It’s 1982, and we’re walking in the air. The Advent Calendar House takes flight for its 7th season as we melt over a British Christmas classic and a personal favorite I wish was more beloved stateside.

Full show notes with links at https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/the-snowman.

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🎙 Guest:

• Adam Parker Sibun from the Merry Britsmas Podcast (@MerryBritsmas).

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

• New theme song! Thanks, Bronwen’s Ghost!

• Merry Britsmas episode on Raymond Briggs.

• The British Film Institute’s Top 100 British TV Programmes of the 20th Century.

• The special’s 3 openings, featuring Briggs, David Bowie, and Mel Smith as Father Christmas.

• The original Snowman original picture book wasn’t a Christmas story.

• Other Briggs works mentioned: Father Christmas, Fungus the Bogeyman, Ethel and Ernest, and When the Wind Blows.

• How The Snowman melted David Bowie’s heart (The Guardian, December 2016).

• Duncan Jones finds his dad’s scarf.

• Video of an owl flying over snow I eerily shared on Facebook the night David Bowie died.

• The Maccabees cover Walking in the Air.

• The Royal Pavilion and Brighton Palace Pier.

• Today’s TV Trope: Polar Bears and Penguins.

• The Snowman in a commercial for Barbour outerwear.

• Irn-Bru soft drink’s parody commercial, and its sequel.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

• 1985 Toys “R” Us Snowman Commercial featuring Aled Jones covering Walking in the Air (sung in the special by Peter Auty).

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The Snowman © 1982 Snowman Enterprises Ltd.

Find the Advent Calendar House on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

🦃 We’re talking turkey as we dig up and dig in to a 1983 Thanksgiving special from puppeteer Paul Fusco, the creator of ALF.

Find links and complete show notes at: https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/a-thanksgiving-tale

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🎙 On This Episode:

• Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), nearsighted, hard-of-hearing turkey with a dream of making it in showbiz.

• Chad Young (@HorrorMovieBBQ), a rat I promised $3 to if he made a silly face on my podcast, from the Horror Movie BBQ.

• Tom Coombs (@classictomedy), an alley cat who talks like a Muppet but, for legal reasons, is definitely not a Muppet.

• Jayme Kilsby (@brainexploderrr), hiding in a trash can to avoid being eaten alive.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

• Imagicom Productions’ Holiday Specials Collection.

• A Thanksgiving Tale, with curated retro Thanksgiving commercials.

• The Joker at the 1989 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

• A November 16, 1983 TV listing in an archived New York Magazine.

• Paul Fusco’s Space Cats.

• David Lander in Funland.

• Mental Floss’s Oral History of ALF.

• Today’s TV Trope: Invited as Dinner.

• The You Bet Your Life Duck.

• The art of making puppets fight: Throw them into the air from behind a fence.

• We compare the Thanksgiving play in this special to the one in Addams Family Values.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

• Butterball Turkey Commercial (1985)

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:

• Christmas Time in the City.

“A Thanksgiving Tale” © 1983 Imagicom Productions, Inc.

Find the Advent Calendar House on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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I know what we’re going to podcast about today, so get ready for a toboggan ride without even getting out of bed back to 2009 to watch Phineas and Ferb save their very nice town’s Christmas Vacation.

Full show notes with links at https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/phineas-and-ferb-christmas-vacation.

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🎙 On This Episode:

• Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), swinging from the rooftops on a string of Christmas lights like Spider-Man.

• Brandon Medley (@brandmed), frantically trying to find out what to get me for Christmas when all I really wanted was for him to be on my podcast.

• James Riley (@yourbuddyspooky), who invited himself onto this episode and won’t go until he gets some figgy pudding.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

• Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Ferb) in Love Actually  and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

• The time James accidentally knocked over Ben Stiller.

• The Sears Wish Book catalog.

• Today’s TV Trope: Look Both Ways.

• “What Does He Want?” was cut for time and restored later. Also, it sounds like “Monster Mash.”

• Doofenshmirtz’s Naughty-inator reminds me of the Riddler’s Brain Box from Batman Forever.

• U.S.A. for Africa’s “We Are the World.”

• Walt Disney World’s Candlelight Processional and Raglan Road.

• Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s “Christmas Is Starting Now.”

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

• Sears Wish Book (1992).

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:

• Merry Britsmas.

“Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation” © 2009 Disney.

Find the Advent Calendar House on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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🎃 The 13th of July means it’s spooky time again in the Advent Calendar House as we wheel our paraphernalia wagon back to 1977 to pay a long-awaited revisit to Who-ville on a Grinch Night we’ll never forget.

