Tag Archives: Christmas Nuggets

The Dukes of Hazzard at Hills Commercial

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I’ve talked about Hills department store in the past, but if you’ve missed those ramblings, let me sum up all you need to know about Hills: It was awesome! The entire time they were in business, and ever since they went out of business, it’s been my favorite department store.

There’s a lot that can be said about why Hills was so great. For one, they had an awesome snack bar, and you couldn’t walk in the place without getting an instant whiff of hot dogs, popcorn, and red slushies. Another big reason, and the one most people cite, was their amazing toy section. Hills’ main slogan was always, “Hills is where the toys are!”, and that wasn’t just hyperbole.

As my memory goes, they always maintained a larger and more varied selection of toys than any other department store at the time. And they knew how to highlight the best of what they had to offer, as this video will prove.

It’s a commercial for Hills’ Dukes of Hazzard shop. It would appear that they had everything a Dukes fan would need. From t-shirts to logo-emblazoned jeans, underwear, and the best Dukes of Hazzard toys on the market. I would be very surprised if all of my Dukes of Hazzard merchandise didn’t come from Hills during this period. While I could go on about how great Hills was, I’m just going to let the following commercial take over and give you a little taste of their awesomeness…

Philly 3-Step Cherry Cheesecake Recipe from 1984

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Everyone probably has some kind of Christmas get-together to attend at some point this season, and I’d be willing to bet that there will be food at those get-togethers. If you want to be the hit of the party and keep it old-school at the same time, then show up with one of these Philly 3-Step Cherry Cheesecakes and you’ll you’re sure to be the star. My mom used to make these cheesecakes all throughout the year, but she would use blueberry topping for them because that was my dad’s favorite. But when she’d make one at Christmas, she’d make the actual CHerry version to be festive.

TV Guide’s 1994 Holiday Viewing Guide

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For this Time Capsule, I’m taking you back to 1994 to check out TV Guide’s Holiday Viewing Guide. TV Guide used to put these extended articles in their magazines during the holiday season to highlight all of the holiday-themed offerings on television. They’s highlight upcoming movies, specials, and show episodes, along with giving their own thoughts on them. I always used to look forward to seeing this in the TV Guide, as I would use it kind of like a Sears catalog, in so much as I would go through it circling things I wanted to watch. So journey back to 1994 and see what all of the networks were offering viewers for Christmas that year.

(The flipbook below is easy to use. You can click on the expand button to blow it up to full-screen size for maximum enjoyment.)

TBS Christmas Creatures Features From 1992

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TBS was one of my favorite TV channels in the late ’80s and the early ’90s, so I like to go back in time and talk about the things that made me love it so much. I’ve even given this stuff its own category…TBS Time Machine!

Am I the only one who fondly remembers TBS back in the days before it was a self-branded comedy channel? The days before the two-hour binge blocks of semi-modern sitcoms dominated their time slots?

The good old days of TBS were filled with off-beat movies from the expansive Turner library, and the programmers behind the channel used to come up with any and all reasons to group movies together and put them on the air. Like this special day of programming for Christmas in 1992. All it took was a little alliteration combining the words “Christmas” and “Creatures” and they had a theme. Then, they just had to search their library for movies that fit that theme.

The movies featured on Christmas Day 1992 were At the Earth’s Core, The Last Dinosaur, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Three movies that probably haven’t been shown on television since. But that was the beauty of TBS back then. Where else would something like The Beastmaster get played at least once a month, and get promoted in bumpers as a “can’t miss” event?

If I could go back in time to 1992, my TV would certainly be tuned to TBS at 10:05 eastern, and that’s where the dial would have stayed until the end of the marathon. I actually looked into making this come to life this year for Christmas by purchasing the three movies, but I had two problems with that. One, I would have had to put out a little more money than I wanted to recreate this, and two, I realized that part of the magic would be missing, as my marathon wouldn’t be filled with those glorious old TBS bumpers for other movies coming throughout the week and would have felt flat as a result.

It wasn’t necessarily the movies themselves that made it special, it was the whole package. And that’s why I lament the loss of the old TBS.

Disney Channel Guide for December 1984

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Back when I was young and being jealous of my friends who had cable television, one of the channels I drooled over the most was The Disney Channel. It seemed so cool that Disney had its own channel! But what I didn’t know at that time was that they released their own Disney Channel magazine too. In it, would be details on everything that was coming to the channel that month so folks could set their watches and not miss any of the great programming that was being offered.

So what we have here is the guide section from The Disney Channel Magazine from December of 1984…the year they were debuting Mickey’s Christmas Carol on the channel. So enjoy this look back at what was coming to the channel that month long ago, and let yourself drift away to the days before streaming and on-demand viewing!

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