Advent Calendar House

Latest Episodes:

Cricket on the Hearth Dec 07, 2019

Show notes

🎄 For its first Christmas special after the success of “Rudolph,” Rankin/Bass presented us with a Dickens of a story, but not that one.

🎙️ Brian Earl from Christmas Past podcast visits the Advent Calendar House to experience 1967’s “Cricket on the Hearth,” as told by Danny Thomas, featuring a bizarre, burlesque performance of a song about Fish ’n’ Chips, and a clearly implied, off-camera murder.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

The history of legends about crickets on hearths bringing good luck.

The full “Cricket on the Hearth” soundtrack is on YouTube.

Christmas Past on Golden Age Christmas TV Cartoons.

Christmas TV History’s Joanna Wilson on Rankin/Bass Voice Actors.

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#s3 #1960s #rankinbass

A Wish for Wings That Work Dec 05, 2019

Show notes

🎄 Opus the Penguin fails to take off in his own TV Christmas special from 1991.

🎙️ Erin Evans and Joey O. parachute in to rewatch “A Wish for Wings That Work,” starring Opus and Bill from the comic strip series “Bloom County” and “Outland.”

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

This is based on a book version you can watch someone read to you on YouTube, if you’d like.

“Bloom County” creator Berkeley Breathed was not happy with this special. He also confirmed the animators hid some naughty bits in the opening.

Bill the Cat’s 1988 presidential run, including the other candidates trying to translate the song “Louie Louie.”

Joey interviews Michael Bell (Opus).

“The Ant and the Aardvark” starring John Byner (Bill).

Surprise cameos by Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman, who may or may not have walked over from the set of “Hook.”

Larry Walters has a flying lawn chair and a BB gun.

“Lost Horizon.”

“A Frog Thing,” a children’s book with a very similar plot, but less Christmassy.

Opus plushes with Santa hats are pretty easy to find on eBay.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s3 #1990s #comics

Pinocchio’s Christmas Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

🎄 The Advent Calendar House gets overrun by earworms strong enough to burrow into wood.

🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May drop in to help carve into a 1980 Rankin/Bass special starring that beloved Christmas icon… Pinocchio.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Two songs, “Dancin’” and “The Very Best Friend I Ever Had,” were cut from and later restored to TV broadcasts.

“Starstuff,” a Philadelphia market, Saturday morning kids’ sci-fi TV series starring Todd Porter, the voice of Pinocchio.

The most disappointing gifts we’ve ever received, including what Santa gave me after I allegedly misspelled “Alpha Critters.”

How does Pinocchio’s nose detect lies, and does it grant him a mulligan here?

The strange flash-forward to the rest of Pinocchio’s better-known adventures, even though Rankin/Bass already made a Pinocchio TV series, its first ever stop-motion animation project.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s3 #1980s #rankinbass

Mickey’s Christmas Carol Dec 01, 2019

Show notes

🎄 Season 3 of the Advent Calendar House kicks off with a new regular feature: Scrooge Sunday, celebrating the many adaptations of “A Christmas Carol.”

🎙 Lizzie Twachtman and Adam Pope drop in as we begin with Disney’s 1983 featurette marking the big-screen debut of Scrooge McDuck playing his namesake.

📺 You can watch “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” on Disney+.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Before Disney+, almost all of this film was hiding on Netflix at the end of “Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse.

Adam’s well-preserved VHS copy.

A 1974 Disneyland Records LP called “Dickens’ Christmas Carol,” Alan Young’s first recording as the voice of Scrooge.

Mickey Mouse’s very detailed, fanmade family tree.

Siskel and Ebert’s 2 Thumbs Down review.

Goofy as Marley’s ghost at Disneyland.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol animatronic window displays in the Magic Kingdom.

We identify every Disney background character at Fezziwig’s party and lament the absence of Pluto from this entire thing.

Quick shout-outs to Totally Minnie and “Disney’s DTV Romancin’” Valentine special.

Willie the Giant as the Ghost of Christmas Present carefully wandering through the tiny streets of London calls back to the ending of “Fun and Fancy Free,” Disney’s 1947 package film featuring “Mickey and the Beanstalk,” which is also on Disney+.

