Advent Calendar House
A salute to all TV holiday specials, but mostly the Christmas ones. Revisit 12 holiday classics and not-so-classics each December and July.
Episodes
🎄 We wrap up Christmas in July with an old-fashioned scary ghost story.
Adam Pope and Donnie Storms join the trip aboard the Mystery Machine back to 1984 for Scooby-Doo’s very first Christmas special, in which the gang tries to save an orphanage with the power of pageantry, and stop the mysterious Ghost of Christmas Never.
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries opening was riding the “Thriller” wa...
🦃 This Thanksgiving in July, I’ve decided to treat y’all to a feast of a special I’ve had tucked away in my memory for decades, but it’s finally time to cross those Bridges.
Chad Young and Tommy Coombs hop onto either side of our tractor for a hayride back to 1986 to watch a very special Disney family movie directed by Beau Bridges and featuring 3 generations of his family, along with teenage Jason Bateman and Courtney T...
🎄 Join us for a short spin back to 1993 as I spend 48 minutes blah blah blah yackety schmacketing with Sammy Hain and Joey O. about Taz’s attempt to spread Christmas cheer in a land that’s way under Down Under.
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
Tasmania was once home to the world’s tallest decorated Christmas tree.
John Astin (Bull Gator) in “Return of the Killer Tomatoes.”
How the origins of Taz’s creation involve Erro...
🎄 This episode is stuffed with surprises, so get your propeller spinning and take off back to 1987 to go barnstorming — or bearnstorming — above the South Pole with Santabear.
Ethan “The Hungry Reader” is our co-pilot as we nosedive into a Midwestern Christmas tradition we wish found a place to land elsewhere.
You can find “Santabear’s High Flying Adventure” on the Internet Archive, or a recording with the original comm...
🎄 Now it’s time for a Muppety holiday fix, so let’s turn the clock back to 1996, to a show I’m excited to reintroduce: it’s “The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.”
The Advent Calendar House welcomes 2 of Muppet Wiki’s finest, Tony Whitaker and Shane Keating, to join our Jingle Day pageant.
You can watch “Mrs. Zabarelli’s Holiday Baton” on the Jim Henson’s Family Hub YouTube channel.
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
Where i...
🎃 This year, Halloween in July has fallen on a Scrooge Sunday, so we’re hitting two holiday tropes with one garbage disposal.
Gerry Davila and Brandon Medley join us on a journey back to 1992 to watch Roseanne endure a haunting by the Ghosts of Halloween Past, Present, and Future.
At press time, the episode “Halloween IV” is available on Peacock.
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
🎄 Hey, remember the Christmas episode of that show on ABC where Snow White and Prince Charming are transported by the Evil Queen to a land without magic and have to adjust to modern-day America? No, you don’t, because you’re thinking of “Once Upon a Time,” which didn’t have a Christmas episode, which was rude.
But we’re going back an even longer time ago to the enchanted year of 1987 with Kristi and Bri from Bad Princess...
🎄 Cowabunga! In nearly 40 years of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, 2004’s “The Christmas Aliens” is somehow their only animated Christmas episode.
Anthony Strand, Shawn Robare, and Jaime Hood join the ride as we follow Michelangelo and a kitty named Klunk on a Christmas Eve car chase to save a truckload of stolen Little Orphan Alien dolls meant for a group of little orphan human Earthlings, all while Splinter mak...
🐰 It’s Easter in July, and those two things together are the least confusing thing about today’s episode.
It’s a race across the calendar with Michael May and Sammy Hain as we follow Peter Cottontail through time on his quest to reclaim the title of Chief Easter Bunny from the evil January Q. Irontail, voiced by Vincent Price, in Rankin/Bass’s first non-Christmas holiday special from 1971.
🎄 We’re snowed in a bit earlier than expected, so we’ve hunkered down to have a Christmas feast from around the world with the WJM TV family in a 1974 non-Christmas Christmas episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
Joining the party is film critic and author Alonso Duralde, who recommended this episode. A newly Revised and Updated edition of Alonso’s book, “Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas,” is being released in Se...
🌴 In Part 2 of our “Futurama” Xmas double-header, we meet the only thing worse than an evil robot Santa… two evil robot Santas.
