Advent Calendar House

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McDonald’s Holiday Commercials Dec 10, 2018

Show notes

🎄 Lace up your ice skates for a look at 3 classic holiday commercials starring 3 different iterations of McDonald’s clown in charge: “Happy Holidays” (the ice skating one), “Star Wish,” and “Runaway.”

🎙 Joey O. swoops in just in time to convince me not to leave home and run away to McDonaldland, which is honestly tempting.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Grape jelly is good on Sausage McMuffins. Try it.

McDonald’s Wiki, which exists, runs down all 7 versions of the ice skating commercial. Yes, there are 7, and they’re all on YouTube:

1982: the original, with King Moody as Ronald and the “You Deserve a Break Today” jingle variant.
1983: with the “McDonald’s and You” jingle variant.
1984: with the “It’s a Good Time for the Great Taste” jingle variant.
1986: with Squire Fridell as Ronald, the version I remember most.
1988: with Fridell and the original jingle.
1990: with Fridell and the “Food, Folks and Fun” jingle variant.
1991: with Jack Doepke as Ronald, bad lighting, and “The Wish that Changed Christmas.”

King Booker.

Squire Fridell as Ronald McDonald in “Mac and Me” and Paul Rudd’s ongoing prank on Conan O’Brien.

Grimace’s last appearance as of this recording was at Dodger Stadium, though as we know, nothing can kill the Grimace.

The “World’s Largest Entertainment McDonald’s” in Orlando, home to an animatronic Mac Tonight that hangs from the ceiling.

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“Happy Holidays,” “Star Wish,” and “Runaway” © McDonald’s.

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#s2 #1980s #1990s #commercials

Christmas at Walt Disney World (1978) Dec 09, 2018

Show notes

🎄 It’s mime time at the Most Magical Place on Earth in 1978’s “Christmas at Walt Disney World.”

🎙️ Drew Crowley and John Dedeke from The Hourchive drop in to watch Shields and Yarnell as the most 1978 couple imaginable, Pablo Cruise and their indifference to help a screaming woman escape from pirates, Phyllis Diller in the world’s poofiest princess dress, the Doritos guy as a wildly off-model Geppetto, Dee from “What’s Happening?” as an ungrateful passenger in a magical pumpkin coach, and Broadway’s original Annie singing Christmas carols with surprisingly reverent Disney villains.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Map of what Walt Disney World looked like in 1978.

Vault Disney.

How “My Favorite Things” became a Christmas song.

The opening music, “The Great Gate of Kiev” from Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” or as I know it best, Jerry “The King” Lawler’s theme music.

Shields and Yarnell on “American Bandstand” (1976)

Drew eating a gigantic spoonful of mashed potatoes at the Liberty Tree Tavern.

Photos from the long-abandoned Discovery Island in 2009.

Disney’s short-lived plans of reopening Discovery Island as an attraction based on Myst.

One-day admission to the Magic Kingdom plus a book of attraction tickets in 1978 cost $13, according to this Ticket Price Guide.

“Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain.”

Winnie-the-Pooh wearing a honey pot on his head.

Giant, smoking cigars in a theme park parade for children.

The (1970s) “Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World.”

“Kraft Salutes Walt Disney World’s 10th Anniversary” (1981)

The Hourchive on Walt Disney World: Part 1 and Part 2.

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#s2 #1970s #disney

John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together Dec 08, 2018

Show notes

🎄 Merry Christmas, little Zachary. Enter the void as time, space, and reality blur around the 1979 TV special accompaniment to my favorite Christmas album of all time, “John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together.”

🎙️ Carlin Trammel and Bill Hanstock join the celebration of peace on Earth and good will to men, women, chickens, bears, Dizzy Gillespie, and Missy Piggy.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Bill’s Uncle Deadly tattoo.

Pro-wrestler and “Muppets Most Wanted” cast member Hornswoggle’s Muppet tattoo.

