December 3, 1978: The special Christmas Eve On Sesame Street airs on PBS for the 1st time. It was early in the 10th season of Sesame Street, and the producers and writers for the show's production company, The Children's Television Workshop, felt like it was the right time to do a holiday special.
It begins with some of the show's characters, human and Muppet alike, at an ice-skating rink. They sing "True Blue Miracle," a song written for the special, even though Christmas is not mentioned in it.
There are 3 main storylines in the hourlong special. Spoiler Alerts for a 43-year-old TV special.
On the way home from the skating party, Oscar the Grouch plays a dirty trick on Big Bird. Carroll Spinney wore the Big Bird costume, and also operated the Oscar puppet, and voiced both characters. So this was an unusual instance of Spinney's characters interacting, meaning someone else had to operate Oscar.
Oscar askes Big Bird how big fat Santa Claus gets down those skinny little chimneys on the roofs of city apartment buildings. Big Bird comes up with all kinds of ideas, but, each time, Oscar says something along the lines of, "Ding-dong, you're wrong." While they're on the Subway trying to get back to Sesame Street (So that's how to get, how to get there), Big Bird comes up with another, and a train rushes past, interrupting Oscar's apparently profane response: "You are the stupidest (train sound for about 10 seconds) bird I have ever seen!"
So now, Big Bird gets worried that Santa might not be able to come to Sesame Street, and nobody would get any presents. He enlists friends like Mr. Snuffleupagus, Grover and Kermit the Frog to find out. They come up with various ideas, but none of them seem to make sense.
Well, now, it's Christmas Eve, and Big Bird is sure that Santa can't come to Sesame Street, and that nobody will get any presents. Well, in a rare (for that period of the show, anyway) example of seeing the inside of the main apartment building of the show, with the address of 123 Sesame Street, we see the Christmas tree of Susan and Gordon's apartment, and there's presents underneath. Gordon (Roscoe Orman) explains to Big Bird that it didn't matter how it happened, only that it did, and he sings the song's closing line one more time: "And if that isn't a true blue miracle, I don't know what one is."
Storyline 2: Muppet roommates Bert and Ernie unwittingly recreate the 1905 O. Henry story The Gift of the Magi. Neither one of them has enough money to buy the other a Christmas present. So Ernie (operated by Muppets creator Jim Henson, as was Kermit) traded his beloved rubber duckie to Mr. Hooper (Will Lee) for a cigar box, so Bert would have a good place to store his beloved paper clip collection.
But a moment later, after Ernie leaves Hooper's store, Bert (Frank Oz) shows up, and trades that collection to Mr. Hooper for a soap dish, so Ernie's rubber duckie wouldn't keep slipping off the edge and into the bathtub.
That night, they open their presents, and get the explanations. Each wonders how he can tell the other that he traded the item the present he received was made for, for the present he gave the other.
But, before either one tries, in one of the rare appearances by one of the show's human characters in Bert and Ernie's apartment, Mr. Hooper shows up. He gives Ernie a present. He unwraps it, and it's his rubber duckie. And he gives Bert a present. He unwraps it, and it's a box containing his paper clip collection.
Now, the boys realize what has happened, and they're relieved. Then they felt guilty that they hadn't gotten Mr. Hooper anything. Being Jewish, and having been wished a Happy Hannukah by Bob (Bob McGrath) earlier in the show, Mr. Hooper tells Bert and Ernie, "I got the best Christmas present ever: I got to see that everybody got exactly what they wanted!"
Storyline 3: This one is considerably funnier. Cookie Monster (also operated by Oz) writes a letter to Santa Claus, telling him what he wants for Christmas: An Atari video game system. Just kidding, that's what I wanted that year. (And I didn't get it for another 4 years, until I had saved up the $197 needed to buy what turned out to be the next-generation system. It was worth it!)
Of course, what Cookie Monster wants Santa Claus to give him for Christmas is cookies. A reasonable request: Cookies are a food associated with Christmas. Not only that, but the Dutch, the original European settlers of what became New York City, not only introduced the concept of St. Nicholas, a.k.a. Sinterklaas, a.k.a. Santa Claus to these shores, but they also introduced cookies.
Unfortunately, Cookie Monster starts thinking about the cookies, and he gets hungry, and he looks at his pencil, and imagines that it's a cookie. I've never seen a cookie in the shape of a pencil. A candy bar, yes; a licorice wrap or a Twizzler, yes; a cookie, no. Anyway, he eats the pencil. When he's finished, he breaks the fourth wall, looks in the camera, and says, in his usual bad grammar, "Where pencil?"
