🎄 It’s 1975, and a shepherd boy just lost his sight after staring directly at a lightning bolt.

Join us as we return to enchanted world of Rankin/Bass Christmas specials for an overlooked, underrated, and redundantly titled hidden gem about neither the first Christmas, nor the first Christmas snow.

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🎙 Guest:

Mike Troxell (@Prune_Tracy, Mastodon: PruneTracy@sharetron.com).

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

1. Vox’s Emily St. James ranks all the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials.

2. A very brief history of the Christmas card.

3. Was There Really Any Winter’s Snow at the Time of the Nativity in Bethlehem?

4. Flash blindness is real.

5. Arthur Rankin Jr. recalling how Irving Berlin really, REALLY didn’t want “White Christmas” in the special.

6. This exact sound of a wolf howling (or, actually, a coyote) is heard over and over again.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

Toys “R” Us Time of Year Christmas Commercial, 1976.

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:

Christmas Creeps, keeping the Christmas spirit alive through the magic of terrible holiday films.

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“The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow” © 1975 Rankin/Bass Productions.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.

Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 It’s 1990, and a little girl’s Christmas wish is about to get shot out of the sky. Join us for the podcast’s first voyage into the Disney Afternoon as Baloo the cargo pilot bear attempts to save his boss’s daughter’s belief in Santa.

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🎙 Guest:

Joey O. (Y-Not Radio, Words With Nerds, @imgonnadj24).

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

1. Joey’s Christmas TV lineup that he wrote on a piece of paper around 1991 and found again 30 years later.

2. The TaleSpin/Quantum Leap joke.

3. Disney’s “The Jungle Book,” the animated one, is somehow Germany’s biggest box office draw ever.

4. “Tales of the Gold Monkey,” a single-season TV show that inspired “TaleSpin.”

5. “What a Dummy,” an even shorter single-season TV show featuring Janna Michaels (Molly) and a living ventriloquist’s dummy.

6. Joey’s Interview with Pat Fraley (Wildcat), again!

7. Today’s TV Trope: String-on-Finger Reminder.

8. Cape Suzette and Louie’s Place on the Disney Wiki.

9. Flunkey, the Einstein-haired monkey from “The Jungle Book” whose “TaleSpin” counterpart appears to be Santa Louie’s “elf,” Waldo.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

McDonald’s TaleSpin Happy Meal Toys, 1990.

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:

Snow in Southtown, holiday TV specials, movies, music, and more!

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“TaleSpin” and “Jolly Molly Christmas” © 1990 The Walt Disney Company.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.

Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.