The Christmas Specials We Love

Hey HSWL FANS! On this Holiday Specials We Love, we are simulcasting a Pot Luck Saturday all about game shows, old Hollywood, and the television moments that somehow became part of our childhood DNA. We talk The Match Game, Family Feud, Hollywood Squares, The Gong Show, Let's Make a Deal, Press Your Luck, and Gene Rayburn's legendary microphone. Hosts, celebrities, unforgettable contestants, and w...

Hey HSWL FANS! On this Holiday Specials We Love, we are simulcasting a Heal Squad Sunday Setup — Easter nostalgia, childhood memory, cultural debates, and a surprisingly deep dive into forgiveness (with a quick stop at Liberace’s ceiling… but we digress). We talk Easter growing up. The outfits. The patent leather shoes. The “don’t get dirty.” The long, quiet afternoon where nothing is open, nothin...

Hey HSWL FANS! A little Bonus Kev time as we simulcast a little RGF St. Paddy's Day Edition! Kev takes us from holiday energy and Boston traditions into one of his wildest Kev-on-the-Scene stories yet.... He talks nostalgia (parades, opening day, people coming back to life) and then he goes deep on the Caribbean Festival in Boston, no spoilers here- you must tune in!!!. Underneath the insanity is...

Hey The Holiday Specials We Love fans, we are simulcasting a little RGF from the Heal Squad — We go deep into Mary Poppins lore — Walt waiting for Julie Andrews, the Oscar revenge arc, and why sometimes patience (and instinct) beats studio executives. We detour through Chuck Barris buying a bar out of spite, the slow demise of the newspaper comics page, we talk reality TV ethics sparked by America...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we simulcast a little RGF from the Heal Squad! We go deep into the great chocolate divide: Hershey vs. Toblerone, plain bar vs. triangular prestige, and why sometimes the snap of a classic Hershey square still wins. We talk frozen York Peppermint Patties, Andes Mints as the rare “free chocolate” victory, and the movie theater trifecta — Snow Caps, R...

Hey HSWL FANS! Happy Valentine’s Potluck! It wouldn't be potluck with out our fave-Hot Buttered Popcorn dancers and why they should be the next Super Bowl halftime show. We go deep into all things Valentine's Day! We talk Roman festival chaos to St. Valentine legends to the greeting-card takeover (shoutout Esther Howland), plus standardized lace, ribbons, and UGH! Cupid….Love and light to the Cupi...

Hey HSWL FANS! On this The Holiday Specials We Love, we are simulcasting a Heal Squad Regular Guy Friday with — candy history, childhood memory, Hollywood mess, and why certain things just don’t work the way they used to. We correct a major oversight and talk Life Savers. The rolls. The hole. Pep-o-mint, Wint-O-Green, butter rum. Checkout counters, impulse buys, and whether Life Savers have been q...

Hey HSWL FANS! Merry Christmas Eve Holiday Specials We Love Fans, coming to you from our phones and cars as we squeeze in the must-needed Christmas Eve chat. We talk the catering, colored lights, cookies, candies and a little Kardashians. Kev is on the seen with Elf Emily at the Mart reporting on the status of the decoration availability. We talk the much anticipated Cookies of the Past Podcast la...

Hey HSWL FANS! Merry Christmas Eve Eve Holiday Specials We Love Fans, coming to you from our phones as we squeeze in one more holiday chat. We talk the true meaning of the season, give an update on the progress of getting Rankin/Bass their duly deserved Star on the Hollywood walk of fame, and talk and how holiday spirit shouldn’t end when December 25th does. We talk Boxing Day — what it actually i...

Hey HSWL fans! This episode of Holiday Specials We Love we take on one of the more obscure — and mystical — Rankin/Bass specials: The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus from 1985. We talk the opening with immortals, spirits, and endless titles, and how it immediately signals that this one hits different. We talk candy-cane ratings -nine, plus an advent calendar or was it really a bag of circus peanu...

Hey HSWL FANS! Welcome to a very Special Christmas Sunday Sunday Set UpHoliday Specials We Love/ Heal Squad simulcast. We talk Christmas decorations, neighborhood light displays — the joy of driving around, tuning in, and appreciating the effort people put in just to make strangers smile. No competition, no spectacle — just holiday spirit doing what it does best. We talk seasonal standards. Holida...

