Christmas TV 1980 Part 1 (Nov 22 - Dec 9)
Coming off of researching 1960’s Christmas programming I was struck by how little of it aired outside of Christmas week itself with almost nothing in the immediate post Thanksgiving period. Here in 1980 Christmas is definitely in full swing while the Turkey Day leftovers are still in the fridge.
November 22
Yogi's First Christmas
Kid’s of all ages got an early holiday treat with this feature length Christmas special featuring everyone’s favorite cartoon bears plus special guests Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound,Augie and Daddy Doggie, and Santa Claus himself.
November 27 Thanksgiving Day
Of course Thanksgiving Day was chock full of parades full of Christmas cheer with Santa being the highlight of most. CBS aired an animated version of the Nutcracker
November 28
The annual reruns of Grinch and Frosty. Some areas also got an early dose of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.
November 30
More Christmas parades dotted the schedule and CBS reran J.T., which I covered in my December 20,1970 post.
December 1
Some PBS stations premiered A Christmas Special with Luciano Pavarotti filmed in Montreal It would pop up throughout the month on different affiliates across the country.
December 3
Tonight saw the premiere of the second tier Rankin Bass holiday special Pinocchio's Christmas. Ironically it went up against the annual showing of Rudolph.
Johnny Cash's annual Christmas show featured guests Larry Gatlin and Mac Davis.
December 5
A big night for holiday special reruns with A Family Circus Christmas, Casper's First Christmas and Jack Frost.
New on the night was, at least in some places like Iowa City, (though the net tells me the official premier was the 17th), The Racoons Christmas featuring the vocal talent of Rich Little and Rita Coolidge among others.
Also premiering was the Robert Urich hosted Christmas at the Grand Ole Opry
