Airdate: 12/23/1987

Directed By. Michael Landon

Even though Yet Another Santa Claus On The Highway To Heaven would be more like it.

The fourth season is about to conclude its first half, people are decorating their homes: Christmas is finally here. After making a Christmas special in season one that was essentially a riff on an old book, then skipping the special entirely in season two and airing a drugs episode instead, and finally returning to their roots in season three with a very weird adventure, the series has now decided to make yet another Christmas special in season four — and it is probably the most “special” one yet: it’s about Santa.

That’s right: if season one’s Christmas special was an outspoken reinterpretation of an all-time classic novel in a modern setting, and season three’s was a covert version of the same story with more bums than stuff, this season decides to draw inspiration from another old favorite — not a book this time, but still a beloved classic. It partially reconstructs the old premise to create something that follows the same line while introducing several modifications beyond simply changing the setting.

It’s weird, it’s Highway to Heaven, it’s Christmastime — it’s the season four Christmas special.

Complete show available here.

Assignment: Jonathan and Mark are assigned to help an incarcerated man claiming to be Santa Claus prove his identity and get out of jail before the Christmas holidays.

There’s some pretty big stuff going on here. It’s a double assignment but not in the usual way. In most episodes with two assignments, the story starts normally, and the two assignments are presented at the beginning (like That’s Our Dad). Instead, this episode begins with a single assignment before abruptly changing direction after a while. So, it’s like Help Wanted: Angel; however, in that episode, the real assignment only appeared after the fictional one had been resolved. Here, instead, the episode begins with an assignment and later introduces a second one that ties directly back into the first.

At the beginning of the episode, Jonathan and Mark are hired by Mr. Burke, a divorced man constantly arguing with his ex wife over their son, who is caught in the middle. At first, the assignment appears straightforward: help these parents realize the damage their conflict is causing.

Partly, Mark.

At least this is not a “get the couple back together” story — despite the title, it doesn’t seem like a love assignment at all.

However, things start to get a little shaky when a man dressed as Santa Claus appears at a department store, playing Santa for the children by letting them sit on his knee and tell him what they want for Christmas.

Just another bum in costume.

Not exactly. The man introduces himself as the real Santa Claus — that Santa Claus — and he is horrified that the store is trying to sell toy guns to children.

Merry Christmas.

Outraged, he decides to go to Jonathan’s law firm and sue the store for using his image to promote something he would never endorse.

Hold on, it’s just starting out.

After causing a scene at the store, the man is arrested for disorderly conduct and dismissed as nothing more than an eccentric bum. So, Jonathan and Mark find themselves defending him in court and trying to convince everyone that he really is Santa Claus — all while children gather outside preparing demonstrations to free Santa in time for Christmas.

If all of this sounds familiar, don’t worry: it’s just an updated version of the classic Miracle story. It seems like they couldn’t make any Christmas Special without using an existing source.

Unlike the season one special, however, this episode makes almost no direct references to its inspiration, making it difficult to recognize unless the viewer already knows the original 1930s material.

There are also some important differences. In the original Miracle, the two attorneys are neighbors secretly in love despite constantly arguing over Santa’s identity. Here, instead, they were once in love but are now divorced.

That change makes the story new and somewhat bolder for a Christmas show: it cannot simply end with the couple reuniting romantically.

So, in a way, this episode is like Cindy in season two: it draws from an existing book, like this episode only draws features from Miracle, but also updates it in the process. It’s not just Yet Another Miracle on the Highway To Heaven; though it’s yet another Santa.

Also, this was the fourth “courtroom battle” episode of the series: the fist was A Divine Madness in season one, then The Monster in season two and A Special Love in season three.

• Background

The most important part: it’s Christmastime.

Although which Christmas it’s an entirely different matter.

The episode is clearly set during Christmas 1987, as Jonathan and Mark are hired by the law firm and their employer Mr. Burke notes that Mark worked as a police officer for fifteen years before spending the last three years with Jonathan. The Pilot episode supposedly took place in early 1984, and that places this Christmas in 1987. At that point, however, the timeline becomes confusing: this was the third Christmas Special so far, and it remains unclear whether the season one Christmas special was set in 1984 or 1985, since one Christmas appears to be completely missing from the series chronology. Most likely, the season one special actually took place during Christmas 1985 — effectively during season two, which lacked the Christmas Special episode — while season one itself spent the holidays dealing with Stella instead. Or maybe that was the missing Christmas after all, and Jonathan and Mark simply spent it with Mark’s sister.

