Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ty the Christmas Guy (Tyler Schwartz) from RetroFestive.ca: Toronto Mike'd #1166

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

In this 1166th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Ty the Christmas Guy, owner of retrofestive.ca, as they talk about A Christmas Story's Toronto history before kicking out ten Christmas jams. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Yes, We Are Open, The Advantaged Investor, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

you'll shoot your eye out kid merry christmas ho ho ho toronto Welcome to episode 1166 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals. Palma Pasta. Fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees. The Yes, We Are Open podcast, a Moneris podcast production.

The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling electronics of the past. Thank you. Ask Sammy any real estate questions at Sammy.Cohn at ProperlyHomes.ca. Joining me today, making his very festive Toronto Mike debut, is Ty, the Christmas guy. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Nice. Ty, Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas.

I know we're a little bit early, but in my world, it's always Christmas time. Do you know a gentleman named Brian Dunn? Is this the name? Oh, well, I saw that he commented on your post yesterday. He's a customer of ours. I'll bet you he is. Like, I'm not surprised by that at all. We got a lot of them.

Actually, I was thinking about this the other day. You've got friends of Toronto Mike. We've got friends of Retro Festive. And some of them kind of collide, you know? Um, well, Brian would be like in the middle of the Venn diagram. So, uh, F O R F friends of retro festive and you own retro festive.ca. Yeah. Um, so this is a crazy little business that I started out of our apartment back in 2008.

I think it was, uh, we, we decided to sell leg lamps in Canada of all things. I met the guy who did it in the States and he said, you know, we've got people from Canada asking for them. And so I quit my job and I started selling leg lamps. What was your job? Well, I used to work in marketing and public relations. At that time I was working at Canada's Wonderland and, uh, you know, I was getting married to a teacher that summer and I thought, hmm, I could, you know, work all summer while my wife has the summer off or I could find a

Christmas business where we, you know, both can take the summer off. So smart. So yeah, it turned out to work out okay, actually. So at the recent event we had at Palmas Kitchen, we had an event on Saturday, TMLX 11.

Yeah, sorry I missed it. I wanted to be there, but I had to work. Well, this is your season. As we say, this is your busy season. But Larry Fedorek was there, F-O-T-M Larry Fedorek. And he was wearing a great sweater that had the leg lamp on it. Oh, he's my kind of guy. We could have got a photo of you with Larry.

And shout out to Canada Kev, who had a sweater. He was on the mic at the same time as Larry when Larry had his Christmas story sweater on. But Canada Kev had this wonderful, like festive cannabis sweater. And that's a shout out to Canna Cabana, our good friends, who won't be undersold in cannabis

or cannabis accessories. Okay, so I have so many questions and I want to talk so much about a Christmas story. And I also want to tell the listenership we have 10 Christmas songs that we're going to kick out and you're going to kind of bury us in some fun facts and mind blows. We've got a lot going on here today.

So yeah, a lot going on here. So retrofestive.ca do you have people like Brian Dunn? Because the reason I brought up Brian Dunn is because he told me, and I believe him because he's a bit nuts, that he listens to Christmas music 12 months a year. Like that's not common, right? I don't know if it's common, but it does happen.

I mean, there's a lot of Christmas nuts out there and we're here to serve them. I would say I'm kind of on the Christmas nut nuttier side but maybe not not like brian dunn but uh no you know and he wakes up in july to like mariah carey uh well he's yeah he's it sounds like i should get to know the guy because i love mariah carey in that uh song it's it's a i have it loaded up okay i mean i mean we're gonna cut kick out a whole bunch of cool jams. But that one, hold on, where did I stick that one here? Here I am fumbling to find, is this one, right? I could sing it for you if you want. So this is, well, we'll get into it.

This is not one of your 10 jams though, right? I thought it was too obvious, but if I had to pick one, this is it for me. Wow. This is the one where like, when you listen to like a Christmas station, like CHFI doing All Christmas, you hear all these older tunes, right? All these jams that you would have heard, like, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

And then you hear this one, and this is, like, your modern classic, which is probably only about 20 years old or something like that. Yeah. I think it might be getting close to 30, because I think it was 94. Yeah, I think it might be getting close to 30, because I think it was 94. But it really didn't enter the, what do you say, the zeitgeist until 2001 or something like that. It was featured in Love Actually, and that was one of the reasons why it became so popular. All right, I'll bring Mariah into the background here.

Fade Mariah down, because can we open up, maybe tell us what makes you an expert on a Christmas story? Well, it's a crazy story, actually. A Christmas story, like a lot of people, I watched it growing up and I really enjoyed it. It was kind of an annual tradition. And in the back of my head, I had always known that part of it was shot in my backyard. I grew up in the Niagara region. And in the school scenes, a lot of people don't know where we're filmed in St. Catherine's, Ontario at a school called Victoria Public School.

Okay. And, uh, so one day I was on the internet, this is, I think 2006. And I saw that the guy bought, uh,

Ralphie's house off of eBay. And I was like, that guy is like my kind of guy. So I started following him. And that guy was Brian Dunn. No, Brian Jones. Oh. His name actually is Brian Jones. Oh, that guy is like my kind of guy. So I started following him. And that guy was Brian Dunn? No, Brian Jones. His name actually is Brian Jones. And he's a smart entrepreneur who happened to be selling leg lamps. And then he thought, boy, this would be a great PR stunt if I bought Ralphie's house and kind of revitalized it. Back then it didn't look anything like it did in the movie.

It was in a kind of a rundown area of Cleveland, Ohio. And he was smart enough to take that jump and he pretty much bought it on credit cards. I think it was only maybe $150,000 or something like that at the time. And one thing led to another. And so then I started finding all the locations used in the movie because most of it was shot in Canada. So can we focus on, uh, well, we can focus on Ontario.

Like, so, so obviously there's a bunch of Cleveland in this movie. Any other locales other than, uh, St. Catherine's, Toronto and Cleveland? No, most of it was either St. Catherine's. Most of it, I would say, uh, 80% of the movie was actually filmed in Toronto because all of the

interior scenes of that house were from a soundstage in Scarborough. So the only a few exteriors and the scenes at Higby's were filmed in Cleveland and the rest was in Canada. Okay. It was, it was a really a Canadian production with almost all Canadian talent and Canadian

crew. Now, I hope I'm not putting you on the spot with any of my tough questions, but of course this is a Bob Clark directed film. And Bob Clark directed Porky's. He did, and that really led to the success of, it led to him being able to make A Christmas Story.

But here's a silly question. Is Bob Clark, I don't believe he is, but is he Canadian? No, I think he was, he wanted to be Canadian. I've always wondered how he ended up in Canada because he, he's from Miami originally. And, uh, he, he ended up here, I think in the mid sixties, right around the time of the Vietnam war. Um, I've kind of made that. So he might be one of the many great talented Canadians who were just dodging this, uh, this,

the draft in the Vietnam war. That was always my idea. I've met a few friends of him who have denied that, so I'm not positive about that. But the timing does line up, I think. Yeah, you'd be surprised how many talented Canadian artists and musicians were Americans who, due to the Vietnam War, ended up on this side of the border.

But for whatever reason, Bob Clark ended up in Canada. From all I hear, he was a great man. And, you know, he made some great movies and he made some not so great movies. But I think he had a great heart. And A Christmas Story was his baby till the day he died. A Christmas Story, by the way, which I love. But I have a question about Porky's.

Which bucket do you put it in? The not so good or the great? It actually has been a while since a question about Porky's. Which bucket do you put it in? The not so good or the great? Which bucket? It actually has been a while since I've seen Porky's and around this time every year, people bring it up and I think,

oh, I got to watch that movie again. But I would say I'd probably like it because I remember watching it in my youth. I probably wasn't allowed to watch it. But were you watching it like I did on late great movies on CTV? Yes, absolutely. And then wasn't there a Canadian one too,

Meatballs, that was kind of like a Porky's. Well, Meatballs was, yeah, was absolutely Canadian. And that was like rated PG though, where Porky's, if you caught it on late night, I can hear Mark Daly's voice. Do I have Mark Daly's voice loaded up some here? I'm going to do a quick peek here.

None of this here. Let's listen to a little Mark Daly. The following program contains adult themes, nudity, and coarse language. Viewer and parental discretion is advised. So he would say that before Porky's, and then you'd be up late watching a movie you were too young to watch,

and you were only watching because there was nudity in that film. It's been a while, but it was Kim Cattrall, wasn't it? Kim Cattrall does that big, they call her Lassie. Let's put it that way. She has that loud orgasm at the gym. But there's like a shower scene and yeah, there's a lot of hijinks going on here. But let's get back to A Christmas

Story, which I'm surprised, that's 1983. So it's about to celebrate a big anniversary next year. 40 years next year. Big deal. And so it's, you know, obviously it's an evergreen classic and it comes around every year again. And so if you're kind of in the Christmas

business like I am, it's a good thing to know because it comes around again every year. But, you know, so. Yeah. We ended up, my wife and I ended up deciding to go and find all the Canadian locations of this movie. And back then, this is 2006. Yeah.

You know, there was only little bits and pieces on the internet, but a lot of people didn't know a lot of stuff or wasn't out there anyway. So we set out to discover it all and we ended up making a little fan film documentary about it. So your documentary you made with your wife, Jordi, is called Road Trip for Ralphie. Yeah. And it was, we call it an accidental fan film. I think if you are able to track it down on the internet, you'll quickly see that, okay, well, this is not going to win any Oscars, but you know,

we shot it with our video camera and at first we were just, you know, taking video camera along with us. And then some friends kind of said, you guys should do something with this footage. Like, this is amazing what you guys are finding. And so we did, we packaged it all together into a little documentary.

And it, I mean, it's been making the rounds again, you know, for 15 years now. Where would I find it if I wanted to watch Road Trip for Ralphie tonight? Well, it used to be on, on Prime, Amazon Prime. I, I think, well, I think it still is, but you have to pay for it. It used to be free.

Or, um, what's that, uh, library website where you can watch it, uh, uh with with a library card you can download just put anything oh yeah absolutely yeah i know but i think it's um you know i think it's been um uh copied and it's i think it's all over the internet and if you really want to set out to find it you can i used to sell it on dvd but no one's got a dvd player anymore so we don't really do that if you if you really want want a DVD, I've still got some. So you can contact me. Okay.

So again, we did drop the URL, but as we get into this, we'll talk a little more. But retrofestive.ca, is there a way if we all went to retrofestive.ca, we could contact you, Ty, the Christmas guy? Yeah. So that's easy to do. Just contact me through the website. But yeah, Retro Festive was kind of an offshoot of all this Christmas story action. We started selling leg lamps and then it grew into... How many leg lamps are you going to sell in a typical...

I'm curious because now I want one. Okay. Yeah, I should have brought you one. You know what? Oh, man. Funny story. Don't tell my wife though. I will sell zero leg lamps this year because we couldn't get any.

