UNCLE FRANK AND UNCLE BING, DRUNK AGAIN

If you've been paying any attention at all, you know we have a not-so-secret love/hate relationship going with the cheesy and ironic televisual reality that sparkles before our eyes and holds us passive and docile before our screens. At the same time, nothing tickles our ganglia like a trip down memory lane to revisit the broadcasts we were weaned upon. Christmastime on TV evokes both the treacly nostalgia of Christmas candy and the singular nausea of having eaten too much of it. These holiday specials are cloying and commercial, manipulative and sickeningly sweet, yet they can often pluck a string deep in our hearts though we'd be loathe to admit it. Surrender to the feeling, you old grinch. This first clip is from a Christmas special before my time, and it features Frank and Bing bumbling through a few carols like a couple drunken uncles home for the holidays. Hope you can enjoy this earnestly, and if not, well, here's a winking toast of vintage nog to make you chuckle in a post-ironic way, you cold-hearted bastard.



TV Christmastime was a very special time of year. And of course, the television Christmas season didn't officially begin until Santa Claus came floating over the hill on his triple-header Norelco electric shaver. This was a wonderful advertisement, a classic that played for decades, and with the smooth, clean shave Santa provided nobody would ever call him St. "Nick" again.