The only holidays Mark could spend without working.

There’s also one different explanation: that Basinger’s New York in season three actually took place before the season one’s Christmas Special. If that were the case, it means that it certainly took place in 1984, the Christmas Special in season one is set in 1985 and this episode either in 1986 (during season three) or 1987 (season four). It may sound far-fetched, but it could account for some weird remarks: for example, Eddy’s grave in the season one Christmas Special. It could also explain the timespan of this season (as it will become apparent in some future episodes, it lasts too long to make it a one year season like the rest).

It doesn’t solve everything, though: for example, in a season two episode set in New York, it seemed that Mark had never been to that city, even though he did if Basinger’s New York actually took place in season one. Also, in this episode it’s reported that Mark began working as Angel Assistant freelance for three years, and the Pilot is set in early 1984, so it has to be 1987 now (unless the guy misspoke or just rounded up, which is not impossible but seems like a specific justification). Besides, the entire idea that a season three episode took place before a season one episode is weird; it’s been established that Holiday Special are exceptions, but that might prove too hard to believe.

What it all boils down to is that either this episode is set in 1987, during season four (and there’s a missing Christmas in either season one or two) or, perhaps more unlike but not entirely impossible, in 1986 during season three (and the missing Christmas is the fourth season’s, in 1987 instead).

The timespan is around ten days: it begins the day Santa storms into the department store, then he gets the injunction supposedly one week later, and then court is due on Christmas Eve.

• Characters

This episode finally names Jonathan and Mark’s job: when they are hired by a law firm, Mr. Burke reads Mark’s references and finds out two things. One, about Mark’s past jobs.

Those references probably don’t mention that he was suspended for his drinking, or Burke wouldn’t be so impressed anymore.

Anyway, this marks the first time in the entire series they give an official name to Mark’s angelic job. They probably liked it, and they will use it again later on in the season.

From Mark’s expression, though, it doesn’t seem like he was aware of having that job.

Cute.

Most importantly, though, Mark was in the Vietnam War, and that’s why he doesn’t like people playing with toy guns.

That was one of the most off-putting, hilarious scenes of the entire series.

The crew members are probably choking up too.

Instead, as for Jonathan, he references his own past when Mr. Burke asks him if he’s married.

People already know the answer.

Jonathan used to be married to Jane before becoming an angel (Keep Smiling), and has a daughter.

Also, it’s one of the episodes in which he looks at the ceiling to talk to his superior.

Even when there’s no sky.

It’s completely pointless to do that, but he’s used to it now.

• Actors (Little House Actor, Highway Actors)

This episode has a bunch of old actors that Landon and French and the audience may remember from this series, and from Little House too. One is Santa himself — or maybe not, depending on how you look at it.

He’s played by actor Bill Erwin, who appeared in Love And Marriage as the father of Mark’s police friend. Just without the fake whiskers.

He retired some ten years after this episode and passed away in 2010, eventually.

The second actor is Ivor Barry as the doctor summoned to testify against Santa’s existence.

He appeared twice in season one, playing two butlers: Eddy’s in the Christmas Special and Melvin’s in The Banker And The Bum (one of the few Highway Actors featured twice in the same season).

It seems like he can’t stay away from Christmas Episodes.

Back in season one, it was never entirely clear whether his character was meant to be the same person — another servant working for an eccentric doozy man — or whether it was simply a reference, or just a coincidence.

The last familiar actor is not from this series: the Grinchley store owner at Santa’s workplace is played by Robert Casper, who had already appeared on Little House very late in the ninth season.

He was Mr. Montague, the first boarder to move into Laura’s big new house — the one she inherited from a wealthy old friend nobody knew she had and nobody had heard of in nine seasons. (The writers had some strange ideas by that point.) He was introduced in the last episode of season nine and was apparently intended to become a recurring character for the tenth season next year. However, despite that season’s good ratings, the network didn’t move forward and never renewed the series. But Landon secured three final special movies, and Casper returned for all of them.

Curiously, in the last Special Bless All The Dear Children (the one which aired after the series finale), Casper didn’t believe in Santa Claus but eventually wound up pretending to be one to please another character (Jason played by David Friedman). They probably called him for the role here as they thought it was similar to Montague there.

