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🎄 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

🎄 A well-deserved punch in the face that’s a little bit rock ’n’ roll.  🎙 James Riley joins us on a last-minute flight to the North Pole to catch up with 2001’s “A Johnny Bravo Christmas,” a special that first aired less than 3 months after 9/11, on Pearl Harbor Day, and opens with Johnny unnecessarily calling the fire department to tell them he’s “the bomb.”    ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  “’Twas the Night,” a 1997 Johnny Bravo segment which this special accounts for in the show’s continuity… sort of.  “Larry & Steve,” Seth MacFarlane’s proto-“Family Guy” short film before from before he worked as a “Johnny Bravo” staff writer.  People on TV who wait till Christmas Eve to start decorating.  Homer Simpson’s sandwich, and the worst things we’ve found in our couches.  The latest you can mail something to guarantee arrival before Christmas, according to the U.S. Postal Service’s Holiday Shipping Deadlines.  Vanessa Marshall (Truck Driver) may or may not have provided the scream of Samus dying in the Metroid Prime games.  Santa’s village looks like the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle and is cloaked like Wakanda.  ****  📼 Commercials:  American Online Keyword eBay (2001)  Season’s Eatings.  The Retro Network.  ****  “A Johnny Bravo Christmas” ©2001 Cartoon Network.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #2000s #cartoonnetwork

🕎 Marc Weiner and his puppets won’t stop screaming in Nickelodeon’s first Hanukkah special.  🎙 April Ryley joins us as we noisily snowmobile back to 1995 to try and figure out what everyone’s yelling about. Unexpectedly, it all started in outer space.  📺 You can watch “The Weinerville Chanukah Special” on YouTube.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Weinerville.com is alive and well in 2020.  Marc Weiner as Swiper the Fox and the Map in “Dora the Explorer.”  Marc Summers on his OCD being “blown out of freakin’ proportion,” and why he dropped his given last name.  Sour cream vs. applesauce for latke dipping.  Michael Gunst (Sinrek) may or may not be this puppeteer and mask maker.  Brian O’Connor (Antidorkus) as Schemer on “Shining Time Station.”  Thanks to Nickelodeon being under the MTV Networks umbrella, this special featured music by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Miami Sound Machine, and the B-52’s.  The bulk of this special was filmed at the Summit Lodge in Killington, Vermont.  Telephone booths still exist at Walt Disney World.  Liver as a go-to food kids hate.  Kevin “Diesel” Nash was still WWF Champion during taping, but lost it shortly before the special aired.  The art of making your own menorah out of household items, recyclable objects, or fruit.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Kmart Holiday Commercial starring Rosie O’Donnell and Penny Marshall (1995)  Holly Jolly X’masu.  ****  “The Weinerville Chanukah Special” © 1995 Nickelodeon.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1990s #hanukkah #nickelodeon #puppets

🎄 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

🎄 Wrapping, unwrapping, and rewrapping a bow on a comedy classic.  🎙 Guy Hutchinson joins us as we second-, third-, and fourth-guess ourselves back to 1960 to go Christmas shopping with Jack Benny, the last televised version of a longtime radio favorite.  🚨 Warning: In one scene, a character shoots himself offscreen.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The Television Academy Foundation on Jack Benny’s Christmas Shopping show, including a video interview with show writer George Balzer.  The earliest “Christmas Shopping” recording I could find, from 1937.  Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, the progression of race relations, and his racehorse.  Finally I get to talk about Mel Blanc, the real star of this show.  Adjusting the $1.98 and $40 wallets for inflation.  A 2002 message board post on JackBenny.org answering whether Jack was a practicing Jew.  A tribute to Frank “Yeees?” Nelson.  Dennis Day and the dying practice of actors legally changing their names to their most popular characters’.  Stupid “the customer is always right” stories.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Norelco Santa (circa 1961).  Weird Christmas.  ****  “The Jack Benny Program” and “Jack Goes Christmas Shopping” ©1960 J&M Productions, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1960s

🎄 Young Conan the Barbarian meets baby Jesus on this episode of the official holiday podcast for people who hate all humans — which, in 2020, is most of us.  🎙️ Brandon Medley and Michael May join the dance to the beat of our own drum back to 1968 and back into the Rankin/Bass universe for their stop-motion follow-up to “Rudolph.”  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  This was Romeo Muller’s favorite Christmas special he wrote for Rankin/Bass. Also, that link on Rankin/Bass’s website is from 2003 and looks like it hasn’t been touched since 2003.  Paul Frees voices of 8 different characters in this special, if you count animal noises.  The song, originally called “Carol of the Drum,” was written more recently than I’d thought — in 1941 — and first recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Family Singers.  Aaron’s origin story is the same as Conan the Barbarian’s.  Here’s an isolated recording of “One Star in the Night,” without the narration.  Burl Ives wouldn’t have felt out of place narrating this special, since he’d go on to narrate one about another caravan.  The special also mixes up its kings, at least as they’re traditionally named.  Our definitive versions of the song.  Young Brandon insists on adding the Little Drummer Boy to a church Nativity pageant.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Kentucky Fried Chicken: Christmas Carol (1989)  NetfliXmas.  Feliz Christmas, Merry Navidad.  ****  “The Little Drummer Boy” © 1968 Rankin/Bass Productions.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1960s #rankinbass #nativity

