Lester, share our favorite Christmas songs with Maureen McGovern, and fall asleep while watching the Rockettes rehearse.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  I Pity the Yule: Remembering A Christmas Dream, Mr. T and Emmanuel Lewis’s Lost Holiday Special (Mental Floss, 2020)  “Be Somebody… or Be Somebody’s Fool.”  New York Mayor Ed Koch in “The Muppets Take Manhattan.”  David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear.  Sesame Street’s Don Music.  Willie Tyler and Lester on Letterman.  Vintage Christmas tree color wheels.  The other verses of “Silent Night” you’ve never heard.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Soft Scrub Cleaner.  The GE 2800 Dishwasher commercial that reminds me of the last scene of Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress.  Masters of the Universe: The Fright Zone Play Set.  Behind the Bells.  Totally Rad Christmas.  ****  Mr. T and Emmanuel Lewis in A Christmas Dream” © 1984 Radio City Music Hall Television Productions.  Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s7 #1980s