Last night's HOUSE was a repeat, their Christmas episode from last season written by my friend Liz Friedman. I won't go so far as to say it's an instant holiday classic but any Christmas episode that ends with the show's hero laying in a puddle of his own sick has got some jingle balls.

What are your favorite Christmas episodes? I remember being very touched by the first season Christmas/Hanukkah episode of THIRTYSOMETHING, in which lapsed Jew Ken Olen and his strapping shiksa wife Mel Harris argue over how to celebrate the holidays. The episode ends with a (perhaps not unpredictable) nod to The Gift of the Magi but the use of Joni Mitchell's "River" was inspired.

Absolutely, the "Bewitched" in which Samantha melts the heart of Scrooge-like Charles Lane. After his conversion, he comes to spend the holiday with the Stevenses, and we get the idea he knows full well that Sam's magic has opened his heart - that she's some sort of supernatural being - and that he's so quietly grateful that it's not going to be an issue. They wish one another a Merry Christmas as the camera pulls back from the house. Snow falls, and we hear the last few bars of "Silent Night." I tear up just thinking about it.

I've been assured by my cyber-pal Victor Mascaro, who has a killer Elizabeth Montgomery site (see below) that I've remembered it correctly.

There was also the haunting "My So-Called Life" in which the plot mixed the plight of the disenfranchised with a supernatural element. The scene in which the practical-as-all-get-out mother (of Claire Danes' Angela), played by Bess Armstrong, haltingly asked the homeless street-singer/angel (Juliana Hatfield) "How did you die?" was breathtaking (no pun intended). The answer was "I froze to death."

http://members.tripod.com/~bewitchvic/main.html

Allie McBeal had an episode with Robert Downey Jr. during which he performed "River". Nearly broke my heart.

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN's "A Bionic Chrismas Carol" with Dick Sargent as Bob Cratchit and Ray Walston as Scrooge. Lee Majors, then uncomfortably sporting his Clark Gable mustache, buys toys for Quinn Cummings and other kids in a store that sells Steve Austin dolls/action figures.

You'd love to know whether I made that up or not, wouldn't you?

HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET - "All Through the House"
DRAGNET '67 - "The Big Little Jesus"
THE ADVENTURES OF PETE AND PETE - "O Christmas Pete"
THE TWILIGHT ZONE - "Night of the Meek"
THE FLINTSTONES - "Christmas Flintstone"

The only one I can think of offhand is that episode of MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN where the aluminum Christmas tree put paid to Garth Gimble...

Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics on South Park. One of the greatest Christmas specials of all time.

THE BLACK ADDER'S CHRISTMAS CAROL: "Oh, dear! This high infant-mortality rate is a real devil when it comes to staging quality children's theatre."

THE AVENGERS: "Too Many Christmas Trees." Emma as Oliver Twist. The card from Cathy Gale ("Now what can she be doing at Fort Knox?"). Emma admiring the four-poster bed in Steed's room and saying she'd always fancied herself in one of them ("And so have I"). The tag under the mistletoe.

I already posted this in the "'Tis the season" thread in the Arthouse, World and Hollywood board, but the Morning Musume Christmas Special really belongs in this thread, too.

I'll spare you two of the links, but leave you the best one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2X446GFXdg

Every-body's do-oo-ing a bland new dance now

You watched it and listened! You've made my day. :P

Obvious but essential:

Charlie Brown Christmas

and the yearly must-sees in our house each Xmas season:

The Honeymooners Christmas episode from the classic 39
Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas
the Xmas episode of Sports Night

and lately the short STAR IN THE NIGHT that was on one of the TCM classic shorts giveaways at Barnes and Noble one year.

Each one guaranteed to either warm your heart or reduce you to tears, sometimes both. B)

A shopping mall bound Santa lands in the Bundy's back yard after his parachute fails to open in a Christmas episode of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN. All ends merrily, though, when they find his sack full of discount coupons.

Is anyone from Alabama? Because the best Christmas specials in television history are those from the public-access cable station hosted by the show-biz family DEAN & COMPANY.

DEAN & COMPANY have been on television for 20 plus years and every year, a friend from Birmingham sends us a video of their annual Christmas show. For years, we've been praying that none of the clips would show up on the internet because we kind of wanted to keep the secret to ourselves and give out new DVDs of the broadcasts as our Christmas card. It looks like some scenes are starting to turn up on youtube this year.