Oh, really? Now, listen, this is a big deal because my license plate says leg lamps on my van. Our phone number is 185-LEGLAMPS. Wow. And this year I could not get any because of all the worldwide logistical challenges. It's like me trying to get parts for my bike. I have a bike I'm trying to fix and I'm having the same struggles. It's tricky.

So I feel your leg lamp pain. So we get phone calls every day, but I kind of say to them, well, you know, I've been selling them for 15 years. If you haven't gotten one yet, you're kind of behind the ball but you know hopefully next year we do sell a lot we have a lot of christmas story paraphernalia and merchandise but just not the actual leg lamps themselves unfortunately well that's interesting uh that but you know there's been some like renewed interest in the christmas story franchise like we'll get into the toronto connections in a minute before we get to the jams, but what's

going on with this, like a reboot? Is it a sequel? Like something is happening right now. Yeah, you know, it's A Christmas Story, like I guess a lot of retro properties have had a couple reboots or sequels over the years, which haven't been very good. But this one, they finally got Peter Billingsley

involved in it and it's actually pretty decent. You can find it on Crave. It came out at the end of November. Okay. It's called A Christmas Story Christmas and they got all the kid cast back together again. They're old guys now like me. Sure.

But. More like me. But you know, you know, it's probably not going to win any Oscars, but it's got heart and that's what matters. And they tried and it, and I, I think they did a really good job. I watched it with my kids.

They enjoyed it. And, and so that's, that's you know important too how old are your kids well i've got um how many of these kids i've got three kids okay uh i've got a 10 year old no he's nine almost 10 uh six year old and a two year old we had a pandemic baby so he keeps us on our toes yeah the two year olds yeah i mean my youngest is the same age as your second born. There are six, so I'm just tying it all back to me here. Okay, so a Christmas story. What's the best way to approach this before we get to the jams? Do you want to just shout out some of the locations?

Yeah, I mean, let me try to, in a succinct way, talk about it in a linear fashion about our journey to find all the Canadian locations. So I think I mentioned that, um, we started at Victoria School in St. Catharines and it was really, I mean, I guess this is where it all started.

It was that, uh, one day after reading about Brian Jones buying Ralphie's house in Cleveland, I thought to myself, oh, what's going on with that school in St. Catharines? Cause it's kind of, um, been shut down for a couple of years, derelict. And so I knew that a women's shelter had bought the place. And I called them up, and this is no world of a lie,

on a Friday afternoon, and I got the lady on the phone. And I said, is there any chance that we could get in there and maybe get Ralphie's blackboard from his school and all that kind of stuff? I told her a little bit about the movie. And she said, as a matter of fact, tomorrow morning we're demolishing, we're clearing out the inside of the school. We've got a volunteer team coming in to pretty much throw everything into dumpsters. And she said, if you want to come help us, you can take anything you want. We don't care. Yeah. The very

next day. What are the odds? What are the odds? And that's exactly how I felt ever since. That was 2006. So we did show up with a crowbar and a pickup truck and we got the odds and that's exactly how i felt ever since that was 2006 so we did show up with a crowbar and a pickup truck and we got the blackboard that had been in ralphie's classroom and and a few of the doors and all the trim and stuff like that and then of course we were like well what are we going to do with this i don't know what we're going to do this yeah but we ended up um that's when we kind of took it down to cleveland and met brian jones and he's got it now in his museum in Cleveland. So unbelievable how this all comes together here.

So, and then I guess the, the, the, the big find was the costumes. We were watching the movie one day and noticed that it said costumes by Thunder Thighs costume in Toronto. And I Googled it, Thunder Thighs. Oh, it's still in business. So I called her up and I said, do you by chance have any of the costumes that you made for a Christmas story? Now, this was a very wonderful woman called Linda Kemp.

And she, that was one of, I think her first gigs, um, was a Christmas story back in 83. And she said, yeah, we, we got all that stuff here. We still rent it out actually, but who would want it? Like that, that crappy little movie. Because this is what, this is what was

happening at the time was this, this movie was huge in the US because they play it for 24 hours at a time on Christmas day. It's an annual tradition for millions of Americans, but we don't get the same TBS feed in Canada. So it's not quite as popular here. A lot of people have never seen it or don't

know about it. And so I think Linda Kemp was one of these people who kind of thought, well, who would want these things? So we said, well, you know, can we come down and check it out? And that's when we brought our video camera down and she pulled out all of the costumes used in the movie, Ralphie's jackets and, and all the toques and the hats and everything. And, uh, we ended up connecting her with Brian Jones in Cleveland and it all went to, went to his museum as well. You know, I just assumed everybody,

our vintage was well aware of a Christmas story. Like it just seemed, and maybe, but now I'm wondering when I, like, when did I discover it? Like, when did it start airing here? Because I own it on DVD for goodness sakes and love that film. And I mentioned Larry's sweater with the leg lamp and the references, you'll shoot your eye

out kid. Well, there's so many good ones. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's just dozens of them actually. And so, yeah, I mean, when it came out, it kind of, I don't know if it bombed, but it didn't do that great. And then it just was one of these films that found its success on television and played, you know, once or twice a year,

back in the day before streaming, or maybe you rented a videocassette of it, but, you know, it was really a word of mouth kind of thing. Famously, It's a Wonderful Life was a box office bomb. That did terribly in the box office. And then I guess somehow it fell into whatever it is when you don't have to pay royalties, a public domain. Yeah, a public domain.

And then it started airing as a tradition every Christmas season because of being in the public domain, and then people watch it and people love it. And like people think of it as the greatest christmas movie for sure and in fact a lot of people still think it's in the public domain but it's not somebody's bought up the rights but right um but yeah i would say they're those two movies are in the same boat they are only successful because of constant airings on television over the course of 20 years and so it was like a slow burn, you know? And then all of a sudden by 2003, it's 20 years later,

and people are being like, oh, a Christmas story. And then people are making t-shirts, and they started selling a leg lamp, and that's when things really started rocking and rolling. And that's, you know, today you've got the license plate, you've got the phone number, you've got everything but the leg lamps. Yeah, that's too bad. You know what, though? This You've got everything but the leg lamps. Hopefully they're back for you. You know what though? This is just teasing all the FOTMs that in November, December 2023, get your leg lamp here.

But I mean, if you want a leg lamp nightlight or I don't know, a leg lamp mug or something, I'm your guy for that. Did Larry buy a sweater from you? What's going on there? He might have. I don't know. We sold a lot of legamp sweaters over the years. We still have a few. All right.

Hit me with some fun facts about Toronto. This is Toronto, Mike, after all. Toronto and a Christmas story. There is that one scene I always remember where I can see a TTC streetcar rolling by. And I always will tell my kids, look, TTC streetcar. Yeah, the old PPC style streetcars um you know what

there's a that happens i think in two or three shots in the movie and the probably the one you're thinking about is in front of the christmas tree yes where the family goes to buy a christmas tree and what's interesting is that was exactly right across the street from uh the queen street west studios it was city tv but now but now Bell Media, right? Yeah, Queen and John. And so I think this is before Moses had the building, maybe.

But 299, because they were at 99 Queen East and then they moved to 299 Queen West. Yeah, so this is 299 Queen West. And I think they would have set up the camera in the parking lot across the street for this establishing shot where that old-fashioned streetcar rolls by. And now I think what was that empty lot is now a restaurant called Everest with a tattoo parlor upstairs. Wow.

So it's a really odd fact that that was right across the street from that famous Toronto landmark. Yeah, yeah. In 83, or I guess they were filming it in 82 probably, but. No, early 83. Early 83, okay. But still, before, yeah, that, I pretty, I'm almost 100% sure, because I can hear like Master T's voice in my head talking about the move to 299 Queen.

So at that point, city, the much city people have not moved into that location yet. Yeah, that's kind of what I suspected. So, and then another one is the chop suey pallets. Remember that scene when they go out for the Chinese turkey? Yeah, because the dogs eat the turkey, right?

Yeah, of course. So my wife and I, we knew that was filmed in Toronto, but we had a hard time figuring out exactly where it was. We went to the Toronto Reference Library. We were looking up, because, you know, it says bowling on one of the signs. We weren't sure if that was like for the movie

or if that was real. So we did all kinds of stuff. And finally we ended up probably doing what we should have done to begin with. We contacted the Toronto Film Commission and they eventually pulled all the old files and they were able to say, Hey, this is exactly where it was. It's on Girard Street East. And it's today, it's a popular French restaurant called Batifol. It's a popular French restaurant called Batifol. But back in the day, it was an empty storefront that I think was unoccupied at the time

that they just rented to use for the movie. So that's really neat. If you're able to go down to Batifol and you're like, oh my God, this is where Christmas Story was from. This is where they had, they chopped off the head of that duck. Well, and see, I find this absolutely fascinating

because I live very close to Humber College, South Campus, and that was at some point, it was a, I don't know what the proper term was, but it was a mental health hospital. I think at one point it was called Lunatic Asylum, but we would never call it that today. The Mimico Mental Hospital.

I can't remember. But it was a Bob and Doug film there, right? Well, that's around there, but actually the movie I'm thinking of is actually, it's Police Academy. So Police Academies were, you know, Commandant Lessard in the building where the Police Academy is like a stone's throw from here.

And it's one of the buildings now that Humber occupies on the campus. It was called Mimico Psychiatric Hospital, I think was the name for many, many years. But like, you know, forever I'll tell my kids, you know, this is where Police Academy was filmed. But you're right. Strange Brew is another one where you can, this is where that was filmed. And the Christmas story is right there. It's great fun.

It's fun to do. And then, of course, all the scenes where the bullies are chasing Ralphie. And then that famous scene where Ralphie beats the crap out of Scott Farkas. That's filmed down there near Sears Avenue in Ronces, no. Near Ronces? Oh, no, not Ronces. Or near Sorenen?

It's near the TTC house. Anyway, it's in East Toronto. Okay, near East. On Lakeshore, off of Lakeshore anyway. Like near Portland? Yeah. And the other one actually in the Portland is the Cherry Street Bridge. Of course.

Where the car breaks down and they get the flat tire and Ralphie says, oh fudge. So that was just that you can see in the movie, they're crossing over the Cherry Street Bridge there in the Portland. And and if you look really closely you can see it looks like snow uh but it wasn't snow it was sand that they brought in from cherry beach and kind of piled up to look like snow so amazing lots of fun little facts i love it now this book you wrote because you wrote a book called the christmas story treasury uh can we find that anywhere um i know it was published in 2013 i know it's. I brought one here for you. Really? Thank you so much. I'm down to like 10 copies. You're wasting one on Toronto Bank. Own it's signed. Now you can't give it to anyone else. Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine. Oh thanks buddy. Tie the Christmas guy. It's a fun little book. You can find it on eBay. We were selling it on RetroFestive for the last 10 years but we finally run out. But it's neat because it's got sound effects. You can see, it's like one of those kids' books where you press the little buttons. You got to take the little tab out. Yeah, that protects the battery, right?