Hey HSWL fans! It’s another Holiday Specials We Love – Chat Edition, driven by your questions and fueled by pure holiday nostalgia. This time, we dive into childhood Christmas memories — from first-grade holiday plays and forgotten Christmas songs to paper-plate reindeer, glitter disasters, and classroom parties powered by Doritos, cupcakes, and Elmer’s glue. There’s a deep dive into when we all r...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we dive into The Monkees’ Christmas Show — an episode that sparks debate right away and lands somewhere between two and a half candy canes and a half a ribbon candy-a new Holiday Specials We Love Low! We talk the odd babysitting story, the ultra-serious rich kid who has everything except love, and the way the show bounces between kid-show chaos and...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we dive into Davey and Goliath: Christmas Lost and Found — the 1965 holiday special that takes a quieter, more serious approach to Christmas- and earns a solid four to four and three-quartas Candy Canes! We talk Davey starting the special with no Christmas spirit at all, his attempt to find it by decorating the house, buying presents, smelling the t...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we head to the island for Gilligan’s Island’s one and only Christmas episode — “Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk.” We talk candy cane ratings, the reused pilot footage, and why this episode feels different from most holiday specials. We break down the early TV budget tricks, the “bottle episode” energy, and how this installment doubles as both a Chr...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we go all things Brady with the 1969 classic “The Voice of Christmas,” the very first holiday outing for The Brady Bunch. How the Brady’s  Zoom-before-Zoom opening sends us into a nostalgia spiral —  three channels, UHF antennas, and a time when families watched TV together. We talk the mix of sweetness and “wait… was this always a little dribble?”...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we dive-into or ummmm cry into Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, the 1977 Rankin & Bass Special with German roots. We talk how that what we perceive as our weaknesses can often become our greatest strengths. We cry with Nestor from the abuse from the other animals, being literally thrown into the snow, to losing his mom, to being physically a...

Welcome back  Holiday Specials We Love fans, On this episode we talk  “2000 Miles” and the real story behind the Pretenders Christmas song, the importance of a full package Christmas —Christmas Eve magic, Christmas Day travel, matching pajamas, family celebrations, and why anything less than the full package just doesn’t work. We assign The Brady’s and Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey as part of the W...

On this Black Friday edition of Holiday Specials We Love, we talk about how most people don’t buy because they want the item — they buy because they want the feeling they think the item will give them. And how that feeling is almost always tied to some form of scarcity. We look at how consumption becomes an attempt to patch an internal leak with an external object, and how that leak usually carrie...

On this Black Friday edition of The Holiday Specials We Love, we talk Black Friday Madness and not madness —the years when Black Friday really was Black Friday. We talk numbers-the peak of 2013–2014: midnight openings, camping outside Best Buy, packed malls, doorbuster chaos, and the kind of scenes that made the news (for both the right and wrong reasons). We compare that with Black Friday of toda...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we dive into Bob’s Burgers and its first-ever Thanksgiving special — An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal — the episode that launched an entire holiday tradition. We talk about the absurd brilliance of Bob’s devotion to Thanksgiving, his meltdown over being separated from his beloved turkey, and how one too many sips of absinthe send him into a full-bl...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we dive into Cheers: “Thanksgiving Orphans” from 1986 — one of the most beloved Thanksgiving sitcom episodes ever made. We talk the chaos that unfolds when everyone’s plans fall through and the gang ends up at Carla’s house. Norm forgets to cook the turkey, Diane arrives in full pilgrim attire, Sam’s date cancels and we are reminded of the struggles...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we finish the Halloween preseason strong. We talk Boris Pickett — the man behind the Halloween anthem that just won’t die — and his forgotten B-sides from the Spooky World days in New England. We then turn to Elvira, Mistress of the Dark — her Groundlings beginnings, her decision to finally hang up the black wig, and Cassandra Peterson’s honesty abo...

On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we continue the Halloween preseason with The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V from 1994 — widely considered the one of best of the series. We dive in to the three unforgettable segments: “The Shinning,” a brilliant parody of The Shining where Homer unravels without TV or beer; “Time and Punishment,” where a time-traveling toaster sends Homer through...

The Holiday Specials We Love: Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (1985) On this episode of The Holiday Specials We Love, we continue the holiday preseason with Garfield’s Halloween Adventure, the 1985 CBS special that gets us rolling into the season. Halloween is our “spring training,” Thanksgiving, the All-Star break, and from here it’s straight into the holidays. After the disappointing Thanksgiving...