Advent Calendar House

Latest Episodes:

Care Bears Nutcracker Suite Dec 08, 2021

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 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.

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Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s7 #1980s #nutcracker #nelvana

Chanuka at Bubbe’s Dec 06, 2021

Show notes

🕎 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.

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💬 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.”

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📼 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.

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Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s7 #1980s #hanukkah #puppets

The Dick Van Dyke Show - The Alan Brady Show Presents Dec 04, 2021

Show notes

🎄 It’s 1963, and we’re watching a show about a show within a show putting on a show for Christmas. Don’t ask us to make sense of it. We can’t stop tripping over our own home furniture.

🎙️ Tim Babb from the Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast joins us to watch a show within a show put on a Christmas show, then sing the theme from the show it’s within.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Dick Van Dyke as Tubby the Tuba.

8 great little details you never noticed in The Dick Van Dyke Show Christmas episode (MeTV)

Every Episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Ranked (Vulture)

92-year-old Dick Van Dyke dancing to Step in Time.

Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins Returns.”

“John Brown’s Body.”

Key & Peele’s “Negrotown” sketch and the trope of interrupting someone’s song.

“The Dick Van Dyke Show” cast reunites on “Comic Relief” (1992)

Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book’s history of “I Am a Fine Musician.”

The theme song’s secret lyrics.

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📼 Commercial:

Learn Not to Burn: Holiday Fire Safety PSA (1977)

Also mentioned, this Fire Safety PSA with Dick Van Dyke pretending to be a door.

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Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s7 #1960s

The Snowman Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

☃️ 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

1985 Toys “R” Us Snowman Commercial featuring Aled Jones covering “Walking in the Air” (sung in the special by Peter Auty).

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s7 #1980s

A Flintstone Christmas Jul 23, 2021

Show notes

🎄 Santa falls off the roof, and a guy who acts like a caveman takes over his job.

🎙 Gerry Davila from Totally Rad Christmas and Sean Sotka from the Christmas Podcasts Podcast join us as we close out another countdown to Christmas in July with a sleigh ride back to the Stone-Age Year of Our Lord 1977.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Our episode on the Fruity Pebbles Christmas Commercial.

I found a Flintstones chronology on, of all places, Flickr.

The Internet Archive’s VHS Vault.

Domino Rally.

I want to know more about Santa’s reindeer turn signals.

“Daze Before Christmas” for Super Nintendo and Mega Drive (Genesis).

Virginia Gregg (Mrs. Claus) was the uncredited voice of Norman Bates’s mother in the first 3 Psycho movies.

Santa’s workshop should have gotten Flintstone Theming.

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📼 Commercials:

Fruity Pebbles: Rapping Barney (1988)

Voice Command Crusher RC Car (1993)

Behind the Bells.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s6 #1970s #hannabarbera #flintstones

A Thanksgiving Tale Jul 21, 2021

Show notes

🦃 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Butterball Turkey Commercial (1985)

Christmas Time in the City.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s6 #1980s #thanksgiving #puppets

Dinosaurs - Refrigerator Day Jul 19, 2021

Show notes

🦖 It’s the most wonderful time of 60 million years ago, so come in and buy paint.

🎙️ Lindy Kempe joins us with frying pan ready to celebrate Refrigerator Day with the Jim Henson Company’s “Dinosaurs,” which is somehow the Advent Calendar House’s first TGIF episode.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

“The Simpsons” parodies “Dinosaurs.”

We go from talking about the “Økėÿ Døkęÿ Køøkïñ” segment of “Muppets Now” to Netflix’s “Nailed It!”

Sally Struthers (Charlene) for International Correspondence School.

A brief history of the Christmas bonus, or “thirteenth salary.”

Sam McMurray in the very short-lived “A League of Their Own” sitcom, and my own pitch for a TV adaptation on Nerd Lunch’s Fourth Chair Army Invasion.

Pons Maar (Roy’s body actor) as the original voice of The Noid.

Unisaurs: The Dinosaurs equivalent to the Anything Muppet.

The biggest gifts we ended up returning.

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📼 Commercials:

Talking Baby Dinosaur and Dinosaurs Figures (1991)

TGI Podcast.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s6 #1990s #muppets

Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation Jul 17, 2021

Show notes

🎄 I know what we’re going to podcast about today!

🎙 James Riley and Brandon Medley join us for a toboggan ride without even getting out of bed back to 2009 to watch Phineas and Ferb save their very nice town’s Christmas Vacation.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Ferb) in “Love Actually” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

The time James accidentally knocked over Ben Stiller.

The Sears Wish Book catalog.

Today’s TV Trope: Look Both Ways.

“What Does He Want?” was cut for time and restored later. Also, it sounds like the “Monster Mash.”

Doofenshmirtz’s Naughty-inator reminds me of the Riddler’s Brain Box from Batman Forever.

“We Are the World.”

Walt Disney World’s Candlelight Processional and Raglan Road.

“Christmas Is Starting Now” by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

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📼 Commercials:

Sears Wish Book (1992)

Merry Britsmas.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s6 #2000s #disney

The Adventures of Pete & Pete - O’ Christmas Pete Jul 15, 2021

Show notes

🎄 Garbageman is here for your Christmas spirit.

🎙️ Tommy Coombs and Chad Young join us as we look happily deranged back to 1996 to follow Pete and Pete’s brother, Pete, on their mission to keep Christmas going for as long as possible, and keep their Christmas tree safe from the evil Garbageman.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Michael C. Maronna (Big Pete) in “Home Alone,” and in a series of Ameritrade commercials circa 1999.

“Snow Day” was originally conceived as a Pete & Pete movie.

The first Pete & Pete short, “What Would You Do for a Dollar?”

The Pete & Pete 20th Anniversary Reunion.

Danny Tamberelli (Little Pete) as Jimmy De Santa in “Grand Theft Auto 5.”

Hardy Rawls (Dad) as the Maytag Repairman circa 2005.

Sludge Central on “Pete & Pete” filming in New Jersey.

Chad and Michael May talk “Silent Night, Deadly Night.”

David Johansen sings “Garbageman’s Ballad.”

The Max Headroom Pirating Incident.

A mini ode to character actress Marilyn Dobrin as the Wrigleys’ notably loud neighbor.

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📼 Commercials:

The Adventures of Pete & Pete: “Mom’s Plate” (1991)

Christmas Clatter.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s6 #1990s #nickelodeon #christmaseveryday

Halloween Is Grinch Night Jul 13, 2021

Show notes

🎃 It’s a wonderful night for eyebrows and the wildest trip to the euphemism we’ve ever taken.

🎙️ James Riley and Ethan “The Hungry Reader” hitch a ride in our paraphernalia wagon as we wheel it back to 1977 for a Grinch Night we’ll never forget.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

The worst, non-candy Halloween treats.

“Carlton, Your Doorman.”

Longtime Sesame Street composer Joe Raposo composed this special’s music.

Hans Conried (The Grinch) was also the titular character in Dr. Seuss’s The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

I badly describe the plot of “Midnight Madness.”

The Hakken-Kraks in “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.”

The Euphemism, and other words I thought Dr. Seuss made up.

“Dr. Seuss Goes to War,” and other creators of great works doing terrible things.

Bogleech’s gallery of the Grinch’s monsters, and our personal favorites.

The Vug under the Rug, the Jibboo, and the Birthday Bird.