Yeah. One thing in the world could have dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window. So it's got all these little sound effects. This is amazing, dude. This is amazing. And then each chapter the window. So it's got all these little sound effects. This is amazing, dude. This is amazing. And then each chapter of the book,

it's basically... With that dumb round face and that stupid stocking cap. Okay, yeah, sorry. I'm going to just listen to this for the rest of the episode. Yeah, you get the idea. Amazing.

And it's tied, there's a lot of trivia book canon in there, a lot of these stories. You know, back to the Victoria School, the interesting thing that I found about that, and they would, could never get away with it these days, is the fact that all the kids you see in the classroom are, are just regular school kids.

And so the movie producers wrote to the principal and said, do you know, do you think it's okay if we make a movie at your school? And they, they got together with the superintendent of the school board and like, yeah, sure. It sounds good to us. And then they said, can we cast your kids? Okay, okay sure and so each of the kids was paid a dollar a day

to be in the background of these school scenes and some of them are still trading on it today and my i have one friend called monica harvey she's in the background of all the the school yard scene where he gets his tongue stuck to the school. Well, these are all such memorable scenes. And so she signs autographs for Americans who are like, can we have your autograph, please? You know, my buddy Stu Stone, who co-hosts Toast and Pandemic Fridays with me, you know, he was in, you know, bigger than

a background role like that, of course, but he was like the best friend in Donnie Darko and he was in Magic School Bus, also a character named Ralphie, I believe. But just, so he, based on that, he'll go to Comic Cons

and sign like hundreds of autographs. I would just like to say that I love Stu Stone. I never met the guy in my life, but I listened to him on the show and at first, I was one of the people that maybe he rubbed me the wrong way.

And then I listened to him quite a bit and he's got heart. I like that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes he can, you know, because he's so Stewie. Yeah. No, but I realized that he's actually heart i like that guy yeah yeah yeah uh sometimes he can you know because he's so stewy like no but i realized that he's actually he's amazing guy and um and he was at niagara falls comic-con i wanted to go meet him there you go i never had a chance because i got

three kids okay shut up he's right now filming uh he films he directs i think these a dark side of the ring uh vice documentaries about wrestling like wrestling real talk he's he's he's there right now in georgia i think filming uh so he's there for a while actually but uh working hard but uh yeah shout out to stew stone okay now any is there any more uh a christmas story in toronto because i'm going to give you some gifts that since you gave me some gifts and then i can't wait to get to these like i guess that originally we're going to like weird and wacky Christmas songs but now it's just sort of like Christmas movie songs right yeah some of these are some of the songs I brought are weird and wacky but I realized that a lot of the weird and wacky songs are hard to listen to sometimes so um so I I kind of changed course and

some of them just have to do with our favorite Christmas movies because that's what we do at retro festive is celebrate Christmas movies new and old. Do you want a beer? Yeah. You know what? I was hoping you were going to ask me. Do you have a burst? Yeah, I'm going to so basically here's what we do. When I start the first jam, so I'm going to give you some other gifts. You are going home with beer

but I'm going to go run up to the fridge I realize and I'm going to maybe get us each a burst a cold burst and then we can enjoy that while we kick out these Christmas songs. I love this Christmas story book. I think just for the audio effects, like, I can't wait. And just open up the back, by the way. There's even more.

There's little treasures in the back. So this was published by a legit publishing company called Running Press. And they came to me because I kind of, I'm an expert in a Christmas story. They said, hey, you want to write a book? And they offered me like almost nothing to write it. But I said, sure, I'd love to write a book. And so together we came up with all these,

these great little treasures in the back of it. Can you name check the narrator? Because he did such an amazing job. Yeah, Gene Shepard. And it was all his baby. He didn't just narrate it, but he wrote these stories. Actually, it's funny, Christmas Story got its start as a short story in Playboy.

But Gene Shepard was a radio disc jockey at a New York for years and years. And just like Bob Clark, we have to shout out Ridley Funeral Home because we've lost both of them. Yes, we've lost both of them. Bob Clark tragically died to a drunk driver, him and his son on the Pacific Coast Highway. So that was horrible.

No, absolutely. Now, you pulled the tab so that I could use the battery in your book and you'll need to do this. I'll do it for you actually. But here you go. We shouted out Ridley Funeral Home but there is a flashlight for you so you don't trip in the dark. Keep you safe so you don't end up at Ridley Funeral Home before your time.

Thank you, Ridley Funeral Home, for your continued support. I'm about to get some fresh craft beer for us. That's from Great Lakes Beer. Great Lakes Brewery is brewed right here in southern Etobicoke, but you can find them at LCBOs across this fine province. They were amazing. Everybody at TMLX11 had all the beer they could drink, safely of course, but

it was delicious and everybody had a great time. It was at Palma's Kitchen. We all received fresh, authentic Italian food from Palma Pasta. You, my friend, are leaving here. Ty, the Christmas guy, is getting a large lasagna to take home with him.

You're getting some lasagna from Palma Pasta. That's awesome. I'll tell you why. My kid has got a Christmas concert tonight and we are going to be in a hurry to cook. So I'll put this in the oven when I get home. Now it ain't fast food. That's for sure. You get 45 minutes in the oven.

But it's easy to serve, right? Easy to serve. And everyone, I mean, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to write me back and say best lasagna you've ever had from a store.

It's absolutely wonderful. A couple more gifts for you. There is a wireless speaker here for you, Ty the Christmas Guy. And I got to say, much love to this gentleman, Al Grego. He's from Moneris, but he helped with the audio at the event we had, TMLX11. Al, thanks for your help, you know, because it's one thing we have it all in our headphones here, but I need it for a large audience.

We had a lot of people come out, 75 people. So Al came through with the speakers. Al is a great podcast host himself. He's award-winning. He hosts the Yes, We Are Open podcast, which is a Moneris podcast production. He's been telling the stories of Canadian small businesses

and their perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity. Everybody can subscribe, including you, Ty the Christmas guy. Go to yesweareopenpodcast.com. So you've got your wireless speaker. You can listen to that.

And then you can listen to the Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. It offers, it provides valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. And if you want to buy some property near some of these wonderful locations where A Christmas Story was filmed, Sammy Cohn is not only a great drummer with The Watchman, he's also drumming up results and you can reach him at sammy.kohn,

K-O-H-N, at properlyhomes.ca. And last but not least, it was great to see Shem at TMLX11. He's with StickerU. Everybody can go to stickeru.com,

upload your image and get stickers, you know, whether they be leg lamps or not, wonderful quality stickers from stickeru.com. So Ty, how long is this first jam I'm kicking out?

I'm looking at it. Okay, so I'm going to let it run because I'm going to run up to the fridge and get us some fresh Great Lakes beer. But are you ready, Ty the Christmas guy? I'm ready. Are you ready to kick out the jams? Yeah, let's do this.

S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S Hooray for Sandy Claus You spell it S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S Hooray for Sandy Claus Hooray for Sandy Claus Yay yay for Sandy Claus

He's fat and round But jump and jiminy He can climb down any jiminy. When we hear sleigh bells ring, our hearts go ting-a-ling. Cause there'll be presents under the tree. Hooray for Sandy Claw. Santa Claus, now all year long at the North Pole, he's busy making toys. But he knows just what you're doing, so you better be good girls and boys. Hang up that mistletoe, soon you'll hear ho, ho, ho. On Christmas Day you'll wake up and you'll say, Hooray for Santa Claus. Hooray for Santa Claus. Okay, let's do this beer cracking on the microphone here.

So Ty, the Christmas guy, is with me. We each have a burst. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers before he opens. We don't spill it on my gear. Right in front of that mic. My turn.

Oh, you've done that before. Yeah, I've done it a few times here. Thank you, Gray Lakes. Oh, that's great. That must be what they call it. It's my go-to. So, you know, I had a bunch of guys here yesterday because we recorded another installment of every spring, a parade down Bay Street.

And we had David Schultz down here and Gare Joyce and Liam Kelly and Jerry Hall. Not that Jerry Hall. This is the stand-up comic Jerry Hall. Imagine I had that. I think that Jerry Hall is now married to Rupert Murdoch. Oh, is she? She was married, of course, to Mick Jagger for a long time.

She was name-checked in the recent episode of Ray Dawn Chong. Anyway, it's a little gross how mick came up in that one but here we're talking festive fun here but um so have you ever heard i go to have you ever heard that song before it sounds a lot like the meatball song oh yeah it does right are you ready for the summer because it's a bunch of kids and camp and that's also filmed here we talked about earlier but this one is from uh santa claus conquers the martians in 1964 kind of like a yuletide sci-fi fantasy film um nowadays it's a cult film but at the time they they kind of it kind of bombed like a lot of these things do and and but these days you know it is one of those movies that it's it's so so bad that it's good um

so santa claus conquers the Yeah, it's a cheesy little flick. You'll probably see it on TV late at night every once in a while, maybe on late great movies. But yeah, I mean... Do they have that anymore? That's a dumb question, right? No, they should.

I mean, I don't... Only because you and I are similar vintage. That means we're Gen X, right? That means we were raised without the internet, which means unless we went to the local video store or Blockbuster or whatever and rented something, which we would often do, that was a big deal for me to rent a movie.

But otherwise, all our movie consumption was coming from whatever the heck aired on city TV late night movies. If it was Porky's, if it was... I loved it when Revenge of the nerds came on. Like that was a big one for me too. But, uh,

but yeah, like if it, like now that, you know, I've got a, uh, like a six year old, I got a,

I got an eight year old. I got a couple of teenagers. One is actually turning 21, which I guess means he's not a teenager, but everything's on demand. Anything you can think of a movie, they're seconds away from pressing a button and here and seeing it. Think about that.

They just don't get it. They don't, they don't appreciate it. Yeah. They don't appreciate, uh, I don't know. I can't,

I don't know about you. I kind of miss those days to be honest. I miss the video store for sure. Like there was something about like talking to the video store guy, like what? And he's like, yeah, there's this new film from this new director.

It's called the reservoir dogs. I remember this. He says, you would love it. He's like, you got to watch this. And okay, we rent this way. We It's called The Reservoir Dogs. I remember this. He says, you would love it. He's like, you got to watch this. And okay, we rent this. We never heard of Quentin Tarantino. We rent this Reservoir Dogs.

And it's like, whoa. It blows your mind. Yeah. Yeah, totally. It was simpler, right? It was just simpler times. Yeah. We're nostalgic for simpler times.

Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I make my living off of an e-commerce website, but I say all the time, if I could go back in time to no internet, I think I would love it. Bricks and mortar. Yeah. Because,

you know, with all the good that comes with it comes all bad. And I think we were better off. Well, kids will never know the joy of stumbling upon the Godfather 2 airing on some TV station or whatever. Like the fact that, oh, like,

yeah. And you were fine with the ads because you didn't know any better, right? Like you're being born blind. It's like, okay like okay i'm gonna put up with some advertisements during this program but i'm gonna watch the godfather 2 for the next three hours well i just have a two fun facts about oh yeah no sorry i'm not digressing here conor conquers the martian debut of pia zadora wow she was just a little kid and uh and And then also this film, I found this out on the internet, marks the first documented appearance of Mrs. Claus in any motion picture.

So, because, you know, the common, the way we look at Santa Claus, we credit Coca-Cola with a lot of how he looks these days, like good old St. Nick there. But was there a Mrs. Claus until this? Or was she in books or something? No, I think she must have been because it also went on to say that it was like six months later that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer appeared. Oh, we'll get to that. And Mrs. Claus is in there as well.

Okay, but that's a fun, see, you get this program. Fun fact, fun fact. When did you discover Toronto Mike? Because I can tell by talking to you, you get this program. Yeah. You know, it was middle of the pandemic, actually. I don't know how. Yeah, you know, it was middle of the pandemic, actually.

I don't know how, maybe I Googled for something or other, but I started with Retro Ontario episodes. That'll do it. And it all went from there. So the big news is, we confirmed yesterday, there will be a Christmas Crackers Volume 5, which is Ed Conroy from Retro Ontario, the first inductee into the FOTM Hall of Fame. We're going to do that again this

Christmas season here. Yeah, I love those episodes because he always comes with the greatest stuff. Oh yeah, no, you're hooking to my vein. Okay, can I just play this clip and then we come out of this clip? Sure, yeah, play this and then we'll go from there. The next song, okay, it's a little low but I'm going to jack it as high as I can.

And I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah.

Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol? Well, I had to get you to play that clip because it is an absolute gem, an absolute classic. And it kind of leads into our next song, which is, well, let's just play it. It's that time Christmas time is here Everybody knows There's not a better time of year Hear that sleigh

Santa's on his way he'll kill foray for Christmas vacation got a ton of stuff to celebrate now it's getting closer

I can't wait gonna make this holiday just perfect destiny. Just wait and see this Christmas vacation. Christmas vacation. Probably the best Christmas-themed song of all time. It's great. This is a great song. I can't wait to hear some fun facts about it.

But now that we were talking late great movies and all those memories, I will just say European, well, the two. The one with John Candy, I guess it was called Vacation. Yeah, the original, yeah.

The original Vacation and then European Vacation. Also, when I stumbled, when I'd see they were on late great movies, that was a big deal to me, those movies as well. European Vacation,

my mother took us to see European Vacation. There's some boobies in there. Well, the German, yes. I remember being pretty embarrassed to be with my mom watching that movie. They kept changing the actors. You played Rusty, right? Yes, both the kids. It kind of went all over the

place. But you know, when Christmas Vacation debuted, I remember it so well. I remember hearing this theme song on the radio in 1989, and I actually taped it off the radio before I even saw the movie. What radio station? It was probably a Buffalo station, 102.5 or something like that. I thought you might say 680 CFTR. Yeah, well, it could have been, but I lived right near Buffalo,

and so we often listened to the Buffalo radio stations. Gotcha. It's a great song. Back in the day, it's a great song. Mavis Staples. Lover. Of course, is famous from working with the band and singing The Weight.

Staple Singers. Yeah. The last time we recorded Toast, I played Mavis Staple and the Staple Singers singing The Weight with the band for Martin Scorsese's film. It doesn't get better than that. So when she comes out with this really iconic voice and singing this real banger of a tune. And, you know, funny fact is this was written by a couple called Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

Do you recognize their names? Say it again. Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil. Do you recognize their names? They're prolific. Say it again. Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil. They're prolific songwriters. Wrote, they've been working together for 50 years out of the Brill Building in New York. And they actually, I mean, among many, many hits, like the Righteous Brothers,

what's the famous Unchained Melody? Wow. They wrote Sometimes When We Touch by F-O-T-M. Sometimes, yeah, Dan Hill. Dan Hill. Yeah, so I do know these names. It's just, you know. No, no, I know.

And I probably would have known it either, except I loved it before. Having a mental block. Not the first time. So, but anyway, you know, it's a great tune, but the weirdest thing is this was never released as a soundtrack, which, you know, all these movies have soundtracks.

There's no Christmas Vacation soundtrack. There's no, there's a bootleg, of course, out there, but there's no official Christmas Vacation soundtrack. I don't know if they just didn't get the rights to some of these tunes or why they didn't release it as a soundtrack. But the other interesting thing is that this is

the only vacation movie that doesn't use some iteration of Holiday Road. Holiday Road. Holiday Road. And that's Lindsey Buckingham, right? Yeah, Lindsey Buckingham. And, you know, which, you know, really. And that's a rendezvous. A lot of people are coming, think that's a Christmas tune now.

I know we're kind of associated with the Christmas vacation. You know, in our store in Oakville, Retro Festive, we play nonstop Christmas tunes, and we actually have Holiday Road in there because people just associate it with the Christmas vacation, the vacation. That's funny. Like it's just like by proxy.

By proxy. And it's, and it's a great tune too. So, so yeah, I mean, so back in the day, 1989, picture it, 14 year old Ty the Christmas guy is sitting in his parents' living room taping this. And what I ended up doing with that is I put it on a continuous loop.

Like, you know, back then, you couldn't just press a button. You had to tape it over and over on a single cassette tape. And I was in charge of the high school entry to our Santa Claus Christmas parade that year. So I made everybody listen to it nonstop as we went through the Santa Claus parade. You know, it's only now talking to you

that it clicks in that that was Mavis Staples. Like, I've heard that song so many times. It's a great jam, but I don't think it ever clicked in. it clicks in that that was Mavis Staples. Like, I've heard that song so many times, it's a great jam, but I don't think it ever clicked in. Oh, of course that's Mavis Staples, but now that I know, I'll never forget. Yeah, the other neat thing about the music in the movie is it was scored by Angelo,

how do you say his last name, Badalamenti, the guy from Twin Peaks fame. And so he scored that whole movie, and if you think about the opening credits, which is one of the best parts of the movie, the animated sequence when they're trying to kill Santa Claus, apparently that was originally scored by Angela Badalamenti.

And it did not have that kicker theme song. And you can find it, if you do some Googling, you can find the original version with just the score over that animation. It is not the same at all. Wow. And thank God at the last minute they came in with this tune, which I think really sealed the deal for a really great Christmas movie,

which, by the way, was directed by a Canadian, Jeremy Cheswick. It was supposed to be directed by Chris Columbus, but he clashed with Chevy Chase. A lot of people clash with Chevy Chase. Dan Harmon. Yeah, exactly. And this is many years before that. But yeah, Chris Columbus was supposed to be the director

of Christmas Vacation, and he didn't even make it to, you know, saying action. They clashed before the movie started. And Chevy kind of drove him off the film. But interestingly enough, that led directly to Chris Columbus directing Home Alone, which was a huge, mega, mega huge hit for him. There's a mild Christmas hit, Home Alone.

Wow, what a juggernaut that was. Yeah, it was. And we're going to talk about that coming up too. But that's my story for Christmas Vacation. And I would just like to say, have you ever had a moose mug? No. You know what a moose mug? No. Do you know what a moose mug is?

It's from a Christmas vacation when they drink the eggnog out of these god awful glass mugs. So they pack a moose. And the funny little thing that's never really mentioned is that you realize, oh, he must have got these moose mugs from the original, when they went to Marty Moose Land. Of course. In the original vacation movie. Right. So in 2009, I dreamt up the idea that we should be selling moose mugs.

And so I called up my friend Brian who sold the leg lamps. Brian Jones. Yeah, he had a relationship with- Not from the Rolling Stones. Not Brian Dunn. Yeah. Not from the Rolling Stones.

Not the Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones. He had a really funeral home. But Brian Jones, my friend in the States, he had a relationship with Warner Brothers because he was making and selling his leg lamps. And I said, Brian, what we need to do is we need to go to Warner Brothers and say, can we make and produce and sell moose mugs?

Because everybody seems to want one. Yeah. And I tell you what, it was a million dollars idea. They've sold so many moose mugs over the years. I do not have a million dollars because I got the Canadian end of the deal, which was, oh, you can have, you can sell them here in Canada. But they sure sold millions in the States.

And that was the first ever licensed Christmas vacation product, which I dreamt up. I would just say. Okay, listen. That's my claim to fame. Yeah, no, I love the fun facts. I love the mind blows. I love hearing how Ty the Christmas Guy has the

big million dollar ideas, even if he only got like $12.65 out of the deal. Something like that. But I will say a couple of little fun facts with all this is one is, of course, a pretty young Julia Louise Dreyfuss is in that movie, Christmas Vacation. Yeah.

She was on SNl at that point or before that maybe but yeah it just it was really just months before she was on seinfeld right right this is a pre-seinfeld julia louise dreyfus and uh one quick fun fact about the staple singers is that uh when bruce willis released his song respect yourself i was a big fan of it like i liked and i think i was hearing it a lot on 680 CFTR. Bruce Willis, Respect Yourself and I actually bought the 45 single. This is true kids. I had

a record player and I bought a 45 single of Respect Yourself by Bruce Willis and then only when I got older did I realize this was a cover of the Staple Singers, Respect Yourself. So there you go. And talking about respect people didn't really seem to have a cover of the staple singers respect yourself so there you go and talking about respect uh people didn't really seem to have a lot of respect for him well back in the day they said

really bruce willis is a singer now but i think he he had some moderate success with that album didn't he i i think yeah the return of bruno this was uh i think it yeah moderate success for sure and of course he was famous at that time this is like oh speaking of christmas movies is die hard a christmas movie yes and in my books die hard it's a christmas movie it was uh maddie and what was moonlighting that's what i'm going to love that show yeah i loved it too that was appointment viewing and wasn't booger from booger from revenge of the nerds was in moonlighting yeah what's his real name i can't remember but uh yeah that was a great show and i'd like to watch it again sure would all right we're now going to, what, your third?

Yeah, the third tune. So do you want me to just blast it? Yeah, sure, kick it out. Okay, here we go. The cold wind is blowing And the streets are getting dark I'm writing you a letter And I don't know where to start. The bells will be ringing, St. John the Divine. I get a little lonely every year around this time. We'll be going up the whole block of every street People window shopping on Fifth Avenue All I want for Christmas is you I've got to know

All alone, all alone We're going to the lonely hostel All alone, all alone We're going to the lonely hostel All alone, all alone Christmas All alone on Christmas. Name the singer. You can't ask that because I have your notes with me.

And of course, let's just say it's not Christmas until David Letterman has Darlene Love on the show. Yeah, Darlene Love and the E Street Band. So you might recognize that saxophone as only they can do it. So this was written... The little big man's been on the program. His nephew now does the sax parts. Oh, and he's been on Toronto Mike?