The Muppet Show Season 4 DVD promised at 2009’s D23 Expo, but which never came.

Miss Piggy makes a sex joke, lest we forget the “Muppet Show” pilot opened with “Sex and Violence.”

John Denver’s linear notes for the album’s 1996 re-release cite the Muppets as an inspiration for writing “Alfie, the Christmas Tree.”

“A Baby Just Like You is one endpoint of the John Denver Christmas song emotional spectrum. The other is “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas).”

“I Will Wait for You” in “Futurama.”

Jesus Christ has His own entry on Muppet Wiki.

Zachary Denver in the audience during “Silent Night,” and at his father’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony in 2014.

Jerry Nelson and Louise Gold sing “When the River Meets the Sea” at Jim Henson’s memorial service.

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#s2 #1970s #muppets

Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration Dec 07, 2018

Show notes

🎄 In 1987, the California Raisins missed their bus, then made a sleigh out of garbage and flew it into space.

🎙️ The Advent Calendar House welcomes Erin Evans, Joey O., and Emily Rowley to join in the raisiny reindeer games that make up Will Vinton’s “Claymation Christmas Celebration,” the greatest holiday special out of all holiday specials hosted by clay dinosaurs.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

RIP Will Vinton (1947–2018), the creator of “capital-C” Claymation who may or may not have inspired Leap Day William, and who was still alive when we recorded this.

Vinton also worked special effects on the EPCOT attraction “Captain EO.”

Johnny Counterfit, the voice of Rex (and not at all Johnny Arcade), wrote a JFK time-travel novel.

Rex and Herb’s original appearance in “Dinosaur,” which was later included in a “direct-to-video thing” starring Fred Savage.

Related: “I Just Realized Why We Are All Mean,” by Jon Bois.

“Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven,” from “The Adventures of Mark Twain,” featuring Tim Conner (Herb) as a 3-headed alien in St. Peter’s Place at the wrong “Heaven.”

The California Raisins’ cancelled Nintendo game: “The Grape Escape.”

The California Prunes on “The Simpsons.”

This special ends with a reference to the grossly enormous Mr. Creosote from “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.”

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#s2 #1980s #claymation

A Garfield Christmas Special Dec 06, 2018

Show notes

🎄 Let’s have a good, old-fashioned Christmas down on the farm in 1987’s “A Garfield Christmas Special,” featuring the voices of Squiggy and Ursula.

🎙️ The Advent Calendar House welcomes Jeff Somogyi as we contemplate lasagna as a Christmas food, go long on the dinner prayer, and wonder how Binky, “The Clown Who Saved Christmas,” saved Christmas.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Joey O. interviews Gregg Berger, the voice of Odie.

Dinosaur Dracula identifies all the presents in Garfield’s dream.

Better “Weird Al” Yankovic Christmas song: “Christmas at Ground Zero” or “The Night Santa Went Crazy”?

The simultaneously best and worst line in the history of animated Christmas specials for children: “Whoever invented Christmas trees should be drug out into the street and shot.”

Jeff wanted a ringtone of that blaring trumpet when Garfield looks down from the top of the Christmas tree, so here it is!

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#s2 #1980s #garfield #comics

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Dec 05, 2018

Show notes

🎄 From the author of “The Wizard of Oz” comes one of the craziest Santa origin stories ever.

🎙️ Brandon Medley and Paxton Holley stop by to witness Rankin/Bass go off the rails in its last-ever stop motion animated Christmas special, 1985’s “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, based on the 1902 book by L. Frank Baum, which explains a lot.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Santa Claus’s growth to manhood, from J.D. Roth to Mumm-ra, and the rest of the Thundercats are here, too!

L. Frank Baum’s original book on the Internet Archive, in ebook, PDF, and audiobook format.

Pax’s review of the book and “Road to Oz,” which also features Santa.

Baum’s sequel story, “A Kidnapped Santa Claus.”

