We left "Jingle Bells" in the capable hands of Ricky Nelson and now we take a look at an episode of his family's TV show that incorporates not on "Jingle Bells" but also "A Christmas Carol!"
This is the 1964 presentation of the 1956 Christmas episode (it makes sense once you watch!):
This one includes the commercials, but they quality isn't as sharp:
Either way, I think that's good retro fun!
The version of "Jingle Bells" that the carolers sing is very well performed. Some work went into that!
I like how Ricky (as Marley's Ghost) keeps trying to feed Ozzie his lines and it's fun to see the snippet of Ozzie acting in the play.
It is funny that the full title of this series is "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" as they don't really have adventures!
The "conflict" of this episode is whether Ozzie can manage to play Santa, act as Scrooge and sing carols on a tight Christmas Eve schedule. If that were only the extent of all of our troubles!
If mentioned at all these days, I think this show is dismissed as a too wholesome artifact of a bygone era. But I enjoy it and think it's way more entertaining than people these days give it credit for.
To keep in the Ozzie and Harriet Christmas spirit, let's listen to the December 19, 1948 episode of their radio series:
Good fun from before the show moved to the new medium of television!
And for even more, here's a 1937 seasonal record by Ozzie's band with Harriet singing the vocal:
Harriet introduced that tune in the film "Life of the Party" during her 1930s stint as a movie actress:
So, a little bit of everything from the Nelsons!
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