Jake Clemons is his name, yes. Cool. Yeah, so this was written for Home Alone 2, Lost in New York. I think the story goes that they originally wanted Darlene Love to sing her original classic, Christmas Baby Please Come Home. Which I first heard as a U2 song. Oh, did you? I don't know, because I'm the oldest kid in the family.

I think maybe I'm just dumb. I don't know. I did. And there was actually Bruce who was on this too, speaking of the Bruce Springsteen East Street Band but he has a famous

Christmas song cover himself but there was yeah this was a U2 song and then I found out it was a Darlene Love song. Yeah from 63 on that famous

Phil Spector Christmas album and you know she billed herself before Mariah came along she was the original Queen of Christmas and rightly

so because i mean she she really baby please come home is that song yeah baby christmas baby please come home and um you know that was the original kind of rock standard that they played on on you know christmas music radio stations for so long right and then when when home alone 2 came around they i think originally they said, let's have Darlene Love sing that song. But then they said, you know, why don't you write a new version of it? And so this, this song is,

it actually calls back to, to that song from 63 when they talk about, you know, writing you a love letter or writing you a note. Right. And, and so, and the greatest thing is now 20 years later they teamed up again for a song in the christmas chronicles 2 do your kids watch the christmas chronicles it's a netflix it's a netflix movie the first one came out a couple years ago and the second one came out just two years ago and they do a huge song and dance number starring darlene love the

east street band i want to see that and yeah it's great it's a great song and dance number starring Darlene Love, the E Street Band. I want to see that. Yeah, it's a great movie, and you should have Jarvis watch it for sure. My kids love it. It's on Netflix, I think. Okay. But, you know, the reason I wanted to talk a little bit about Home Alone and Home Alone 2 was because, you know, it's a John Hughes movie, and as you know, or maybe you know, that he wrote the Christmas

Vacation and all and the original Vacation movies um but then Home Alone came along and he wrote Home Alone and it was his biggest success ever but it also not a lot of people know this kind of led to him retreating from the movie industry altogether it was his uh you know he'd made of course in the 80s he'd made all these teen angst movies and they were successful. He's the Breakfast Club guy. Yeah, the Breakfast Club guy and 16 Candles and all that.

So, but, you know, he was famous for that. And, but then, you know, Home Alone brought it to a new level. And I found some fact here. I'm just trying to find it. You know, as an example, I think Ferris Bueller, which he wrote, made $70 million. Well, Home Alone made over $270 million. It was the opening weekend for Home Alone.

Exactly. So, so, and, but, you know, it was everything that came with that, um, that, that led him to withdraw from the movie because, you know, with Home Alone came the sequels, Home Alone 2 and, um, all the, you know, all the industry attention and the studio nonsense and the marketing and the merchandising around that, I think really soured him on, on the movie industry. And so he, you saw him gradually retreat. And that was really one of his last movies

where he was really involved as a producer director. Yeah. He wrote a couple of things after that, but, um, but they all, you know, they, they never lived up to the success of Home Alone. And, uh, and as you know, he, you Yeah, he wrote a couple things after that, but they all, you know, they never lived up to the success of Home Alone. And as you know, he died in, I think, 2009. Yeah, he sort of like, well, yeah, he withdrew

from public life almost. It was one of those things. I remember someone made a documentary about it. Actually, I told you I had some show and tell stuff. I brought some to show you. Yeah, I love show and tell. And of course, one thing about Home Alone 2

is a future president is in that movie and apparently he had a rule. Hold on, let me check over here. Okay, yeah, the deluxe talk boy. Look at you, Home Alone 2. Yeah, so the talk boy, there's just one example of the merchandising that they had going on in that movie.

As seen in Home Alone 2, lost in New York. We actually give one of these away every year. We have an adult only coloring contest at Retro Festive where- Adult only. Yeah, no kids allowed. And Brian Dunn wins it every year. We have an adult only coloring contest at Retro Festive where. Adult only. Yeah. And Brian Dunn wins it every year.

I think he enters, I don't know. But you can win yourself a top. Okay. So the quick, to summarize that fun fact, I suppose, is that if you film in like one of Donald Trump's like properties, he, at the time anyways, you had to give him a cameo in the movie.

Like this was like a, like a requirement, a prerequisite or something. Yeah, I heard that. I heard that. And that's how he was able to. Yeah, he's in, so he's in Home Alone 2. They cut him for syndication, I think for time and stuff.

But a lot of people who, you know, would film in like Trump buildings and stuff, Trump Tower or whatever, would film the Donald Trump, you know, cameo, but just would leave it on the cutting room floor. Like they would film it. So he was satisfied and the requirements were satisfied.

He just would never make the movie, but it's interesting that yes, he was in the. Sounds like our friend Donald. There you go. Donald's in Home Alone 2. So yeah, take it or leave it. But that's, that's the fun fact about it. And Darlene Love sounds great.

And she does. And you know, yeah, you mentioned David Letterman. So she, she sang that, not, not this one. Baby Please Come Home. Baby Please Come Home. Baby Please Come Home. She sang it for almost 30 years every Christmas Eve or the show before Christmas Eve on the David Letterman show, both the NBC and the CBS version.

And that's how she became the queen of Christmas. And I kind of wonder what she thinks about Mariah now, kind of honing in on that and saying that she's the queen of Christmas. Can there be two? I kind of wonder what she thinks about Mariah now, kind of honing in on that and saying that she's the queen of Christmas. You know, can there be two? Yeah. Well, yeah.

Well, Mariah has totally become the queen of Christmas. Like I don't think it was on Apple. And I think every single streaming service has like a Mariah Carey Christmas thing or whatever. I mean, I think it took a lot, it took a while for it to,

to roll around, you know, I mean, maybe at first she resisted it. I'm not sure. Dumb question. Is Brenda Lee still with us? I can Google this real quickly.

I don't know. I feel like she might be still with us. Is Brenda Lee rocking around the Christmas tree, right? Yeah, which is in Home Alone, right? And then now it's like, because of the way they measure the charts now of the streaming services, she's still with us here.

Okay, thank you. Goodness gracious. I knew she was still around. Oh, she's only 77. Oh yeah, she was such a young artist when she broke in the 60s there. Okay, so yeah, she's got Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, which by the way, 1958. How young must she have been?

I'm doing quick math in my head, and my goodness, Brenda Lee was young when she recorded Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. But now it's close to becoming, at this time of year in December, it's close to becoming like the number one song on the billboard hot 100 because of how streamed it is. Like imagine a song coming out in 1958 and it doesn't reach number one until 2022. Like that's the reality we live in today. It is.

And some of these Christmas songs are really charting 30, 40 years later. And, uh, I mean, I, I love it because I'm a retro. 13. She was 13 when she recorded this song. really charting 30, 40 years later. And I mean, I love it because I'm a retro kind of guy. 13. She was 13 when she recorded this song. Oh my God, are you serious? And that's why she can only be 77 in 2022. Look at that math I'm doing here.

And I told my math teacher I would never need that math, but here I am on a podcast requiring all this math skill. Okay. Okay, now Toronto Mike, before we go to the next one, I have a question for you. I was in preparation for today. I was Googling around on the internet and I typed in something like

Toronto best Christmas songs or something like that. Yeah. And I came across a blog post from 2003. What website? A little site called Toronto Mike. Yeah. Yeah.

That's okay. Tell me more because I've been blogging since 2003. Yeah. I've been blogging since 2000. Were you blogging since 2003? Yeah, I've been blogging since 2002. Now, do you know what I'm about to read you here? No, because I've written, literally, I've written, this is pre-podcast. My side fun thing I would do is I would blog at TorontoMic.com and there's probably 12,000, maybe many more,

12,000 at least blog entries on TorontoMic.com. Well, I think, I mean, I think that is super impressive. Talk to me. Am I going to be embarrassed by this? Let me hear this. Let me hear this. It says November 28th, 2003, Easy Rock 97.3,

a horrible local radio station that promises buckets of syrup all day long is promoting itself as Toronto's original holiday music station. They're playing nothing but Christmas carols from now through December. Can there possibly be a demand for Christmas carols 24-7?

And this is 20 years ago. Yeah, 20 years ago. And that's what I want to talk to you about, how things have changed for the next month. Do these stations intend to repeat the same 40 minutes of classic Christmas music over and over again? I mean, how many decent holiday songs are there?

I can come up with about 15 that you can actually stomach but I'm sick of them already so wow I want to ask you yeah do you still feel that way yeah like I am not a big Christmas guy like I mean I'm in the spirit with you because I got Ty the Christmas guy in the basement here and I'm wearing the Santa hat but I still like there's probably a handful of Christmas songs I actually like but you know I think that was a good commentary on how far we've come in 20 years, because I think a lot of people feel like that

or felt like that. But here we are, you know, that was like the beginning of December and they're playing Christmas music 24-7. Now it starts November 1st. And I think there's two camps, right? I think there's people who love it. And I think there's maybe people like you who

are like, okay, enough already. I feel like in Canada, we show restraint till November 12th. A little bit of restraint, yes, you're right. Because we in Canada, we show restraint till November 12th. A little bit of restraint, yes. Because we let Remembrance Day happen first, and then we go in. No, you're right, but November 12th, Canadian, you know,

yeah, everybody's all in. And I know it's a big moneymaker and everybody's into it, but nah, I like your jams because they're a little off the beaten path, but I'm digging this. I'm digging this. No, I found it interesting, though, that there's 80 comments on that post, and I would say the majority of those comments are saying,

you scrooge, Toronto Mike. Oh, is that what they're saying 20 years ago? It's great music. Little did they know, Wendy, I'd be on the front of the Toronto Star of my podcast. I just thought that was an interesting little tidbit. So that was interesting to me that Easy Rock at that time, so now it's CHFI's property

because Easy Rock became Boom. So they left that behind. But at that time, Easy Rock was kind of the, was touting themselves as the big 24-7 holiday station in Toronto. Yeah, nowadays what is it? It's CHFI. For sure it's CHFI.

And I think they, I could be wrong, but I believe they wait till the Santa Claus parade. And then once the Santa Claus parade happens, know yeah nowadays what is it chfi for sure it's chfi and i think they i could be wrong but i believe they wait till the santa claus parade and then once the santa claus parade happens they go all christmas but i can tell you my wife if you go in the car right now i bet you she's on chfi like she does switch to chfi for the christmas music like oh my wife yeah like she's well you guys run retrovested.ca so you're like it's in your blood. Well, this next jam that we're going to kick out is probably one of those reasons why some people hate Christmas music.

All right, let's kick it. We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. A little Christmas disco. that opening sounded like uh pop has got a brand new pig bag yeah we don't have to listen to you can bring it down if you want. Yes, sir. I just, you know, I like this song and I hate this song. It's a bit much. You love to hate it. Yeah, it's a bit much, but it is also a bit catchy.

