A Paul Lynde Christmas gift

25 Nov 2023 -

To many gay men of my generation, Paul Lynde is THE icon. A flamboyant, witty, and somewhat bitter queen, he clawed his way to the top of the Hollywood heap and enjoyed a fabulous career in the '60s and '70s, first in the musical Bye Bye Birdie, then as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, and finally as the center square on Hollywood Squares. A notorious bad drunk (he once tried to order a burger from a cop car), he finally quit drinking and suffered a fatal heart attack soon after. Still, his faggy demeanour really meant a lot to us. He was Uncle Paul, and he mattered.

He mattered so much that decades later, a group of Los Angeles-based gay comedians have created Making the Yuletide Gay: A Very Special Paul Lynde Christmas. It’s the show he never gave, but it is modelled somewhat on his rather famous Halloween special of 1976 (available on DVD). This version goes a lot further than that. It includes impersonations of other gay icons of the period, namely Tab Hunter, Sal Mineo, and Liberace. Since those guys were deeply closeted at the time, the whole enterprise is dripping with innuendo. It might be the single gayest Christmas special ever made. Even better, the producers drop in vintage '70s commercials during the ‘commercial breaks.’ The best one is for Body on Tap, a shampoo that contains beer, which apparently is rich in protein. Gotta love the '70s. 

The actors and comedians and drag queens filling the all-white television studio (sparsely dressed with Christmas decorations) include Jackie Beat, The Lady Bunny, and Michael Airington as Lynde. The whole thing was written by Bruce Vilanch (with additional material by, among others, my old buddy Dennis Hensley), and there are some cute dancing boys filling out the stage. I enjoyed it but I will admit that the layers of camp and ditziness are deep indeed. Still, it’s probably the perfect thing to watch after a nice Christmas dinner with all your best gay friends. It’s validating, empowering, and really really silly.