'Tis the season again, time to revive an old holiday tradition of mine.
'Twas the Night Before ChristmasThis is NOT the 1974 animated special of the same name, which you can still find floating around on cable. No, this is a 1977 live-action production. First of all, a little backstory: ABC had a deal with Paul Lynde. They'd signed him to a sitcom deal for
The Paul Lynde Show, and though its reputation eventually got somewhat better with time, the show flopped when it originally aired. After another effort to cast him as a sitcom lead in
Temperatures Rising also failed, they basically relegated Lynde to a series of irregular specials and shoehorning him into whatever recurring or guest roles they could find for him. While some of these specials went on to fame (or infamy), such as his Halloween Special, this one... well...
For one, Lynde wanted to play a straight man, something with a little more gravitas. He was given this special, which purported to be the story of how Clement Clark Moore wrote his famous poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas." (The beginning of the special admits it's not true, and Lynde isn't even playing Moore, but a fictional "Clark Cosgrove.") Basically, Lynde (as Cosgrove) finds himself surrounded by bratty children, uncouth relatives (played by Lynde's friends such as Foster Brooks, George Gobel, and Martha Raye), and a gratuitous cameo by a caroler played by Anson Williams. Somehow, after they all go to bed and the gifts are laid out, Lynde ends up on the roof of the house, causes a racket, wakes everyone up—and in order to save face, he "improvises" the poem, allegedly off the top of his head. It wasn't particularly convincing, it wasn't even "so bad, it's good—" the only real redeeming part of it is a brief part where Anne Meara, who plays Clark's wife, reminds Lynde that Christmas celebrates "the birthday of a miracle worker." It is BAD.
Status: Bootlegged to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrzfQ45IeV0
