Ho Ho Ho

Hey everyone, let's have some holiday cheer. Let's not be all Bah-Blagojevich. I was a kid during the late 1960s and 1970s. During those years, variety/musical shows were still regular fixtures on primetime television. Now, they are just not that common. Look at Rosie O'Donnell - her variety show lasted for only one episode. Not that I watched it - and I did hear that it was pretty bad - but at least give her a chance to do a couple of lousy shows before pulling it off the air. It seems that in the 50s - game shows were the rage; then, variety shows were a hit for a decade or so. Now it appears that reality television is the place to be.

Anyway, I digress. Back to variety shows. During the Christmas holidays throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, musical variety shows were a staple. They were often odd combinations of personalities who happened to all be popular during any particular television season. This melding of personalities offers up a wide range of video clips of holiday hijinks's that are almost surreal in nature. Here are a few that I located on You Tube (best place to find oddly surreal images).

The first is from a Sonny and Cher Christmas Show, with guests Chastity Bono and William Conrad. Around this period, Conrad was popular playing a detective named, Cannon on CBS:


Here is one that you probably saw, or at least heard, before. It is such an odd pairing however, that I had to include it. Enjoy:

This next clip is like a bad Love Boat episode. It includes The Carpenters, Harvey Korman, and Kristy McNichol. How seventies can you get? Take a look:


I don't know about you, but nothing says Christmas to me like the crooning of Dean Martin - while he is taking drags on a non-filtered cigarette:


This last clip - I have to admit - I really like. It is the Osmond Brothers singing with the Williams Brothers - circa 1960s. How can you beat that harmony? Here it is: