Holidays Not Happy This Year? TV Can Help

This will be my first Christmas after both of my parents have passed away, and I’m not looking forward to it. But this is not a plea for sympathy.

That I’ve reached by 61st year before confronting this reality is a tremendous blessing. I can (and will) look back on more than 50 Christmas celebrations with family and friends, and another half-dozen that were more intimate gatherings, but still congenial. And even this year I haven’t lost sight of the fact that Christmas transcends trees and presents and carries as always the tidings of great joy spoken of by Luke and Linus.

But this funk is not easily shaken, its impact felt even in my annual month-long marathon of 25 or so favorite classic TV holiday episodes. In previous years they were a supplement to other pleasures of the season. This year, outside of attending Christmas worship service, they will likely be all I’ve got. Will they help?

Thus far I can say that they have.

The viewing has been more haphazard, though I knew there would be a few that would be on the agenda regardless of circumstances. I watched the Cannonball, decorated for the holiday, rolling through the Hooterville countryside on Petticoat Junction. 

I watched Joe Friday and Bill Gannon on Dragnet investigate the disappearance of the baby Jesus figure from a Nativity display. Its moving final scene, filmed at the San Fernando Mission Church, and Friday’s last line, never fail to get me as close to choking up as my crusty old heart will allow.

I watched the Monkees sing “Riu Chiu” and Blair Warner sing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” on The Facts of Life. Funny thing – all the Facts holiday shows involve Christmas plans that do not go as expected, yet they manage to celebrate anyway. That’s also true of the Bob Newhart Show holiday episodes, which are among my favorites. There are lessons to take away from there.

I watched the guests on Hotel, all away from home, find ways to make the most of a holiday in unfamiliar circumstances. I watched Mary Richards coping with having to work on Christmas. And I watched the holiday episodes of The Doris Day Show – because it’s hard to stay gloomy anywhere in the vicinity of Doris Day.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir once again delivered my favorite of the many
classic TV riffs on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. And I don’t think I’ve made it through a holiday season in more than 20 years without watching Carol Brady get her voice back in time to sing at church, Donna Stone make sure the children in a hospital ward have a Christmas party, and Samantha Stephens introduce a skeptical orphan to Santa Claus.

And I watched some of the holiday-themed commercials from the 1970s and ‘80s, featuring so many retailers that we’ve lost, and giving us moments as touching as the shows they played alongside.

Maybe there was still something missing from the experience this time around. But there were also thoughts that were triggered in unexpected moments that had never surfaced before.

There’s a tag scene in the Wings episode “Insanity Claus” showing an older man, a member of the maintenance staff at the small airport in Nantucket, vacuuming the rug in the air traffic control tower, late at night on Christmas Eve. He is clearly the only employee still working and still in the building. He’s not even the focal point of the scene, yet I found myself wondering if he celebrated with his family before going to work, or if like many seniors he’s alone, and to him Christmas Eve is just another night.

Maybe that’s the point of all this – noticing the less fortunate, even as we join their ranks for a while. When we’re awash in things to do and parties and presents to buy, we don’t tend to think about those without such plans. That’s why the Lord gives us holidays like mine this year – to recognize how many aren’t with their loved ones on Christmas. It’s a chance to remember them in our prayers, and perhaps even alleviate some of their loneliness with a card, or a kind word, or maybe an invitation to share memories and a glass of egg nog.

Television shows – even the most festive and heartwarming episodes of classic series, can never replace the people we miss, but they’re not mere distractions either. Like the ornaments on your tree, or the family recipe for chestnut turkey stuffing handed down from generations past, they are a beloved part of holiday traditions that date back to childhood. And when some of those traditions fall away they remain reminders of happier times.

