Advent Calendar House

Latest Episodes:

The Stingiest Man in Town Jul 19, 2020

Show notes

🎄 On another Scrooge Sunday edition of the Advent Calendar House, we fly back in time to 1978 to revisit Rankin/Bass’s turn at “A Christmas Carol.”

🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May return to talk “The Stingiest Man in Town,” an animated remake of a made-for-TV musical, featuring the voices of Walter Matthau as Scrooge and Tom Bosley as our narrator, a literal talking Humbug.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

This is specifically an adaptation of a 1956 production on “The Alcoa Hour” starring Basil Rathbone as Scrooge.

The original special on Sleigh Bell Cinema.

Michael May’s Christmas Carol Project.

Sonny Melendrez (Bob Cratchit) in “You and Me, Kid.”

This has my all-time favorite, super creepy version of Marley’s face appearing on Scrooge’s door knocker.

This special gets older Belle completely wrong.

Tiny Tim has skinny robot legs.

Debbie Clinger (Martha Cratchit) of the Clinger Sisters, a.k.a. Superchick from the “Krofft Supershow” host band Kaptain Kool and the Kongs.

Rankin/Bass should have made a south seas-themed special called Christmas Island. (Hi from the future! We ended up exploring this idea on After Lunch.)

Scrooge’s grave morphing into a giant devil face is a reminder in hindsight that this special was animated in Japan by Topcraft, the predecessor to Studio Ghibli.

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📼 Commercials:

Glad Trash Bags Commercial starring Tom Bosley (1981)

Christmas Creeps.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1970s #rankinbass #scroogesunday

The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold Jul 17, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Gremlins Gizmo Plush Pet (1984)

The Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1980s #rankinbass

Super Mario Bros. Super Show - Koopa Klaus / Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush Jul 15, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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.

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Pepsi Nintendo Holiday Game (1989), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.

Nintendo Power Commercial (1990), preserved by RobertDigitalGames.

Christmas Clatter.

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“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

The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

🎃 It’s the 13th of July, so it’s time for the Advent Calendar House to unearth one of our favorite Halloween haunts.

🎙️ Tommy Coombs flies in to talk 1979’s “The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t,” starring an exceptionally great Judd Hirsch as Count Dracula.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

This was renamed for its VHS release as “The Night Dracula Saved the World,” except no, he doesn’t.

Lyndhurst Mansion.

Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” was never in a Dracula movie.

Wildwood, New Jersey’s Castle Dracula.

Jack Riley (Warren the Werewolf) in commercials for Country Crock spread.

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📼 Commercials:

McDonald’s Scared Silly (1986) starring Ronald McDonald and the Chicken McNuggets.

Weird Christmas.

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Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1970s #halloween

Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas Jul 11, 2020

Show notes

🎄 Go-go Gadget podcast! It’s time to spring back to 1992 to take “Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas” in for questioning.

🎙 Chad Young accepts our assignment to investigate the time Dr. Claw took over Santa’s workshop for some reason.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Nick Knacks, a show-by-show video history of Nickelodeon.

Halloween 1992 was the year of white kids dressing like Steve Urkel.

Inspector Gadget’s run on Nickelodeon got me into “Get Smart” on Nick at Nite.

The time Chad got a crew jacket from the set of the “Inspector Gadget” movie.

The action figure that revealed Dr. Claw’s goofy face.

The Inspector Gadget Super Nintendo game, featuring the same alternate theme song as this special.

Maurice LaMarche subbing for Don Adams for Gadget’s weird version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” is similar to Jim Cummings finishing “Be Prepared” for Jeremy Irons in “The Lion King.”

Where’s the camera Penny’s Not Apple Watch uses to see Brain?

Jerry “The King” Lawler entering the 1997 Royal Rumble Match in the middle of a sentence, then finishing it after being eliminated in 4 seconds.

“Disney’s Christmas All-Time Favorites.”

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📼 Commercials:

Cookie Crisp Cereal Christmas Commercial (1992)

Tinsel Tunes.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1990s #dic

Deck the Halls with Wacky Walls Jul 09, 2020

Show notes

🎄 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!

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💬 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.

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📼 Commercials:

Corn Pops Cereal with free Wacky WallWalker inside (1984)

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1980s

The Tale of the Bunny Picnic Jul 07, 2020

Show notes

🐰 Hello, sunshine! Join us for a hop back to Easter 1986 to revisit the Jim Henson special, “The Tale of the Bunny Picnic.”

🎙 Emily Rowley hops into the guest chair for this special, which it turns out is about neither Easter, nor a bunny picnic… but it did introduce the world to Bean Bunny, the Muppets’ Nermal.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Jim Henson’s original intro to this special.

