The Massive Attack Podcast

Today we watched Bewitched Season 7 Episode 13 (another ep 13!) called "Sisters At Heart", and although it's not all that Christmassy, it does tackle the issue of racism.

Co-written by a group of African-American high school kids, we see what happens when a racist client come to visit the Stephens household while daughter Tabitha is having a friend over for a sleep over. Have we really moved on that far in nearly 50 years? You be the judge.

We've made it to the end of our first week, so to celebrate we found a delightful little tale of an ex-con who gets a job as a department store Santa in the episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents... from 1955 call "Santa Claus and the 10th Avenue Kid".

In what seems to be a bit of a recurring storyline, the not so Christmassy crook learns to see the good side of the season.

It's another episode from an anthology series again today as we look at the Amazing Stories Season 1 Episode 11 "Santa '85", not surprisingly from 1985.

It's the story of Santa getting arrested for breaking and entering, and the little boy who sets out to clear his name, and is a heaping serving of family schmaltz.

It's Day 5 today, and much like with Day 1 where we watched a couple of different versions of the same story, today we watched The Twilight Zone Season 1 episode 13 from 1985 "Night Of The Meek" staring Richard Mulligan as a drunkard department store Santa who magically gives out presents, as well as Season 2 episode 11 of the original run from 1960 with Art Carney in the Santa role.

Who played it better? Which one was the better version? Well, each had their merits.

For Day 4 we look at this slice of puppetry cheese from 1987, "Muppet Family Christmas". It features all your favourites from The Muppet Show, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock, plus a special look at a non-animated Muppet Babies, but is it really any good?

We think somewhere in all that homogenized, wholesome family cheer, the appeal of the actual Muppets got washed away!