Michael DiGiovanni, Erin Evans, Joey O., and Donnie Storms return for 2001’s “A Tale of Two Santas.”
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
“Box Car Blues” (1930).
Santa’s Death Fortress sure looks like Elsa’s ice palace.
Coolio’s final acting role before his death was a return as the voice...
🌴 The Advent Calendar House has awoken from what feels like a thousand-year slumber and a lame April Fool’s joke. As a peace offering, here’s the first of two back-to-back episodes celebrating Xmas as imagined by “Futurama.”
It’s extra crowded in the cryogenic chamber as Michael DiGiovanni, Erin Evans, Joey O., and Donnie Storms drop in for 1999’s “Xmas Story,” in which we’re introduced to the annual tradition of gift-gi...
🕎 It’s the year 2000, and Christmas and Hanukkah have crossed paths at my doorstep in the form of Santa Claus and his part-Jewish friend… a weird turtle man.
In honor of Christmas Day and the first night of Hanukkah sharing a day on the calendar this year, we’re revisiting some old Friends, an escaped tarantula, a restaurant we may never be allowed in or out of again, and an unforgettable interfaith holiday mascot fit fo...
🎄It’s 1986, and the only way Drew Barrymore can save her new friends is to believe in the magic of toys… and Cincinnati.
From director Clive Donner comes a bonkers adaptation of “Babes in Toyland” starring Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, and Richard Mulligan as a weird, evil guy who lives in a bowling ball.
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🎙 Guests:
Molly Patton (MollyPatton.com)
Becca Petunia (ToughPigs.com, Bear in the Big Blue Podcast, Bluesky)...
🎄It’s 2010, and I’m hiding in a closet from a flying shark that ate half my screwdriver.
I’ve finally caught up with the timeline of people who have been requesting that I watch the “Doctor Who” Christmas specials, particularly this twisted take on “A Christmas Carol” starring Michael Gambon in the Scrooge role and the 11th Doctor as at least 2 ghosts of Christmas.
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🎙 Guests:
Andre Bennett (Bluesky)
Jack Ford (Tot...
🎄It’s 1970, and a couple of bear cubs have jumped through my window and are eating all my marshmallows.
Join us on a deeper than expected dive into a Christmas special by former Hanna-Barbera animator Tony Benedict that almost wasn’t released till the owner of a now-defunct Florida theme park swooped in and saved it.
CONTENT WARNING: No animals were harmed in the making of this podcast. Unfortunately, I can’t say the sa...
🎄It’s 2003, and nothing puts me in a festive mood quite like a bar fight.
Join us as we spend Christmas break with the Justice League — well, most of it. Wonder Woman’s off doing something else, and Batman… you know, smells.
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🎙 Guests:
Joey O. (Y-Not Radio, Bluesky)
James Riley (Twitter)
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
1. Mike talks “Comfort and Joy” on Tis the Podcast.
2. Paul Dini’s notes on “Comfort and Joy,” ...
🎄It’s 1986, and Santa looks different after arriving late to the mall due to a flat reindeer.
Unfold that TV Guide you crafted into an angel centerpiece and join us for a semi-festive Christmas episode of “Mama’s Family” that will have you believing in either Santa or ghosts at the end of it.
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🎙 Guest:
Joe Fulton (Christmas Aficionado)
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
1. “Santa Mama” on the Internet Archive.
2. A M...
🎄It’s 1990, and Santa’s lost in my confusing network of chimneys.
Prepare yourself for a more silly than spooky Christmas special that takes us from Castle Duckula to a concussion-induced space adventure and back.
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🎙 Guest:
Adam Parker Sibun (Merry Britsmas)
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💬 Topics & Tangents:
1. “A Christmas Quacker” on the Internet Archive (it’s mislabeled as another episode).
🎄It’s 2020, and a gift-wrapped puppy licked my face and made my skin turn blue.
From the Chiodo Brothers comes a charming stop-motion Christmas special about how an alien invasion of the North Pole almost ruined Christmas — and the entire planet’s gravity, but also Christmas. Plus: A “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” Easter egg, some cameos from “Elf,” and Santa with nunchucks.
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🎙 Guests:
Michael DiGiovanni (Pop Cul...
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