'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977)

Interesting facts

'Twas the Night Before Christmas is a Christmas television special loosely inspired by the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore. It first aired December 7, 1977 on ABC. Directed by Tim Kiley, it stars Paul Lynde, Anne Meara, Martha Raye, and Alice Ghostley.

Production

'Twas the Night Before Christmas was part of a series of American Broadcasting Company (ABC) television specials starring Paul Lynde to fulfill a contract with him after previous efforts to establish a star vehicle for him, The Paul Lynde Show and The New Temperatures Rising Show, had flopped in the ratings.

Lynde was responsible for casting Martha Raye as his mother-in-law, telling an interviewer: "It's my chance to repay her for all the times she used me in her NBC Comedy Hour back in the 1950s."

George Gobel had previously voiced a character in an animated holiday special of the same name three years prior. The two specials were otherwise unrelated.

For the climactic recitation of A Visit from St. Nicholas, Lynde was not allowed to rely on cue cards because director Tim Kiley felt they would distract the child actors in the cast. Lynde would later recall: "I had to do the poem five different times for five different camera angles. If America thinks I did this with cue cards, I'll kill myself."

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