S7E394: ‘80s Adaptations of “It’s a Wonderful Life” (w/ Ed Daly)

IT’S CHRISTMAS PODCAST DAY!! It’s also the 80th anniversary of “It’s a Wonderful Life!”

What’s up, dudes? Every time a bell rings, an ’80s sitcom hires a worse angel. We’re talking “’80s Versions of It’s a Wonderful Life”! I’ve got Ed Daly, author of The Christmas Book: The Ultimate Guide to Your Favorite Holiday, with me!

Capra’s 1946 movie was a December TV habit by the time Moonlighting, The Facts of Life, and Married… with Children all took a turn in the machine. This isn’t one remake. It’s the tour. On December 16, 1986, ABC’s Moonlighting let Maddie Hayes wish she’d never kept Blue Moon open, then showed her a world where everybody else thrived and she didn’t (“It’s a Wonderful Job”). On December 12, 1987, The Facts of Life sent Beverly Ann to a Santa who could delete her from Peekskill (“It’s a Wonderful Christmas”). And on December 17, 1989 — right after The Simpsons premiered — Fox gave Al Bundy a Christmas-club disaster, a light-string electrocution, and Sam Kinison as the opposite of Clarence (“It’s a Bundyful Life,” a two-parter). Al’s famous button, the one where he wants his life back because his family looked too happy without him, is the anti-Capra and is reported in later write-ups rather than recited here as a verbatim line. Marlo Thomas’s It Happened One Christmas is 1977, so it only gets a wave from the doorway. A Charles in Charge episode called “It’s a Blunderful Life” shows up on guides dated November 4, 1989; that date and plot were not re-verified for this draft.

Bell? Check. Angel with a worse attitude than Clarence? Yep. A shoe salesman who learns the wrong lesson on purpose? That’s Bundyful! So put on the nightshirt, don’t grab the Christmas lights with wet hands, and walk into this episode on “’80s Versions of It’s a Wonderful Life”!

Get “The Christmas Book” at Amazon
Ed’s Website

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