Full show notes with links at: https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/halloween-is-grinch-night

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🎙 On This Episode:

• Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), fuzzy pink endangered species being chased down a mountain for existing.

• James Riley (@yourbuddyspooky), my personal Grinch alarm warden.

• Ethan “The Hungry Reader” (@Gtron), the guest of honor at the exclusive Grinch Night ball, from A Special Presentation or ALF Will Not Be Seen Tonight.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

• Halloween is Grinch Night on the Dr. Seuss Wiki.

• The worst, non-candy items we’ve gotten while trick-or-treating.

• Carlton, Your Doorman.

• Music composer Joe Raposo, whose greatest hits also include the Sesame Street theme, Bein’ Green, and C is for Cookie.

• Hans Conried, the voice of Grinch in this special and Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan, was also the titular character in Dr. Seuss’s The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

• I badly describe the plot of Midnight Madness.

• The Hakken-Kraks in Oh, the Places You’ll Go.

• Is the Grinch’s magic only active on Grinch Night?

• The Euphemism, and other words I thought Dr. Seuss made up.

• An ode to the Whos’ videophone.

• Dr. Seuss Goes to War, and other creators of great works doing terrible things.

• Bogleech’s gallery of the Grinch’s monsters, and our personal favorites.

• The Vug under the Rug.

• The Jibboo.

• The Birthday Bird.

• Camille Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre.

• Is this a prequel or something else? And where does The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat fit?

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

• Franken Berry and Monsters Cereals (1986), preserved by Dinosaur Dracula.

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:

• Holly Jolly X’masu.

“Halloween is Grinch Night” © 1977 DePatie–Freleng Enterprises.

The Advent Calendar House can also be found following you down a river of mysterious pink ooze on Twitter (@adventcalhouse) and Instagram (@adventcalendarhouse).

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Join us on a sleigh ride back to the ancient year 2014 to find out why the fate of Christmas is in the hands of Murray Weiner (it rhymes with “diner”), who lives in a hidden town that’s home to more than a couple dozen holiday mascots… but mostly just the American ones.

Full episodes with links at: https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/how-murray-saved-christmas

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🎙 On This Episode:

• Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), suffering from superficial fractures of his little baby toeses.

• Michael DiGiovanni (@theatomicgeeks), Queen Hannah of Bananaland, from the Classic Film Jerks and Pop Culture Retrofit.

• Donnie Storms (@boxcar45) from Bronwen’s Ghost, who’s got a lot of problems with you people and now you’re going to… sorry, wrong show.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

• Former Simpsons showrunner Mike Reiss’s original books, How Murray Saved Christmas and
Santa Claustrophobia.

• The 45-minute special was trimmed to a half-hour, which removed some bad jokes, but also Murray’s backstory.

• Speaking of super offensive things, Marc Mero as Johnny B. Badd, for reference.

• Today’s TV Trope: Santa’s Sweatshop.

• “Vishnu” (totally not Vishnu) takes The Problem with Apu to a new low.

• Every LBGT Joke on The Simpsons Ever (as of early 2021).

• There’s an actual National Milkmen Day… but on June 26, not August 12.

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🗓 All the holidays represented in Stinky Cigars:

1. Christmas,
2. Hanukkah,
3. Kwanzaa,
4. New Year’s Day,
5. Groundhog Day,
6. Valentine’s Day,
7. Chinese New Year,
8. Mardi Gras,
9. Presidents Day,
10. St. Patrick’s Day,
11. April Fool’s Day,
12. Easter,
13. Arbor Day,
14. Earth Day,
15. Secretary’s Day (we think),
16. May Day,
17. Cinco de Mayo,
18. Mother’s Day,
19. Graduation Day?
20. Father’s Day (maybe… there are multiple Father Times),
21. Independence Day,
22. Bastille Day,
23. Labor Day,
24. Columbus Day,
25. Halloween,
26. Veterans Day,
27. Thanksgiving,
28. and Jack Frost is there, because sure!

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

• McDonald’s McDLT Commercial starring Jason Alexander (1985).

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:

• Tinsel Tunes.

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“How Murray Saved Christmas” © 2014 Universal Animation Studios.

The Advent Calendar House can also be found creating paddle balls out of pizza and meatballs on Twitter (@adventcalhouse) and Instagram (@adventcalendarhouse).

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We’re mysteriously floating back to 1983 on an unseasonably warm Christmas adventure through Mexico on a Saturday morning cartoon that lasted a shorter amount of time than the fad it tried to cash in on.

Full show notes with links at: https://adventcalendar.house/rubik-the-amazing-cube-christmas

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🎙 On This Episode:

• Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), surprisingly energetic village granny.