And in my former life, before I sold leg lamps and before I was in marketing communication, I was an entertainment manager at a summer resort called Shirkston on Lake Erie. communication i was an entertainment manager at a summer resort called shirkston on lake lake erie and we every summer we did a christmas in july show where we did it was like a variety show and at the end of the show we ended with this song uh singing and dancing and i would hook up uh eaves tross full of uh potato flakes and shake the thing so that it snowed on us and it was a lot of fun but um you know back in the 70s, they made everything into disco, right? Like they had polka disco, Mickey Mouse disco.

Star Wars theme. Yeah, exactly. Kiss disco. And so I guess it was only... Beethoven's Fifth was a massive hit. It was only inevitable that they came up with Christmas disco. And I was kind of looking around on the internet and they had the mistletoe disco band, the roller disco orchestra, and all was kind of looking around on the internet and they had the mistletoe disco band the

roller disco orchestra and all these the kind of things and and you know it's funny because i think when disco started i think it had some degree of street cred but then it the marketing powers that be kind of you know and and you people wonder why disco is dead i think this song might be why the mistletoe disco band. And this is in the sequel to A Christmas Story? Yeah. And that kind of reminded me of this. We were watching the sequel to A Christmas Story the other night.

And they actually have this in that movie. And by the way, if you haven't seen it, the sequel to A Christmas Story is pretty good. It's pretty good. And remind me, who's streaming that one right now? Crave. You can find it on Crave. Is that an HBO thing? Yeah. So it's on HBO. Okay. It's pretty good. And remind me, who's streaming that one right now? Cray. Cray. You can find it on Cray. Is that an HBO thing? Yeah.

So it's on HBO. I like Cray. I got to say, I'm like really like, I get bored very easily by most things streaming and stuff, but I'm really into this White Lotus. I don't know if you're watching White Lotus.

I haven't seen that, but I hear it's great. Okay, that's on Cray. And the finale is coming up next weekend. And my 18-year-old daughter is really into it too. So after every episode, we watch it at 9 p.m. on a Sunday. It's like the olden days or whatever.

Like The Sopranos is airing or something. And we all three convene. She's living in Montreal right now. We all convene and discuss everything and what we think is going on and who we think is going to die and all this stuff. So you recommend that? I highly recommend it. And the guy who makes it, this guy named Mike White,

and he had a series with Laura Dern that I quite like that was an HBO series from like 10 years ago. Love Laura Dern. Laura Dern's great. And she's great in this show with Mike White. And Mike White actually also acts in that Laura Dern series. But Mike White is a great creator of content. And people should check out White Lotus, but also We Wish You a Merry Christmas

by Mistletoe Disco Orchestra. Okay, we're going to roll into the next one. We do have time, no rush at all, but we don't have unlimited time, so let's get to this jam right here. I really am a mean and despicable creature at heart, you know. It's so difficult

to really change. Difficult? Why, look here. Changing from bad to good's as easy as taking your first step. Put one foot in front of the other And soon you'll be walking across the floor Put one foot in front of the other

And soon you'll be walking out the door You never will get where you're going If you never get up on your feet Come on, there's a good tailwind blowin' A fast-walkin' man is hard to beat Put one foot in front of the other All right, I'm excited to talk about Rankin Bass. Yes, well, you know, I realized that we were here

talking about Christmas specials and all that. Well, we'd be remiss to leave out Ranking Bass. So I chose this song. It's actually from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, which personally I feel is a horrible Christmas special. I think it's dark, and I never watched it when I was a kid. Well, the go-to is Rudolph, the Red-Haired Ranger. Yeah, and that's probably what I want to talk about now as a representative of the Ranking Bass specials,

because so much of it was done in Canada. All the voice actors were from Canada. I'm dying to hear everything you have to say. I'll just let everyone know that there are literally, there's an episode with a gentleman named Elliot Cowan. Elliot Cowan, I think we billed him as, but his friends call him Ellie. And then there's also an episode with Rob Cowan

and their dad was Bernard Cowan. Bernard Cowan. Bernard. I always say Bernard. Yeah. Bernard. So always say Bernard. Yeah. Bernard. So we did a whole bunch of Rankin Bass stuff. And here, I want to hear what Ty, the Christmas guy, has to say.

But Jules Bass just died. Yeah. I think Mark Weisblot shouted him out in our most recent episode. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. But pick it up from here. Ty, the Christmas guy. Rankin Bass. So I probably am just recapping everything i don't

i guess i missed those episodes but yeah i mean actually no sir the elliot one because we talked about a lot of other stuff of rob count but the elliot cowan episode was all about his dad that's awesome the contribution rankin bass it's so much in so many clips and so many uh deep dive fun facts you got to check it out love it yeah i can't wait okay so here you know here's my take on the situation um so rankin bass had been in canada already doing the wonderful world of wizard of oz or whatever it's called and so when it came time to making rudolph the red-nosed reindeer they you know they were looking for that uh voice talent in that and i guess what what was, you know, in Canada, they were still doing radio shows

at the time, radio dramas and radio plays, and less so in the States. And so that's one of the reasons why they came to Canada. And the other reason was it was cheaper. And so they had this relationship already with Bernard Cowan, and I think it was the RCA studio on Mutual Street.

Right. And so they, you know, they came to town and they hired a bunch of Canadian voice talent, the most preeminent of which is Billy May Richards. And Billy May was the voice of Rudolph and she continued to be the voice of Rudolph throughout her life. Wow.

And I had a chance, I was trying, when I started Retro Festive, I was, to launch a Christmas con. Wouldn't that be cool? Like a comic book convention, but for Christmas stuff. Right. And so I was trying to get some of these old guys together again. And I think they did stuff like that throughout their lives, but I was in touch with, with, uh, Billy Mays daughter in 2010.

Um, her name's Cindy and she runs the soundhouse studios not far from here. I don't think in Toronto. um her name's cindy and she runs the soundhouse studios not far from here i don't think in toronto and uh so she was kindly trying to get me together with with billy uh billy may and and some of these other guys paul souls larry man or some paul souls had a show that was on cbc gem where it was like a a kid and his grandfather and i wish i could remember the name right now but he was great in that and uh we just lost him like a year ago or so. A couple of years ago. A couple of years ago. Oh yeah, 2021. And Paul Sills, of course,

was like the cousin of Bernard Cowan. Like they were related. Okay, yeah, I didn't know that. And yeah, and he was in the Spider-Man, Adventures of Spider-Man too. Yes, yes sir. So, you know, you had some great voice talent and it's one of these things that never came to be

and I, you know, forever regretful, but, uh, turns out that I don't think it would have happened because that was early 2010 that, that we were talking about this, but, uh, unfortunately Billy May Richards passed away later in 2010 in Burlington. So, but you know, Canadian treasure for sure. And, and talk about, um, uh, special with legs,

the, you know, these Rankin-Bass productions, all of them really, but Rudolph especially. And my other favorite is You're Without a Santa Claus. Have you ever seen that one with the heat miser and the snow miser? I definitely have seen it. Yeah, it's great. And I make my kids watch it, you know.

At first they were like, Dad, don't make us watch this again. But now every Christmas they're kind of asking to watch these things. So that's great. I feel like I did something right. We should shout out real quickly because we've lost so many members.

You know, this is a 1960s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from 64. So a lot of these voice actors are long gone sadly. But we should shout out Carl Banas because he's a local radio guy too. He was on Easy Rock. So you would have heard him

on the Mix 99.9 and Easy Rock, et cetera, et cetera. But he's still with us so carl bannis is 93 years young and he was a voice in what voice was he i can't remember i will tell you right now because i am looking it up he was uh the head elf uh head elf head elf and the misfit elephant and various misfit toys yeah yeah yeah you know it's it's a great one and you I, I don't know if you followed the, um, the, uh, the journey of the, the Rudolph puppets that were recently up for auction, but that's an incredible story too.

So back in the day, of course, no one thought that these Rudolph puppets would be, you know, worth anything. And so seven of them ended up with a secretary for Rankin Bass and they ended up in, in the lady's Christmas decorations. And so she had them in her attic for years and years and years and then threw a bunch

of them away and she had left Rudolph and Santa and eventually they got the room restored. And last year they sold for $368,000. Wow. Yeah. It was a great big auction. At one point they were on Antiques Roadshow,

they were praised for $10,000, but they ended up selling for $368,000. And now they sit in some puppetry museum. I'm not sure which one in the States. I love it. Love that story. And, you know, everything is worth whatever somebody will pay for it.

So you find the right buyer. And yeah, Antiques Roadshow can bite you. Come on, $10,000. Well, you know, I thought that I was going to be the right buyer until I saw what I went for. All right, we're cooking with gas here. Are you ready for jam number seven here? Ready.

If I miss one, I'll come pick it up in a minute. I feel it in my fingers I feel it in my toes Christmas is all around me And so the feeling grows It's rhythm in the wind The feeling grows. It's ripple in the wind. It's everywhere I go. So if you really love Christmas, come on and let it snow. You know I love Christmas, I always will.

My mind's made up, the way that I feel. There's no beginning, there'll be no end. Because on Christmas, you can depend. You gave your presence to me. I know Ty the Christmas guy went out of order, but I'll pick up that last one after this set here. But this is, of course, what movie is this from? Love Actually, 2003 favorite, Love Actually.

And this is actually one that I included at the request of my wife because she loves this movie so much, and I do too. I mean, it's a great movie. And this one is the story of the washed-up rock star who's just looking for a new lease on life. Because it's so big in England. Britain, that's a big thing, to be the Christmas number one. It is, yeah.

And my favorite line from the film, or one of them, there's so many good ones, but when his producer says, this is shit, isn't it? And I'm like, yes, solid gold shit. So it kind of made me think of the real life rock stars who are constantly looking for that Christmas evergreen gem. And it actually, you know, this character was played by Bill Nye and he played Billy Mac.

But in real life, I thought of the example of, should we play the next one? Okay, here we go. You thought they were going somewhere else, didn't you? We're not gonna take it. Wow. Wow. Nothing says Christmas like Twisted Sister.

Dee Snider just took the same, yeah, that is, we're not going to take it with some Christmas lyrics over top, basically. So, you know, I remember Dee Snider. By the way, I have this album. I love Twisted Sister ever since I was a kid. Is it called like Twisted Sister Christmas or something? I think that's what it is, Twisted Christmas. I have this album. I love Twisted Sister ever since I was a kid. Is it called Twisted Sister Christmas or something? I think that's what it is. Twisted Christmas.