Anyway, after his short Little House run, he continued acting for some years and retired in 1990, and passed away thirty years later.

• Production and Setting

As for the production, the episode was filmed in early October 1987 after the Blind Camp show, as the first episode of the season written by Dan Gordon, the series’ head writer.

The reasons are unclear, but he seemed to partially step away from the series after season three. During the first three seasons, he wrote at least nine episodes per season and even directed three of them. In season four, however, he abruptly reduced his involvement and wrote only six episodes (although two of them were divided into two parts and in one of them he is credited for additional writing to an already existing script, which results in a total of only three new scripts.)

Maybe he wrote additional material that Landon eventually chose not to produce, or perhaps he simply felt he had already contributed enough stories by then and assumed Landon would continue selecting from the ideas already available (they wrote more scripts than those they produced). Or maybe he just felt he was through with the series and ready to move on from Highway. Either way, his involvement dropped drastically, and this episode marked his first contribution of the season and one of the very few.

Glossary:

Blooper: there’s one blooper when Mr. And Mrs. Burke confront each other in court and she’s holding papers with her right hand.

And then she’s crossing hands together.

Bums: everybody in the episode thinks Santa is a bum. And there are various references to that.

It’s one of Landon’s Obsessions, like every Christmas Special.

Cute: Mark drops a cute when Jonathan refuses to tell him whether Santa is Santa.

Holiday Special: it’s the third Christmas episode of the series, after Another Song For Christmas in season one and Basinger’s New York in season three (the second season skipped the special and aired a drug episode instead; later they did air one episode supposedly set during Christmastime, but it remained unrelated to the Holiday and it wasn’t even certain it took place on Christmas.)

Anyway, it’s the sixth Holiday Special of the series.

And it shares a couple of features with the other Christmas Specials. One, they all begin the same way: a radio playing The Carol Of The Bells. It seems that Highway only had the budget for one Christmas song and simply kept reusing it every year.

That impression becomes even stronger when considering that the original script reportedly called for Deck The Halls instead. Either Landon was obsessed with Carol of the Bells almost as much as he was obsessed with that book (almost as much as his three obsessions), or the producers simply could not afford new music licenses.

Then, this episode concludes on a Christmas Tree with Joy Of The World underscoring it.

That’s precisely the ending of the Christmas Special in season one, with a random star on a tree.

And the Christmas Special in season three, when Basinger met Santa the Bum.

Although in those cases it was just a random Christmas Tree, while this time it actually belongs to one of the characters introduced in the episode.

Highway Of Mysteries: the biggest mystery of this episode is Santa — a character the audience should already be somewhat familiar with. Not necessarily as the literal bringer of gifts, but as a recurring presence within the series itself.

Yet another Santa.

Both the season one and season three Christmas specials featured a Santa Claus figure at some point. In season one, Santa appeared briefly at the beginning of the episode during Jonathan and Mark’s nighttime stroll before entering Eddy’s dream. And Jonathan seemed to know him.

In season three, another Santa appeared at the very end when he waited for Basinger at his workplace, although that one was most likely just a bum in costume.

In both cases, however, the show deliberately kept the character and his identity mysterious: especially in season one, Jonathan acted strangely mysterious about him, teasing Mark who tried to figure out whether the man was actually Santa Claus or not. And now it turns out there’s a third Santa. Maybe that implies there are more than one Santa around.

The odd part is that Mark never really knows whether this Santa is a fraud either, yet he never once mentions the Santa in season one.

He means, not like the other Santas.

Then again, it is nothing new for Highway characters to forget everything once a season ends. So, just pretend the season one Christmas special never happened. Or that the encounter with Santa didn’t, which is probably how the writers felt about it.

More likely, they hadn’t intended to actually introduce the real Santa by the time they made that episode in season one, so they covered it up by pretending themselves it never happened either.

Still, the entire episode never provides a conclusive answer: there are some points suggesting that he is. For example, he talks like Jonathan about having a “superior” located somewhere “upstairs” and about being on an “assignment”.

If he knows Jonathan’s vocabulary (or has read the glossary), then he’s likely the real Santa. But that would bring a lot of issues: for example, if he really were Santa, then what the hell has he been up to in the past three seasons; like, was he a department store Santa, was he busy doing something for other kids in another part of the world or what. (As though he were busy one year in every country: 1987 is the year of the US, and then he’ll head someplace else.)

