Not Your Typical Christmas Special Quiz

Answer: South Park

A bit unorthodox, but considering "South Park's" long history as an off-colour animated comedy, Mr. Hankey is in the right company amongst the show's cast of characters. Introduced in the very first season of the show, Mr. Hankey was brought forth to help Kyle, the Jewish contingent of the main cast of boys, cope with loneliness over the holiday season. What unfolded was the introduction of a character who would become a satirical fixture in multiple episodes, usually holiday-themed, over the course of the next several years. Mr. Hankey and his entire family, seen living in the sewers, showed up again in fourth season episode "A Very Crappy Christmas".

Answer: Friends

Airing in season seven of the show's ten season run, "TOW the Holiday Armadillo" was the annual Christmas episode of the year, and while the six friends faced scenarios only a sitcom could provide in previous years, this one blended Christmas, Hannukah, and more to pull in the laughs.

In this episode, Ross tried to teach his son, Ben, about Hannukah, attempting to get a themed suit to drive the point home. Too late to get anything on-brand, he had to settle for Santa's Tex-Mex companion, 'The Holiday Armadillo'.

This season also ended with Monica and Chandler's wedding, one of the major events of the entire series.

Answer: Black Mirror

In a one-off Christmas 'special' from when the show was still on Channel 4, "Black Mirror" put Jon Hamm in the lead role as a tech-savvy man whose past makes him the ideal person to get answers. Although the episode was set at Christmastime, "White Christmas" goes a lot darker, following three linked stories through different periods of time to come to a grim conclusion highlighting the risks of a high-tech near-dystopia.

The episode was critically renowned. It would be the last on Channel 4 before "Black Mirror" was picked up by Netflix.

Answer: Santa Claus

Found in the "Asylum" episode "Unholy Night", Leigh Emerson (played by Ian McShane) caused great trouble to the inmates of Briarcliff Manor upon his arrival there. While the Christmas season fell upon the building, much else was going on; the death of another inmate led the workers to act irrationally; one of the nuns, possessed by a demon, caused issues; a serial killer was on the loose.

The possessed nun, Sister Mary Eunice, allowed Emerson to don his Santa outfit once again and go loose in the building, letting him attack the head nun, Sister Jude, in her office. Leigh ultimately escaped, going on a nun murder spree in several states.

Answer: Abed's

This second season Christmas episode sent the already-media-obsessed into a meta-adventure about stop-motion Christmas specials in which a lesson needed to be learned about the Meaning of Christmas (ultimately it was that we give meaning to Christmas), but along the way, the cast and most of its side-characters ended up getting the claymation treatment a la the classic Rankin/Bass TV specials.

The following year would feature a Christmas musical episode parodying "Glee".

Answer: Life Day

Airing on CBS in 1978 in an attempt to capitalize on the obvious blockbuster status of George Lucas' "Star Wars" franchise, the "Star Wars Holiday Special" predated "The Empire Strikes Back" by a year and, while it featured the majority of the main cast from "A New Hope", mainly featured Chewbacca and his family.

The special was very poorly received, partly because there was no subtitling for Chewbacca's family (making the main focus unable to be understood) and partly because it ended up being an odd variety special featuring numbers by Jefferson Starship, Diahann Carroll, and Bea Arthur.

It was intentionally stopped from being rebroadcast for decades.

Answer: The O.C.

Blending together the obvious December choices of Christmas and Hannukah, Chrismukkah was popularized by "The O.C.", during which Adam Brody's character, Seth Cohen, celebrated both holidays (presents and then more presents). The festival persisted once per year during the show's four season run. Similar to "Community's" ability to make the seasons about the moments we make of them, "The O.C.'s" joint holiday managed to bring everyone together despite their differences.

The first Chrismukkah on the show was seen in 2004.

Answer: Pac-Land

The 1982 animated TV movie "Christmas Comes to Pac-Land", interestingly, avoided utilizing other characters from the Hanna-Barbera roster in favour of a completely original holiday story involving Pac-Man, his family (Mrs. Pepper Pac-Man, anyone?), Santa Claus, and the ghosts from the game-- Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde. Pac-Man defeated the ghosts, but they still managed to scare Santa into crash landing and, thus, Christmas needed to be saved. "Pac-Man" was popular enough to get its own full series in 1982 and 1983 as well (also by Hanna-Barbera) which ran for a few dozen episodes.

Answer: Kelly Clarkson

In the long-standing tradition of giving musicians a variety Christmas special on network TV, NBC handed the keys to the Christmas kingdom off to Kelly Clarkson, the original winner of FOX's "American Idol", in 2013, five years before she would become a recurring judge on "The Voice" and six before she had her own syndicated talk show, "The Kelly Clarkson Show" (both also on NBC).

Her "Cautionary Christmas Music Tale", however, was a combination filmed narrative mixed with live elements from a Vegas show, all of which was put together to advertise the release of her Christmas album, "Wrapped in Red".

Other guest celebrities on the special included "The Voice" judge Blake Shelton, Reba McEntire, and William Shatner.

Answer: Doctor Who

Although not really an occurrence in the early seasons of "Doctor Who", an annual Christmastime episode of the show became a staple during the show's revival in 2005 and said episodes, often aired quite the time away from the full series, have featured higher-profile actors and critical stories that drive the ever-progressing plot of the show as a whole forward. Said episodes have been used as farewells to past Doctors, impromptu introductions of new ones, testing grounds for new companions, and ways to bring back favourite enemies of the Doctor.

As an alternative to Christmas Day, BBC has also aired some of these extra special episodes (like "The End of Time, Part Two") on New Year's Day.