If you’re not anticipating a joyful holiday in 2025, wrap these old shows around you like a cozy blanket and comfort yourself in the warmth of nostalgia.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas in Peekskill: Ranking the Facts of Life Holiday Episodes

 

It took The Facts of Life five seasons to air a Christmas show, but it must have been well received because after that a holiday episode became an annual tradition until the series ended with season nine. I know it’s getting close to Christmas so you may not have time for five visits to Eastland – if that’s the case, I’ve ranked the episodes from worst to first. It’s my holiday gift to you. 

 

 

The Worst

“It’s a Wonderful Christmas”

Season 9

 

I never warmed to Cloris Leachman as Beverly Ann, who replaced Charlotte Rae’s Edna Garrett in Season eight. And this episode focuses mainly on her character, when she becomes convinced that she hasn’t made a difference in anyone’s life. “I wish I never came to Peeksill,” she laments (me too!), and cue the It’s a Wonderful Life pastiche. It’s a trope that can work if done right, as it did on Laverne & Shirley and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. But here it just feels by the numbers. Not even Pippa’s punk rock makeover can save it.

 

 

Slightly Better

“Post-Christmas Card”

Season 8

 

Technically this is an after-Christmas episode that opens with Blair and Jo un-decorating the Christmas tree and discussing New Year’s resolutions. 

 

Then Natalie gets an unexpected “present” – a pre-approved credit card with $3,000 in available funds, ready to spend. Blair talks her into charging 50 bucks for a fancy appointment book, and then the floodgate opens. The holiday references are over after the first scene, but it’s still a more enjoyable show than the last one.

 

Worth Watching

“Christmas Baby”

Season 7

 

The highlight here is Marj Dusay in one of her occasional guest appearances as Monica Warner, Blair’s mother.  

This is the climax of a story arc that began when Monica discovers she’s pregnant in her forties, after being recently divorced. She goes into labor on Christmas Eve, disrupting everyone’s plans but in a most delightful way.

 

Adding narration by the newborn was a bit too cutesy for me, but there are some tender moments along the way that resonate, including when Blair asks Mrs. Garrett to say a prayer that everything will turn out all right. She is reluctant to ask herself, she confesses, because it’s been a while since she last prayed (a line that is noteworthy from Lisa Whelchel, whose Christian faith is well known). “If you have something to ask, it’s okay,” Mrs. Garrett responds,  “God’s listening.”

 

I always appreciate when God gets an occasional shout-out in a Christmas show.

 

When viewers spend seven years with a group of characters, as fans of this series have by the time this episode aired, there’s something rewarding about sharing a happy milestone in their lives. Here we get a Christmas celebration and a new baby – that’s 23 minutes well spent.

 

A Holiday Tradition

“The Christmas Show”

Season 5

 

Jo plans to visit her mother on Christmas, but then her mother takes a second job in Florida over the holidays, leaving Jo, in Tootie’s words, “stuck here with Mrs. Garrett.” Edna doesn’t take too kindly to that sentiment. The other girls hatch a plan to get Jo to Florida, in a way that won’t wound her stubborn pride.

 

This is the most “Christmas-y” of the show’s five holiday episodes, especially in how Edna’s Edibles looks charming decked out for the season. 

 

 

But it’s the always intriguing Blair-Jo dynamic that makes this one a winner. For me, and I guess to most fans, their relationship is the show, and the main reason why it lasted so long. There’s nothing new about the pampered snobby rich girl vs. the tough kid from the streets bit – but this is as well as it was done in the classic TV era.

 

They are two young women with nothing in common who started as bitter enemies, then over the course of nearly a decade found that they had more in common than they knew. The final scene delivers all the heartwarming feels viewers want in a holiday show.

 

A Classic

“Christmas in the Big Hosue”

Season 6

 

I probably like this one more than most, because I’m a sucker for sitcoms that present a musical episode. Blair and her country club friends decide to help the less fortunate by putting on a show for the underprivileged boys residing in the Nickleby House. But on the day of the event Blair discovers that the Nickleby House is actually the recreation hall at a men’s prison, so when the assistant warden arrives to pick her up, she refuses to go. After Jo, Tootie, Natalie and Mrs. Garrett decide to make the trip, Blair reluctantly joins them, but refuses to perform.