I remember this. Yeah, so he actually was doing a press tour through Canada. This came out in 2006. It's a whole album. And you have to be in a certain mood to listen to the whole album. But I remember him coming through. And I think it might have been Kevin Frankish interviewing him on Breakfast Television. FOTM, Kevin

Frankish. He pretty much admitted, hey, dude, I'm a washed-up rock star. I'm looking for a Christmas evergreen that's going to have legs and make me some residuals for years to come. Did he cash in? Is there any money in this? Is this getting played

on CHFI as we speak? I've never heard it on the radio. But if you're a rock station and it's close to the season and you need something, you've got so many options. You've got that Bruce Springsteen one. You've got Jon Bon Jovi. In fact, you could do the U2 cover of Baby Please Come Home. But there are certain, I'm now thinking of rock or acts

that did a Christmas cover thing that you hear annually. Yeah, I mean, there's lots of them. And I think I have a soft spot in my heart for Twisted Sister because when I was probably Jarvis' age, I used to draw a Twisted Sister meets Motley Crue comic book. Amazing. And I wish I would have brought that for Show and Tell because it is amazing. And those videos really hit us at the right time. I'm thinking we're almost the same age because that video of like,

what are you going to do with your life? I'm going to run. I want to run. That really hit me at the right time. I want to be that kid. Me too. And I think that was the gist of this comic book that I made. It always says, we're not going to take it.

But it's funny. actually, because, you know, there were a lot, that caused a lot of controversy, that song, We're Not Going to Take It. And, you know, teachers and moms all said, they put it on the filthy 15 list, and he had to go in front of Congress to defend himself. Well, that was a Tipper Gore thing, right? Was that a Tipper Gore thing?

Here's the lick. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Anyway missed we missed it but okay it was it was it was i thought you were gonna say something profiling here's the lick and i'm like oh he's gonna he's gonna drop no sorry that's the wisdom uh no that was you should have said like this is what mark weisbach would do when he's here every month he puts up his arms like this we just kick kick that up, buddy. But anyway, yeah, so they hauled him in front of Congress, and he had to kind of defend himself. Right.

I remember this. He was actually pretty well-spoken. Yeah, he did. And I think they kind of backed off. But it's just ironic because nowadays it's the politicians and the teachers who are using we're not going to take it to stand up for themselves. So it's funny how things come around again.

Hey, to bring it back to Home Alone for a minute. So Home Alone was a big hit. And a big part of that was Macaulay Culkin, who, of course, was amazing in Uncle Buck with John Candy, which reminds me of Wally's World and Vacation. world yeah yeah you know vacation but uh macaulay culkin's in a uh a michael jackson video that debuted after the simpsons because i was watching this live because i loved my simpsons back then and then they were they were doing the black or white video and i think it's george went from cheers okay we lost kirsty alley yesterday by the way shout out to really funeral home but george went norm from cheers is like he's kind of doing the whole twisted sister like kind of that dad what are you going to do with your life oh i forgot yeah he

does kind of like a a pg version of that kind of thing and you could tell michael jackson's video is spinning off of that twisted sister thing and macaulay culkin is the kid or whatever but i certainly remember mac and uh and mich and Michael Jackson had a close relationship. Yeah, hopefully not too close. No, I don't. Mac is doing all right because apparently he got points on number two.

Like Home Alone, you know what it's like, that Home Alone, he gets like scale or something. And then Home Alone 2, I think he got points on the back end or something. So I think he's financially

set for life. Well, good for him. I think he deserves every cent of it because those were two great movies. But, you know, really quickly, it turned out that, here's a bit of a mind blow. Dee Snider actually did have a legitimate, bonafide holiday hit that a lot of people

don't know about it. He wrote a song for Celine Dion. Okay. I think you might have it here. I do. So as we listen, everybody, this was written by Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, who I think I could get on Toronto Mike, by the way,

and I might try to do it. I know he would do it. Take the horse with boughs of holly It's the season to be jolly and be thankful for all that we have. This is the magic of Christmas. This was a big hit, I guess, because it's Celine Dion. Yeah, I think it was the late 90s. And I guess the story goes that Dee wrote this for his wife, actually.

And at some point, Celine Dion got a hold of it, but she didn't know who wrote it. And the famous quote was, he said to the producer, do not tell her that Satan wrote her Christmas song. Yeah, right. So they kept it from her until it was released, and it was a big success. And then they let her know that, this was written by Dee Snider. This is a mind blow to learn that this Celine Dion Christmas song The Magic of Christmas

was penned by Dee Snider. We're not going to take it himself. Oh man. Love that jam when that came out. Okay. So we're going to

I don't believe you when you say that. I've read what you wrote on the internet. I know. I know. They didn't play that on Easy Rock.

That was the problem. They were, it was way too, I mean, I like Bing Crosby's White Christmas as much as the next guy, but I don't need to hear it like 10 times a day for like, you know, six, eight weeks or whatever. Okay, so enough of that because we are in the festive spirit here.

I've got Ty, the Christmas guy here. I went out of order, so I just want to let the world know I screwed up and I was supposed to do this jam before we did that because you're doing like a chronological order thing here, right? Now the people are going to be calling you out or whatever. So this jam, out of order, but I meant to do it earlier. Here we go.

All out the holly We're heading home so we can start to celebrate Fill up the stockings We're heading home so we can start to celebrate. Fill up the stockings. We may be rushing things, but we can hardly wait now. For we need a little Christmas right this very minute. Candles in the window, carols at the spinnet. Yes, we need a little Christmas right this very minute. It hasn't snowed a single flurry. Love it. The Muppets.

Yeah, the Muppets. And the reason that I had this next to the Rankin-Bass specials is because it's widely regarded. This is from the Muppet Family Christmas, 1987. And a lot of people on the internet, guys like me, say that this is the best holiday special ever made. And have you ever seen it? A hundred percent, yes. When they go to Fozzie's mother's house and everybody shows up.

Like even the Fraggles are there, right? Am I misremembering? No, this is why it's so epic. I mean, before the Avengers and Infinity Wars, this is the most epic crossover production ever made because you got your Muppets, you got your Sesame Street, you got your Fraggles and the Muppet Babies.

And they all show up together and they're all interacting in weird and wonderful ways. Like Ralph meets Sprocket the dog and they talk small talk and Swedish chef is trying to cook up Big Bird right and and it's it's a crossover episode it's got that Muppet show level of humor where you know it talks to the little kids in the audience but it's also talking over their heads the parents and so good and it really is in and I think also the thing that makes it a gem is that

it's hard to find um because of licensing issues I mean originally they cut, when it was released on home video, they cut a bunch of songs because they couldn't get the music rights. But nowadays the problem is that, you know, Children's Workshop owns Sesame Street, Disney owns the Muppets, and Henson still owns Fraggle Rock. So you've got all these different media companies

that own parts of this. And so it's probably never going to be commercially released again, but luckily we have the internet and you can find it. And if you've never seen it, I highly suggest you go watch it because it's worth it. Now you're going to share some connections that this special has to the city of Toronto.

And just before you do that, I'll say that the Muppets also have another good Christmas one. Well, they have, I love the Muppets, but the Muppets also have another good Christmas one. Well, I love the Muppets, but the Muppets do that. That Muppets Christmas Carol with Michael Caine, Ebenezer Scrooge is top shelf. It's really strong. It's got some great music, and I was tempted to put some of those songs

or at least one of them in here, but I went with Muppet Family Christmas because of its Toronto connection as well. So it was shot at, do you know where it was filmed at? No. The CFTO Agent Court Studios. So, You know, so it was shot at, do you know where it was filmed at? No. The CFTO Agent Court Studios. So, you know, shout out to Uncle Bobby. Yes, Uncle Bobby.

I had John Biner on this show. They filmed Bizarre there. Yes, I heard that episode. I loved it. And I think that there's a chance. And I got to shout out Paul Burford, of course, who's been on this show

multiple times. In fact, this is going to tie in to the very next jam because he was here last time with Roger Christian who lives in Mimico, which is a neighborhood in South Etobicoke. And he designed the lightsaber. He designed the Millennium Falcon,

a whole bunch of other cool stuff for Star Wars. He won an Academy Award for all that. So why am I mentioning Paul Burford? Because he created Just Like Mom, which filmed there. And I love that show. And I wanted to be the kid that puts ketchup in the dessert and makes my mother eat it. Except that was every kid.

Yeah, I know. It was. I always said to my mom, if we're ever on that show, I'm the kid with the most ketchup. I'll just put all the ketchup in. I think Mark Weisblot was on that show, by the way, from 1230. Oh, well, that would be incredible. I got to find that footage. Okay.

So yeah, it's shot in 1987 at the CFTO Studios. And, you know, it was in the tradition of Jim Henson coming to Canada to do work. He loved Canada and his gang loved Canada. They made Fraggle Rock here. And they're making Fraggle Rock here again, by the way. The first time it was in Toronto. It's on Apple, right?

Yeah, Apple Plus. And I think now they're shooting in alberta's or i'm not in manitoba um you know fotm sugez veragiz please sugez i'm part of me i'm i got it right sugez veragiz he uh was a big player in that fraggle rock experience uh and and now you can see him in a whole bunch of stuff including kim's convenience and stuff but anyway he has some good stories about fraggle yeah i Yeah. I always kind of thought that I would love to meet, you know, one of these guys who worked on Fraggle Rock or one of these Muppets because I would just.

Tweet at him, man. He loves talking about it. But, but, you know, the other thing was I had a chance to meet Carol Spinney not too long ago, not long before his death. So Carol Spinney is the guy that played Big Bird and, and he's got a documentary called I Am Big Bird.

And in that documentary, he's got behind the scene footage that he shot in, in, during the making of this, uh, Christmas Muppet family Christmas. Like how epic would that just be to watch the raw footage, right? Amazing. Um, and so he appeared at Comic-Con, Niagara Falls Comic-Con in, uh, what was it? 2016 or something like that. It was not long before he passed away. And so he was thrilled that Retro Festival was there selling Sesame Street ornaments. I was able to give him like a Big Bird ornament.

Amazing. He was also Oscar, right? Yeah, Oscar the Grouch as well. Yeah. And his wife was there. And so we got to talking a little bit about his connection to Toronto and how much they loved Toronto and Canada and how excited they were to

be back. And I think they probably knew it was, you know, for one last time in Niagara Falls. Because he shot that, Follow That Bird there in 1985. That was his, his big claim to fame. Right. With Alison Court.

Is she a FOTM? I know, but she should be. She should be. I love Alison Court. 100% right. Absolutely. So, but she was in it as well. And they, and so that film was all filmed around Georgetown

and Caledon and Bolton and all that kind of thing. Love this stuff. So, but, you know, he did tell me one interesting thing that I, it's kind of sad, bittersweet, I guess, is he never really fit in. And if you watch that documentary, I Am Big Bird, it talks about how, you know, the troop, the Muppet troop

was so close with each other, but he was always kind of an outlier. I don't know why, but he just never fit in. Well, I did just watch, first of all,

we have just lost Bob McGrath, one of the OGs of Sesame Street, but I just watched, coincidentally, a couple of months ago, I just watched the HBO. It's a couple years old,

maybe, or a year old, but there's a great Sesame Street documentary on HBO that I just kind of caught and I loved it. Yeah, but it's interesting to hear that Carol didn't quite years old maybe or a year old but uh there's a great sesame street documentary on hbo that i just kind of caught and i loved it and yeah but it's interesting to hear that carol didn't quite fit in with that gang yeah and and and i've i really found it poignant when he talked about how

frank oz agreed to do uh an interview for his documentary and he said that he was really surprised and touched because frank oz never him. And you imagine working with somebody for like almost 50 years. Like they, you know, he did Sesame Street. Well, Frank Oz is going to tie into this next jam too, just like Roger Christian does when we get to it. Yes. And so anyway, that's my Muppet Family Christmas.