Briefly (and completely inadequately) DEAN & COMPANY is a crazed, family-style Christmas show that teeters somewhere between extreme tedium and psychotic brilliance. The family is Daisy Dean, Dana Dean and Mama Dean (although, sadly, Mama Dean passed away a few years ago.) During their specials, the family sings various Christmas carols and shows footage from community events. There's also a pet rabbit that may as well be named "Non-Sequitar) for the ways he shows up at pointless moments. There's also a very loud puppet named Podo.

The ringleader is clearly Daisy Dean who performs her songs with these crazed, highly-sexualized gestures that have to be seen to be believed. Last year, she and the puppet Podo appeared in a video cover of Britney Spears' TOXIC, the highlight of which had the cast shaking fried chicken drumsticks at the camera and shouting "Mutton-chops! Mutton-chops!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JFrGyXMqvY

And the Podo storylines are shockingly surreal. Last year, he passed out tiny, invisible tape recorders to all the kids so they could record their messages to Santa. But the kids swallowed them and they all grew tails. A lot of times, the "cast" of these sketches aren't actors at all, but rather tourists at Birmingham's Vulcan Park who suddenly find themselves at the wrong end of the camera.

I can't explain it. And you won't be able to either once you see it. Last year, when I sent a DVD to a friend without explanation, he left me a voicemail message that just said "I don't understand. I thought you liked me."

D.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, "Amends." Vampire driven mad by ghosts of past victims + snow in California = Christmas miracle.

SUPERNATURAL's special Christmas episode was tonight, as the Winchester brothers fought a coupla Pagan gods disguised as Ward and June Cleaver types. Not a bad mixture of gore, black comedy and holiday schmaltz, as the spirit of Christmas comes unnaturally to the two young heroes who grew up in a uniquely dysfunctional family.

Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who heads the African and African-American Studies Dept. at Harvard, once wrote an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times about the Christmas episode of "Amos 'n' Andy," and how his family in rural West Virginia eagerly watched it every time it was rerun at Christmas back in the 1950s. I couldn't find a link to his piece, but he talked about how important it was for him as a child to see a black world that had everything the white world had, e.g. the massive department store staffed entirely with black employees where Andy (Spencer Williams) works as a black Santa, and the black doll that he buys for a little girl. Gates describes how, as a parent, he eventually got hold of a VHS copy of the episode and tried to show it to his daughters, who reacted with scorn and derision at the crude stereotypes. (Gates has written in defense of the show on other occasions.)

I remember going out and picking up a low-cost, poor-quality VHS copy of this episode after reading the piece, but I have yet to watch it. Maybe I should watch it BEFORE the Morning Musume Christmas Special. Maybe I should intercut them. :P

One of my favorites was THE NIGHT COURT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, starring good-old Uncle Buddy!

"I Love Lucy" Christmas "episode": Fifty-cent tree + Fred carries a "pocket saw" + no less than five Santas + inexplicable supernatural incident + many, many looong flashbacks + deeply uncommitted cast announcing "merry Christmas...?!" = never shown in syndication!

I found this episode a little disturbing, especially since 'June Cleever' was played by the same actress who played the saintly cancer-stricken mom on EVERWOOD. The level of gore in the Cleever's basement was like something out of a HOSTEL movie. I did enjoy the vintage "Special" bumper at the beginning.

Actually, the episode reminded me a bit of Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. I wonder if the writer has read it.

Personally, I'm a sucker for the episode of the Monkees where they have to babysit a bored, rich boy played by Butch Patrick. The Monkees sing the song RIU RIU CHIA (I'm sure I just misspelled that) at the end.

It does raise a question, though: So...you're a parent back in the late 60s. Would you really hire the Monkees to babysit your kid? It's no wonder Butch Patrick finds the spirit of Christmas. He's probably stoned out of his mind.

I also love the FAT ALBERT christmas special although I haven't seen it since I was a kid.

D.

Now you all got me hankering to see THE ODD COUPLE Christmas episode which is, of course, A CHRISTMAS CAROL with the cast of characters...

Oscar (fading off to sleep): Bah! Humbug....Christmas..is.....hum...bug............

(And I second THE BLACKADDER CHRISTMAS CAROL - Ebeneezer Blackadder as the *nicest* man in London, that's just a sweet set-up for some comedy gold...)

