What's on TV? Friday, December 31, 1965

There's no great revelation in today's listings, but if you want to ring out the old year with a smile you can do worse than the French classic Mon Oncle, which appears here as "My Uncle," Jacques Tati's Oscar-winning comedy about the dangers of consumerism (9:30 p.m., KXTV). Might be a gentle refresh after all the rampant materialism of Christmas, eh? This last listing of 1965 is from the Northern California edition. 

This week in TV Guide: December 25, 1965

Christmas may be five days away on the contemporary 2025 calendar, but in the world of 1965, which is where we are this week, we're right smack dab in the middle of the Big Day itself, and we've got plenty to see over this festive weekend. Our first clue comes with the conclusion of the all-night movie, Meet Me in St. Louis (5:00 a.m. or so, KGO in San Francisco), starring Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien, which introduced the world to the classic, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," not to mention the non-Yule "Trolley Song." By 8:00, the kids are probably up and ripping the paper off packages; what better time to tune in to Captain Kangaroo (CBS) where everyone celebrates Christmas by exchanging presents. At noon, conductor Carmen Dragon (father of Daryl, the former husband of Toni Tennille) leads the Glendale Symphony Orchestra in a program of Christmas music; the show won an Emmy when originally broadcast. At the same time, NBC offers the traditional Christmas Day service of Lessons and Carols, from Washington Episcopal Cathedral in the nation's capital; the network carried this live broadcast for many years, and I always enjoyed the music.

As morning turns to afternoon, it's Alastair Sim in what is for many people the definitive adaptation of A Christmas Carol (1:30 p.m., KCRA in Sacramento, 5:00 p.m., KRCR in Redding), while a 1962 operatic adaptation of the Dickens classic, composed by Edwin Coleman to a libretto by Margaret Burns Harris, premieres at 5:30 p.m. on KGO. Judy Collins, Ozzie Davis, and Chad Mitchell appear in "a contemporary statement on the meaning of Christmas" called Tell It on the Mountain (4:00 p.m., KPIX in San Francisco) KOVR has an hour of Christmas music from local church and school choirs at 4:30 p.m., and at 5:00 p.m., it's Miracle on 34th Street on KCRA. 

In primetime, singer Jo Stafford celebrates Christmas with the Westminster Abbey Choir, the George Mitchell Singers, the Corona Stage School Children’s Chorus, the Lionel Blair Dancers and comedian Harry Secombe in an hour from England (7:00 p.m., KTVU), and at 7:30 p.m. on CBS, The Jackie Gleason Show presents a holiday pantomime as a fairy princess guides the Poor Soul through a Christmas fantasy. Lawrence Welk joins in with his annual Christmas show, featuring a visit from Santa (8:30 p.m., ABC), and The Hollywood Palace rounds out the evening with Bing Crosby's Christmas show, which you'll read more about below.

But wait! Just because Christmas is past (although in reality the Christmas season is just starting), we've not done yet! On Sunday, Discovery '65 presents "The World of Charles Dickens" (11:30 a.m., ABC), in which host Frank Buxton tours London with the "ghost" of Dickens, looking at the settings of some of his stories, and "meeting" some of his most famous characters. Sunday afternoon, it's The Bells of St. Mary's (2:00 p.m., KTVU), with Bing Crosby reprising his Oscar-winning role as Father O'Malley, aided by a group of nuns led by their superior, Ingrid Bergman. KPIX carries A Ceremony of Carols (3:30 p.m.) from the Dominican College of San Rafael, featuirng music by Benjamin Britton. Aftert that, it's the drama A Star Shall Rise (4:30 p.m., KSBW in Salinas), the story of the Three Wise Men, with Raymond Burr as Balthasar. At 5:00 p.m., Bing is back, joined by Fred Astaire in Holiday Inn (KPIX). And, in what may be the final Christmas movie of the season, Fred MacMurray, Valli, and Frank Sinatra star in The Miracle of the Bells (11:35 p.m., KPIX). 

Not a bad weekend, wouldn't you agree? And there's more on tap with other highlights of the week, which we'll see shortly.

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premier variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

Sullivan: Scheduled guests: Brigitte Bardot, who comes on stage to chat with Ed; singers Leontyne Price and Sergio Franchi; comedian Jack Carter; Manitas de Plata, Spanish guitarist; the Remains, British rock ‘n’ rollers; the comedy team of Stiller and Meara; choreographerdancer Peter Gennaro; Topo Gigio, the Italian mouse; and Japanese top spinner Komazuru Tsukushi. (In reality, the guest lineup also included French pantominist George Carl, while Bardot's appearance is noved to the following week.)

Palace: Host Bing Crosby welcomes Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, songstress Dorothy Collins and puppeteer André Tahon. Joining Bing in a sketch are Hogan's Heroes regulars Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, John Banner, Robert Clary, Richard Dawson, Ivan Dixon and Larry Hovis.

Bing's annual Christmas show, the last before he begins to include his family, is certainly one of the oddest of his shows. In addition to more conventional Christmas guests such as Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians and Dorothy Collins, the show features the classic cross-network appearance by the cast of Hogan's Heroes, in a historically anachronistic sketch that not only operates out of time, it includes an overt reference to Bing's production company being the producer of Hogan. The way it falls depends on how you feel about Hogan; as a fan, I think it's a delightfully oddball moment that avoids coming across as stupid. They reappear later in the show to take part in the Christmas singalong, and it makes a nice endpiece to another of Bing's Yuletide clambakes. With or without Bardot, Ed doesn't have a chance. There's no escaping that this week, Palace wins the day.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

Every so often, the stars align, and it so happens that this week, not only do we get Hogan's Heroes on The Hollywood Palace, it's also the subject of Cleveland Amory's review. Coming into this blind, my assumption/concern/fear was that Cleve's review would be similar of so many that we read, even today, that misrepresent the show as being about concentration rather than POW camps, and fail to see that it operates on more or less the same level as workplace comedies whereupon the employees (or, in this case, the prisoners) pull one over every week on the boss. (They also fail to take into consideration how the outrageous fear and paranoia frequently displayed by German officers, including Klink, is actually pretty accurate, but that's another story.)