King Awgwa looks like My Pet Monster.

The Most Pagan Christmas Special You Will Ever See (Fit for Dragon Con, 2013)

That’s not Santa in “Return to Oz.” That’s the Shaggy Man.

A Doom Metal Tribute to The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

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#s2 #1980s #rankinbass

Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah Dec 04, 2018

Show notes

🕎 Hanukkah is here, so here’s a 1995 special starring sock puppets hanging out with Mr. Miyagi, the dad from Growing Pains, and the mayor of Gotham City.

🎙️ Sarah Shay returns to the Advent Calendar House to reintroduce me to “Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah,” which miraculously brings together Pat Morita, Alan Thicke, and Lloyd Bochner as both dinner guests and computer-generated, one-dimensional superheroes.

There’s now a better copy of “Lamb Chop’s Special Chanukah” on YouTube. The one we watched for this podcast was from some guy holding his iPad’s camera up to a TV.

Check out Sarah’s albums: “You Have Queer Street Cred” and “The Shay & Shay Radio Hour.”

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

Shari Lewis’s amazing single-color red dreamcoat and stylin’ menorah.

Alan Thicke on “Celebrity Family Feud.”

“Lamb Chop in the Haunted Studio,” an earlier Halloween special also featuring Alan Thicke.

Charlie Horse’s prize-winning superhero, the stuff of someone’s very specific nightmares.

They almost make it through a whole Hanukkah special without mentioning Christmas, but blow it at the end for no reason.

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#s2 #1990s #hanukkah #puppets

’Twas the Night Before Christmas Dec 03, 2018

Show notes

🎄🐭 It’s the one with the mouse. Turn back the clock till it goes kerplunk — or kerplooey — to make some time for Rankin/Bass’s 1974 retelling of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas from the perspective of the mouse and his know-it-all nerdy son.

🎙️ Joey O. is in the Advent Calendar House to do what’s necessary, ’cause even a miracle needs a hand.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

The worst thing we’ve broken that ruined multiple peoples’ day.

We prepared for this episode by listening to Green Day’s “Kerplunk!”

South Park’s cover of “Even a Miracle Needs a Hand.”

A young Julia Stiles in a 1990s Apple Jacks cereal commercial.

Dusty Rhodes’s “Hard Times” promo.

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#s2 #1970s #rankinbass

The Star Wars Holiday Special Dec 02, 2018

Show notes

💫 Get ready to blast off for space church as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Star Wars Holiday Special!

🎙️ Lizzie Twacthman joins our exploration of the farthest point from the bright center of our favorite galaxy far, far away.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

“Some folks are in space for the benefit of nobody” (SB Nation, 2015)

Our disappointment that Chewbacca’s family didn’t show up in Solo, but at least we got L3-37, who was great.

High praise for the animated segment, marking our introduction to Boba Fett and the return of Luke’s awesome yellow jacket.

Dihann Carroll was 43 years old in that erotic VR helmet sequence.

Screen Junkies’ Honest Trailers of the Star Wars Holiday Special and other spinoffs.

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#s2 #1970s #nelvana

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Dec 01, 2018

Show notes

🎄 It’s time once again to count down to Christmas Eve, starting with 3 versions of Dr. Seuss’s classic Christmas tale from 1966, 2000, and 2018.

🎙️ Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May drop by as all 3 Mikes compare and contrast 3 very different Grinches.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

“The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.,” Dr. Seuss’s first — and last — feature film screenplay.

DiGio discovers Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice behind “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” was also Tony the Tiger.

Grinchmas, the annual Christmas celebration at Universal Studios Hollywood and Islands of Adventure in Orlando.

“How Murray Saved Christmas,” a 2014 animated TV special starring Jerry Stiller that just made my to-do list.

“The Muppet Christmas Carol” on Sleigh Bell Cinema.

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#s2 #1960s #2000s #2010s #drseuss

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