by John Walters
It’s Christmas Eve—the day, not the Avenue Q character— and we think we’re probably not alone in thinking that Christmas Eve > Christmas Day. So, as tis the night before Christmas, here are five non-sugar plum visions that bring back merry memories.
Bing And Bowie
December of 1977. We remember seeing this as it aired. Think they closed the special with this number. It was a time before not only the internet but also cable and MTV: David Bowie largely existed for most of us on album covers or a highly rare TV appearance. To see him look so, well, normal. And it should be said: How handsome. He always could have been a fashion model.
Anyway, not long ago Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly recreated this moment, so we felt the original deserved its due. And whoever conjured this inspired cross-generational pairing between the voice of White Christmas and the Thin White Duke, only weeks before Bing Crosby’s death, deserves all the hallelujahs… ba rum pum pum pum.
Naughty By (Mother) Nature
Speaking of inspired, what Christmas special-addled kid from the 1970s (raises both hands) was prepared for not one but dueling burlesque numbers in a holiday show (was this the first shot fired in the War On Christmas?). The year was 1974 and into the established murderer’s row of Christmas specials (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, even Frosty The Snowman) someone birthed a new special that was a little cynical and a lot irreverent, but designed it to be aimed at kids: The Year Without A Santa Claus.
The top dog at the North Pole has decided to quiet-quit Christmas as he feels people no longer care about the big day. So Mrs. Claus dispatches two elves to Southtown, U.S.A. to do some market research. In the middle of all this Mother Nature, personified, intervenes, and it turns out she has two sons: Heat Miser and Snow Miser. The former is hot-tempered and tyrannical, the latter is more, well, chill. But they each are inclined to cabaret singing and have minions. Of course.
Within a few days every kid in Mrs. Papa’s 3rd-grade class knew the choruses to both songs.
Bob Hope and the AP All-America Football Team
How can we even begin to pretend that the world is a better place than it used to be if this annual presentation of college football royalty no longer takes place? Personally, I blame Ralph Russo. 🙂
We can’t say for sure what year this tradition began (1967?), but Bob Hope, who spent many a Christmas season either entertaining U.S. troops in distant bases or filming his Christmas special or both, did it all the way until 1995. When he was 92.
You can easily get lost on YouTube for an hour going through different decades (and noticing how ‘roided up everyone was in the late 1980s, early ’90s) and marveling at a young Steve Young being presented immediately before Bo Jackson, or at the hairdos of the 1970s (no wonder I thought college kids were so old when I was young… they looked 35). We chose this year, 1974, because at the 2:16 mark the entire squad breaks into a carol that seemed to inspire all future ESPN holiday programming.
Merry Kristen-mas
How many moms owe the upgrade in their Christmas present haul to this 2020 short from SNL? “I got a robe.” Our favorite moment: “And he got a robe.” Some commenter noted that the only way this could be more realistic is if the Mom (Kristen Wiig) was not in the Christmas morning photo because she was taking it.
As long as we’re here, let’s pay tribute to Beck Bennett for being the clueless husband in both that Christmas short and this one (from 2021, we think?).
Oh Waitress, We’d Like To Order This Carol
Can you name another rock or New Wave band whose most popular song is a Christmas ditty? In 1981 The Waitresses released “Christmas Wrapping” into the New Wave ionosphere and it instantly became an annual staple of alternative FM stations’ Christmas playlists… still to this day, probably. It was so long ago that half of America didn’t even catch the pun in the title since lead singer Patty Donahue was indeed rapping, not singing. The attitude, the lyrics… Cameron Crowe tried to find the authentic early ’80s teen angst vibe in Fast Times, and he came awfully close, but The Waitresses nailed it. That’s how come the song resonates. The late Donahue’s “deadpan, jaded” vocals feels like every teenager’s inner monologue, at least from that era.
By the way, the saxaphone bridge at 1:48 still slays (sleighs?) us. Listen to it. You were turning up the volume knob if you were driving.
The Waitresses hailed from Akron, Ohio, the same hometown as Chrissie Hynde, lead singer for The Pretenders. The latter band had a far more prolific career but the former the more popular Christmas tune (“2,000 Miles” makes you want to join the ranks of former Pretenders band members, if you know what we mean, and you do).
Above, the story behind the song.