 

This is the kind of situation and the kind of impromptu holiday show that could only exist on TV – Jo and Natalie’s duet on “We Need a Little Christmas” would have real convicts asking to return to their cells. Mrs. Garrett fares better singing “O Holy Night,” but Tootie’s shimmying, strutting version of “Jingle Bell Rock” is just embarrassing.

 

After that number the girls are ready to leave, but the assistant warden says he promised the men more show, and asks if they can think up an encore. They can’t, until Mrs. Garrett reminds them that they are the only Christmas those men are going to have this year. Blair, at last, stands up. “I’ll go….it’s my turn, isn’t it?” And she walks silently onto the stage and performs a lovely a capella cover of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” 

 

 

And in that moment the episode is transformed into something special. Maybe those who watched her on The Mickey Mouse Club knew Lisa Whelchel could sing, but I didn’t, so the beauty of that performance was a revelation, and it never fails to put me in the proper holiday spirit.  

 

 

A Second Look at ‘That Girl’’s First Christmas Episode

 

 

One thing about me – I only need one viewing to make up my mind about any Comfort TV episode.  Each is quickly classified into one of these categories:

 

4 Stars: A classic, one of the show’s best episodes

3 Stars: An above-average episode that rewards repeat viewings

2 Stars: Nothing special, but still has its moments

1 Star: An episode I may never watch a second time.

 

In fact, in all the years (decades) I’ve been watching this stuff, I can recall only one time when I changed my opinion – and it happened on a Christmas-themed episode. 

 

 

When I first watched “Christmas and the Hard Luck Kid” from season one of That Girl, it did nothing for me. After one viewing it was relegated to 1.5 star status and omitted from every subsequent year’s holiday lineup, unlike the show’s season three Christmas episode, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas – You’re Under Arrest.” That one earned a solid 3.5 stars on the Comfort TV scale and has become an annual viewing tradition. 

 

 

But last year, after watching another episode on the same disc as “Hard Luck Kid,” I thought what the heck – and let it play again. And while I remembered the reasons for my initially tepid response, I also saw something poignant in the story that went unnoticed the first time around.

 

The episode opens with Donald visiting Ann while she works as one of Santa’s helpers in a New York department store. There she receives a gift from someone named Tommy, and before Don can get jealous she tells him how that friendship was formed a few years earlier. 

 

 

In flashback, we see Ann before she pursued an acting career, working as a teacher at a private school for boys. All of the students are headed home for the holidays except Tommy, whose parents are shooting a movie in Europe. Ann can’t stand the thought of one boy alone in school on Christmas, so she cancels her holiday plans to stay with him. 

 

 

If the voice of Christopher Shea, who played Tommy, sounds familiar, it’s because he also provided the voice for Linus when he told Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” 

 

 

I think what bothered me the first time I watched this episode was the impact Ann’s sudden change of plan had on everyone else. We only get so many Christmases we can spend with our families, so perhaps she should not have given one of hers up so cavalierly. Of course it was a nice gesture, but to me Tommy didn’t seem overly appreciative of her sacrifice. And as it turned out he wouldn’t have been alone anyway, since one of his friends lived close to the school and came by the next day to visit. Together they spent the afternoon playing and having fun, while Ann was relegated to being a third wheel. 

 

 

Tommy then went to his friend’s house for a holiday dinner, leaving Ann alone in the school, missing her parents as I’m sure they were missing her.

 

There’s a feeling of melancholy that pervades the entire episode, and strangely enough I think that’s the reason I was more impressed the second time around. On your typical classic TV Christmas episode, you can always count on a happy ending: Cathy’s father will make it back to the Lane residence in time for Christmas; Carol Brady’s voice will return before she has to sing in church; Donna Stone discovers the meaning of Christmas she thought was lost; Keith Partridge gets the bus running so the family won’t be stuck in  ghost town.

