227: "Mary's Christmas"

Premiered December 14, 1985.

"This is gonna be the best pageant ever, the first Christmas at the new site!"

-Brenda Jenkins

This edition of "Oscar Takes A Holiday" focuses on actor/director Regina King, who played Brenda Jenkins on 227.  In 2019, King won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for If Beale Street Could Talk.  

It’s Christmas time in Washington, D.C.  Mary Jenkins (Marla Gibbs), and her neighbors in 227 Lexington Place Rose (Alaina Reed-Hall) and Pearl (Helen Martin) have a meeting with their minister Rev. Davis (Ron Richardson). 

He informs them that the corporation that owns the land where the church sits will not renew their lease.  On a more positive note, that same corporation has given the church a new lot that overlooks the Potomac River.  City Hall has given Rev. Davis permission to move the entire church building to the new location. 

Sandra Clark (Jackée Harry), the building’s resident busybody and troublemaker, has “volunteered” Mary’s husband Lester (Hal Williams) to supervise the moving of the church, since Lester owns a construction company.  Other companies would be unable to move the church before Christmas. 

Lester is reluctant to take on such a responsibility, but is pressured to move the church when Rev. Davis and the others literally pray for Lester to move the church!

Lester believes his crew can get the church moved in time for the congregation to perform their annual Nativity pageant.  Mary and Lester's daughter Brenda (Regina King), who is playing a shepherd in the pageant, believes it will be "the best pageant ever."  

Sandra is cast somewhat against type as an angel.

The pageant will be narrated by Santa Claus, played by Lester.  

However, disaster strikes when the church suddenly disappears!  Rev. Davis tells Lester that the church has been stolen!  

Will the church turn up in one piece?  Will the pageant be cancelled?  Will Christmas be ruined?  

J.A. Morris says:

227 was a fun sitcom that I haven't seen in a while and "Mary's Christmas" was a nice way to get reacquainted with the show and its characters.  It's a touching story about a neighborhood congregation working together to create a Christmas miracle.  That's consistent with 227 as a whole, since lots of episodes revolve around friends like Mary, Rose and Pearl helping each other.

Lester would have been well within his rights to walk away from moving the church, since he was forced into it by Sandra, yet he agrees to do so anyway.  The pageant rehearsal scenes are also enjoyable.  I played a shepherd in a Christmas play when I was 12, so "Mary's Christmas" brought back a lot of memories.  

Pearl's grandson Calvin (Curtis Baldwin) plays a "wise" man.

I found it particularly interesting that Santa, played by Lester, narrates the Nativity pageant, which was a nice touch.  This is not something I've seen happen in real life, since secular and religious Christmas traditions are usually kept separate.  

Jackée Harry, as Sandra, gets the bulk of the funny moments in "Mary's Christmas."  Sandra is the cause of consternation in this episode, but Harry was so great in the role (which won her an Emmy) that I never felt too angry at Sandra.  

Some notes about the cast:

Alaina Reed-Hall played Mary's best friend Rose on 227.  Children of the 1970s and 80s will remember Reed from her 12-year run on Sesame Street as Gordon's sister Olivia.  During that time, Reed appeared in the classic special Christmas Eve On Sesame Street.  

Rev. Davis is portrayed by Ron Richardson, who played the minister in two other episodes.  Richardson was primarily a stage actor vocalist and he won a Tony award for his role as Jim in the Broadway musical Big River: The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn.

"Mary's Christmas" is a great Christmas episode that features a solid ensemble cast and a story that will likely remind viewers of Christmas pageants they've been part of, it gets my highest recommendation.  

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 candy canes!

RigbyMel says: 

I remember watching and enjoying 227 when it first aired in the mid-to-late 1980s, but have no memory of this particular holiday episode.    It was nice to rediscover this series that I hadn't thought about much in twenty-some-odd years in researching for this blog post.   It's also enjoyable to revisit old sitcoms and see early work by actors like Regina King who have become better known as their careers progressed -  King's work as Brenda on the series is adorable.  

Regina King (l), with Curtis Baldwin, and Kia Goodwin (who plays Rose's daughter Tiffany in the series)

"Mary's Christmas" is a sweet episode from the show's first season. 

Although the "missing building" situation presented in this particular episode is perhaps not the most realistic, the interactions between the cast members conveys the inherent emotion of the scenario well .   Many of us can relate to families/communities coming together to solve problems -- particularly during the holiday season.   Many of us have also had the experience of being "volun-TOLD" to do something for a community group the way Lester is in this episode.  

J.A. Morris mentions Lester's turn as Santa/pageant narrator above, and although it might be a little unusual, I really like the way Santa ties the secular and religious holiday traditions together here.    

Resident troublemaker Sandra's against-type casting as the pageant's angel is funny and also kind of touching.   She gets quite upset when Mary threatens to snatch her wings.   

Rose and Pearl searching for "room at the inn"

Community Christmas pageants are a staple of holiday programming from A Charlie Brown Christmas onward and this episode of 227's  pageant presentation makes me think of my hometown's long running outdoor Christmas pageant which also features lovingly made sets and costumes and (often) sweet/amusing moments where things don't quite go according to plan. It also sometimes runs into complications with being outside (cold, weather, COIVD (most recently) and even issues having to do with building construction or repair.

I also appreciate that it appears that a real church choir called "The Visionaries" from Heavenly Vision Baptist Church helped to provide music and extra verisimilitude for our fictional sitcom pageant.  

