1980 tv

🎄 It’s 1984, and all we want for Christmas is our mom back. Join us as we turn around back to 1984 with Punky Brewster during her very special, very crucial first Christmas with her new family.  

WARNING: This episode contains Santa spoilers from 23:45 to 27:31.  

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🎙 Guests:  

Adam Pope (The Retro Network, @hojukoolander).  

Steven (UFO Club).  

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💬 Topics & Tangents:  

1. I totally missed the 2021 Punky Brewster revival series on Peacock.  

2. Ami Foster (Margaux) in Wrinkles in Need of Cuddles.  

3. The Punky Brewster Wiki exists and is very helpful.  

4. What do you mean, “Nobody would want A Bomb for Christmas?”  

5. “Santa Claus Lives in Santa Cruz” is a very obscure single that may or may not have been written for this episode.  

6. “I’ve Got the Sun in the Morning” from Annie Get Your Gun.  

7. Today’s TV Trope: Santa’s Existence Clause.  

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:  

NBC’s One to Grow On interstitial with Soleil Moon Frye, circa 1984.  

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:  

Wizards! The Podcast Guide to Comics.  

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“Punky Brewster” and “Yes, Punky, There Is a Santa Claus” © 1984 NBC Productions.  

Say hi on Twitter and Instagram.  
Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 It’s 1983, and Young Republican Alex P. Keaton is sick and tired of hearing “Merry Christmas.” It was a different time. Join us as we airlift our dirty laundry back to before Back to the Future for a Scrooge Sunday edition of Family Ties, in which Michael J. Fox is taken 30 years into the future to fix his family.  

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🎙 Guests:  

Molly Patton (MollyPatton.com, @molly_patton, @MoMakesStuffUp).  

Joey O. (Y-Not Radio, Words With Nerds, @imgonnadj24).  

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💬 Topics & Tangents:  

1. Michael Gross (Steven) on making the Christmas movie Noelle.  

2. Chris Hebert (Young Alex) in Fuzzbucket.  

3. Justine Bateman as Mallory as the Ghost of Christmas Future is the Best Dressed Ghost of Christmas Future.  

4. Justine Bateman as Lady Zara, Superman’s long-lost betrothed wife-to-be on Lois and Clark.  

5. Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter (Elyse) as Santa and Mrs. Claus in the 2015 Lifetime Original Movie, Becoming Santa.  

6. The time I went shopping on Christmas Day in the year 2000 and ended up finding the loneliest Hollywood Video employee.  

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:  

Atari Christmas Commercial, 1983.  

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:  

The Christmas Alphabet Podcast, Christmas from A to Z.  

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“Family Ties” and “A Keaton Christmas Carol” © 1983 Paramount Pictures Corp.  

Say hi on Twitter and Instagram.  
Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 It’s 1984, and it’s time to let the music play down in Fraggle Rock as we ring in Christmas in July on a quest to find the true meaning of the Festival of the Bells. On the way, we’ll visit Outer Space as Doc teaches Sprocket — and us — about the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, and Christmas around the world.  

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🎙 Guests:  

Tom Coombs (The Pop Daddy, @thepopdaddy).  

Donnie Storms (Bronwen’s Ghost, @boxcar45).  

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💬 Topics & Tangents:  

1. A clip from the British airing of The Bells of Fraggle Rock, in which Doc is replaced by a lighthouse captain.  

2. Gerald Parkes (Doc) in An American Christmas Carol as the Ghost of Christmas Present.  

3. Doc’s tool-themed Christmas tree.  

4. The John Wanamaker Christmas Light Show and Dickens Village in Philadelphia.  

5. The Weebabeast, in pictures.  

6. Gobo’s maze-like map to the Cave of the Great Bell.  

7. St. Nicholas Day.  

8. Mokey and the Festival of the Bells, a Christmas-themed Fraggle Rock storybook.  

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:  

Fraggle Rock Book Club, 1985.  

McDonald’s Fraggle Rock Happy Meal Toys, 1988.  

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:  

Hyrule Podcasters, an audio “Let’s Play” through The Legend of Zelda.  

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“The Bells of Fraggle Rock” © 1984 Jim Henson Productions.  

Say hi on Twitter and Instagram.  
Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.

🎄 We’re responsibly deforesting our way back to 1980 to dig up the first appearance of early Disney Channel imports The Raccoons and the greedy Cyril Sneer.  

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🎙 On This Episode:  

Michael DiGiovanni (Classic Film Jerks, Pop Culture Retrofit, @theatomicgeeks).  

Christian Nielsen (Pop Culture Retrofit, @hunkburger).  

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💬 Topics & Tangents:  

1. This special and an accompanying story album were narrated by Rich Little, a “Man of a Thousand Voices,” in his own, regular voice.  

2. The voice of Forest Ranger Dan is Rupert Holmes, the singer/songwriter behind Escape (The Piña Colada Song).  

3. Tammy Bourne (Julie) and Hadley Kay (Tommy) were both in 1980 movies as children who fall from great heights.  

4. Today’s TV Trope: Human Snowball.  

5. Where does the dream end and reality begin? Maybe it’s all in the St. Elsewhere Snow Globe Universe of Tommy Westphall (no relation).  

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:  

Canadian Tire’s “Scrooge Approved” Prices, 1987.  

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:  

Christmas Creeps.  

“The Christmas Raccoons” ©1980 PFS Christmas Raccoons / PFS Pooled Film Services, Inc.  

Say hi on Twitter and Instagram.  
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.  
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.