 

And that is as it should be. We look for comfort from these shows, and they rarely let us down. But sometimes you don’t get what you want for Christmas, and when that happens, like Ann, you can try to make the best of it, and the best way to do that is by giving more than receiving. There is ample room in the classic TV universe for that message as well.

 

One interesting trivia footnote about this episode: It was written by Jim Brooks, who later wrote the first season Christmas episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and titled it “Christmas and the Hard Luck Kid II.” Mary, like Ann Marie, has a magical holiday planned with her family, until those plans fall apart. 

 

 

I guess Brooks enjoys ruining holidays for his characters. Here’s hoping your Christmas turns out better. Happy Holidays!

The Unshakeables: Will Robinson Meets Santa Claus

 

I’ve mentioned before that “A Vision of Sugar Plums” from the first season of Bewitched is my favorite Christmas-themed episode of any classic television series. But I don’t think I’ve ever explained why. 

 

Start with the obvious – it’s a smart and imaginative script (as most of them were in the series’ early seasons) and it’s a welcome break from the formulas that were recycled through so many episodes over eight years (One of Sam’s eccentric relatives pops in, Endora zaps Darrin with a spell that will embarrass him at work, etc.).

 

Beyond that, it’s a show that endorses a very interesting position on the existence of Santa Claus. I suppose if your audience is already on board with witches, it’s not that big a leap to Santa being real as well. But they took such a bold and definitive stance on the question that, when I first watched it at an age when my own belief was fading, it restored my faith. Sometimes it still does.

 

The story opens with the Stephens’ and the Kravitzes both visiting an orphanage, where each couple will take a child home to spend the holidays (do people still do this?). Darrin has his doubts about Michael (Billy Mumy), who starts a fight with another boy who still believes in Santa. Michael has been through some rough times, not the sort likely to be specified in a sitcom from this era, but clearly they left their mark. Samantha convinces Darrin that this is exactly the kind of boy who could use a couple of days in a happy home.

 

It does not begin well. Michael is polite but sullen, seemingly uninterested in any of the Christmas festivities the Stephens’ have planned. And when Darrin dresses up as Santa, he finally snaps.

 

Darrin: “Don’t you want to see what Santa brought you, son?”

 

Michael: “I don’t care what you’ve brought me. And I’m not your son.” 

 

 

That’s the last straw for Darrin, but Samantha has another idea. She gently asks Michael why he’s so sure that Santa Claus is just a fantasy, and that’s when we learn that Michael once had a father who told him so and…the episode doesn’t reveal what happened to that clearly-departed dad, but we can only assume it wasn’t good.

 

“Suppose I were to tell you it really isn’t exactly that way?” Samantha says, to which Michael responds. “Prove it.” And that’s when Sam does something she rarely did over the course of 254 episodes: she reveals her identity as a witch – and then offers to fly Michael to the North Pole to visit the real Santa Claus. 

 

 

And then another surprise – Darrin, who lives in perpetual fear about anyone learning his wife’s secret, not only assents given the circumstances, he can’t resist taking the trip with them.

 

What follows I will leave for those who have never seen this classic to discover. But as one might expect Michael is transformed by the journey after learning the true meaning of Christmas.

 

But did it really happen? Sam later finds Darrin and Michael both asleep on the living room couch, and then Darrin tells her the crazy dream he had about visiting Santa. So that settles that…except for those slushy footprints on the carpet…

 

 

And as an extra bonus, “A Vision of Sugar Plums” also gives us one more “almost gotcha” with Gladys Kravitz, and a brief guest appearance by Bill Daily one year before I Dream of Jeannie.