However, all you fans of the show, be prepared for a pleasant surprise: Hogan's Heroes, says Amory, "seems to provide week after week a fuller half-hour of fun than almost any other on the air—all the way from the fun tunnels to the friendly police dogs." The opening theme, he says, is "the best theme song we've heard," the writing is "fine fun," and overall the show is "fast and funny and, far from being limited, as might have been expected—after all, there would seem to be just so many possibilities in a POW camp—is, in fact, the opposite." 

This isn't to say that the show is perfect; after all, what show is? He finds Hogan "a little too satisfied with himself for our taste" (given that the character, and Bob Crane's interpretation of it, grows as the series goes on, this is a fair, if not entirely accurate, criticism), and he finds both Werner Klemperer and John Banner a little over the top. (Banner was famous for being a scene stealer, and Klemperer, like Crane, really finds his stride as the show goes on.) Richard Dawson, as the British prisoner Newkirk, is Cleve's favorite, which is an acceptable position to take, but overall, Amory would prefer that the actors play it just a bit straighter than they have been; "This is a funny show, fellows— but, please, let us be the ones who are most amused." And I do honestly think they get the point.

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Are you ready for some football? I hope so, because this week has some big ones, starting with the NFL's Western Conference tie-breaker between the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Colts (Sunday, 11:00 a.m., CBS). The game was necessitated when the Packers and Colts finished the regular season tied with records of 10-3-1; the winner will go on to host the defending champion Cleveland Browns (yes, you read that right) next Sunday. And the winner of that game? The Pack, after tying the game on a controversial fourth-quarter field goal, win in overtime, 13-10.

In the AFL, the defending champion Buffalo Bills, led by quarterback Jack Kemp, travel to San Diego to take on the Chargers (1:00 p.m,. NBC). The Bills take their second consecutive title (yes, you read that right, too), dominating the Chargers, 23-0. Unfortunately for Buffalo, this is to be the last year before the Super Bowl, and the following season, when the Bills make their third straight championship game, they lose to the Kansas City Chiefs; as if this writing, they remain one of three original AFL teams never to win the Super Bowl.*

*Mathematically, with 32 teams in the NFL, at any given time, there will be at least one team guaranteed to have gone at least 31 years without winning a championship. While this seems of interest only to statisticians, it ultimately points to a built-in futility in being a fan in the first place. Which has nothing to do with television, unless you stop to think of it while you're paying your Sunday Ticket subscription.  

 On the college side, we've yet to enter the era of insatiable bowl games. There are only nine, but we do get to see one of them, the Gator Bowl (New Year's Eve, 11:00 a.m., ABC), with Texas Tech playing Georgia Tech (Georgia Tech 31, Texas Tech 21). There are, however, three all-star classics, which were far bigger showcases for college stars back when there were fewer bowls. Christmas Day sees two, beginning with the Blue-Gray Game from Montgomery, Alabama (1:00 p.m., CBS), and continuing with the North-South Shrine Game from Miami (1:30 p.m., ABC). Friday isn't limited to the Gator Bowl; the East-West Shrine Game, perhaps the most prestigious of the all-star games, rounds out the week's games (1:30 p.m., NBC); among the stars in the game are Heisman Trophy winner Mike Garrett of Southern California.

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John Forsythe is the subject of a charming profile this week by Arnold Hano. The hook is that Forsythe is the star who keeps forgetting he's a star—who, in fact, is about as far from the stereotype of a star as one can get. Despite the five-season success of Bachelor Father, despite his new series The John Forsythe Show (the title of which makes him extremely uncomfortable), despite the fact that he lives in Bel Air, is on the board of trustees of the exclusive private school his daughters attend, despite his even having a mild ulcer—all of which qualifies him for stardom—he can't even get a hamburger done the way he wants, rare. The best he can get is medium rare, and, as Hano notes, he's apparently unaware that a star of his status can pretty much have his hamburgers any way he wants them; all he'd have to do is insist on it. But then, not only does he forget that he's a star, everyone else does, as well. Says the producer of his show, Peter Kortner, "The biggest compliment I can pay John is that after five minutes you forget he is an actor."

With co-stars Elsa Lanchester
and Ann B. Davis

He disciplines himself. He'd like a sports car, "But it would look so show-offy," so he settled for a Thunderbird. He doesn't need to diet, at six feet and 180 pounds, but his wife of 22 years is always dieting—"You know women. So I find myself dieting, too. No potatoes with that hamburger, please." And, by the way, he loves potatoes. He also loves sailing, but his wife doesn't, which led to her ultimatum regarding his 30-foot sloop: either it goes, or she goes. "Forsythe sold it to a close friend. 'Now I sail with him,' he says, in some small triumph. Very small." 

As a young man, he was the public address system announcer at Ebbets Field, where he met his idol, Babe Ruth, who told him that "he rarely showed up at the Yankee Stadium unless he had six or seven belts of booze. 'I was crushed,' says Forsythe." But then, Ruth never had the discipline that Forsythe has. He moved from the diamond to the radio studio, where he acted in soap operas. "I played the weak young brother who was always killed in auto accidents," he remembers dryly. Following the war, he moved to Broadway, where he replaced Arthur Kennedy in "All My Sons" and Henry Fonda in "Mister Roberts," before starring in "Teahouse of the August Moon" for two years. That brought him to Hollywood, where he starred in Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry, which allowed him to indulge in his true acting love, comedy. "Doing tense emotional scenes sets my teeth on edge. Comedy exhilarates me." In fact, what John Forsythe really wants is to become a sportscaster. "ABC offered me a job doing color broadcasts of sporting events—golf tourneys, skiing, track meets. That’s what I want to do." He was forced to turn down the job when The John Forsythe Show made it to the schedule. 

And think of what's ahead of him: years on the campy soap Dynasty, years as the unseen voice of Charlie on Charlie's Angels. As "a star who lacks the bigness of stardom, the expansiveness, the sweeping gesture, the carefree manner, the flamboyance, the zest and gusto of a star," who desired comedy more than angst, and really wanted to be doing play-by-play, I suspect it suited him just fine. 

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This is, of course, the final TV Guide of 1965, which means it's time for news organizations to assess the year just past; KPIX was scheduled to air CBS's year-end review, 1965: A TV Album at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, but it was pre-empted by the Packers-Colts playoff game. Two that weren't pre-empted were Projection '66 (Sunday, 11:00 a.m., NBC), with Frank McGee anchoring a two-hour evaluation if the past year with NBC's correspondents. And at 10:15 p.m. on Sunday (following the Sunday Night Movie), ABC follows suit with Year Out—Year In, with Howard K. Smith doing the anchoring and the network's correspondents doing the talking.

