Advent Calendar House - TV Holiday & Christmas Specials - The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise

The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise

Explicit content warning

07/07/21 • 52 min

1 Listener

Advent Calendar House - TV Holiday & Christmas Specials

🐰 Hop, hop, hop with us back to 1981 for our first trip to Bear Country, which it turns out was built on top of the Easter Bunny’s industrial nightmare factory.

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🎙 Guests:

Alan Johnson (Two Bad Neighbors – A Simpsons Podcast, Talespin Trivia, @AlanJ).

Emily Rowley (smiling politely, @mlerowley).

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

1. The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise on the official YouTube channel.

2. Yes, we all collectively mispronounced “Berenstain.”

3. The VHS cover, for reference.

4. The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter, being the story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, who is also a bear.

5. Inside the Berenstain Bears’ Tree House.

6. The widest tree in the world, for comparison.

7. Things this special has in common with Steel Magnolias: Knowl Johnson and dozens of broken Easter eggs.

8. An ode to the Bear Family’s tiny, antique, circular porthole TV set.

9. Today’s TV Trope: Packed Hero.

10. Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video, featuring young Zachary Danziger (Bill Bunny) and a host of way more familiar names.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

Kellogg’s Raisin Bran: Morgan the Mockingbird Commercial, 1981, preserved from the original airing of this special.

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🎤 And Now, These Messages:

Mike on the Two Bad Neighbors podcast for Marge Be Not Proud and Monty Can’t Buy Me Love.
Jingle Jank.

Say hi on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.

🐰 Hop, hop, hop with us back to 1981 for our first trip to Bear Country, which it turns out was built on top of the Easter Bunny’s industrial nightmare factory.

****

🎙 Guests:

Alan Johnson (Two Bad Neighbors – A Simpsons Podcast, Talespin Trivia, @AlanJ).

Emily Rowley (smiling politely, @mlerowley).

****

💬 Topics & Tangents:

1. The Berenstain Bears’ Easter Surprise on the official YouTube channel.

2. Yes, we all collectively mispronounced “Berenstain.”

3. The VHS cover, for reference.

4. The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter, being the story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, who is also a bear.

5. Inside the Berenstain Bears’ Tree House.

6. The widest tree in the world, for comparison.

7. Things this special has in common with Steel Magnolias: Knowl Johnson and dozens of broken Easter eggs.

8. An ode to the Bear Family’s tiny, antique, circular porthole TV set.

9. Today’s TV Trope: Packed Hero.

10. Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video, featuring young Zachary Danziger (Bill Bunny) and a host of way more familiar names.

****

📼 Retro Commercial Break:

Kellogg’s Raisin Bran: Morgan the Mockingbird Commercial, 1981, preserved from the original airing of this special.

****

🎤 And Now, These Messages:

Mike on the Two Bad Neighbors podcast for Marge Be Not Proud and Monty Can’t Buy Me Love.
Jingle Jank.

Say hi on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.

Previous Episode

Rubik, the Amazing Cube: Rubik’s First Christmas

🎄 Tune in as we mysteriously float back to 1983 on an unseasonably warm Christmas adventure through Mexico on a Saturday morning cartoon that lasted a shorter amount of time than the fad it tried to cash in on.

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🎙 Guest:

Gerry Davila (Totally Rad Christmas, @RadChristmas).

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

1. The History of Rubik’s Cube.

2. The theme song by pre-Ricky Martin Menudo.

3. Ángela Moya, the voice of the kids’ mother, played a small but grim part in Gleaming the Cube.

4. An ode to the family station wagon.

5. An archived, early-Internet Rubik fan site.

6. Rubik has more powers than Superman.

7. Las Posadas.

8. Date a TV show by adding a CB radio.

9. Rubik ending up in an eagle’s nest reminded me of The Polar Express.

10. Reynoldo’s speed cubing skills compared to the real-life Rubik’s Cube world records in 1983 and today.

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📼 Retro Commercial Break:

Cap’n O.G. Readmore, 1985.
Cap’n Crunch Cereal: Crunch vs. Taste, 1985.
An Alpha Bits Cereal commercial that’s clearly still trying to ride the Pac-Man wave, but I’m not complaining, 1985.

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Say hi on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.

Next Episode

How Murray Saved Christmas

🎄 Take a sleigh ride back to 2014 as the fate of Christmas is in the hands of Murray Weiner (rhymes with diner), from the hidden hometown of every holiday mascot... but mostly the American ones.

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🎙 Guests:

Michael DiGiovanni (Classic Film Jerks, Pop Culture Retrofit, @theatomicgeeks).

Donnie Storms (Bronwen’s Ghost, @boxcar45).

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

1. Former Simpsons showrunner Mike Reiss’s original books, How Murray Saved Christmas and Santa Claustrophobia.

2. The trimmed half-hour cut of the special removes some bad jokes, but also Murray’s backstory.

3. Speaking of super offensive things, Marc Mero as Johnny B. Badd.

4. Today’s TV Trope: Santa’s Sweatshop.

5. “Vishnu” takes The Problem with Apu to a new low.

6. Every LBGT Joke on The Simpsons Ever (as of early 2021).

7. There’s an actual National Milkmen Day... on June 26, not August 12.

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🗓 All the Holidays Represented:

1. Christmas,
2. Hanukkah,
3. Kwanzaa,
4. New Year’s Day,
5. Groundhog Day,
6. Valentine’s Day,
7. Chinese New Year,
8. Mardi Gras,
9. Presidents Day,
10. St. Patrick’s Day,
11. April Fool’s Day,
12. Easter,
13. Arbor Day,
14. Earth Day,
15. Secretary’s Day (maybe),
16. May Day,
17. Cinco de Mayo,
18. Mother’s Day,
19. Graduation Day?
20. Father’s Day (maybe),
21. American Independence Day,
22. Bastille Day,
23. Labor Day,
24. Columbus Day,
25. Halloween,
26. Veterans Day,
27. Thanksgiving,
28. oh, and Jack Frost is there.