 

Billy Mumy is believable, as he was in everything – one of those child actors with a maturity that never seems inauthentic to his age. It’s admirable how Darrin does what he thinks is the right thing by giving Michael a cheerful holiday of sugarplums and giftwrapped presents. But Samantha recognizes how that’s not going to suffice, and relates to Michael with a more direct approach, and in doing so restores his sense of hope and wonder.  Life had knocked him down a few times, but now we can see that he is going to be just fine.

 

This would not be Sam’s last meeting with Santa or her only visit to the North Pole. She flew grumpy old Charles Lane up there in another classic holiday episode called “Humbug Not to Be Spoken Here” (1967). But for me “A Vision of Sugar Plums” has just a little more magic than all of the other Christmas stories I watch every year. And it’s all the proof I need that Santa Claus is real – at least in TV Land. 

 

 

The Subversive Pleasure of Watching Christmas Shows After Christmas

 

March is right around the corner, but this week I watched two classic Christmas episodes: “The Angel’s Sweater” (Father Knows Best) and “The Voice of Christmas” (The Brady Bunch). 

 

 

Why? Because I can remember a time when doing so wasn’t possible. 

 

I think you would have to be over the age of 50 to understand the satisfaction that comes with watching a Christmas show out of season.

 

Until the first videocassette recorders hit the consumer market, watching any episode of television – especially a Christmas episode – was often a one and done experience. Holiday shows were rarely rerun over the summer, and usually left out of the line-up when that show went into syndication.

 

That’s why, even after decades of watching The Brady Bunch in reruns, I did not see “The Voice of Christmas” until sometime after the year 2000. That’s more than a decade after A Very Brady Christmas aired in 1988.

 

When I watched it the other day, I remembered as I always do what it felt like to finally see it during a holiday marathon on TV Land, and what a treat it was to experience a “new” episode of this show so many years after it ended. 

 

 

I enjoyed every moment: Carol’s excitement over singing a solo in church jeopardized by a sudden case of laryngitis; the Brady boys trying to shove a huge Christmas tree through the front door, until their dad shows them an easier way; Mike, confident that he lived in a healthy, functioning society, leaving his six year-old daughter alone in a department store while she waits to meet Santa; that greedy little brat in line next to her, with his pretentious ascot and his mile-long want list. Cindy’s shining blue eyes after Santa promises her mommy will get her voice back in time: “He’s better than a doctor. He’s Santa Claus.”

 

 

From the opening scene of Alice wrapping presents to Florence Henderson’s rendition of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” it’s everything I could have wanted from a holiday episode of a Comfort TV classic.

 

“The Angel’s Sweater” is another standout Christmas episode, which I saw for the first time when the third season of Father Knows Best was released on DVD. It features a lovely and even profound fairy tale within the story (written by Roswell Rogers) that begins in the Anderson home with the pending arrival of Jim’s sister Neva. 

 

 

It’s apparent from the reactions of his family that this is one of those annual holiday relative visits that happens more out of obligation than preference: Neva is a dour woman who no sooner arrives than she starts complaining about “kids running around” during her travels. Kathy bears the brunt of Neva’s barely-suppressed anxiety around children. After the inevitable blow-up between them, Jim has no time to moderate a truce because of a burst water pipe.

 

Finding a repairman to make a house call on Christmas Eve? Seems unlikely – but not in Springfield. Enter Mr. Fix-it – a jolly old man with an accent from the old country who fixes the pipe, while telling Kathy a story about Katrina, a little girl just like her. 

 

 

The tradition among residents in Katrina’s small fishing village is to buy the nicest Christmas gift they could find and give it to the church as an offering for the poor. Katrina agonizes over what should she give, “What is the greatest gift?” she wonders. An angel tells her it’s a secret that everyone learns in a different way. And when Katrina learns that lesson, Kathy does as well.

 

It’s a beautiful story, no less resonant in March than it is in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

 

So many of the trappings of the season can only be enjoyed in November and December: the egg nog that suddenly appears in your grocer’s freezer between the milk and the cream, the carols added to radio station playlists; but it’s nice to live in a time when these Christmas classics are accessible whenever I need a holiday spirit booster. I’m already looking forward to July, when it will be 110 degrees in Las Vegas, and I’ll be watching Bob Hartley get stranded in a Chicago blizzard.