On Friday evening, Lorne Greene narrates highlights of Miami’s King Orange Jamboree (8:30 p.m., NBC), featuring Michael Landon as grand marshal. (Imagine that, a parade on NBC, hosted by a star of an NBC show, featuring another star of that same NBC show as the grand marshal. Well done, cross promotion!). I always enjoyed this, as a warmup to the next day's festivities; there's a note that taped coverage of the parade will be shown tomorrow morning. If you're looking to ring out the year with a bang, though, you'll have to find something other than television to help you along. There's no Guy Lombardo, no Dick Clark, no late-night celebrations with balloon drops. There is, however, this wonderful relic available on YouTube: the complete broadcast of the December 31, 1965 Tonight Show, featuring Ben Grauer reporting live from Times Square for the ball drop (11:15 p.m., NBC). And if that isn't a grand way to ring out the old, I don't know what is.

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MST3K alert: The Sword and the Dragon (Russian; 1960) A legendary Russian hero sets out to rescue his wife. Boris Andreyev, Andrei Abrikosov, Natalia Andreyev. (Sunday, 11:00 a.m., KSBW in Salinas) The movie itself is nothing to write home about; it's most notable for the voiceover narration being provided by none other than Mike Wallace! Not that unusual, given that Chet Huntley provided the narration for The Day the World Ended, a movie that should have been on MST3K. The highlights, however, are the interstitials, including what is probably the greatest-ever Ingmar Bergman joke. Granted, that may not be a huge category, but even so, it's a classic. TV

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Around the dial

It's kind of sobering to sit here, with the anticipation for Christmas rising, and realize that a week from now, the big day will have come and gone (though the Christmas season will continue throughout the 12 days). Have no fear, though; there's still plenty to read about in the meantime. It's a light week, as weeks go (I can't understand why anyone would be busy with anything else. . .) but, as always, the quality is high.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill commemorates the 100th anniversary of Richard Burton's birth by looking at three of his movies with wife Elizabeth Taylor, including the made-for-TV movies Divorce His/Divorce Hers. This was quite the coup for ABC's Movie of the Week when it was announced, to significant fanfare.

John's official Cult TV Blog Christmas post is here, as he focuses on the BBC children's anthology series Shadows, and the episode "The Waiting Room," which may be a ghost story, or it may be a time-slip story; either way, it's a perfect ghost story for Christmas.

At Mavis Movie Madness!, Paul continues the Christmas theme with a look at 1980's Yogi's First Christmas, which brings everyone's favorite bear together with many other Hanna-Barbera characters for a Yuletide story that's still plenty pleasing to watch.

Rick celebrates the end of the year with his annual review of his most-read posts of the year at Classic Film & TV Cafe. It's hard to limit them to ten, because Rick offers some of the most thoughtful and informative (not to mention fun) posts about classic movies and television.

I know that YouTube has something for everyone, but I'd never known there was a channel devoted to "Sandwiches of History." Well, I know now, thanks to Bob Sassone, who challenged the channel to try a sandwich made by one of our favorite TV dads, Ward Cleaver at Leave It to Beaver.

At Comfort TV, David honors the most recent losses in the world of classic TV in a year that's seen far too many of them. Fortunately, Terence balances this out at A Shroud of Thoughts with a tribute to Dick Van Dyke, who hit the century mark this week.

Finally, you've probably read about the Academy Awards moving to YouTube in 2029. There are a lot of jokes going around about this, so it's futile for me to even try and add to it, but it demonstrates in a pretty dramatic way how far out of the public consciousness the Oscars have fallen. Yes, I know streaming is the future, and the future is increasingly now, but still, considering the memorable moments the show has been responsible for in the past, it's kind of sad to see how unimportant it has become to television—or, for that matter, how unimportant movie theaters have become. But today's movies are, for the most part, so far out of mainstream interest that one can hardly be surprised. This isn't all bad news, however; perhaps now there can be an Oscarcast without Jimmy Kimmel as host. And that would be further proof, if we needed it, that God exists and wants us to be happy. TV

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Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

In all the years I've been watching Christmas television specials, I've heard recited, more times than I can count, the letter written by eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon to the editor of the New York Sun, asking if Santa Claus was real. (Just this week, I've seen it in two programs from the 1960s.) The response by the Sun's editor, Francis Pharcellus Church, which was published on September 21, 1897, is today considered one of the greatest, and most famous, essays in the history of American journalism. I imagine most of you have seen this a time or three yourselves.

How many of you, though, have actually seen the letter read by the very same Virginia? Here she is, reading it to a group of children sometime before her death in 1971. 

  
It really is a remarkable moment, when you consider that this letter was written just 32 years after the end of the Civil War, before the Wright Brothers made their flight. Depending on when this was filmed, we were on the verge of placing a man on the moon when she read this letter. It's a remarkable piece of American folklore, and even more remarkable that we have Virginia herself reading the letter on film. TV

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What's on TV? Wednesday, December 15, 1954

Aonight's Pabst Blue Ribbon Bouts (9:00 p.m., WBBM) features the world middleweight boxing championship bout between champion Carl "Bobo" Olson and challenger Pierre Langlois. Boxing has changed a lot since its glory days; Olson last fought six weeks ago, a non-title bout against Gareth Panter (which he won on an eighth-round TKO); all in all, he fought seven times in 1954, winning all seven. This is the third successful defence of his middleweight title, which he'd won in October 1953; he would remain champ until June 1955, the longest reign of any middleweight champion in the decade. He would up fighing 115 times, winning 97 and drawing twice. One of the great champions, although after losing the title he would never again win a championship fight.

This week in TV Guide: December 11, 1954

As you know, we're always on the lookout around here for significant moments in television history, and this week we've got evidence of its growing influence on pop culture. Our story takes place on November 15, 1954, although it actually begins much earlier than that. But on that Monday evening, CBS's Studio One presented a mystery about payola in the music industry called "Let Me Go, Lover." Before the evening was out—in fact, before the show had even ended—the switchboard at CBS was flooded with calls about a song that was being performed throughout the episode. What is the name of that song, people wanted to know, and who's the girl singing it? 