Your now-annual reminder that Pete has been a cat this entire time.

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#s3 #1980s #scroogesunday #disney

Garfield’s Halloween Adventure Oct 10, 2019

Show notes

🎃 Put out the oars and surrender yourself to the mercy of the rivers of time as they take us back to Garfield’s terrifying 1985 Halloween special.

🎙️ Jeff Somogyi joins us to celebrate the special that turned a generation into scaredy cats.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Jim Davis wanted Garfield’s Halloween Adventure to “at least scare 4-year-olds” (The A.V. Club, 2014)

Samples of the comic book adaptation, “Garfield in Disguise,” from Rotten Ink and Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks, including even creepier drawings of the old man and pirate ghosts.

The first appearance of Binky the Clown!

The time a raccoon broke into Jeff’s attic and left a hornet’s nest inside a Nativity scene shepherd.

Speaking of attics, the Pink Panther advertising Owens Corning fiberglass insulation.

The Roy Ogle of “Roy Ogle’s roots” was a plant breeder at Clemson. They’re sweet potatoes.

The black cat pajamas may be a callback to the killer panther from 1984’s “Garfield in the Rough,” another good special to put on if you want to give your kids nightmares.

Was the ghost of Jon’s grandfather watching all the Christmas festivities in that special?

C. Lindsay Workman (Old Man) as Garfield’s grandfather in “Garfield on the Town” and God in “Garfield: His 9 Lives.”

The “double burn” glowing effect used on the ghosts reminds us of the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence of Fantasia.

We had to ask: Did Garfield and Odie really survive the night, or is everything thereafter really Garfield Minus Garfield?

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📼 Commercials:

McDonald’s Halloween Pumpkin Pails (1986)

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Closing Music: “Witch’s Night Out,” performed by Razoreater, written by Peter Rochon.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

#s2 #1980s #halloween #garfield #comics

The Muppets Valentine Show Feb 13, 2019

Show notes

💝 Love and dynamite are in the air as I introduce 2 guests to an early pilot of what would eventually become “The Muppet Show,” guest-starring a pregnant Mia Farrow.

🎙️ Joey O. and Brian Arnold drop by as we fall head over heels for “The Muppets Valentine Show,” a 1974 TV special that misinformed me about where babies come from.

📺 You can find “The Muppets Valentine Show” on YouTube.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

“The Muppets Valentine Show” on Muppet Wiki.

Jim Henson’s Red Book entry about getting this pilot green-lit by some guy at ABC named “Mike” Eisner.

We quickly touch on Crazy Harry’s original incarnation as “Crazy Donald” and then immediately drop it.

Miss Mousey.

George the Janitor is simultaneously UHF’s Stanley Spadowski and WWE’s Perry Saturn.

George and Mildred At the Dance.

Droop in the “Cosby Show” episode, “Cliff’s Nightmare.”

The first appearance of Kermit the Frog riding a bicycle.

“You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket.”

“Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms” and the Looney Tunes musical bomb gag.

Brian’s blog post about “The Candy Apple News Company.”

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s2 #1970s #valentinesday #muppets

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street Dec 24, 2018

Show notes

🎄 It’s Christmas Eve, and we’re celebrating with the first Christmas special I ever remember watching, from 1978.

🎙️ Erin Evans and Joey O. help bring Advent to a close as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street,” in which Big Bird worries Santa’s unfit for skinny chimneys, Mr. Hooper spends his Hanukkah saving Christmas, and we get a possible clue into how to get to Sesame Street.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

My taped copy of this is interrupted in the middle by a WHYY telethon with Philadelphia TV legend Ed Cunningham.

The Count’s amazing ice-skating cape.

The wibbly-wobbly physics of Oscar’s trash can.

Olivia married the Predator.

A cameo by Mr. Macintosh.

If you want to go read about Northern Calloway (David) and his off-screen troubles and tragic death, proceed with caution.

The adorable 2-year-old girl too little for her own vocabulary trying to explain that Santa pushes a magic button to go down chimneys is now in her 40s.

