About this episode
🎄 Sail back to 1981 with us as we dig up Rankin/Bass’s penultimate and possibly most obscure stop-motion Christmas special ever, which may or may not only exist because they had the rights to use Christmas in Killarney and needed someplace to put it. **** 🎙 Guests: Michael DiGiovanni ( Classic Film Jerks , Pop Culture Retrofit , @theatomicgeeks ). Michael May ( MichaelMay.online , Sleigh Bell Cinema , Mystery Movie Night , AfterLUNCH , @michaelmaycomix ). **** 💬 Topics & Tangents: 1. Ken Jennings (the voice of Dinty Doyle, not the Jeopardy! guy) in the short-lived Epcot Center attraction, The Astuter Computer Revue . 2. Mag the Hag’s entrance reminds me of Rita Repulsa in the opening of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers . 3. Blarney Kilakilarney and his wife are a poster Irish couple and the reason everyone’s advice at your wedding is: “Never go to bed angry.” 4. This special keeps adding new rules about how both banshees and rainbows work, like they’re Mogwai. 5. The Leprechauns’ “phantom island of Tralee” shares a name with an actual mainland town in Ireland , but is closer to Dursey Island , population (as of 2016): 4. 6. The only thing many remember about this special is its Nightmare Face reveal that a beautiful woman Dinty finds washed ashore is the banshee in disguise. 7. According to the Christmas Specials Wiki , Arthur Rankin said a promotion was planned involving prizes buried in random places around the United States for children to dig up, but was abandoned for safety concerns. 8. Jack O’Lantern , from Rankin/Bass’s Festival of Family Classics TV series, featuring a leprechaun disguised as a pumpkin. **** 📼 Retro Commercial Break: Gremlins Gizmo Plush Pet , 1984. **** “The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold” © 1981 Rankin/Bass Productions. Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house . Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse . Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost . Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house .