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

The song, which had originally been titled "Let Me Go, Devil," had been written three years earlier by Jennie Lou Carson. It had made little impact in the industry and was soon forgotten. And then, producer Felix Jackson came over to see the head of recording for the network's subsidiary, Columbia Records—none other than Mitch Miller—requesting a song he might use in an upcoming drama. Miller gave Jackson the song, which was retitled "Let Me Go, Lover," complete with new lyrics. When Studio One's press agent, Murray Martin, suggested that an unknown, rather than a name singer, be used to vocalize the song, Miller came up with 19-year-old Joan Miller, the wife of an electrician in Paulsboro, New Jersey. Cannily, Miller then saw to it that record stores across the nation were well-stocked with copies of her recording a week before the broadcast, and sent copies of the record to 2,000 radio DJs. 

Within five days of the broadcast, the song had sold 500,000 copies. (Yes, five hundred thousand. Talk about a viral hit!) Stores were besieged with customers asking for copies of "that song that was on TV last night." Such was the demand that distributors were sending their own trucks to Columbia’s Bridgeport factory to pick up additional copies. It made the Billboard charts on December 4, and by January, 1955, it would reach #1 on all three Billboard charts; it eventually sold a million copies and was awarded a gold record. Patti Page and Peggy Lee, among others, were preparing to record their own covers of the song. Miller, basking in the acclaim and well pleased with his foresight, predicted the record would sell three million copies. 

Miller would go on to become a household name as host of Sing Along With Mitch, and Studio One would continue as one of television's premier dramatic anthologies until 1958. Joan Weber, whose face was never shown during the program to heighten the mystery, would never again approach the success she achieved with "Let Me Go, Lover," and died of heart failure in 1981 at the age of 45. 

But in the wake of "Let Me Go, Lover," never again would anyone question the ability of television in promoting a song. And if you're interested, here's a link to her recording of the song.

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Speaking of television, which is our job around here, this week's As We See It editorial takes on the case of singer Gordon MacRae, whose songs were recently banned from radio station WPEN in Philadelphia. What was Gordon's (husband of Sheila MacRae, father of Petticoat Junction's Meredith MacRae) sin? Were the lyrics too explicit for the day? Did he commit some kind of crime? 

As it turns out, MacRae's grave offense happened on an appearance on NBC's Comedy Hour. Singer Dorothy Kirsten asked Gordon to sing a duet with him, "as they did in the old days of radio," to which MacRae quipped, "You remember radio, don't you?" The assistant manager of WPEN was outraged by MacRae's remark. "If these artists think so little of radio, I see no reason why we should lend our facilities to promote and publicize them via their recordings." Whereupon he ordered the station's DJs to stop playing MacRae's records. 

And this brings up a very interesting point, as the editor says. "Well, now, if the radio station is paying the assistant manager to eat and clothe himself and provide for his family, and he is therefore grateful to radio to the extent of being touchy about jokes at radio’s expense —why was the assistant manager watching television? Why wasn’t he sitting with his ear glued to his radio set, demonstrating, at least for his family’s edification, that he loves radio above all other media of entertainment, even that upstart television?" Good question. Furthermore, why was it the assistant manager, and not the general manager, who took such offense? "Was the manager, perchance, tuned to Toast of the Town and therefore in no position to hear and take umbrage at the crack?" Good point again.

Of course people remember radio, the editorial conludes. "It’s the medium that popularized comics' like Bob Hope and Red Skelton who made cracks about the movies. Can’t recall that they were ever banned from films because of their wisecracks, though."  

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The NFL regular season ends this weekend (with the exception of a single game played next weekend), and Saturday's game features the Baltimore Colts and San Francisco 49ers, from Kezar Stadium in San Francisco (4:00 p.m. CT, DuMont). Elsewhere, the Honeymooneres are in trouble when Ralph decides he can make an easy fortune as a songwriter on The Jackie Gleason Show (7:00 p.m., CBS), and Your Hit Parade gives us the number one song of the week! (9:30 p.m., NBC)

Can you imagine a Sunday with no sports whatsoever, except for Roller Derby (4:00 p.m., WGN)? Welcome to this Sunday, where movies, educational programs, and cultural broadcasts dominate. On Omnibus (4:00 p.m., CBS), it's Gore Vidal's adaptation of Royall Tyler's 1787 comedy "The Contrast," the first American comedy produced professionally. That goes up against Hallmark Hall of Fame's presentation of "Royal Physician" (4:00 p.m., NBC), the story of Dr. William Harvey, who introduced the theory that blood circulates from the heart to the brain and the rest of the body as the doctor to King Charles I. Prime time offers the Colgate Comedy Hour (7:00 p.m., NBC), this week hosted by Gordon MacRae, whose special guests include Jeff Chandler, Tony Curtis, and Rock Hudson. He bests Ed Sullivan on Toast of the Town (7:00 p.m., CBS), who can only counter with Sophie Tucker, opera tenor David Whitfield, dance impressionist Angna Enters; actress Virginia Mayo, who introduces a film scene from The Silver Chalice, and The Rudells, acrobats.

Producers' Showcase, where we've become accustomed to seeing such spectaculars as Peter Pan and Darkness at Noon, presents a change of pace on Monday night (7:00 p.m., NBC): the dedication of the Overseas Press Club Memorial Building in Manhattan. John Daly hosts the 90-minute tribute , with entertainment by Bob Hope, Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner, Marian Anderson, Perry Como, Martha Raye, and Eddie Fisher, as well as appearances by Carl Sandburg and Robert Sherwood, and Music conducted by Richard Rodgers. That's followed by Robert Montgomery Presents (8:30 p.m., NBC), starring Leslie Nielsen as a World War II deserter who decides to give himself up after a decade. THe only catch: he also has to give up the wife he married during his years as a deserter.

Milton Berle dresses up as Santa on Tuesday's Buick-Berle Show (7:00 p.m., NBC), with Uncle Miltie, dressed as Santa himself, heading to a local department store to greet the kids. Meanwhile, on Fireside Theater (8:00 p.m., NBC), a priest in France to help rebuild a church faces an ethical dilemma when he recognizes that the church's murals are the work of an artist who is a fugitive in the United States. Oh, dear!