I Need a Little Classic TV Christmas – Right This Very Minute

 

When I watched my usual line-up of classic TV Christmas episodes over the last couple of years, it sometimes felt like just going through the motions.

 

Oh, I still enjoyed my favorites, and found moments in the rest that brought some Christmas cheer. But after 20+ viewings of some of these episodes, I began to wonder if they were beginning to lose their holiday magic.

 

That won’t be the case this year. I’ve already been delving into my list of about 40 shows with unforeseen eagerness. After a year of such turmoil and tragedy, when we’ve all had so much taken away, I felt a new and tremendous sense of gratitude that here was one source of holiday joy that could not be outlawed.

 

These are the three that I most look forward to watching again.

 

“Humbug Not To Be Spoken Here”

Bewitched

 

 

 

While “A Vision of Sugar Plums” will always be my favorite Comfort TV Christmas show, this year I find myself drawn to another Bewitched classic, albeit one with a very similar premise. Here, instead of Samantha bringing young cynic Billy Mumy to meet the real Santa Claus, she takes crotchety old Charles Lane instead. 

 

 

 

Lane plays Jessie Mortimer, president of Mortimer Soups. He doesn’t care about Christmas, and resents people who wish to celebrate the holiday with their families. There’s a lot of that going around these days. When Darrin responds that he’d rather trim his Christmas tree than deliver an advertising presentation on Christmas Eve, he is threatened with an ultimatum – cancel Christmas or lose the account.

 

That’s where Sam steps in, of course. After she brings Mr. Mortimer to the North Pole, they stop outside the home of Mortimer’s browbeaten servant, Hawkins – and watch as he and his family laugh and dance around their tree. 

 

 

 

Mortimer: “What are they so happy about? Don’t they know they’re poor?”

Samantha: “Mr. Mortimer, you’re rich – are you happy?”

 

In the tradition of Scrooges everywhere, Mr. Mortimer finally discovers the true meaning of Christmas, and celebrates the holiday with Sam and Darrin and Tabitha. The close-up on Elizabeth Montgomery at the end of the episode is one of the most beautiful shots this series ever broadcast.

 

“Too Many Christmas Trees”

The Avengers

In the wake of Diana Rigg’s passing earlier this year this will be a bittersweet experience, but it’s an episode that deftly folds the holidays into the series’ brilliant blend of sophistication and whimsy. The story has Steed haunted in his dreams by a scary, misshapen Father Christmas – could this be part of a plot to steal classified information? 

 

 

 

Most of the story takes place at a Charles Dickens-themed Christmas party on a sprawling country estate. “I hope it’s Little Nell,” Emma tells Steed when his costume arrives for the occasion. I love that casual assumption that the audience will be literate enough to recognize a reference to the waif in The Old Curiosity Shop. And who doesn’t love that moment when Steed opens a Christmas card from Mrs. Gale?

 

 

 

“I’m Dreaming of a Slight Christmas”

The Bob Newhart Show

 

The Bob Newhart Show is one of the few television series to feature a Christmas episode in each of its six seasons.

 

The story in their season two entry is one that sadly will be shared by many this year – making plans for a warm, festive holiday celebration, and then having them disrupted by factors beyond your control. Here, Bob is called back to the office on Christmas Eve by a panic-attacked Mr. Peterson, then gets stranded when a blizzard strikes. Emily’s “We’ll get ‘em next year” may speak for many in 2020. But if you can’t do what you’d like this year, sharing the misery with the Hartleys is at least a reminder that you’re not alone. 

 

 

Celebrating the Season With Kraft

Back in the Comfort TV era, a familiar expression when someone didn’t enjoy a particular show was “the commercials were more entertaining.”

