I love sitcoms.
I love retro sitcoms.
And I especially love sitcom episodes set at Christmas when the whole world seems to take a break from being a great big, burning dumpster fire and acts like all those gorgeous, wonderful, fabulous things you always thought life could be, might just be within your grasp.
And sure, you know they might not be, can’t ever be, but at Christmas and in sitcom episodes like these three, some rather lovely, or reassuringly honest things step into the spotlight, touch your heart and tickle your funnybone and for 20-25 perfect minutes, the world seems shinier, and Rudolph-ier and magically, shinily alive.
NEWHART: “No Room at the Inn”
All Dick and Joanna Loudon (Bob Newhart and Mary Frann respectively) want is a good old-fashioned Christmas. You know the kind – chopping down your own giant tree after hiking through the snow, baking cookies, roasting chestnuts over an open fire, essentially all the things they couldn’t do back in New York with a two foot tall tree stuck up on their TV set. What they get is old-fashioned all right but maybe a tad further back in time than anyone bargained on.
It’s Christmas eve and everyone is stuck in the inn the Loudons run in Vermont thanks to a road and airport-shutting blizzard. The marooned people include the Silverbird skiing party of 24 people is stuck in the inn, along with Dick and Joanna and employees George (Tom Poston) and Leslie (Jennifer Holmes) and the owner of the Minuteman Cafe nearby, Kirk (Steve Kampmann) who’s none too subtlely in love with Leslie. Into this rather eclectic mix of people walk a couple who need a room for the night and yep, his name is Joe, his wife is pregnant and there is, wait for it, no room left at the inn. Now you’re all probably wondering if she goes into labour early and of course, she does which isn’t as disastrous as it sounds because the members of the skiing party, who are not the best when it comes to maturely dealing with their plans being ruined, are all doctors. ALL 24 of them and before you know it, the baby is born, wisemen turn up (how makes for a very funny final scene), George is assured he has a family even though he’s all alone in the world, and 7 dozen eggs have made very festive omelettes.
As Newhart‘s only real Christmas episode – the show ran from 1982-1990 for a total of 184 half-hour episodes – “No Room at the Inn” is a lot of fun. It neatly tackles how idealistic the Loudons are in their first Christmas in Vermont, how gloriously idiosyncratic so many of the people around them are (this ramps in the second scene to glorious effect) and weaves in the kind of quirky but sweetly meaningful storylines for which the show would become known. Effectively having their true meaning of Christmas moment and having some inspired fun with it too, “No Room at the Inn” is a delight, paying beautiful homage to the most wonderful time of the year while setting up the show, in its ninth-ever episode, for what would prove to be an enjoyably long run of heartwarming, quirkily funny storytelling.
RHODA: “Guess What I Got You for the Holidays”
There’s not a lot of overt Christmasness in the 15th episode of RHODA’s first station which sees her getting married and heading back to New York which she fled in her early twenties, but as Christmas TV History perfectly observes, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“While this episode doesn’t depict an elaborate holiday celebration, I still like it for what it is. Rhoda clearly states that she’s excited to have the opportunity to give Joe all her money–she’s never had money saved before and now that she’s married, she sees it more as their money. And she likes it that way. For Rhoda, the holiday sacrifice seems to be a fulfilling way she not only gets to express her love to Joe but prove to herself how much she loves him. If that’s not in the holiday spirit, I don’t know what is.”
And RHODA is excited for this Christmas like none before, something she freely admits to her sister Brenda (Julie Kavner) who looks delighted to have her sister back in town and is happy that she is happy. Watching the sisters get along so beautifully warms the heart, especially when you know how much trouble they collectively have with their fearsome mother, played with feisty devil-may-careness by Nancy Walker, and seeing Rhoda so besotted and supportive of husband Joe (David Groh), who’s not having the best time of it, business-wise, reaffirms why Rhoda is such a compelling character to watch.
She wears her heart completely and utterly on her sleeve, and while Joe isn’t similarly inclined, she keeps urging him to find that part of him that wants to cry, to let it all out. It works for her, so why not for him? Of course, they are two quite different people and you can’t force another person to be like you just because you want them to be, but it’s wonderful to see Rhoda being all in on her relationship, especially at a time of the year when togetherness matters so much.
So, true, there may not be much overt Christmasness or mention of Hanukkah as Christmas TV History also notes, but that doesn’t matter in a episode that is all humanity and family and all the richer for that.
MAD ABOUT YOU: “Met Someone”
Christmas is a romantic time of year, no matter how you define the word.
Decorative lights are twinkling, trees are covered in impossibly pretty baubles, tinsels and ornaments, festive songs are wafting on the air (never seen that? Trust us when we say, they do) … and people fall in love. Well, you hope so, anyway because why would you want to let all that beauty and peace-and-goodwill atmosphere go to waste? You wouldn’t, of course, which is why countless romantic comedies set themselves at this time of year, confident that magic happens when reality feels just that little bit less real.
Bearing that in mind, and with sweetly sensitive, funny and groundedly human writing, Mad About You chose to place the relationship origin story Paul and Jamie Buckman (Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt) right at the time of year when what is an astonishingly lovely story would feel so much lovelier. I mean, finding that special someone, unexpectedly and overwhelmingly is a complete and utter piece of existential joy no matter which way you look at it, but at Christmas? Even more so!
What’s so special about “Met Someone” is that manages to be both impossibly romantic and real & heartfelt all at once, with nice guy Paul’s heart-on-his-sleeve, 33-floor quest (Hi Lou-Ann!) to find Jamie and hand her her drycleaning the stuff sitting beautifully alongside the sceptical hopefulness of Jamie who wants to believe in love but can’t be sure that Paul is the real thing. Well he is, and somewhere in the midst of all of her interrogative moments when she is acting like Paul is a suspect and not a prospect, you can see she realises that, and this here is the very special she’s longed for, and it is everything. “Met Someone” is everything wonderful you ever thought could happen in romance and at Christmas and it’s buoyantly escapist and so, so real and honest all at once, emblematic of a series that always managed to balance the humour and seriousness of any situation.