But there’s another mystery: while Santa is in jail and Jonathan and Mark visit him, Mark teases him by saying that, if he really is Santa Claus, then he has the Stuff and could use it to escape.

That’s weird: so far, “the Stuff” has been presented as Mark’s joking way of referring to Jonathan’s powers, rather than an official term used by angels in general. In fact, it has never been used with other angels. For example, when Jonathan met Harold in season two, they either referred to “powers” or left it unsaid, but nobody called it “the Stuff” the way Mark does.

So it’s unclear how Mark assumes that this man would understand the reference. Although he does.

Perhaps you should explain what the Stuff is.

Maybe angels just found out and liked it so much they copied it, just like they found out it’s okay to have a human assistant—even though Jonathan made a fuss about it in the Pilot believing it was impossible.

But that has a bigger resonance: if he knows what the “Stuff” is—and who the “superior” is upstairs, and what “assignment” means—then it seems to suggest that he’s an angel too. Or a probationary one. So, Santa exists and is a probationary angel.

Then, assuming that Kris in season one and the bum in season three were real, it means that there’s more than one Santa operating in the world. That’s how he can bring presents everywhere.

Maybe this episode suggests there are Santas all over the world just like angels, except some of them are on probation — like the Santa in this episode.

If that were the case, it means Santa is just as enslaved as anyone else, as he admits.

That’s a long probation.

Or perhaps the point is simply this Santa is just a bum. That’s what this episode is really about.

Recycles: the firm Jonathan and Mark work for is a recycled building.

That’s from As Difficult As ABC, where Brian went looking for a job.

And that place had already been recycled as hospital in season three as well.

Los Angeles is really changing fast.

Sunday Suits: everybody has one, and this time it’s a combination of the black and the gray suits.

And Santa’s shorts.

Actually, there’s a problem with that: Santa is dressed up that way for the heat, as he admits in the episode.

However, if he were really an angel—or some sort of angelic being, hence he knows what the “Stuff” is and everything—then he shouldn’t feel anything, the same way Jonathan doesn’t feel any pain and doesn’t have to eat or drink and is immune to injuries and everything.

The Job: it’s a double job.

Curiously, that marks the second time Jonathan has that kind of job (after A Divine Madness in season 1) and the fifth time Mark has that one (just one episode ago he was one, kind of).

Ratings: 24 million audience. 23rd weekly TV program, 4th TV genre show.

The episode aired during Christmastime in 1987 shortly before the holidays and it wasn’t especially successful, remaining largely at the same ratings level as the preceding episode about cops, which wasn’t even a Christmas show. Still, the performance wasn’t bad for several reasons. For one thing, it aired two weeks after the preceding episode. (On December 16 they aired Family Ties, a sitcom which used to air on Sundays 9.00 pm and was moved to Wednesday just to replace Highway that single week; weird, isn’t it.)

Usually, episodes airing after a one-week break lose viewers compared to their predecessors, but this one remained stable. That was something many earlier episodes in the first three seasons had struggled to do— and something unexpected for this season, whose ratings fluctuated unevenly from week to week even without any skip between episodes.

Then, despite being the least-watched Christmas special up to that point — compared both to the season one and season three Christmas specials, as well as the season two episode that aired during Christmas despite not actually being a Christmas special — it didn’t decline by very much. In fact, it performed fairly close to the season one Christmas special. Of course, that episode had been the second least-watched of its season at the time it aired, so it shouldn’t necessarily be treated as a mark for ratings success. Still, many other episodes in this season suffered much sharper declines, so considering the broader losses the series experienced, this episode actually held up relatively well.

Again, there was no way to predict how it was going to score, after the sudden drop in ratings from the second to the third episode of this season, as well as the Halloween Special. So, while it wasn’t really popular, it closed the first half of the season fairly well compared to other episodes. Maybe there’s still some leeway for the new episodes airing in the new year to improve a little, especially considering that January is generally the month in which the series enjoys its greatest popularity. However, late September has also traditionally been a period in which the series performs better in the ratings compared to the rest of the year, and that wasn’t the case earlier this season. At this point, really, the series has to be ready for whatever may come in the future.