"Mary's Christmas" is ultimately an episode about community and the holiday setting helps to bring everyone together to create the open air event.    It is likely that we will revisit this charming holiday story during future holiday seasons. 

RigbyMel's rating: 

4 candy canes!

Everybody Hates Chris: "Everybody Hates Easter"

Premiered March 23, 2008
"Growing up in Bed-Stuy, one holiday I looked forward to was Easter.  You were dressed up, girls were dressed up and it was a good day to pretend you were on a date." -Chris Rock's opening narration

It's 1986 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.  Easter is approaching and Chris (Tyler James Williams) is bemoaning the fact that Tasha (Paige Hurd), the girl he likes, is dating someone else.

After Tasha has a fight with her boyfriend Robert (Lee Davis), she has no one to escort her at the church Easter pageant.  When she asks Chris if he'll be her escort, he jumps at the chance.

Meanwhile, Chris's mother Rochelle (Tichina Arnold) is shopping for a new Easter hat.

She visits a new hat shop in the area run by a woman named Hattie (Anna Maria Horsford).  Rochelle mentions that she's won her church's annual Easter Hat contest several years in a row and plans to win again this year.  Hattie tells Rochelle that won't happen because SHE intends to win the competition herself!

Chris' plans to escort Tasha are complicated when she tells him the pageant will be held at her grandmother's church in Queens.

Rochelle says she wants him cheering her on at the hat contest at her church, which means Chris needs to be in two places at once.

Plus, Chris's siblings Tonya (Imani Hakim) and Drew (Tequan Richmond) plot to win the church Easter Egg hunt by cheating.  And their father Julius (Terry Crews) pretends he has to work so he can sneak home and watch baseball. 

Will Chris be able to pull of his scheme?   Will Rochelle be able to defeat Hattie in the bonnet contest? 

RigbyMel says: 

"Everybody Hates Easter" is an entertaining holiday-themed episode.  The Everybody Hates Chris series did a pretty good job in general of applying sitcom tropes to 1980-something Brooklyn and it's always nice to find mainstream shows that feature people of color.    

The series featured funny narration by comedian Chris Rock, who also worked as an executive producer and writer for the series, as it was semi-autobiographical.  Rock's narration strikes me a somewhat more sarcastic take on adults looking back on their childhoods in the vein of series like The Wonder Years and helps the series to have its own unique flavor. 

Chris daydreams about terrible things happening to Tasha's boyfriend (note the sneakers sticking out from under the meteor)

There's also a touch of influence from A Christmas Story in this Easter episode not only because of nostalgic voice over narration, but because of the protagonists' imaginative vignettes (like Chris's meteor strike fantasy).  

"Everybody Hates Easter" has a lot of heart and has fun with Easter traditions like egg hunts,  going to church, and showing off your Easter bonnet.  

The Easter bonnet originated in Europe when it was customary for people to wear new clothes and hats on Easter.  This tradition came over to the Americas with various waves of immigrants.  In the late 19th century, seeing and being seen at the New York Easter parade where the became a tradition of its own, as did increasingly elaborate headgear.  This in turn, inspired the popular Irving Berlin song "Easter Parade" from the 1930s, which reinforces the notion.    

The Easter bonnet tradition was enthusiastically embraced by African Americans and provides a great source of conflict and comedy in this episode. 

The "trying to be in two places at once" plot is one of the biggest TV sitcom tropes of all time, but it's well used here. Chris's pursuit of Tasha parallels Julius's pursuit of watching baseball in peace.  

The younger siblings' pursuit of ALL THE EASTER CANDY by any means necessary is also amusing and has predictable stomachache-y results,  but again, the comedy is well deployed.   

"Everybody Hates Easter" is a delightful and festive spring episode from a fun sitcom and definitely holds up to repeated viewings.  It's well worth taking the time to watch (or re-watch) as part of your Easter viewing. 

RigbyMel's rating: 

4 Easter eggs!

J.A. Morris says:

"Everybody Hates Easter" is a fun and entertaining episode that touches on most of the religious and secular traditions that surround Easter.  It's also always nice to find an Easter episode, since there aren't many.  

I was a regular viewer of Everybody Hates Chris (until the network started moving it around the schedule) and this is a good Easter episode. As my co-blogger says, it hits all the major Easter tropes.  

Chris wasn’t perfect, but he was usually a sympathetic protagonist.  Tyler James Williams carries most of the episode and he’s great as Chris.  The scenario Chris find himself in, committing to be in two places at once in order to please everyone, is old as comedy itself.  However, it's executed well in "Everybody Hates Easter."  

Tichina Arnold also does a great job in the “Easter Hat” storyline.  In fact, the whole cast is excellent and all the regulars gets at least one moment to shine.  During the hat contest, the church's choir performs a catchy and hilarious gospel-style song about Easter Hats that adds to the fun of the episode.    

Some notes about the supporting cast:

Two well-known actors play small roles in “Everybody Hates Easter.”  Rochelle’s friend Vanessa is played by Jackee’ Harry, who has dozens of film and TV credits and is best known for her roles on 227 (which Harry an Emmy) and Sister, Sister.  

Chris’ boss Doc is portrayed by Antonio Fargas, who played a very memorable role as Huggy Bear on Starsky & Hutch and also appeared in films that include Putney Swope and Foxy Brown.  

"Everybody Hates Easter" features great storylines and humorous moments.  It's good enough to get my highest rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Easter Eggs!