Suffering The Benz

Sitcom: Happy Days

Episode: Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas

Year: 1974

Story line: Richie realizes Fonzie will be alone for Christmas.

Details: This one is a classic and it even includes the disappearing older brother, Chuck. It’s long before Fonzie moves into the apartment above the Cunningham’s garage, and he still has some of his hood edge here, threatening Ralph Malph early on. This is long before Fonzie jumped the shark.

Killer quote: “You’re the ginchiest.” Inscription on the Christmas gift lockets that Fonzie gives to the waitresses at Arnolds.

Runner-up quote: “It’s not quite Christmas if your Santa doesn’t work.” Howard, referring to the broken mechanical Santa in the Cunningham’s front yard.

Ebenezer alert: Howard Cunningham. Totally. He insists that Christmas Eve be family only with no outsiders allowed. Of course, cuddly leather-jacket clad Fonzie melts Ebenezer’s heart in the end.

Childhood memory: This one’s a classic. I guess I was about 12 when it aired and it’s one of the Christmas episodes that have always stuck with me. I’d rank it right up there with the Walton’s Homecoming, where Mary Ellen scandalously calls the other kids piss ants. Very edgy stuff in 1971 …

Sitcom Christmas Index

Sitcom: The Beverly Hillbillies

Episode: Home for Christmas

Year: 1962

Story line: The Clampetts fly home for Christmas

Details: Through the magic of metadata, my Tivo actually recorded a 1965 episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, “The Clampetts Versus Automation,” in which a bank clerk is replaced by a computer and the Clampetts come to his rescue. I’m putting this up anyway because I found it fascinating that even in 1965, the dehumanizing effect of computers already was weighing on people’s minds. Even the Hillbillies.

Killer quote: “He’s grinnin’ like a baked possum.” Jethro, commenting on Mr. Lester after he got into Granny’s rheumatism medicine and passed out.

Ebenezer alert: Mr. Drysdale, or course, who dumps the hapless Lester like yesterday’s garbage when he finds a cheaper way to get the job done but eventually comes sniveling back when the computer inevitably fails.

Childhood memory: I was a Hillbillies junky as a kid, watching them mostly in reruns. My father often referred to me as Jethro, and I still identify strongly with Jethro’s mathematical prowess: “One times naught is naught … two times naught is naught … three times naught is naught …”

Sitcom Christmas Index