“The Jim Henson Hour.”

Bean Bunny in Muppet*Vision 3D at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Bean was also a late-series addition to “Muppet Babies,” and his picture is on the playroom wall in Disney’s new “Muppet Babies.”

“The Muppet Musicians of Bremen” and its grotesque, full-size Muppet bad guys.

Sweetums in “Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince.”

Bean trying to tell the other bunnies to quiet down or the dog will hear them is also the plot of the first act of “Trolls.”

Every Easter Bunny costume is terrifying.

Y’all remember Puffalumps? You do now.

The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta is home to several Muppets from this special, including both Bean and his Dragon Bunny form from his dream sequence.

Carlin Trammel’s video tour of the Center for Puppetry Arts’ Jim Henson exhibit.

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📼 Commercials:

McDonald’s Muppet Babies Holiday Huggables (1988)

Christmas Creeps.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1980s #easter #muppets

The Real Ghostbusters - Xmas Marks the Spot Jul 05, 2020

Show notes

🎄 It’s another Scrooge Sunday in the Advent Calendar House as we’re swept through a rip in the space-time continuum back to 1986 for a Christmas Carol-themed episode of “The Real Ghostbusters.”

🎙 Tommy Coombs and Chad Young join the adventure after our heroes accidentally save Scrooge from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Hey, grown-ups! Remember getting lost while driving when we didn’t all have maps of the entire planet in our pockets?

Scrooge pays the Ghostbusters a mint-condition shilling from 1837, so we looked up its actual value.

You can actually buy Christmas Carol View Master reels from the 1950s online.

Rick and Morty talking about Bill Murray and Lorenzo Music comes up and goes… somewhere.

Egon entering the ghost containment unit looks like the warp tunnel on Space Mountain.

The other ghosts in the containment unit are callbacks to previous episodes, including Sandman, who bears a passing resemblance to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Santa should not laugh like Megatron.

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📼 Commercials:

The Real Ghostbusters Firehouse Playset, Tombstone Tackle, and X-Cop (1986)

Tis the Podcast.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1980s #scroogesunday #dic

Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July Jul 03, 2020

Show notes

🎄 Mr. Snowman, I don’t feel so good. Rankin/Bass’s Avengers assemble in the studio’s longest holiday special ever.

🎙️ Brandon Medley returns to marvel at “Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July.” Frosty’s a dad! And Rudolph’s a fake uncle whose nose stops shining at the beginning of this story… but what happens to Frosty and his whole family is even worse.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

King Winterbolt’s genie of the ice scepter, allegedly Thurl Ravenscroft, is the stuff of nightmares.

“The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus” may be the most metal Christmas special, but this is a contender.

Rudolph’s entire story gets retconned into a long play to stop Winterbolt’s foggy Christmas Eve from grounding Santa.

Ethel Merman on “The Muppet Show.”

Scratcher is a great evil reindeer, but we’d like it better if he was Fireball.

A couple of songs were cut for time from TV, including “Chicken Today, Feathers Tomorrow” and “I See Rainbows When I Look at You.”

Walt Disney World’s Candlelight Processional.

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📼 Commercials:

Atari Christmas Commercial, aired during a 1981 ABC Movie Special airing, preserved by the Museum of Classic Chicago Television.

The Can’t Wait for Christmas Podcast.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1970s #rankinbass #rudolph #frosty #4thofjuly

Frosty’s Winter Wonderland Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

🎄 Happy birthday! The Advent Calendar House kicks off a countdown to Christmas in July by setting the table for Rankin/Bass’s eventual epic crossover, starting with “Frosty’s Winter Wonderland,” the “Weird Science” of Christmas specials.

🎙️ Brandon Medley belly-whops in to salute this snowy sequel from 1976 starring a strange, tall goblin claiming to be Andy Griffith.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

A brief guide to finding obsure things on Disney+, like “Melody Time,” starring Dennis Day, (Parson Brown) as Johnny Appleseed.

Barbara Jo Ewing voiced one of the kids in her only known credit, but somehow IMDb knows her height.

We do the math to figure out how far the wind carried a newspaper from Frosty’s hometown to the North Pole.

Frosty beat “The Santa Clause 2” to the “gotta get a wife” plot point by more than 20 years.

Frosty’s “specifications” for his ideal woman are the same as Sir Mix-a-Lot’s.

At what point do snow people become self-aware?

Jack Frost’s “winter that almost didn’t end” foreshadowed the real-life Blizzard of 1977.

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📼 Commercials:

Freezy Freakies (1984)

Christmas Clatter.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s4 #1970s #rankinbass #frosty

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