I already covered the Twilight Zone's Night of the Meek and The Changing of the Guard over in the other Christmas thread, but to these I'd add that I also have a fondness for the sentimental Quantum Leap episode A Little Miracle, featuring the sadly missed Charles Rocket in yet another variation on A Christmas Carol.

It's not something to put on as background while trimming the tree and drinking egg nog, but MILLENNIUM's "Midnight of the Century" is a personal favorite.

There are three wise men, at least one ghost, and more talk of angels than in the Anaheim sports pages. Plus we get a geeky shout-out to SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT and BLACK CHRISTMAS, Lara Means makes a welcome return, and we get to delve into Frank Black's past again.

But what makes the episode great is the heartbreaking scene between Black and his father, played by Darren McGavin, and the sad but beautiful ending.

In addition to the others mentioned...

NIGHT GALLERY's "The Messiah on Mott Street" with Edward G. Robinson
Truman Capote's A CHRISTMAS MEMORY with Geraldine Page

And of course, dear Boris's rendition of THE GRINCH.

ho ho ho,
FBC

First off, the aforementioned AVENGERS classic, "TOO MANY CHRISTMAS TREES", which I watch every December, sandwiched between Alastair Sim's SCROOGE (1951) and ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969, do you know how Christmas trees are grown?).

Also--

THE ADDAMS FAMILY: "CHRISTMAS WITH THE ADDAMS FAMILY"

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: "SANTA CLAUS AND THE TENTH AVENUE KID"
Both funny and poignant, with a fine performance from Barry Fitzgerald (no relation), almost an acerbic companion piece to the Rod Serling perennial below.

TWILIGHT ZONE: "NIGHT OF THE MEEK"
"Hey look! Santa Claus is loaded!"

THE HONEYMOONERS: "TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"
It's not Christmas without Ralph getting into trouble.

WKRP IN CINCINNATI: "JENNIFER'S HOME FOR CHRISTMAS" (Season 2) and "BAH, HUMBUG" (Season 3)
From my most favorite sitcom, two seasonal treats. The latter is one of the better "A Christmas Carol" take-offs I've seen done.

MR. BEAN: "MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. BEAN"
Probably the highlight of the entire MR. BEAN series, with several laugh-out-loud moments.

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: "SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS" (with Joel Robinson) and "SANTA CLAUS" (with Mike Nelson)
Both are fun (nice that both Joel and Mike each got a Christmas show to do), though the latter is easily the weirder and subsequently has a higher ratio of funny riffing.

SCTV: "SCTV STAFF CHRISTMAS PARTY" and "CHRISTMAS (1982)"
See-- Johnny LaRue get a camera crane of his very own!
See-- Rick Moranis' devastatingly accurate Richard Dreyfuss!
See-- Count Floyd's Scary Little Christmas, with scary guest stars, like Lucille Ball!

LOST IN SPACE: "RETURN FROM OUTER SPACE"
Will Robinson accidentally teleports himself back to earth in time for Christmas. A cool little change-of-pace episode for this normally silly camp-fest.

THE WILD WILD WEST: "THE NIGHT OF THE WHIRRING DEATH"
Not officially a Christmas episode, but it's as close to one as this series ever got, with Norman Fell as a Scrooge-like "Mr. Ratch" in a wintry San Francisco, a potential victim of Dr. Loveless' latest plan involving deadly toys.

-and, of course, HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (1966), A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, and the Rankin/Bass troika of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN and THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS.

MARRIED WITH CHILDREN'S second Christmas episode, the It's a Wonderful Life takeoff with Sam Kinison as Al's guardian angel. Even better than their first Christmas episode IMO. ("The Worst Noel", from Season 8, isn't bad either.)

BLACKADDER'S CHRISTMAS CAROL is a good one, but the idea of Ebenezer as the nicest man in London was also used a few years earlier than that in a GEORGE BURNS COMEDY WEEK episode (1985, with Roddy McDowall if I remember right.)

HCH

They need sunshine and raindrops, friendship and kindness... and most of all... they need love.

The AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE episode, "Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future", with guest star Danzig.

"You remember that Christmas, dontcha Carl?"

"I remember eating carpet....not so much the lasers"

oh, that's a good one

The British version of The Office for this skit alone.

The Office

Pee Wee hasn't been bested to my knowledge. Happy Holidays!

Pee Wee! How could I forget? I retract my previous endorsement of the office