🌴 The Advent Calendar House has awoken from what feels like a thousand-year slumber and a lame April Fool’s joke. As a peace offering, here’s the first of two back-to-back episodes celebrating Xmas as imagined by “Futurama.” 

It’s extra crowded in the cryogenic chamber as Michael DiGiovanni, Erin Evans, Joey O., and Donnie Storms drop in for 1999’s “Xmas Story,” in which we’re introduced to the annual tradition of gift-giving and shelter-taking from a killer robot Santa Claus that awaits our descendants in the year 3000. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

“Fresh Hare” (1942). 

Orange Cassidy sleeping through his own wrestling match. 

“Why Chaucer Said ‘Ax’ Instead of ‘Ask,’ and Why Some Still Do” (NPR, 2013). 

“Why is the number 1,729 hidden in Futurama episodes?” (BBC, 2013). 

The classic dangling from a clock tower scenes from “Safety Last” and “Back to the Future.” 

John Goodman’s other appearances as Santa. 

Randy Johnson hits a bird with a fastball. 

Corona Extra’s Christmas palm tree commercial. 

The lyrics to “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” are sinister enough by themselves. 

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📼 Commercials: 

Hess Truck 1999 Space Shuttle Toy. 

Stick to Shorts: A Classic Cartoons Podcast. 

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“Futurama” and “Xmas Story” © 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost. 
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.