“Don’t Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

An oral history of Mr. Snuffleupagus’s revelation as not imaginary.

Oscar holds a broom like it’s Not His Broom.

Ernie’s pajamas look like the background of the “Trololo” video.

Joey makes my Christmas by assuring me I didn’t imagine “The Candy Apple News Company.”

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🏌️‍♂️ After This Episode:

Listen to my guest appearance on the Two Bad Neighbors podcast discussing my favorite Christmas-adjacent episode of The Simpsons, “Marge Be Not Proud.”

Then go relax or take a nap or something. Hope you enjoy your Christmas!

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s2 #1970s #muppets #giftofthemagi

ALF’s Special Christmas Dec 23, 2018

Show notes

🎄 Remember ALF? He’s back, in podcast form!

🎙️ Jeff Somogyi drops by as we salute ALF’s two-part Christmas special from 1987, the single most depressing special starring a wisecracking alien puppet of all time.

🚨 Content Warning: In this Christmas special, the goofy alien with the jokes meets a terminally ill child and a man contemplating suicide.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

The heartbreaking true story behind “ALF’s Special Christmas.”

A study in human ignorance: Gordon Shumway has a name, which he’s told everyone, yet everyone still calls him HEY ALIEN!

A study in willful alien ignorance: ALF opens everyone else’s Christmas gifts and succeeds in convincing me it’s because he doesn’t know how any of this works.

Talking ALF: The Storytelling Alien.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s2 #1980s #alf

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - We Wish You a Turtle Christmas Dec 22, 2018

Show notes

🎄 We unearthed a Christmas special so low-quality, it happens in a sewer.

🎙️ Shawn Robare from the Cult Film Club and Jonathan Zelenak from The Sewer Den drop in for a radically recollection of “We Wish You a Turtle Christmas,” a 1994 cash-grab video starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… or at least some version of them.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

About the Sewer Den, Jonathan’s massive TMNT collection, and his blog post about this special.

The Coming Out of Their Shells Tour.

The Turtles’ smiles look like they’re from Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” music video.

A 1975 anime version of “The Little Mermaid” had a not-at-all-coincidental resurgence around 1990.

Writer Tish Rabe also produced “Big Bird in China” and “3-2-1 Contact,” created The Cat in the Hat Learning Library after Dr. Seuss’s death, and has written over 160 children’s books.

Y’all want to watch 43 minutes of the Ninja Turtles on Oprah?

That time a warehouse that housed the Rock-afire Explosion actually exploded.

The only pizza place willing to appear in this special is Sbarro, which has come a long way since the Fat Boys’ “All You Can Eat.”

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Cookbook is a real book you should own.

The cheapest gifts we’ve ever gotten our parents from our elementary school Christmas bazaar.

Fun game: Sneak the “Wrap Rap” on a playlist in the middle of New Kids on the Block’s Christmas album and see if anyone notices.

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#s2 #1990s #tmnt #comics

Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special Dec 21, 2018

Show notes

🎄 Tune in as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pee-wee Herman’s Christmas special the only way we know how: With lots of screaming, lots of fruitcake, and lots more screaming.

🎙️ Erin Evans, Lindy Kempe, and Joey O. call into the Podcast Phone to embrace the wackiest holiday party of 1988.

📺 The “Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special” is available for free on YouTube.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Magic Johnson recorded his segment hours before playing in — and winning — a Lakers game. We don’t know the precise date, but one win was against the SuperSonics, possibly (but probably not) on Ice Cube’s “Good Day.”

One commercial break includes a bizarre Pringles commercial starring a young Brad Pitt.

“Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.”

When did fruitcake become a punchline? Christmas Past has something of an answer. Or is fruitcake a byproduct of the Joys of Jell-O era?

The working script and storyboards for this special.

Who mailed Grace Jones to the Reagan White House?

Pee-wee in “Back to the Beach.”

The King of Cartoons’ cartoon: 1936’s “Christmas Comes But Once a Year.”

My feelings about snow mirror this one, particular Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, published 5 days after this special aired.

The awkward moment when we realize the Dinosaur Family has a pet dinosaur.

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Find us at adventcalendar.house.

#s2 #1980s