On Wednesday, Disneyland presents the debut of "Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter" (6:30 p.m., ABC), a three-part "Frontierland" series starring Fess Parker as the legendary frontiersman, with Buddy Ebsen as his sidekick, George Russell. It's difficult to overestimate the impact of this program; historians Randy Roberts and James Olson would later write that "by the end of the three shows, Fess Parker was very well known, the power of television was fully recognized, and Davy Crockett was the most famous frontiersman in American history." By the end of 1955, Americans had purchased over $300 million worth of Davy Crockett merchandise, including the famous coonskin hat that would be a major seller by Christmas of next year. Parker would later portray Daniel Boone for six seasons in the 1960s; any resemblance between Crockett and Boone is purely intentional.

Ronald Reagan, host of G.E. Theater, writes elsewhere in this week's issue about the growing presence of movie stars on television (money brings them in, working on film rather than live clinches the deal), and we see evidence of this on Thursday night as Claudette Colbert stars on Climax! (7:30 p.m., CBS) in the story "The White Carnations." Colbert turned down a million-dollar offer from NBC earlier in 1954, but signed with CBS to do multiple guest appearances, such as this one. Later on, we get to see a pre-Donna Reed Show Donna Reed in "Portrait of Lydia" on Ford Theatre (8:30 p.m., NBC); Reed won an Oscar earlier in 1954 for her performance in From Here to Eternity.

The week wraps up with Friday's Person to Person (9:30 p.m., CBS), and this week Edward R. Murrow visits with the Metropolitan Opera's Rise Stevens, one of the best-known and most popular American opera stars of the 1940s and 1950s (you might remember her as the opera star friend of Fr. O'Malley in Going My Way), and religious leader Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who is probably positive you'll enjoy this week's show.

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With Christmas only two weeks away, the networks continue to roll out holiday entertainment, and this week's centerpiece is Arthur Godfrey and His Friends (Wednesday, 7:00 p.m. CBS), as the Old Redhead takes viewers on a tour of "Christmas in New York." The tour leads viewers past shop windows on treelined Park Avenue, decorated Fifth Avenue stores, and the angels leading up to the Rockefeller Plaza tree. Meanwhile, on Friday, President Eisenhower delivers his Christmas message to the nation and lights the national Christmas Tree (4:00 p.m., CBS, NBC, and ABC). 

On the NBC religious series Frontiers of Faith (Sunday, 12:30 p.m.), singer John Raitt and the Columbus Boychoir present a program of Christmas carols from the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City; the soon-to-be infamous Bishop James Pike delivers a Christmas message. Later that day, Jack Benny's annual Christmas episode (6:30 p.m., CBS) sees Jack deciding that Rochester lacks the proper knack for shopping for Christmas delicacies, and decides to do the shopping himself. Thursday night's Dinah Shore Show (6:30 p.m., NBC) features Dinah and guest Eddie Fisher singing "Silver Bells" and "The Christmas Song." 

Something else you notice in this particular issue is the number of local programs offering tips on holiday entertainment. As an example, Weekend Workshop (Saturday, 11:00 a.m., WMAQ) presents ideas and construction details for exterior Christmas decorations, The Beulah Donohoe Show (1:30 p.m., WTMJ) discusses care of your poinsettias, Creative Cookery (Tuesday, 10:00 a.m., WBKB) features recipes for Christmas cookies (one of many cooking shows with similar themes this week), and the Dorsey Connors Show (Tuesday, 10:10 p.m., WNBQ) offers "color schemes for a Christmas decor." Nice touch, don't you think?

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The first doll to feature a tie-in to a television show, we are told, was based on the CBS children's puppet show Foodini the Great, which appeared in stores for Christmas, 1949. Foodini was followed shortly by Howdy Doody, and today the sky's the limit. Here we have a picture of the various dolls on the market for Christmas, 1954, along with a helpful key to show who's who, given that many of these dolls are based on actual TV stars of the time who have since faded into the memory banks of history. From Rickey Jr. to Donald Duck, it just goes to show that television and advertising were made for each other.

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We'd also be remiss if we didn't share this feature on how local television stations used to celebrate various occasions with unique station identification slides. (To show you how little current television I watch nowadays, I don't even know if stations do these anymore. If not, it's just one more thing that we've lost over the years.) Here are a couple featured in this week's issue:

And to show how these weren't limited to holidays such as Christmas and New Year's, here are a pair of additional slides from other times during the year. WBAL in Baltimore even did one welcoming Daylight Saving Time! One can only wonder how colorful these would have been if they'd been seen in color.

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MST3K alert: The Mad Monster (1942) A scientist, ousted from his university, develops a method for transplanting wolf's blood into a man. Johnny Downs, George Zucco, Anne Neagle, and Glenn Strange. (Friday, 3:00 p.m., WGN) OK, this is a really bad movie; it makes it to MST3K on merit. We do have the consolation of another episode of Radar Men from the Moon, however. And don't feel too sorry for Glenn Strange as Petro, the monster: he'll go on to play Sam, the bartender of the Long Branch Saloon, in 222 episodes of Gunsmoke from 1961 to 1973. Now that calls for a drink! TV

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Around the dial

At Comfort TV, David talks about how classic television can help one get through the holiday season with a little more comfort and joy. I know that this time of the year weighs heavily on some, and I'd wholehertedly endorse all of David's choices.

The A-Team has been messing with Roger's mind lately at A View from the Junkyard, tweaking the old and familiar episode formula, and this week, throwing it right out the window, in "Harder than it Looks." And is it? Well, read it and find out.

At Cult TV Blog, John continues his analysis of whether The Prisoner could reference Soviet Russia. This week, a look at "It's Your Funeral" and "A Change of Mind," two episodes in which the analogies to the Soviet state are obvious: surveillance, conformity, and punishment.

Television's New Frontier: The 1960s takes on a series that, while running for only one season, still sparks fondness with many who remember it: I'm Dickens...He's Fenster, starring John Astin and Marty Ingels. Blame Route 66 and Sing Along With Mitch for its cancellation.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill is back with movie reviews of some of her horror/thriller favorites, many of which you may have seen on TV (Dracula A.D. 1972, anyone?), and one that's not a movie at all, but certainly a favorite: the first season of The Twilight Zone.

