TV Stocking Stuffers #6

I have to admit, I’m a sucker for “ambient”-type programming — shows that feature relaxing scenes that you can have on in the background and look up at for a few minutes on occasion. The Puppy Bowl, for example, or some of those aquarium scenes you can watch on your computer. But the granddaddy of them all also happens to be my favorite — the Yule Log. The original idea came in 1966 from Fred M. Thrower, president and CEO of the WPIX television station in New York. It’s brilliantly simple: Video of a roaring fire is aired, with popular […]

If your only exposure to the experience of listening to dried fruit sing Christmas carols comes from the Simpsons episode where the family watches the “California Prunes” sing “O Pruney Night” (which happens to be “offensive to Christians and prunes”), then you may not be old enough to remember 1987’s A Claymation Christmas Celebration, which included a guest appearance from then-popular pitchmen … er, fruit … the California Raisins. The animated singing group was created for a series of commercials by the California Raisin Advisory Board to make sure their wrinkled crop was ingrained in consumer consciousness … and boy, […]

We’re back! We now join the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special, already in progress. What? You didn’t know they celebrated Christmas in Eternia? Apparently so. It only makes sense, given that the Masters of the Universe series was almost solely created to promote action figures that kids likely would be asking Santa for. In one of the lamer A Christmas Carol parallels, even the evil Skeletor has a Scrooge-like revelation thanks to the magic of the holiday.