By Peter Kenter
With Dec. 25 tomorrow, my holly-filtered thoughts naturally turn to … Christmas television episodes of classic sitcoms. I’m not sure if that’s a sad statement on my formative years or the ability of these shows to tap into the holiday zeitgeist.
Why classic TV? When it comes right down to it, I’d rather share that holiday with The Partridge Family and its Piet Mondrian schoolbus, stranded in the desert on Christmas Eve, than Breaking Bad’s meth-cooking chemistry teacher Walter White any day.
Before the Internet, there was no way to know how many episodes of a TV series had been produced and what they were about. Around the third week of December, they’d trot out all of the Christmas-themed episodes of syndicated programming and jam them end to end in afternoon time slots.
A standout Christmas episode of The Beverly Hillbillies had the clan receiving a boat and trailer from banker Milburn Drysdale. They leverage the holiday spirit by spending the rest of Christmas driving it around the Los Angeles freeways, trailing behind their truck, as everyone else appears to be doing.
My favourite shows involved TV characters packing up cars with presents and taking a Christmas road trip. The best episode was the one where characters from Green Acres and Petticoat Junction loaded up their cars and drove to Beverly … Hills, that is.
The Clampett family had previously visited Petticoat Junction at Christmas, but this was like the mind-blowing intersection of three worlds, with Oliver and Lisa Douglas from Green Acres sharing turkey around the billiard table at the Clampett mansion. It was the kind of secret knowledge you wanted to keep to yourself, perhaps to impress a girl so bookish she probably didn’t exist.
I rarely received what I asked for at Christmas, but I still cherish a Beverly Hillbillies jigsaw puzzle, featuring the Clampetts riding around in their dilapidated truck.
Even offbeat sitcoms such as The Munsters embraced the Yuletide season, with Herman and Grandpa appearing in the Munster Koach as part of the 1965 Macy’s Santa Claus Parade in New York City. Another favourite episode features the cast of Gilligan’s Island moping in front of their huts on a tropical Christmas day, then receiving a visit from Saint Nick himself. “You might have been lost at sea and never reached this island,” says Santa. “Or hit an island that had no food or water.” The castaways agree that they’re pretty darned lucky, but, assuming they’re talking to the Skipper in disguise, they fail to ask Santa for a ride back to civilization.
That’s always troubled me. I know that the castaways were eventually rescued in 1978, but only after suffering at Gilligan’s hand for well over a decade.
In a parallel world, I rescue them right there on Christmas Eve 1964 — in the primes of their lives — and return them to civilization.
I start with a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter, airlifting the castaways to Honolulu and dropping off Gilligan and the Skipper at their home port. The other rescuees and I take a cab from there. I spy the Skipper striking Gilligan with his hat in the rear-view mirror as we head to Honolulu International Airport.
From here, we take a plane to Los Angeles, and charter a large Volkswagen van at LAX. I drop Ginger off in Hollywood. “Best of the season to you, Ginger! See you in the movies,” I call out of the driver’s window. She waves cheerily.
I next drive Professor Roy Hinkley to Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, one of the schools from which he’s known to have received a degree. The van breaks down on the way, but the Professor fixes the engine with a piece of string, a walnut and a candy bar wrapper.
I ask Mr. and Mrs. Howell if they’d like to be dropped off in Connecticut. “Good heavens, a Yale man,” exclaims Thurston Howell III. “Not hardly,” I reply. “A Canadian polytechnic.” We settle on Boston. Mr. Howell offers to write me a cheque to cover the cost of gas, but his cheque book appears to be missing. I settle for 300 shares of Howell Enterprises.
The very last passenger? Mary Ann Summers, that sweet little farm girl from Winfield, Kan. Seems I should have turned north from Fort Worth to drop her off before I headed for Massachusetts.
But it’s Christmas Day and the drive to Canada would be an awful lot shorter. Looks like Mary Ann will have to spend a couple of days at home with me.
Merry Christmas!