Terence celebrates the 70th anniversary of Saturday morning cartoons this week at A Shroud of Thoughts, and what happy memories that brings back for yours truly. My sweet spot, naturally, falls into the mid '60s, but I do feel for kids who grow up today not knowing what this was like.

Finally, Martin Grams reviews a book that I can heartily endorse, The Moose That Roared: The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, a wonderful history of the show and its stars, by Keith Scott. I read this many years ago, and it's just as much fun today as it was then. TV

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How Hallmark comes up with its Christmas movies

As you know, it's a longstanding tradition here to present a Christmas humor piece as a gift from us to you. This year, we've been fortunate to obtain, through means that cannot be revealed, the transcript of a meeting between a famous television producer (known here as "Mike") and one of the leading executives in charge of Christmas programming at Hallmark. This heretofore secret document gives us unprecedented insight into how the network goes about developing its phenomenally successful holiday movies.

The office is sleek and modern, with a massive desk cluttered with scripts and a framed poster of a generic Hallmark movie: a couple kissing under mistletoe in a snowy small town. MS. HARGROVE, a jaded woman in her 50s with sharp glasses and a no-nonsense suit, sits behind the desk, sipping coffee. MIKE, an overly enthusiastic man in his 40s wearing a tacky Christmas sweater in July, bursts in with a thick binder under his arm.

 

MIKE
(breathless, grinning wildly)
Okay, MS. HARGROVE—can I call you Karen? Executive Karen? No? Fine, Ms. Hargrove. I’ve got it. The pitch that’s gonna REDEFINE Hallmark Christmas. We’re talking RATINGS GOLD. Emmy bait. No, wait—People’s Choice Award bait. Picture this: "JINGLE BELLS AND ALIEN SPELLS: A COSMIC CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE!"

 

MS. HARGROVE
(sighing, not looking up from her laptop)
Mike, it’s July. We just wrapped the last batch of these sap-fests. And "Alien Spells"? Hallmark doesn’t do sci-fi. We do predictable romance with a side of fake snow.

 

MIKE
EXACTLY! That’s why this is GENIUS. We’re innovating. Staying true to the formula but cranking it to ELEVEN. Hear me out. Our heroine: Brittany Snowflake—wait, no, better: HOLLY EVERGREEN. She’s a high-powered corporate executive in New York City. You know, the kind who HATES Christmas because her parents died in a tragic EGGNOG-CHUGGING ACCIDENT when she was a kid.

 

MS. HARGROVE
(raising an eyebrow)
Eggnog-chugging? That’s… specific.

 

MIKE
TRAGIC! Builds sympathy. Anyway, Holly’s played by LACEY CHABERT—obviously. She’s got that girl-next-door vibe, but with a power suit. She’s all about closing deals, firing elves—wait, no elves yet. So, her boss sends her to the quaint small town of MISTLETOE MEADOWS to shut down the local… um… Christmas Tree Farm slash ALIEN ABDUCTION MUSEUM.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Alien Abduction Museum? Mike, if you don’t stop now, I’m calling the police. And an ambulance.

 

MIKE
(interrupting, pacing excitedly)
YES! It’s run by our hero, JACK KRINGLEMAN—no, JACK FROSTBITE—no, JACK KRINGLEMAN. He’s a rugged, single dad with a heart of gold and abs of steel. Played by… drumroll… RYAN REYNOLDS! But get this: Ryan as a flannel-wearing lumberjack who secretly believes in aliens because his wife was abducted by them on Christmas Eve.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Ryan Reynolds? In a Hallmark movie? He’d cost more than our entire budget for fake snow machines.

 

MIKE
(waving it off)
Details! We can CGI his face on a body double. Or get his stunt double from Deadpool. Anyway, Holly arrives in town during a FREAK snowstorm—classic—and her car breaks down right outside Jack’s farm. BOOM! Meet-cute. She slips on ice, he catches her, they share a lingering stare while "Jingle Bells" plays faintly from a passing sleigh. And the tow-truck driver who originally pulled her out of the ditch? Unbilled cameo—ROBERT DE NIRO, muttering, “You talkin’ to me? …You talkin’ to Christmas?”

 

MS. HARGROVE
(leaning back, arms crossed)
This sounds like every other movie we’ve made. Except for the aliens. Why aliens?

 

MIKE
Because it’s ABSURD! It’s satire wrapped in cheese! Okay, so Holly checks into the only inn in town, run by a quirky old couple—BETTY WHITE and MORGAN FREEMAN, because why not? Betty’s the sassy grandma who bakes cookies that predict the future, and Morgan’s the wise grandpa who quotes Shakespeare while fixing the plumbing.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Betty White is dead, Mike.

 

MIKE
(undeterred)
Deepfake! Or her hologram. Moving on. Holly’s there to appraise the farm for demolition, but Jack shows her around. They bond over decorating a GIANT Christmas tree that’s actually an ALIEN BEACON. Subtle foreshadowing. Jack’s kid—little Timmy, played by that kid from Stranger Things, but with normal ears for now.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Elf ears? You’re losing me.

 

MIKE
So, opening credits: Snowy New York skyline, "Deck the Halls" orchestral version playing. Cut to Holly Evergreen in her corner office, yelling into her Bluetooth: "No, I don't care if it's Christmas Eve tomorrow! Close the deal or you're fired!" Her assistant—played by a cameo from Ariana Grande as a perky intern—brings her coffee. "Ms. Evergreen, your flight to Mistletoe Meadows is booked." Holly groans: "Small towns are for losers and lifetime movies."

 

MS. HARGROVE

Lifetime? That's our competitor!

 

MIKE

Self-deprecating humor! Cut to the airport: Holly's luggage is a designer bag stuffed with spreadsheets. Plane lands in a blizzard—stock footage. Rental car skids into a ditch. Enter Jack: Pickup truck pulls up, window rolls down. Ryan Reynolds with a beard: "Need a lift, city girl?" She hesitates, but climbs in. Banter: "You drive like a maniac." "Better than walking in heels." Sparks fly.

