Greatest Hits

Take a trip back in time to see what Christmas and the holiday season were like in America not too long ago as we reveal how many of today’s popular holiday celebrations and traditions had their start in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. With experts and cultural icons offering their own insight and personal memories, we reveal how your favorite holiday films, fads, television specials, songs and toys are still part of your holiday celebrations today.

The Winner Is is an American vocal game show that airs on NBC. Hosted by Nick Lachey, the seven-episode series features singers of all ages who will compete for a chance to win $1,000,000. The show premiered on June 10, 2013. The winner of the series was Katie Ohh, a nurse who won by a 57-44 decision from the 101 expert judges. For her final song, she sang "The Climb". The runner-up was Sharde Bivans, a teacher, who performed "It's a Man's Man's Man's World". The other four finalists in the Final 6 were the performers Amy Showalter, Leah Grace, and the vocal groups Senior Sounds of Touch and The LaFontaines. With a dismal 1.0 rating/3 share among adults 18-49, NBC announced its immediate cancellation on August 6, 2013, with two episodes remaining.

Hilary Duff: This Is Now is a two-part MTV reality television series about singer Hilary Duff, broadcast in April 2007. It followed Duff during a promotional tour for her album Dignity in Spain, and her first performance of her single "With Love" in Europe. It showed Duff participating in photo shoots, her personal affairs, and interview segments. The first episode aired on April 3, and the second on April 9, 2007. The show took two weeks to film, and an MTV crew followed Duff around, filming her preparations for the release of the Dignity album.

Popworld was a British television programme that was broadcast on Channel 4 as part of the T4 strand, featuring pop news, trivia, gossip, interviews and music videos, as well as musical performances from contemporary artists. The show began on 20 January 2001 and was initially presented by Miquita Oliver and Simon Amstell. Alex Zane and Alexa Chung took over the hosting role in 2006. Popworld was broadcast every Sunday Morning on Channel 4 at 10:30am, and repeated on E4 at 2:00pm the following day. On 27 April 2007, Channel 4 announced that they would not be recommissioning the show, and after six years on air, Popworld ended on 14 July 2007.

Objets cultes

The Midnight Special is an American late-night musical variety series that aired on NBC during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It premiered as a special on August 19, 1972, then began its run as a regular series on February 2, 1973; its last episode was on May 1, 1981. The ninety-minute program followed the Friday night edition of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The show typically featured guest hosts, except for a period from July 1975 through March 1976 when singer Helen Reddy served as the regular host. Wolfman Jack served as the announcer and frequent guest host. The series also occasionally aired vintage footage of older acts. As the program neared the end of its run in the early 1980s, it began to frequently use lip-synched performances rather than live. The program also featured occasional comedic performances such as Richard Pryor and Andy Kaufman.

The Chart Show is a music video programme which ran in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 between 1986 and 1988, then on ITV between 1989 and 1998. The production company was Video Visuals, and was credited as "A Yorkshire Television Presentation" from 1993 and 1998. The show has lived on through a Channel 4 revival in 2003 and a more recent revival on the digital music channel Chart Show TV, which ran sporadically from 2008 and 2009.

Making the Band 4 aired on MTV from June 18, 2007 to April 23, 2009. It centers on Diddy search for an all-male super group.

Los 10+ Pedidos is a television show broadcast on MTV in Latin America. It has the same concept as the U.S. MTV show Total Request Live in that it airs the ten most requested videos, and between the voted videos it shows other videos. It is believed to be one of the shows on MTVla with the highest ratings. Originally it was broadcast in an hour, then at the end of 2005 it was extended to ninety minutes, now it lasts one hour again. Most of the shows has VJs, the most recognized of which were Carmen Arce and Gabo in México and Cecilia Peckaitis and Gerónimo Santángello in Argentina. The physical presentation of the show, which includes images, animations and sounds, has changed on repeated occasions. During a short period of time — August to November 2005 — some of the most requested videos were not transmitted completely; instead, short clips were aired so more videos could be shown. In 2009, the show had a brief replacement called Tu Top which debuted the Monday following the rerun of 2008's Los 100+, the show suffered a mejor revamp during its absence and now there is only one 10+ for Latin America, with Gabo and Mecha hosting, the revamped show premiered April 20, 2009.

American Bandstand was an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer. The show featured teenagers dancing to Top 40 music introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical act—over the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run DMC—would usually appear in person to lip-sync one of their latest singles. Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon holds the record for most appearances at 110. The show's popularity helped Dick Clark become an American media mogul and inspired similar long-running music programs, such as Soul Train and Top of the Pops. Clark eventually assumed ownership of the program through his Dick Clark Productions company.

I Love the '90s is a television mini-series produced by VH1 in which various music and TV personalities talk about the 1990s culture and all it had to offer. The show premiered July 12, 2004 with the episode "I Love 1990" and aired two episodes daily until July 16, 2004, when it ended with "I Love 1999". On January 17, 2005, a sequel was aired in the same fashion.

I Love the '80s is a decade nostalgia television program that was produced by VH1, based on the BBC series of the same name. The first episode, "I Love 1980", premiered on December 16, 2002.