A few minutes later, after pieces of the other storylines, we see Cookie Monster using a typewriter to write a letter to Santa. He finishes the letter, and ruminates on what kind of cookies he will get. Maybe oatmeal raisin cookies. Suddenly, he starts to eat the typewriter keys, as if they're raisins. Then he speculates that Santa might give him "fortune cookies, with delicious paper inside them!" And he eats the letter. And the typewriter's roller. And then he thinks of round cookies, round like the ribbon reel.
And then he yells, "Cowabunga!" and destroys the typewriter and eats the pieces. Finally, he looks in the camera, and asks, "Where typewriter?" Then he pulls the ribbon out of his mouth, and realizes what he's done.
In the next segment, it finally dawns on him that Christmas Eve is too late to send a letter to Santa. It will never reach him in time. (Unless the U.S. Postal Service has flying reindeer.) So he calls Santa on the phone. (How did he get Santa's number? And did it occur to him that Santa might be a bit busy that night?)
So he dials the number, and holds the phone in his hand. The phone is black, and the ends are round, and, to him, it looks like "cuppy-cakes." And he eats the receiver. And Santa picks up the phone, and we hear jingling bells, and "Ho ho ho, hello?" And Cookie Monster looks into the camera and says, "Oh, boy."
So Cookie Monster tells Gordon what happened, and Gordon assures him that Santa will come and give him Cookies. Then he suggests that maybe Cookie Monster could leave something for Santa, and that the traditional gift is... cookies. Actually, milk and cookies. Oh, boy.
I was just about to turn 9 when the special aired. I never believed in Santa Claus, but, as an adult, I love the concept. And I knew that Oscar was being a total jerk to Big Bird. And while I hadn't yet read The Gift of the Magi, I understood the pathos (not yet having heard the word "pathos") of what Bert and Ernie had done for each other, and the decency of Mr. Hooper for giving them a resolution that O. Henry never gave Jim and Della Young 73 years earlier.
Christmas Eve On Sesame Street remains my favorite Christmas special, ahead of even A Charlie Brown Christmas. Will Lee died 4 years after it aired, and some of it might seem strange to generations who associate Sesame Street with Elmo (who didn't come along until 1985), and only know Hooper's Store, not Mr. Hooper himself. But, like the holiday and its traditions, it remains timeless, and people of any age can enjoy it.
And if that isn't a true blue miracle, I don't know what one is.
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December 3, 1978 was a Sunday. These NFL games were played:
* The New York Giants lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 20-17 at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.
* The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts, 24-16 at Shea Stadium.
* The Miami Dolphins beat the Washington Redskins, 16-0 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington.
* The Green Bay Packers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 17-7 at Tampa Stadium. There were times, though this was not one of them, when both Green Bay and Tampa Bay were so bad (How bad were they?), their twice-yearly NFC Central Division matchup was known as the Bay of Pigs.
* The New Orleans Saints beat the San Francisco 49ers, 24-13 at the Superdome in New Orleans.
* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Houston Oilers, 13-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.
* The Dallas Cowboys beat the New England Patriots, 17-10 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.
* The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Atlanta Falcons, 37-7 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.
* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 28-27 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.
* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Lions, 21-14 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.
* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills, 14-10 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.
* The Denver Broncos beat the Oakland Raiders, 21-6 at the Oakland Coliseum.
* The Seattle Seahawks beat the Cleveland Browns, 47-24 at the Kingdome in Seattle.
* And in the Monday Night Football game the next night, the San Diego Chargers beat the Chicago Bears, 40-7 at San Diego Stadium.
Only 1 game was played in the NBA that day. The New Jersey Nets beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 107-105 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
There were 4 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 7-2 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-1 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.
* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-3 at the Chicago Stadium. The Rockies became the New Jersey Devils in 1982. In 1993, a baseball team named the Colorado Rockies began play.
And there were 3 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Winnipeg Jets, 5-3 at the Colisee de Quebec.
* The Cincinnati Stingers, with 17-year-old Mark Messier, beat the Indianapolis Racers, with 17-year-old Wayne Gretzky, 4-2 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
* And the New England Whalers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 7-0 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. Within days, Gretzky would be an Oiler. Within weeks, so would Messier. And the rest is history.