I’m not sure how often that was actually true, but I can think of one example that is perfect to discuss during Christmas week.

It’s not that the show was especially terrible – but its commercials provide an example of how television viewing was a different (better) experience years ago. The medium reached a much larger audience yet somehow seemed more personal, more intimate, and could make tens of millions of people feel as if they were part of one contented, like-minded community.

How I wish we still had something like that now.

Our topic today is The Christmas Toy, which aired on December 6, 1986. It was produced by Jim Henson and featured new Muppet-like characters plus Kermit the Frog, who introduces the story and returns for the sing-along conclusion. 

It’s about toys that come to life when no one’s around, and a Christmas Eve when Rugby Tiger (who sounds and acts like Sesame Street’s Grover) worries about being replaced as a favorite toy by one of the newcomers now giftwrapped under the tree.

It’s not very good, especially when compared to other Henson holiday specials like A Muppet Family Christmas and Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas. Even a new song from Jeff Moss, who wrote such Sesame Street baby boomer classics as “Rubber Duckie” and “The People in Your Neighborhood,” isn’t particularly memorable.

But the commercials are absolutely wonderful.

Like many specials back then The Christmas Toy was sponsored by Kraft, with commercials featuring recipes you can make at home that helped to make every celebration special. Because nothing says holiday magic like processed cheese, described by the soothing narration of Ed Herlihy. 

If you were to create a list of the most comforting voices of the Comfort TV era, Herlihy’s would rank in the top five, along with Mr. Rogers. His association with Kraft dated back to company’s radio ads in the 1940s, and continued on TV through the 1980s. His obit in the New York Times described him as “A voice of cheer and cheese.”

He always sounds like a nice man. And there’s a story in the Times obit that confirms it: "He liked to recall a summer day in Times Square when he helped a blind man to cross at 44th Street. He took the man's arm, and the man said it was a beautiful day. "Yes," Herlihy replied, "this is the kind of day the Lord made for the good guys." The blind man replied: "I know you. You're the cheese man on TV."

If Kraft released a DVD of all the commercials he narrated, I’d buy it. 

There were four Kraft commercials during The Christmas Toy. The first extolled the virtues of giving food as a present: “The nicest gifts under the tree are those you make yourself.” Recipes include strawberry almond bars (made with Parkay Margarine), and cheddar crisps (made by baking a cheese dough mixed with crushed potato chips - these looked really good!)

The next commercial invites viewers to “Make your tree trimming a party with Kraft TV special recipes.” Highlights include chicken wings with Kraft barbecue sauce, and tangy potato rounds made with Miracle Whip.

Next, we see folks gathered around a piano singing Christmas carols, as the camera pans toward a holiday table featuring meatball sandwiches and cheesy fruit dip made with Cheez Wiz (“The marvelous microwave-in-a-minute cheese sauce”).

The final commercial offers dessert ideas for a New Year’s Eve party. Amidst an elegant setting, we see a table set with cappuccino cheesecake (made with Philadelphia Cream Cheese) and chocolate orange mousse (another choice that looked especially tasty). “Flavorful Celestial Seasonings Herb Tea makes a perfect dessert companion” Herlihy helpfully suggests.

If viewers thought anything looked good, they could get the full recipes in that week’s TV Guide magazine. 

What stands out now in comparing these ads to the relentless assault of today’s commercials is how quiet they are. No one is shouting, no frenzied music is playing, and the time is spent on describing creative uses for the products being advertised. Even if you weren’t interested in the brand, these are not commercials that beg to be muted.

They are also remarkably effective ads, because what Kraft is really selling is not just a product. Like Martha Stewart and Valerie Parr Hill on QVC, the company is marketing a positive, pleasurable lifestyle – an existence of contented happiness in a warm and comfortable home, tastefully decorated for the holidays, and filled with family and friends on special occasions.

