It’s time to meet the Advent Calendar House’s seasonal Muppets quota as we secretly stroll down Jim Henson’s dark nightmare hall to 1986 to rewatch “The Christmas Toy,” an idea no one has repeated since.

On This Episode:

1. Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), not dressed right at all.
2. Beth Cieslik (@BethTheObscure), Queen of the Asteroids.
3. Adam Jurotich, a wise old bear who’s here to teach us about Christmas, as soon as he’s able to climb to the top of a very large dollhouse, from The Hourchive.
4. Donnie Storms (@boxcar45), the world’s smartest cat toy, from Bronwen’s Ghost.

Topics and Tangents:

1. The DVD release cut Kermit dressed in a Santa suit from the intro and outro, but he’s back in the version streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
2. 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.
3. “Teacup Furby,” as named by Donnie.
4. The pink-haired doll playing the drums during “Toys Love to Play” reminds Beth of a similar song from “Mother Goose Rock ’n’ Rhyme.”
5. Apple is closer to a female version of My Buddy than Kid Sister, the actual female version of My Buddy.
6. The inevitable “How much did ‘Toy Story’ take from this?” conversation.
7. Somehow we worked in a Christmas Shoes joke. I don’t have a link for that. I just wanted to let you know.
8. Apple riding down the staircase on the back of Cruiser’s taxi beat Thelma and Louise by 5 years.
9. A quick shout-out to “Don’t Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
10. Why the humans heard Meteora fighting chess pieces in the living room, but not every toy throwing a party in the playroom with the lights on across the hall.
11. The family cat’s name is pronounced like “Ouija,” but the DVD’s captioning spells it “Weegie.”
12. “The Secret Life of Toys,” the short-lived 1994 sequel series featuring Rugby, Mew, and a few others in a new home with new friends.

Previous Podcast Episodes Mentioned:

• A Muppet Family Christmas (Season 1, Episode 2)
• A Rugrats Chanukah (Season 1, Episode 6)
• The Tale of the Bunny Picnic (Season 4, Episode 4)
• The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t (Season 4, Episode 7)

Commercial Break:

• Kraft Holiday Recipes featuring “The Christmas Toy” poster, 1986, as preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.
• Crispy Critters Cereal Commercial, 1987.

Podcast Promo:

• Snow in Southtown, reviewing holiday TV specials, movies, music, and more.

“The Christmas Toy” ©1986 Henson Associates, Inc.

The Advent Calendar House is on the web at adventcalendar.house, on Instagram @adventcalendarhouse, and on Twitter @adventcalhouse.

The Advent Calendar House kicks off another Christmas countdown with the original video game crash, which leaves Santa stranded in Pac-Man’s neighborhood in 1982’s “Christmas Comes to Pacland.”

WARNING: This episode contains spoilers about Santa Claus from 11:25 to 13:30.

On This Episode

1. Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), apparently necessary police officer in a town named after its own savior.
2. Lindy (@ieatvideogames), and
3. Alicia (@thinkbluee), the Sour Puss and Chomp-Chomp to my Pac-Baby.

Topics and Tangents

1. Santa is flying with 8 reindeer, including Rudolph. Who got the night off?
2. Why some reindeer actually have red noses.
3. This might be the first time a Christmas special shows Santa using a computer.
4. Russi Taylor’s Pac-Baby has the same voice she would later use as Robin in “Muppet Babies.”
5. No one in Pacland knows about Christmas, yet the Ghost Monsters know “Jingle Bells,” which admittedly isn’t all that Christmassy, so it gets a pass.
6. Absent from this special is the Ghost Monsters’ boss, Mezmaron, who looks like Darth Vader with his helmet off at the end of “Return of the Jedi.”
7. Is Pac-Man living in a town where everything is shaped like him the Pac-person equivalent of cartoonists drawing faces or eyes on everything to personify them?

Previous Podcast Episodes Mentioned

• He-Man/She-Ra: A Christmas Special (Season 2, Episode 18)
• Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas (Season 2, Episode 20)
• Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire (Season 3, Episode 9)
• G.I. Joe: Cobra CLAWs Are Coming to Town (Season 4, Episode 11)

Commercial Break:

• Pac-Man Cereal Commercial, 1984.
• Chef Boyardee Pac-Man Pasta Commercial, 1984.

Christmas Podcast Network promo:

• 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.”

“Christmas Comes to Pacland” © 1982 Hanna-Barbera Productions.

The Advent Calendar House is on the web at adventcalendar.house, on Instagram @adventcalendarhouse, and on Twitter @adventcalhouse.