Here's a small collection of vintage Christmas tunes form YouTube, many of which I've shared on Christmas50s60s on Twitter. I'll be making this a new series here on the blog. I hope you'll enjoy these songs and albums, some familiar and many obscure.
Monday's sole holiday offering was “Christmas Memory”, from the Robert Young led, single season, dramedy series Window on Main Street.
Tuesday, Dec 19, 1961
Tuesday the 19th was a tremendous night for holiday fare.
Things actually started off in the afternoon as Art Linkletter presented highlights of his “Trip tho the Holy Land”.
At 8:00 PM (Eastern) Bachelor Father presented “Deck the Halls”
A quick flick of the channel at 8:30 PM for the (now) classic “Have Reindeer, Will Travel” episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
At 9:00 PM Red Skelton brought his comedic touch to holiday with his annual Christmas show. "Freddie and the Yuletide Doll” featuring, you guessed it, Freddie the Freeloader.
There was no need to change the channel after Red because the evenings high point was coming right up. The Garry Moore Show went all festive with guests Julie Andrews and Gwen Verdon joining regulars Durwood Kirby and Carol Burnett.
Wednesday, Dec 20th, 1961
The New Steve Allen Show held it’s Christmas Open House with a plethora of guests including The Smothers Brothers, Tim Conway (back when he was still Tom Conway), and Buck Henry.
Next up was a rerun of the classic 1956 Father Knows Best episode “The Angel’s Sweater”
(Sources include The BBC Genome / Radio Times, YouTube, Daily Motion, The News Leader, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, The Press and Sunday Bulletin, The Honolulu Star, The Bristol Daily Courier, The Sacramento Bee, The Standard Speaker, The South Bend Tribune, Christmas Specials Wiki)
Christmas TV Christmas Eve 1969 - (London, England)
At 1:00 PM BBC1 had The Great Sleigh Robbery (1968)
Couldn’t find the actual cartoon from Czech animator Jannik Hastrup but I did come across this Story Teller version of the original book by Michael Foreman.
Not to be confused, as Google did, with 1963’s The Great Toy Robbery, a Canadian animated short with a similar theme set in the old west.
4:50 PMThe Private Life of the Robin
No idea how Cristmassy this was. The description, from the Radio Times via the BBC Genome, states
"A Christmas forerunner of the new series Private Lives to be shown next spring
The robin is Britain's most popular bird; it strikes up friendships with humans and nests in the unlikeliest places. At Christmas the redbreast on our greetings cards is a messenger of peace and goodwill, but in reality, it can be a belligerent defender of its back-garden territory."
Over on BBC 2 there was a Mantovani concert but no clue if it was Christmassy.
At 9:30 PM ITV/Thames presented Carry on Christmas. This first TV installment of the long running series had the Carry On team tackling a Christmas Carol.
Switching over to 2 at 10.50 PM would have gotten you a concert of carols from the Wandsworth School Choir
11:10 PM: The Spinners at the Phil Christmas concert from the popular folk act.
ITV, at 11:45, brought out Donald Swann's Christmas Candle. I wonder if it’s at all related to the Two Thousand Years Away special that aired in in the US in 1970 (see 12/24/1970)