 

Scene two: Next morning: Holly at the farm. Jack's chopping wood shirtless—in December, because hot. Timmy runs out: "Dad, the aliens are coming!" Holly: "Aliens? This town's crazier than I thought." Jack explains: "It's tradition. Every year, lights in the sky. My wife saw them up close." Flashback: Wife (played by Blake Lively, Ryan's real wife for irony) beaming up into UFO, waving goodbye.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Blake Lively? So now it's a family affair?

 

MIKE
Chemistry! Montage time: Holly in heels trudging through snow, Jack teaching her to chop wood—SEXY axe-swinging scene. She hates it at first, calls it "barbaric," but then she NAILS a log and feels EMPOWERED. Cut to them baking gingerbread men that come to life—wait, no, that’s too much. Just regular baking, with flour fights and ACCIDENTAL kisses.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Accidental kisses? In the first act? Pace yourself.

 

MIKE
Fine, lingering hand touch over the dough. Tension BUILDS. Then, the town festival: The Annual Mistletoe Meadows ALIEN SIGHTING PARADE. Everyone dresses as reindeer crossed with little green men. Holly scoffs, calls it "small-town nonsense," but Jack explains how the aliens bring MAGIC to Christmas—literally. Flashback: His wife was abducted, but she sent back a message via CROP CIRCLES saying, "Save the farm!"

 

MS. HARGROVE
Crop circles in snow? This is getting more demented by the minute.

 

MIKE
THANK YOU! That’s the point. Satire! Now, enter the villain: Ebenezer Scrooge McCorporate, Holly’s ex-boyfriend and boss, played by… TOM HANKS. But EVIL Tom Hanks, with a mustache he twirls.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Tom Hanks as a villain? He’d never—.

 

MIKE
It’s a stretch role! Oscar buzz.

 

Scrooge wants to turn the farm into a MEGA-MALL for Black Friday deals year-round. No Christmas spirit there. So, conflict: Holly’s torn between her job and her growing feelings for Jack. They have a BIG fight when she reveals she’s there to shut it down. She storms off into the blizzard—CLASSIC walkout.

 

Holly's phone rings: Scrooge says: "Demolish it by Christmas or else!" She confesses to Jack over hot cider. "I'm here to shut you down." He: "I knew it. City folks like you don't get small-town magic." Storm out. Holly cries in her room, looks at old photo of parents chugging eggnog—tragic backstory monologue: "Mom, Dad, why did you have to compete in that contest? Ten gallons was too much!"

 

MS. HARGROVE
Eggnog contest? You're killing me.

 

MIKE
No, I'm killing THEM! Emotional depth! Act two low point: Holly packs to leave. Blizzard hits. Lost in woods, snowman visions: Parents as Frosty and Mrs. Frosty: "Holly, Christmas is about heart, not charts!" Song sequence: They dance, sing "All I Want for Christmas is You" but changed to "All I Want for Christmas is True Love and Aliens Too."

 

Rescue: Jack on snowmobile. "Can't let you freeze. Even if you're a corporate Grinch." Back at farm, fireside chat. Jack: "My wife didn't leave; she ascended. Aliens chose her." Holly: "I lost my parents to dairy overload. We both have scars." Almost-kiss, Timmy interrupts with Comet the puppy: "He followed me from the crop circles!"

 

MS. HARGROVE
Again with the crop circles?

 

MIKE
Foreshadowing! Next day: Town meeting. The mayor, who just happens to be played by SAMUEL L. FRIGGING JACKSON, says, "Motherf— I mean, merry folks, we gotta save the farm!" Plan: Bake-a-thon with love pies to sway Scrooge. Holly bakes with Jack, flour fight turns steamy. Kiss! Finally.

 

But twist: Scrooge arrives early. Bulldozers rev. Town blocks them with human chain, singing carols. Holly confronts: "Tom—I mean Scrooge—this farm is more than land. It's magic!" He sneers: "Magic? Bah humbug!"

 

Climax: Midnight, Christmas Eve. Sky lights up. UFO descends. Alien Queen (Blake Lively in green makeup): "Jack, I've found peace in the stars. Be with Holly." Beams cosmic energy into the tree, which glows, saving Christmas. Scrooge's heart grows three sizes—literally, CGI effect. He cancels the mall: "I'm opening a charity instead!"

 

MS. HARGROVE
(rolling eyes so hard they nearly fall out)
Grinch rip-off. Disney will sue us into the next dimension Another lawsuit.

 

MIKE
Public domain now! Act two: Heartbreak and hijinks. Holly gets lost in the woods, hallucinates from the cold—visions of her dead parents as dancing snowmen, singing "Let It Go" but with Christmas lyrics. She realizes Christmas isn’t about profits; it’s about LOVE and ALIENS.

 

MS. HARGROVE
(to herself)
Frozen rip-off? Another lawsuit.

 

MIKE
Anyway, Jack rescues her on a snowmobile shaped like a sleigh. They share cocoa by the fire, he opens up about his abduction trauma. Romantic tension peaks with an almost-kiss interrupted by Timmy bursting in with a PUPPY he found—abandoned by aliens, of course.

 

MS. HARGROVE
A puppy? Now we’re adding animals?

 

MIKE
Every Hallmark needs a cute pet. This one’s named COMET, and it GLOWS IN THE DARK. Subplot: The town baker—played by MELISSA MCCARTHY as plus-sized comic relief—is secretly an alien in disguise, baking pies that make people fall in love.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Melissa McCarthy? Mike, the way you’re going, you’re going to need a loan from the World Bank to finance this.

 

MIKE
Cameo! One scene. She slips Holly a pie, and suddenly Holly’s dreaming of Jack in tights—like, superhero tights, but Christmas-themed. Wake up, embarrassment. Then, the BIG reveal: The Christmas tree farm is built on an ANCIENT ALIEN LANDING SITE. Every Christmas Eve, aliens come to recharge SANTA’S SLEIGH with cosmic energy. If the farm closes, NO MORE CHRISTMAS WORLDWIDE!

 

MS. HARGROVE
(sarcastically)
Oh, sure. Because Santa needs aliens. This is beyond clichéd—it’s clinically insane.

 

MIKE
Insanely PROFITABLE! Think merchandise: Glowing Comet plushies. Alien ornaments. Now, climax: Christmas Eve. Scrooge arrives with BULLDOZERS. The town rallies—carolers, snowball fights against the construction crew. Holly stands up to Scrooge, quits her job live on the local news (run by WHOOPI GOLDBERG in a Santa hat).

