🎉 It’s a special, post-Christmas bonus episode of the Advent Calendar House as we turn back the years to 1976 and tip our oversized hat hiding our oversized ears to Rankin/Bass’s first sequel special, in which Rudolph has to save the Baby New Year from a  big, angry bird.  

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Brandon Medley (@brandmed, Blessed Are the Geek).  

Joey O. (Y-Not Radio, Words with Nerds, @ImGonnaDJ24).  

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1. Rudolph devolves into a younger-looking reindeer, because the original model may have been lost. But also he seems to forget he can fly.  

2. According to our narrator, Father Time (Red Skelton), this story begins “on that very same foggy night.” As in Christmas Eve. When Santa’s kind of busy.  

3. I learned who Red Skelton was from a joke in a Tex Avery cartoon.  

4. The Phantom Tollbooth.  

5. Tik-Tok from Return to Oz.  

6. Creepier song about time: The Moving Finger Writes from this, or Older by They Might Be Giants?  

7. Ralph Archibold, Philadelphia’s longtime Ben Franklin impersonator.  

8. Billy Corgan rides a roller coaster.

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“Rudolph’s Shiny New Year” © 1976 Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.  

Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.  
Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse.

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