Sitcom: The Partridge Family
Episode: Don’t Bring Your Guns to Town, Santa
Year: 1971
Story line: At Christmas, the bus breaks down in a ghost town.
Details: This one sucked as badly as the Monkees special. I knew we were in for trouble when it was revealed that this was a Brian Foster episode. Everyone knows the only true Chris is Jeremy Gelbwaks. There can be only one. Susan Dey is amazing though. Simply amazingly gorgeous. And Danny Bonaduce gets through the entire episode without beating up any transvestites. So surely this has some redeeming value. In short, the bus breaks down in a ghost town. We meet prospector Charlie and his mule, Ella. Charlie tells a story of Wild West Christmas days with Partridge Family members playing key parts in the flashback. In the end, the bus gets fixed and those wacky Partridges belt out a version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas that brings a tear to hardscrabble Charlie’s eye. How nice.
Killer quote: “If you have to give to receive then forget it. I mean, where is the profit?” Ruben Kincaid in his flashback role as Mean Sidney.
Ebenezer alert: Ruben freakin’ Kincaid. In spades, dude. He even plays Mean Sidney in the Wild West flashback. That Ruben is bad news, though I could never understand his “stud” reputation in the show. He just seemed so dang oily.
Childhood memory: Again, no specific memory of this episode, but it was right up there with the Monkees on the list of cool stuff when I was a kid. When we played Partridge Family (yes, I’m ashamed to admit we did that), I was Danny, cousin John was Keith and brother Steve was Chris. Come on now there’s a song that we’re singin’ …