Many of us have experienced such moments, and these commercials bring those memories back. And for those who find themselves in less heartwarming circumstances, the ads suggest you could at least enjoy some part of that life with a box of Velveeta. It’s as close as your grocer’s freezer.

Thanks to YouTube you can watch those original Kraft ads today, without having to sit through The Christmas Toy. And to all those reading these words, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Comfort TV. Now I’m off to whip up a batch of cheddar crisps. 

Five Classic TV Series That Should Have Had a Christmas Show

I love the whole idea of “Christmas in July.”

Outside my home the temperature is in the triple digits, and now that Independence Day is over I’ll have no more days off from work until Labor Day. So it’s nice to spend a few moments thinking about a holiday season that’s cooler and friendlier, without all the stresses of gift buying and lugging the tree out of the garage.

Watching Christmas episodes of classic shows is one of my favorite holiday pastimes, but for Christmas in July I’m going to focus instead on five shows that did not acknowledge the season – and what might have been. 

1. The Fugitive

This one bothers me the most. On the run for a murder he didn’t commit, Dr. Richard Kimble’s life was already an endless tribulation. how much worse would that ordeal seem around the holidays – alone, separated from family and friends, watching others on the streets experiencing the joys of the season. 

The Fugitive lasted four years, certainly long enough for someone to have come up with a holiday story; would he try to return home for Christmas to visit his sister? Or perhaps, being a pediatrician, he’d find himself delivering a baby on Christmas Eve, in the kind of humble rural conditions in which Jesus was born. This was a missed opportunity for a classic hour of television.

2. I Dream of Jeannie

Bewitched, the magical sitcom often paired with Jeannie in memories and reruns, did several memorable Christmas shows. 

But Jeannie never went there in five seasons, though there was a season two episode called “My Master the Rainmaker” in which Jeannie made it snow over Major Nelson’s house. 

That might have been a starting point for a holiday episode – the incident makes the papers, Dr. Bellows has questions, etc. Or, since she comes from the Middle East, could Jeannie blink them back to Bethlehem for the first Christmas, with Tony as a fourth wise man?

3. Hogan’s Heroes

Wartime Christmas stories often depict opposing forces declaring a temporary truce to celebrate a day of peace and joy. I’m not sure that would work here, as the bumbling Luftwaffe at Stalag 13 were never a match for Hogan’s elite team of saboteurs. And that would be a bit heavy for this series anyway. 

A better idea might have Hogan petitioning Klink to have a Christmas tree in the prisoners’ barracks, buttering him up about how they were honoring a tradition that began in Germany. Klink would allow the indulgence, which offered a way for the prisoners to get outside the camp on the pretext of cutting down a tree – and they’d use that opportunity to have an important meeting with the underground.

Actually, that’s not very inspired either. Just bring Marya back with her latest German officer conquest, for a holiday dinner featuring the usual “is she or isn’t she on our side?” anxiety from Hogan (but not, of course, from the lovestruck LeBeau).

4. Batman

Yes, Santa Claus (played by Andy Devine) did pop out of a window during a Caped Crusaders bat-rope climb, but that’s not enough to qualify for holiday episode status. 

How about this: as the citizens of Gotham City hope for a white Christmas, Mr. Freeze returns to give it to them – followed by a white spring, summer and autumn. It would have been nice to see stately Wayne Manor decked out for the holidays. 

5. The Courtship of Eddie’s Father

Such an obvious storyline presents itself here – Tom Corbett and his son Eddie face their first Christmas without Eddie’s mother.

Tom, as one of TV’s most wonderful dads, would try to fill Eddie’s season with joyful distractions – visits to Santa, the biggest tree in the Christmas tree lot, an extravagant number of gifts, a Christmas Eve party with all of their friends in attendance. But after the festivities end and their guests leave, Eddie tells his dad how he appreciates all of his efforts, but what he really wants to do is talk about his mom. And then they’ll have one of those warm, quiet, heartfelt best-friend conversations that no one could perform better than Bill Bixby.