Holiday Specials on Television, 1939-2021

In November 1939, NBC’s fledgling television station W2XBS broadcast the first known holiday special, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Despite its small viewership (very few TV sets existed at the time), the experimental telecast was a harbinger of a now-beloved American tradition: the holiday television special.

This book offers a thorough account of holiday television specials in the United States from 1939 to 2021, highlighting variety shows, comedic performances, musical spectaculars and more. From familiar favorites (1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) to campy one-offs (1985’s He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special), the 1140 programs are covered alphabetically and feature performance casts, production credits and storylines for each. Three appendices cover ＂lost＂ holiday specials, along with Christmas and Halloween-themed episodes of popular television series.

Vincent Terrace has been a researcher for ABC television and is the television historian for BPOLIN Productions (an independent film and television producing company for which he has created two projected televisions series: April’s Dream and April and May: Ghost Hunters (both starring actress-ventriloquist April Brucker). He has written more than 50 books about television and radio.