A Special Edition for Christmas...
It’s such a time-honoured tradition that it scarcely seems worth a mention – the seasonal episode of your favourite series, broadcast during Christmas week, often on the day itself. It goes back almost as far as television itself, but only really got going in the 1970s.
The trouble with Christmas episodes, as far as broadcasters are concerned, is that they don’t fit nicely into a run of repeats, which could end up being scheduled at any time of year. If there’s a Christmas episode in the run, what do you do? Omit it, ignore it or take the trouble to schedule it at the appropriate time of year? In America, where episodic television series are sold into syndication after their network debuts, this would have been something of a headache. There certainly were Christmas episodes of television series as far back as the 1950s – I’ve seen an example of Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners, dating to that era – but not all series played the festive card. Of the 144 episodes of The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sgt Bilko), produced from 1955 to 1959, there isn’t a single Christmas episode. Granted, there are a couple where the platoon is snowed in by blizzards, but at Fort Baxter it’s a case of, to paraphrase Narnia, ‘sometimes winter, never Christmas.’
Here in Britain, we’ve got used to Christmas Day television: the schedule will invariably comprise family films, a brand-new children’s animation, and ‘Christmas episodes’ of everything from Dr. Who to Call the Midwife. These Christmas Day episodes aren’t always set at Christmas, though, a fact which I’ve often found disappointing – such episode are ‘special’ only in terms of their length (over an hour for a standard sitcom) and the transmission date. To me, a bona fide Christmas episode has to be set in the festive season. This, of course, presents production teams with obvious problems: most Christmas episodes tend to be filmed in the summer or early autumn, and any location work immediately gives the game away: I’ve seen so-called ‘Christmas’ episodes, purporting to take place during December, where the trees are still in full leaf. So it’s easy to understand why some of them avoid a seasonal setting.
Looking back through some BBC listings from the very early 60s, the Christmas week line-up usually featured a sitcom or two, although not in the profusion that we see today. As for drama series, it was rare indeed to find festive episodes that far back, with one of the first examples I can find coming in 1961 with Maigret’s A Crime for Christmas, broadcast on Boxing night.
The following year saw in a new tradition: rather than complete episodes of popular series, short sketches of ten to fifteen minutes’ duration would be bundled together, with links from an avuncular presenter, in this case Eamonn Andrews. Although in later years the accent would be on comedy, this first edition of BBC Television’s Christmas Night With the Stars, lasting ninety-five minutes, found room for music spots from the likes of Russ Conway, Kenneth McKellar and Adam Faith; variety in the form of Billy Cotton’s popular Band Show; light drama from Dixon of Dock Green: and even an edition of Juke Box Jury – albeit the latter was, according to the Radio Times, a comedy sketch featuring characters from sitcoms Citizen James and Hugh and I.
ITV did something similar, with their ‘All Star Comedy Carnival’, a kind of fun-size grab bag of sitcom goodies which peaked in the early 70s with contents including On the Buses, Please Sir! Doctor in the House, Father Dear Father and a host of others. By the early 80s, though, this festive tradition was all but played out, with its last gasp coming on Monday 27 December 1982. BBC1’s The Funny Side of Christmas was exactly like its 70s counterparts, a line-up of short Christmas sketches from the likes of The Two Ronnies, Yes Prime Minister, Last of the Summer Wine and Butterflies. I remember watching this at the time and being surprised at the inclusion of a Reginald Perrin sketch – there hadn’t been a Reginald Perrin series since 1979, which suggested that this particular festive segment had been lying on the shelf for some time. Equally head-scratching was the BBC’s decision to repeat the compilation on Monday 22 August of the following year!
Whilst many series have celebrated Christmas on numerous occasions, the best of the festive episodes tended to do it once and once only: there’s only one Christmas Good Life, and it couldn’t have been bettered. Equally, there’s only a solitary seasonal episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, unique for the one and only appearance in the series of Rodney Bewes’ beard. Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em served up a bona fide set-at-Christmas extended special in 1974, but the following year’s episode was poor stuff by comparison, much of it being taken up with a drawn-out segment featuring David Jacobs encountering some of Frank’s attempts at DIY. The series’ third Christmas special was one of the ‘not set at Christmas’ variety and focused on Frank taking flying lessons, but still failed to live up to the standard of that first year.
Porridge clocked up two – 1975’s No Way Out saw a planned Christmas escape while the following year’s edition, The Desperate Hours had Fletcher caught up in a hostage situation, while Steptoe and Son didn't get a Christmas episode until the show was more than ten years old – then two came along at once. Last of the Summer Wine, on the other hand, just kept on churning them out. An early example, A Merry Heatwave had the characters celebrating Christmas in the summer – writer Roy Clarke must have thought he could have his Christmas cake and eat it.
Dr. Who has presented Christmas episodes on numerous occasions since its return in 2005, some of them snow-covered, others not: but the Doctor’s first brush with the festive season came all of fifty-nine years ago. It happened that on this particular year, 1965, Christmas Day fell on a Saturday, and Saturday was Dr. Who day. The production team therefore decided to interrupt the ongoing epic The Daleks’ Master Plan with a lighthearted romp that saw the series regulars involved in a brush with the law before a madcap chase around a silent film studio. To cap it all, William Hartnell broke the fourth wall, raising a glass and wishing a merry Christmas to everyone at home! Opinion is divided as to whether this was planned or ad libbed, but given that the programme was recorded in advance of transmission, an unwanted ad lib could surely have been edited out. The episode no longer exists, but you can view a reconstruction from off-air photos here:
Gerry Anderson’s puppets, on the other hand, did what they were told. His Supermarionation series clocked up three Christmas episodes, beginning with Stingray, whose festive edition was first broadcast on 20 December 1964. Thunderbirds also managed a Christmas edition, first seen by viewers in the ATV Midland region on Christmas Day 1966. I happen to remember Christmas Day 1966 very well – it was a brilliantly sunny day, the first time I’d ever seen blue skies at Christmas – and while I can remember the bicycle I had bought for me and various other presents, I’ve got no recollection of Thunderbirds featuring anywhere in the mix. Quite likely, given the nature of Christmas Day, it got overlooked, and I don’t remember being aware that there even was a Christmas episode of Thunderbirds until some years later.
Captain Scarlet and Christmas simply weren’t a good mix: the tone of the series was just too dark to admit of a Christmas edition, although there were a couple set in snowy landscapes that often seemed to get broadcast close to the festive season. Joe 90, however, with its warmer, character-driven feel went all Christmassy the following year with an episode that feels almost like a puppet version of the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas.
And with that, puppets and Christmas parted company. The Secret Service would have been a natural, but with only 13 episodes in the run, there wasn’t room for a seasonal outing for Father Unwin. Gerry’s next Christmas episode wouldn’t come until 1983's Terrahawks with the episode A Christmas Miracle, going out on Christmas Eve.
As viewers drift away from conventional broadcast television to streaming services, will the tradition of Christmas episodes continue? Almost certainly: the addition of a bit of snow and holly to any popular TV series will no doubt remain popular for as long as Christmas itself continues to be celebrated. One day, though, perhaps not far off, there may no longer be such a thing as a ‘Christmas Day schedule’ and viewers will simply pick their festive viewing from an on-screen menu. This, of course, will mean an end to another festive tradition, that of the Double Issue of the Radio Times. For more on that story, have a look back at my blog entries of last year:
https://sundayinoldmoney.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-at-radio-times.html
"I bring you tidings of great joy... put another bag on." Frank Spencer does the nativity, Christmas 1974 |