Live from Abbey Road is a 12-part, one-hour performance series/documentary that began filming its first season during 2006 at Abbey Road Studios in London. Season 2 was filmed between 2007 and 2008, season 3 was filmed in 2009 and Season 4 was filmed in 2011. The series features a total of 128 musical artists to date -- usually two or three per show, performing up to five songs per session. The sessions are recorded without a live audience. Filmed in High-Definition with the occasional use of 35 mm lenses, the producers have sought to record performances which "look like a movie and sound like a record".

Friday Night Videos is an American music video show broadcast on the NBC television network from July 29, 1983 to May 24, 2002, and was the network's attempt to capitalize on the emerging popularity of music videos as seen on MTV. Belinda Carlisle was the guest host for the first episode.

Solid Gold was an American syndicated music television series that debuted on September 13, 1980. Like many other shows of its genre, such as American Bandstand, Solid Gold featured musical performances and various other elements such as music videos. What set Solid Gold apart was a group of dancers in revealing costumes who at various points in the program performed various dances to the top ten hits of the week. Many other specials aired in which the dancers would dance to older pop hits as well. Reviews of the show were not always positive, with The New York Times referring to it as "the pop music show that is its own parody...[enacting] mini-dramas...of covetousness, lust and aerobic toning--routines that typically have a minimal connection with the songs that back them up." The series ran until July 23, 1988, and it was usually transmitted on Saturdays in the early evening. In 1986, Solid Gold added the current year to its title, so in the seventh season the show was known as Solid Gold '86/'87. For the eighth and last season the program became known as Solid Gold In Concert, reflecting the addition of more live performances than had previously been featured on the program in the past.

TRL UK was a British version of the popular American Total Request Live which first aired in the states in 1998, however it was not brought to the United Kingdom until the last quarter of 2003. It was broadcast weekdays at 4.30pm originally in 2003, however the time slot was changed as it ran in to its second season it was then broadcast at 6.00pm in 2005. The show's main presenter was Dave Berry who was joined by another of MTV's guest presenters each day. The show follows the format of the original Total Request Live it shows a Top 10 Countdown with Musical Guests and Actors and Actresses. It was broadcast from London's Leicester Square from the UK's capital and the presenters would stand in front of glass windows facing down onto the street to the audience just like the U.S. version.

Top of the Pops: Reloaded is a weekly children's music show broadcast as part of the Saturday morning CBBC schedule on BBC Two. It was based on the show, Top Of The Pops, following on from its predecessor Top of the Pops Saturday. It was shown on BBC Two at 11am on Saturdays and repeated at 6pm on the CBBC Channel on Sunday. Presenters included Fearne Cotton, Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes. The show also regularly featured Radio 1 DJs JK & Joel. From episode twelve onwards, a new feature was introduced where digital viewers could press their red button to access a different choice of music. Richard Oliff was the first ever 'Dad-Dancer' to be featured on the show, performing to Mylo's Doctor Pressure.

CD:UK was a British music television programme. Originally run in conjunction with SMTV Live, the programme first aired on ITV on 29 August 1998 to rival the BBC's Live & Kicking and was the replacement for The Chart Show, which had been airing on the network for nine and a half years. In contrast to its predecessor, which only showed promo videos, CD:UK was broadcast live on Saturday mornings with a studio audience and featured live performances, as well as star interviews and competitions. It also featured the Saturday Chart, which although was unofficial, usually reflected the new chart positions a day before the official chart was announced on Radio 1. This made the BBC's long-running Top of the Pops, which aired only the night before, seem very out-of-date broadcasting the previous week's chart. CD:UK later utilised an interactive chart based on viewers' votes, called the MiTracks Countdown. From 1999 to 2004, the show was sponsored by Tizer. In 2002, the programmes was criticised for showing "raunchy" performances in a slot aimed at children, sparked by a performance of "Dirrty" by Christina Aguilera. In response, a spin-off programme entitled CD:UK Hotshots, featuring music videos which could be considered unsuitable for daytime viewing, was launched in January 2003 and broadcast overnight.

Making the Band is an ABC/MTV reality television series that exists in separate iterations, each iteration focusing on a specific music act. It spawned musical acts O-Town, Da Band, Danity Kane, Day26, and Donnie Klang. Except for the first iteration of the series featuring O-Town, all seasons of Making the Band have been overseen by Diddy, acting as the man of the house who makes the final decision on who will be in the band.

Total Request Live was a television series on MTV that featured popular music videos. TRL was MTV's prime outlet for music videos as the network continued to concentrate on reality-based programming. In addition to music videos, TRL featured daily guests. The show was a popular promotion tool used by musicians, actors, and other celebrities to promote their newest works to the show's target teen demographic. TRL played the top ten most requested videos of the day, as requested by viewers who voted online for their favorite video. The countdown started with the tenth most requested video and ended with the most requested. As of October 22, 2007, TRL's countdown was based on votes, charts, ringtones, download, radio airplay, and streams, meaning that the most user requested video might not have been the number 1 video. The show generally aired Monday through Thursday for one hour, though the scheduling and length of the show fluctuated over the years. Despite the word "Live" in the title of the show, many episodes were actually pre-recorded. It was announced on September 15, 2008 that TRL would be shut down and replaced with FNMTV. The special three-hour finale aired on November 16, 2008, at 8 p.m.