• Gerry Davila (@RadChristmas), hiding out in the spacious trunk of my station wagon and scaring the family dog, from Totally Rad Christmas.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

• The History of Rubik’s Cube.

• The theme song by pre-Ricky Martin Menudo.

• Ángela Moya, the voice of the kids’ mother, played a small but grim part in Gleaming the Cube.

• An ode to the family station wagon.

• An archived, early-Internet Rubik fan site.

• Rubik has more powers than Superman.

• Las Posadas.

• Date a TV show by adding a CB radio.

• Rubik ending up in an eagle’s nest reminded me of The Polar Express.

• Reynoldo’s speed cubing skills compared to the real-life Rubik’s Cube world records in 1983 and today.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

• Cap’n O.G. Readmore (1985).

• Cap’n Crunch Cereal, Crunch vs. Taste (1985).

• An Alpha Bits Cereal commercial that’s clearly still trying to ride the Pac-Man wave, but I’m not complaining (1985).

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“Rubik, the Amazing Cube” and “Rubik’s First Christmas” © 1983 Ruby-Spears Enterprises, Inc.

The Advent Calendar House can also be found dangling from the side of a cliff above an eagle’s nest on Twitter (@adventcalhouse) and Instagram (@adventcalendarhouse).

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It’s time for toys and time for cheer as the Advent Calendar House begins another 12-episode countdown to Christmas in July, starting by rewinding at twice the normal speed back to 1981 to revisit the Christmas special that helped kick off the revival of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Full show notes with links at: https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/a-chipmunk-christmas

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🎙 On This Episode:

• Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), a poorly disguised dog with antlers tied to his head.

• Steven Tsapelas (@StevenStaples81), guaranteed to brighten your day, from Wizards: The Podcast Guide to Comics.

• Sean Sotka (@xander0527), who heard you like Christmas podcasts, so he made a Christmas podcast about Christmas podcasts.

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

• Steven’s story of accidentally erasing his VHS recording of this special, only to find another recording of the same broadcast years later.

• The History of the Chipmunks (RIP The Hourchive).

• Witch Doctor.

• R.J. Williams (Tommy) was 3 years old in this special.

• Wake, Rattle, & Roll, also starring R.J. Williams.

• Dave’s 3-story Victorian mansion seen only in this special and never again.

• Yes, the Chipmunks wear pants.

• Vintage Echo harmonicas are real, but good luck finding a gold one.

• Selling photos of Santa with dogs dressed as reindeer looks way more fun than selling dollar store junk door-to-door.

• Clyde Crashcup invented a popular Simpsons joke.

• Today’s TV trope: Talking in Your Sleep.

• Paw Patrol makes no sense.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

• A Chipmunk Christmas Soundtrack Album (1981).

• 7up Countdown to Christmas Posters (1986).

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“A Chipmunk Christmas” © 1981 Bagdasarian Productions.

The Advent Calendar House can also be found window shopping for harmonicas on Twitter (@adventcalhouse) and Instagram (@adventcalendarhouse).

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As we inch closer to Christmas Eve, strap on your cardboard wings and buckle up as we take a 2-dimensional flight back to 1999 to revisit the Matt Groening-produced TV special, “Olive, the Other Reindeer,” starring the voices of Drew Barrymore, Joe Pantoliano, Dan Castellaneta, and Ed Asner as Santa four years before “Elf.”

On This Episode:

1. Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), unemployed penguin ready to make you a deal on an extremely valuable watch.
2. Erin Evans (@mserinmevans), my hard-of-hearing pet flea who’s only here to mistakenly tell you your family doesn’t want you here.
3. Joey O. (@ImGonnaDJ24), an injured reindeer’s flightless cousin who’s very excited to be introduced as this, from Y-Not Radio and Words With Nerds.

Topics and Tangents:

1. This special premiered exactly 10 years to the minute after the first episode of “The Simpsons.”
2. The Making of “Olive, the Other Reindeer” takes you behind the scenes to watch the computer animation slowly render on what appears to be a Gateway 2000 PC running Windows 98.
3. We compare the animation style to PaRappa the Rapper.
4. “Mr. Lunch Takes a Plane Ride,” the first book by “Olive” creators Vivian Walsh and J. Otto Seibold, was the first children’s picture book created with digital media.
5. “The Goonies II,” a video-game-only sequel for the Nintendo Entertainment System in which the Fratellis kidnap a mermaid.
6. Jay Mohr in “Camp Wilder,” a short-lived TGIF sitcom in the doomed 9:30 spot.
7. The mondegreen, a brief history and other famous examples, how one ended up an official part of another Christmas Carol, and the stupidest lyric I’ve ever misheard.
8. Dan Castellaneta uses a similar voice for the Postman as he does a few years later for the Robot Devil in “Futurama.”
9. A brief history of “You’re no Jack Kennedy,” and its lasting impact.
10. The time Bullwinkle tried to kidnap my baby at Universal’s Islands of Adventure.
11. R U Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me?, formerly “U Talkin’ U2 to Me?” and currently “U Talkin’ Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head?”
12. Michael Stipe on “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” and “The Simpsons.”
13. There’s a Hanukkah menorah on top of Santa’s castle.
14. The pope gets a Phillies hat for Christmas.
15. This special suggests Santa sorts his deliveries alphabetically, which is super inefficient.