If you have not seen Muppet Family Christmas, please look it up on YouTube. It's a gem. I'm going to find it. And show it to your kids. Because I got the six and the eight year old who have never seen it. And I'm going to make a point that we're doing that this weekend.

Careful of the icy patch. Okay, let's move on to we're at number eight, I think. Artoo, where are you? Oh, there you are Well, if you come over here you'll find a wonderful surprise You'll have to plug into the central computer

to hear what it is That's right No, it's not a phase vector It's your Christmas present R2-D2, we wish you Merry Christmas Christmas present A message gets to you We look up at the winter star We know that's where you are Our trinity's big and round So you can come right down

And if our wish comes true We'll spend Christmas Eve with you Our hearts will sing with glee As we decorate the Christmas tree One, two, three, two, we wish you Hearts will sing with glee as we decorate the Christmas tree. One, two, three, can we wish you a Merry Christmas? We dedicate this jam to Mimico's own Roger Christian. F-O-T-M. F-O-T-M, Roger Christian.

Great episode, by the way. I really enjoyed it. Mind blows galore. You know what? Just bury me in mind blows and I'll sit back and listen. What you're doing today, by the way, Ty, I just want you to know, and I want all the listeners to know, go to Restive. No, not quite.

Try again. Let me get it right. RetroFestive.ca. Am I right? Yes. For all your retro and Christmas needs, we've got you covered. And you and Ed Conroy,

you ever had any communication? No, we've never really met. I enjoy what he does for sure. And so I always thought I'd like to meet him. Since you're in the retro family. Yeah. But I'm in that family too. So you're welcome.

You're now an FOTM. Okay, talk to me about this Star Wars fan. Okay, so Christmas and the Stars. I actually own this album. I brought it for you so you can see the beautiful artwork. Hold it up for the picture. I feel like when we do our photo by the tree. No, not now.

But like when we do our photo by the tree, if you but like when we do our photo by the tree if you could hold that that'd be amazing yeah i will and so 1980 they somebody decided what we need is a star wars christmas album you know they already you might have heard about the the star wars holiday special which i think was 70 be arthur 70 and yeah yeah and that you And we know how that worked out. But then I guess they didn't stop there because they said, we're going to do a Star Wars Christmas album. And the story behind it is that they had, you mentioned Star Wars Disco

when we were talking about Christmas Disco. Yeah. And they had such immense success with that, like buckets and buckets of money that of course they needed a follow-up and Christmas in the stars wow is it and you know they were able to convince george lucas and lucasfilm that this would be a great thing to do um but it is nowadays it's it's renowned for a completely different reason

the guy singing this song is a someone you may have heard of before. Jon Bon Jovi. It's his first ever. The kid was 14 or 15 years old and it's his first ever recording. That's his first credit. Professional recording credit. If only it was his last. It was, yeah. It was his cousin, Tony Bon Jovi.

He owned the powerhouse recording studio in New York City and then he knew that his cousin John Bon Jovi was I think it might have been Gian Bon Jovi but he knew that he was trying to break into business and he said well okay listen we're working on

Star Wars Christmas album that's sure to be a success so what we should do is get this kid on here because then at least he can go around and say well hey I was on the Star Wars Christmas album now that's sure to be a success. So what we should do is get this kid on here because then at least he can go around and say, well, hey, I was on the Star Wars Christmas album. Now, at the end of the day, I don't think that really worked for him because it turned out that he was discovered a few years later in a talent search or something.

But that was a real mind blow to me to hear that. That's a huge fun fact. And I got to say, you know, when I was trying to research this song, because I've known about this album, in fact, I have this album.

Can I ask you a song quickly, because you have it right in front of you and you know it well, but is this the album with What Do You Get a Wookiee for Christmas

When He Already Owns a Comb? That's been on my Christmas playlist for like, you know, ever since Napster showed up. So I think I laughed over it,

but yeah, What Do You Get a Wookiee for Christmas When He Already Has a Comb? That's one of the most famous because it's just so completely ridiculous. I love it. But it's, you know, it's one of those bubble

gum pop, you know, musics or songs. But a woman named Andrea Warner from, she's a CBC music columnist. Back in 2016, she did a deep dive into this. You can find it online. And she was surprised to find out that in 34 years, no one else had talked to these guys who made this album and asked them deep questions like,

how did this get made? You know, like it is, it's crazy because obviously they would never probably make it today. But, you know, God bless this, the 70s. This is 1980, but you get the idea. Thank goodness for cocaine is what you're telling me. Yeah. So Ty, because we have a time constraint, I'm going to kick out number nine right now.

Yeah. Old Mr. Kringle is soon gonna jingle the bells that'll tingle all your troubles away. Jingle the bells that'll tingle all your troubles away. Everybody's waiting for the man with the bag. Christmas is coming again. He's got a staple. It's not a gun, a staple. He's got stuff.

He's dropping every stuff away. Everybody's waiting for the man with the bag. Christmas is coming again. Okay, no joke, Ty. This is true, okay? And I didn't know you were kicking out this jam. I have a top secret, not so secret, FOTM DM group on Twitter. And we were discussing this woman today

in that DM group. We were talking about Jennifer Valentine. Yes. This is Jennifer Valentine. Well, you know, it's the end of the year and that's the time of year you start thinking, what happened back in 2022? And I wanted to include this.

This song is from a little-known gem called the BT Christmas Album, released in 2007, the Breakfast Television Christmas Album. And I guess back in the day, I happened to pick it up and I really, it's a time capsule because it kind of captures that moment in time when i what i

consider the dream team of morning television was still together you got name check them all you got your kevin frank you're seeing rudolph the red-nosed reindeer frank faragini sings let it snow the uh the the weather forecaster sings let it snow funny right um and you got tracy moore from city line before she was tracy moore City Line, she was a reporter on Breakfast Television, and she's got a really lovely voice. She sings a couple tunes on this. So it's a great little album, and it's a great little chestnut. Yeah, she basically took over for...

They had to move Marilyn Dennis over because she was with Bell and the Rogers, and then City TV was now a Rogers property, but Marilyn Dennis was on Chum FM, which is a Bell property. So there she moves over to whatever, CTV, and then you got Tracy Moore. Tracy Moore steps up to the plate and has done a wonderful job since. And she's really come to own it in her own terms.

That's a Deanie Petty, that was a Deanie Petty show. Okay. Deanie Petty, yeah. So the great thing about this album, the proceeds went to Daily Bread Food Bank back in the day, and they would probably not do something like this again, I'm guessing, but it is a reminder for me of happier times. One big happy breakfast.

Jennifer Valentine. Television family. Happier times on breakfast television. And shout out to future FOTM, Jennifer Valentine, who we exchange notes periodically, and when she's ready, she'll come on and, I don't know. I was going to ask you that because that would be an obvious choice but I guess she's got to be ready. Well she dropped a video on Facebook which caused quite the kerfuffle. I don't know Ty if you're aware. No I am.

I think she's just letting a little time elapse there and then she's going to come on for sure. Your final jam my friend. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. Hello, everybody. Yeah, you guessed it. It's Wilf Carter. Oh, you want me to sing a little bit? That's one of the things I love to do, and I kind of put this little Christmas song together for all

you wonderful people in Canada, so if you kind of know it or want to pitch in anywhere, why, just pitch in with me, and we'll really make it Christmas time in Canada. Amid the glistening snow, riding we will go, it's Christmas time in Canada, we want you all to know. Oh, hear sweet voices sing, oh, hear the sleigh bells ring, it's Christmas time in Canada, let's all join in and sing. It's Christmas time in Canada Hear the church bells ring

Oh gather round the Christmas tree Sweet carols for to sing Christ was born on Christmas day Give thanks to God above For Christmas time in Canada The land we dearly love It's Christmas time in Canada From the shore to Newfoundland

Across the snow-capped Rockies To the prairie can be found A Merry Christmas to you all Make merry while we can It's Christmas time in Canada God bless our native land It's Christmas time in Canada God bless our native land

Sing it with me. It's Christmas time in Canada Sing it, Ty. Okay, tell me about this jam. It's great. This is Wilf Carter. People called him the father of Canadian country music, and he was popular back in, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s.

But, you know, I've got to tell you, this song was suggested to me by my friend Damian Nelson. She grew up with her grandparents listening to Wilf Carter and all these tunes, and so she spent about a decade looking for this album. You can't really find it too much on the internet, but she finally found it in a thrift store. It was her holy grail,

and she wrote a blog post about it you can find online. But it's a great song, and it's patriotic. It talks about Christmas. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, everybody. And you know, it's a perfect closer for this episode.

Wilf Carter. I'm starting the closing theme, but that doesn't mean you have to shut up, Ty. I want you to know that this was fantastic. Like, a Christmas story, the fun facts, and the songs, and the fun. Like, you get the program, and you knew exactly what I was looking for.

You just hooked it right to my vein, and I'm in the spirit now, i got the santa cap on here and i'm gonna be taking the photo of you and my santa hat and uh i want you to know i appreciate you making the the trip here and i want everyone else to know that retro festive.ca has all your Christmas nostalgic needs fulfilled. Yeah. And thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure to see the studio basement for myself. Was it underwhelming, Ty?

No, it's everything I expected. It's everything you dreamed it could be. And listen, I get to go home with beer and lasagna. What else could you want? And don't forget your wireless speaker. We take care of you. Merry Christmas to you, Ty. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Mike. And that... And that... I feel like Stu Stone now. And that... I always wanted to say that. Brings us to the end of our 1,166th show.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Are you at Restive? Sorry, Retro Festive. Retro Festive. I'm going to read your t-shirt. Retro Festive,

yeah. Love the t-shirt, by the way. At Retro Festive, follow Ty, the Christmas guy. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Moneris is at Moneris. Raymond James Canada are at Raymond James CDN. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH.

Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. And Sammy Cone Real Estate is at Sammy Cone. It's K-O-H-N. See you all tomorrow. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow won't stay today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy and gray.

Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true Yes, I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How yeah I know it's true

How about you? All that picking up trash and then putting down ropes And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am This guitar is the best that I can. Maybe I'm not and maybe I am. But who gives a damn? Because everything is coming up rosy and gray.

Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today. And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray Well I've kissed you in France And I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour

But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms us today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy now. Everything is rosy, yeah. Everything is rosy and everything is rosy and gray.