MY FAVORITE EPISODES part six

Get ready for a very merry night of television that will prove once and for all that seeing is believing.

A "Halloween Episode" was not nearly as commonplace as a "Christmas Episode" or "Holiday Event" - usually prefixed with "A Very Special blah blah blah." The message was typically the same: family, giving, a weather crisis, that kindly old man maybe actually was Santa Claus. And it was not uncommon to borrow the entire premise of A Christmas Carol and/or It's a Wonderful Life for an entire 22 minutes. But all of this predictability and parody translated into a familiarity and warmth as even your TV heroes were doing and feeling and celebrating exactly as you were: "Hey, how do they know it's Christmas?!" And then even the commercials were saturated in the season - it all created this inescapable circus of joy that didn't invite any specific cynicism or fatigue. Not as a child, not now.

So, like anything related to a holiday or specific time of year, standalone episodes can become tradition through the magic of physical media and streaming. And as far as putting you in the mood, it works - nearly as well as music. It's a bottomless playlist, but these 5 will leave you with a satisfying variety. 

- Paul

Dragnet

"The Christmas Story" (season 2)

The Baby Jesus has been stolen from the church nativity and Joe & Bill put aside all the hippies and homicides in L.A. to track down the newborn King of Kings. Everyone else, from their superiors to the people they question, suggest they move onto more pressing criminal activity, to which Friday responds in peak dryness, "It's the principle." SPOILER: it was all an innocent misunderstanding, which leaves a little boy asking, "Is the devil going to send me to hell?" In a moment, the results of that trial. 

All in the Family

"California, Here We Are (Parts 1 & 2)" (season 9)

In the superfluous (and terrible) final season lies one of my favorite episodes of the series. Archie and Edith travel to California to spend Christmas with Mike, Gloria, and Joey - the only time we see them this season (and logically the last time on the show). It's a breath of fresh air to have the entire cast together one last time, but fan service aside, they take full advantage of the original dynamic in a two-parter that contains some of the funniest and saddest bits of their whole run. 

Perfect Strangers

"A Christmas Story" (season 2)

Bad weather has prevented Larry and Balki from traveling to Larry's childhood home in Wisconsin, thus denying him the traditions and nostalgia he requires to celebrate the Holiday properly. It's an entirely otherwise rational thing to crave on Christmas (to me anyway) but in typical Perfect Strangers fashion, we're gifted with an existential awakening that gives us a more simplistic, Balki-like outlook on life. 

Hey Vern, It's Ernest!

"Hey Vern, It's Holidays" (season 1)

Leave it to the man who literally saved Christmas that same year to know a little something about yuletide pride, knowwutimean? Except the premise here is that Ernest attempts to celebrate an entire year's worth of holidays in a single day (including the Indy 500 and something called "Meat Week"). So this installment is a bit of a Swiss Army Knife; you need something to watch next Flag Day, Ernest is your man. 

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

"Man Milk" (season 5)

A decidedly provocative and organized half hour of television featuring Ben Hur, Steve Brule, and the breakout debut of Tayne. More pertinently, our two handsome boys have began lactating and they have kindly (though foolishly) decided to bottle their unpasteurized man milk and gift it to their friends for the holidays, resulting in a creamy white orgy of dairy death. Great job!