🎄 Doug uses weaponized cupcakes to break Porkchop out of doggie death row.  🎙 Gregiffer Stevens from the Pop Arena and Nick Knacks joins us as we skate on thin ice back to 1993 for a very educational trip to Bluffington that I forgot was a Christmas episode while I was watching it.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Disney’s “Doug” was fine, y’all.  “Doug” creator Jim Jinkins worked on Nickelodeon’s first show, “Pinwheel.”  Early versions of Doug in a bumper for USA Network and a PSA for Florida Grapefruit Juice narrated by Lorenzo Music.  Today’s TV Trope: Danger: Thin Ice.  Alice Playten (Beebe) in “Really Rosie” as Alligator.  Constance Shulman (Patti) in “Weekend at Bernie’s II.”  Every car in Bluffington looks like Homer Simpson designed it.  Greg Lee from “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” voices the now-former mayor White, and boy, am I glad we recorded this after election week.  “The Phred on Your Head Show.”  Mr. Dink’s last name is apparently an acronym for “Double Income, No Kids.”  Don’t wrap pets in boxes!  What is Pork Chop?  The topper on the Funnies’ Christmas tree is Mr. Dink’s face.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Nicktoons Pizza Hut Kids’ Pizza Pack Commercial, (1991)  SequelQuest.  TGI Podcast.  ****  “Doug” and “Doug’s Christmas Story” © 1993 Jumbo Pictures, Inc.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1990s #nickelodeon

🎄 Take a hop, a skip, and a jump scare through the uncanny valley on a trip back to 2009 to rewatch Disney’s feature-length version of “A Christmas Carol.”  🎙 Matt Weiland joins us for Robert Zemeckis’s motion capture nightmare starring 4 Jim Carreys, 3 Gary Oldmans, 2 Robin Wrights, and a Cary Elwes in a pear shape.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  Respect to a Disney movie that jumps from a storybook opening to a corpse’s face.  Despite being the 5th highest grossing Christmas movie as of 2020, this is also one of history’s biggest box-office bombs.  Coins on a corpse’s eyes in 19th century England had less to do with paying the ferryman’s toll and more to do with keeping their eyes closed.  Cary Elwes (one of the “portly” solicitors) is a descendant of John Elwes, the real-life inspiration for Scrooge.  Christopher Walker forgetting his lines as Captain Hook in “Peter Pan Live.”  Disney’s Movies website accidentally credited Gary Oldman as both Kermit and Robin the Frog.  Philadelphia’s Dickens Village.  The Ghost of Christmas Present flying Scrooge’s entire room around London is a weird mix of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Soarin’.  Jim Carrey on his various accents.  “Roundhouse” alumna Julene Renee as Want.  ****  📼 Commercials:  McDonald’s: Scrooge’s Party (1984), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.  Merry Britsmas.  Yuletide TV.  ****  Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” © 2009 Disney.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #2000s #scroogesunday #disney

🎄 10 years after “The Simpsons” debuted, Matt Groening presented another Christmas special about another Santa’s little helper.  🎙 Erin Evans and Joey O. joins us on a 2-dimensional flight back to 1999 to revisit “Olive, the Other Reindeer,” a misheard but not forgotten doggie treat.  ****  💬 Topics & Tangents:  The Making of “Olive, the Other Reindeer.”  “PaRappa the Rapper.”  “Mr. Lunch Takes a Plane Ride,” the first book by “Olive” creators Vivian Walsh and J. Otto Seibold.  “The Goonies II.”  Jay Mohr in “Camp Wilder.”  Famous mondegreens and the stupidest lyric I’ve ever misheard.  Dan Castellaneta’s Postman voice sounds like his Robot Devil.  “You’re no Jack Kennedy.”  Bullwinkle tried to kidnap my baby.  R U Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me?, formerly U Talkin’ U2 to Me? and currently U Talkin’ Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head?  Michael Stipe on “The Adventures of Pete & Pete.”  The pope gets a Phillies hat.  ****  📼 Commercials:  Amazon.com Christmas Countdown Commercial (1999)  Santa by the Minute.  The Christmas Podcasts Podcast.  ****  “Olive, the Other Reindeer” © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.  Find us at adventcalendar.house.  #s5 #1990s

🎄 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