 

MS. HARGROVE
Whoopi? Really?

 

MIKE
DIVERSITY! Then, the aliens ARRIVE. Big UFO lands, beams down Jack’s wife—who’s now the ALIEN QUEEN. But she’s happy up there, gives her blessing for Jack to move on with Holly. Poof! Magic snow falls, farm saved, Holly and Jack marry under the tree, aliens as bridesmaids. Timmy: "Best Christmas ever!" Everyone kisses under mistletoe. Comet glows. Roll credits with bloopers: Ryan flubbing lines, Melissa eating real pie.

 

MS. HARGROVE
That’s… the end? It’s ridiculous! Aliens blessing a divorce?

 

MIKE
Ex-abduction! Twist: The aliens are SANTA’S ELVES from another dimension. Mind BLOWN! Fade out on the couple, kid, and glowing puppy watching the Northern Lights spell "MERRY CHRISTMAS."

 

MS. HARGROVE
Mike, this is the most psychotic thing I’ve ever heard. Hallmark is about feel-good romance, not sci-fi nonsense. 

 

MIKE
But that’s why it’ll WORK! It’s meta. Poking fun at our own tropes while delivering them. Plus, casting: Lacey, Ryan, Tom, Melissa, Morgan, Betty’s ghost, De Niro’s cameo—RATINGS THROUGH THE ROOF!

 

MS. HARGROVE
Don’t take this the wrong way, Mike, but do you have pain with these spells?

 

MIKE
(continuing, even more manic)
WAIT! I forgot the B-plot: Timmy’s quest to contact aliens with a homemade radio. He befriends a stray cat that’s actually an alien scout. Cat talks—voiced by IAN MCKELLEN. Gandalf as a cat: “You shall not pass… without treats!” During the bake-a-thon, cat sneaks ingredients that make pies levitate—comedy gold.

 

MS. HARGROVE
(flat, pinching the bridge of her nose)
Ian McKellen is a cat. Of course he is.

 

MIKE
Scene: Timmy and cat in barn. Cat: “Young human, the mothership approaches.” Interwoven with main plot. Another scene: Holly’s transformation montage. From suit to flannel, city hair to messy bun. Music: Pop version of "Santa Baby" but "Alien Baby." Conflict escalation: Scrooge bribes the mayor—SAMUEL L. FRIGGING JACKSON turns it down: “I don’t do snakes on a sleigh.” Pre-climax: Holly’s big speech: “I came here to destroy, but you taught me to believe—in love, in Christmas, in extraterrestrials!” UFO arrival detail: Aliens emerge—little green men in Santa hats. Dance number: "Jingle Bell Rock" with laser lights. Resolution: Scrooge reforms. Post-credit scene: Comet beams up, becomes space dog. Sequel tease!

 

MS. HARGROVE
Mike, I need a drink. A very large one. Possibly intravenous.

 

MIKE

Now, that's just the outline. Let me flesh out more scenes. There's the subplot with the inn's haunted mistletoe—every time Holly walks under it, she gets a vision of future kids with Jack. And the rival love interest: Jack's ex-neighbor, played by Jennifer Aniston as a jealous baker who sabotages the pies.

 

MS. HARGROVE
Aniston? Do you have any idea how many greeting cards Hallmark will need to sell to finance this?

 

MIKE
Dream big! We film in Canada, use real snow. Celebrities? Negotiate. And think of the buzz!

 

And that's not all! We can add musical numbers. Original songs: "Alien Angel" ballad, "Mistletoe Mayhem" upbeat dance.

 

Casting expansions: Cameos from Hallmark alums like Candace Cameron Bure as a nosy neighbor. Or Elon Musk as himself, visiting the farm because "aliens are real, bro."

 

MS. HARGROVE
Elon? Now it's product placement?

 

MIKE
TESLA SLEIGHS! Genius.

 

MS. HARGROVE

Mike, I don’t know how to tell you this, but…I really think you need professional help.

 

MIKE

THAT’S IT!

 

MS. HARGROVE

(tentatively)

It is?

 

MIKE

(eyes lighting up like a malfunctioning Christmas tree)
A doctor! Get this: we need a scene where Holly’s having a full-on crisis of faith—“Is ANY of this real?!” So we bring in the town’s world-renowned, Nobel-Prize-level SCIENTIST-SANTA-EXPERT DOCTOR who runs the North Pole Research Institute out of the back room of the feed store. He bursts in with charts, an MRI of Santa’s brain, and a sworn affidavit from Rudolph’s nose.

The doctor who PROVES Santa Claus is real and not a delusion? NICOLAS CAGE.

Full National Treasure mode, hair flying, screaming “SANTA IS A LIVING SAINT-LEVEL ENTITY AND I HAVE THE DNA TO PROVE IT!” while waving a glowing vial of what is definitely just glitter and eggnog.

He does the whole scene in a lab coat covered in jingle bells. Oscar clip.

 

MS. HARGROVE

Of course. I should have seen it coming.

 

MIKE

So what do you think?

 

MS. HARGROVE

Do you really want to know?

 

MIKE

DYN-O-MITE, isn’t it?

 

MS.HARGROVE

(quiet, exhausted, staring at the ceiling like she’s praying for a meteor)
You know what, Mike? Fine. Just… lean all the way in.

Make the aliens turn out to be the actual Three Wise Men who got lost in a wormhole on the way back from Bethlehem.

And give Santa a cameo at the end—riding in on a flaming chariot pulled by eight cyber-reindeer with laser antlers.

Played by The Rock. Shirtless. In a red velvet thong.

 

MIKE
(eyes go saucer-wide, binder already open, pen flying)
THREE WISE MEN ALIENS!

DWAYNE JOHNSON AS BUFF SANTA IN A THONG ON A LASER-REINDEER WAR CHARIOT! 

GENIUS! PURE CHRISTMAS GENIUS! I’LL HAVE THE NEW PAGES BY TOMORROW MORNING!

 

MIKE sprints out of the office at full speed, sweater lights blinking like a police chase. Door slams.

 

MS. HARGROVE
(sits in perfect silence for five long seconds)
…What have I done?

She slowly lowers her head to the desk.

Thunk.

 

FADE TO BLACK. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!