Previous Podcast Episodes Mentioned:

• Frosty the Snowman (Season 1, Episode 1)
• A Rugrats Chanukah (Season 1, Episode 6)
• ’Twas the Night Before Christmas (Season 2, Episode 3)
• Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire (Season 3, Episode 9)
• Deck the Halls With Wacky Walls (Season 4, Episode 5)
• BraveStarr: Tex’s Terrible Night (Season 5, Episode 3)

Commercial Break:

• Amazon.com Christmas Commercial, 1999

Podcast Promos:

• Santa by the Minute, covering “Santa Claus: The Movie” minute-by-minute.
• The Christmas Podcasts Podcast, a podcast about Christmas podcasts. Yep!

“Olive, the Other Reindeer” © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

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

On this episode of the official holiday podcast for people who organize meetings with 3 different versions of themselves, all of whom are action heroes, we’re skating on thin ice back to 1993 for a very educational trip to Bluffington to rewatch “Doug’s Christmas Story.”

Admittedly not a very festive episode late in the first official Nicktoon’s run on Nickelodeon, at one point I forgot this was a Christmas episode I was watching for my podcast.

On This Episode:

1. Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), bitter ousted politician with a microphone and a self-help line.
2. Greg Stevens (@pop_arena), weaponized dessert maker and creator of YouTube’s Pop Arena, home to Nick Knacks, a show-by-show history of Nickelodeon; plus reviews of Animorphs, Goosebumps, and Doctor Who books.

Topics and Tangents:

1. Disney’s Doug was OK, y’all.
2. “Doug” creator Jim Jinkins worked on Nickelodeon’s first show, “Pinwheel.”
3. Early versions of Doug appeared on a bumper for USA Network and a PSA for Florida Grapefruit Juice. (Bonus: The grapefruit juice one features Lorenzo Music, the voice of Garfield.)
4. The ol’ Danger: Thin Ice trope, the Chekhov’s gun of frozen ponds.
5. Doug’s usual antagonist, Roger Klotz, is completely absent from this episode.
6. Alice Playten (Beebe) was in the 1975 Maurice Sendak TV special, “Really Rosie” as Alligator.
7. Constance Shulman (Patti) in a scene from “Weekend at Bernie’s II.” She’s also Yoga Jones from “Orange Is the New Black.”
8. Every car in Bluffington looks like Homer Simpson designed it.
9. Greg Lee from “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” voices recently ousted former mayor Bob White, and boy, am I glad we recorded this after election week.
10. “The Phred on Your Head Show,” in example.
11. Mr. Dink’s last name is apparently an acronym for “Double Income, No Kids,” a joke that went over every 11-year-old’s head.
12. How much of what we see is what really happened, and how much is Doug embellishing in his journal?
13. The first and only time Doug’s imaginary alter-egos Race Canyon, Quailman, and Smash Adams appeared on screen at the same time.
14. Don’t wrap pets in boxes!
15. Why have we been following Doug’s boring, normal kid adventures, when Porkchop’s apparently offscreen building houses and helping car crash victims walk again?
16. The topper on the Funnies’ Christmas tree is Mr. Dink’s face.

Nick Knacks Episodes on Other Nickelodeon Shows Mentioned:

1. Pinwheel
2. By the Way
3. Hocus Focus
4. Christmas in Tattertown
5. Livewire
6. You Can’t Do That on Television
7. Belle and Sebastian
8. A Rugrats Chanukah
9. Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea
10. Double Dare

Previous Podcast Episodes Mentioned:

• A Rugrats Chanukah (Season 1, Episode 6)
• Christmas in Tattertown (Season 3, Episode 10)
• Deck the Halls With Wacky Walls (Season 4, Episode 5)

Commercial Break:

• Nicktoons Pizza Hut Kids’ Pizza Pack Commercial, 1991

Podcast Promos:

• SequelQuest, exploring the unexplored possibilities hidden within our favorite film franchises.
• TGI Podcast, covering the best holiday episodes of TGIF classics.

“Doug” and “Doug’s Christmas Story” © 1993 Jumbo Pictures, Inc.

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