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Tag: Harold Gould

Have I Got a Christmas for You: A Very ’70s Hallmark Take on Jewish-Christian Relations

Herb Edelman and Don Chastain pray in Have I Got a Christmas for You.

On the count of three, readers, let us sing in unison: “We wish you a Jewish Christmas, we wish you a Jewish Christmas. We wish you a Jewish Christmas and a goyish New Year.”

That’s all I could think of at the start of Hallmark’s unusual 1977 holiday television presentation, Have I Got a Christmas for You, which opens with Milton Berle tossing a few bucks to a bell ringer dressed as Santa Claus. Directly approaching the camera afterward, he begins his narration: “As you may have guessed, our story has to do with Christmas. Which, in itself, is not exactly unusual this time of the year. Except for one thing—it began some weeks ago in Temple Beth Shalom, at a board of trustees meeting.”

By then I was already nervous, I’ll confess, and half-expected a cut to an assembly of shadowy money lenders, even though Uncle Miltie grew up as Mendel Berlinger and was unlikely to lead us astray. “I was convinced it would end in disaster,” he admits, as we join a contentious meeting already in progress, with Sydney Weinberg (Jack Carter) making an unusual proposal: That the synagogue perform “a gesture of goodwill and thanks to our Christian neighbors” by covering for essential workers on Christmas Eve, as an Italian coworker did for him ahead of Yom Kippur.

The Golden Girls: “Rose the Prude” Episode Recap

Betty White in a scene from “Rose the Prude.”

“Rose the Prude” (S1E03) is a bit of a clunky effort, beginning with its not entirely accurate title. (Rose is less prudish than reserved.) Not only do Dorothy and Blanche steal the spotlight in what is ostensibly the first Rose-centric episode of the series, the St. Olaf native treads similar thematic ground to more humorous effect just 12 episodes later, in “In a Bed of Rose’s” (S1E15). The subject matter is sex, which Rose hasn’t had since her husband, Charlie, died.

As the episode begins, Blanche is looking for help in salvaging a double-date. “Thanks for asking, but I don’t think so. I’m not that interested in dating anymore,” Rose tells her. Blanche isn’t buying it: “Now you know that’s not true, honey, or you’d let your hair go natural.” Rose looks annoyed in response and muses, “You know what my problem really is? I’m spoiled. I had a long and wonderful marriage with a perfect man. Everyone seems so ordinary after Charlie.”

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