🎄 It’s Christmas Eve, and we’re celebrating with the first Christmas special I ever remember watching, from 1978. 

🎙️ Erin Evans and Joey O. help bring Advent to a close as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street,” in which Big Bird worries Santa’s unfit for skinny chimneys, Mr. Hooper spends his Hanukkah saving Christmas, and we get a possible clue into how to get to Sesame Street. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

My taped copy of this is interrupted in the middle by a WHYY telethon with Philadelphia TV legend Ed Cunningham. 

The Count’s amazing ice-skating cape. 

The wibbly-wobbly physics of Oscar’s trash can. 

Olivia married the Predator. 

A cameo by Mr. Macintosh. 

If you want to go read about Northern Calloway (David) and his off-screen troubles and tragic death, proceed with caution. 

The adorable 2-year-old girl too little for her own vocabulary trying to explain that Santa pushes a magic button to go down chimneys is now in her 40s. 

“Don’t Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” 

An oral history of Mr. Snuffleupagus’s revelation as not imaginary. 

Oscar holds a broom like it’s Not His Broom. 

Ernie’s pajamas look like the background of the “Trololo” video. 

Joey makes my Christmas by assuring me I didn’t imagine “The Candy Apple News Company.” 

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🏌️‍♂️ After This Episode: 

Listen to my guest appearance on the Two Bad Neighbors podcast discussing my favorite Christmas-adjacent episode of The Simpsons, “Marge Be Not Proud.” 

Then go relax or take a nap or something. Hope you enjoy your Christmas! 

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“Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” © 1978 Children’s Television Workshop. 

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