Christmas TV 1980 Part 2 (Dec 10 - 16)

 

Christmas TV 1980 Part 2 (Dec 10 - 16)

December 10

Merry Christmas with Love Julie

Julie Andrews is joined by Jimmy Stewart, Rich Little, Joel Grey, Steve Lawrence and others in this renamed rerun of a 1972 episode of her  variety series.

December 13

For the kids, a couple of reruns - Bugs Bunny's Loony Christmas Tales, and Twas the Night Before Christmas. 

For the grownups Mel Torme hosted The Christmas Songs from a year earlier and the premier of Perry Como's Christmas in the Holy Land with special guest Richard Chamberlain.

December 14

A trio of repeats started off the evening...

The spirit of Julie Andrews past returned with a 1973 Christmas rerun

Another rerun, this time from Disney's Wonderful World competed for kids attention with Rudolph's Shiny New Year.

Dance Fever had it's first annual Christmas Show

December 14

Deepening which reality you resided in there may have been a repeat of The Berenstain Bears Christmas Tree special.

The Little Rascals also got a rerun in that reality.

Luckily every iteration of existence had a repeat airing of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas

Next up you had a choice of sitcoms or variety

M*A*S*H* and House Calls versus The Osmond Family Christmas (with special guests Greg 'BJ and the Bear' Evigan and Doug Henning) and Highlights of the Ice Follies and Holidays on Ice.

December

Running throughout the month HBS had Christmas on Ice, of which I can find nothing online

The, at the time, seemingly eternal Bob Hope hosted yet another Christmas special (24 and counting), this one featuring Larry Gatlin, Loretta Swit and Loni Anderson.

This was followed by another all time variety great Dean Martin and his guests Beverly Sills, Erik Estrada and Andy Gibb.

Happy Days - White Christmas

Tonight's Laverne and Shirley sounds like it could have made a pretty good Christmas episode - the girls get jobs working at the gift wrap counter of a department store ad Laverne gets sloshed on boozy chocolates. Alas there was nothing particularly holiday-ish about it.

So, instead we turn to another beloved couple for our festive TV fix - Hart to Hart's "'Tis the Season to be Murdered"

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Christmas TV 1980 Part 1 (Nov 22 - Dec 9)

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.

(Wikipedia)

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.

(Wikipedia)

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

December 9

Youngsters, and the young at heart, had A Charlie Brown Christmas and Raggedy Ann and Andy in The Great Santa Caper reruns, while the grown ups had the TV movie A Christmas Without Snow, starring Michael Learned and John Houseman, to look forward to.

Festive Tidbits: Thanksgiving 1980

 

(Sources: Fort Lauderdale News Sun, Green Bay Press Gazette)