Advent Calendar House

Latest Episodes:

The Little Drummer Boy Dec 16, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.”

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Kentucky Fried Chicken: Christmas Carol (1989)

NetfliXmas.

Feliz Christmas, Merry Navidad.

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#s5 #1960s #rankinbass #nativity

The Jack Benny Program - Jack Goes Christmas Shopping Dec 14, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Norelco Santa (circa 1961).

Weird Christmas.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s5 #1960s

The Christmas Raccoons Dec 12, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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).

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📼 Commercials:

Canadian Tire’s “Scrooge Approved” Prices (1987)
Christmas Creeps.

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#s5 #1980s

The Weinerville Chanukah Special Dec 10, 2020

Show notes

🕎 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Kmart Holiday Commercial starring Rosie O’Donnell and Penny Marshall (1995)

Holly Jolly X’masu.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s5 #1990s #hanukkah #nickelodeon #puppets

A Johnny Bravo Christmas Dec 08, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.”

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

American Online Keyword eBay (2001)

Season’s Eatings.

The Retro Network.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s5 #2000s #cartoonnetwork

BraveStarr - Tex’s Terrible Night Dec 06, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercial:

Marshal BraveStarr, Tex Hex, and Neutralaser Toy Commercial (1986)

Christmas Time in the City.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s5 #1980s #scroogesunday #filmation

The Christmas Toy Dec 04, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Kraft Holiday Recipes featuring “The Christmas Toy” poster (1986), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.

Crispy Critters Cereal (1987)

Snow in Southtown.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s5 #1980s #muppets

Christmas Comes to Pacland Dec 02, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 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.”

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#s5 #1980s #hannabarbera #videogames

Garfield’s Thanksgiving Jul 23, 2020

Show notes

🦃 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.

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💬 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.”

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📼 Commercial:

Garfield Alpo Cat Food Commercial (1989)

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#s4 #1980s #thanksgiving #garfield #comics

G.I. Joe - Cobra CLAWs Are Coming to Town Jul 21, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

William “The Refrigerator” Perry G.I. Joe Action Figure (1987)

Weird Christmas.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1980s #hasbro