Christmas abounds with traditions, from neighborhood carolers to lovingly decorated trees, but from where did all these rituals emerge? This enlightening program looks at the origins of the Western world's most popular Christmas traditions -- from the significance of December 25th and its relationship to winter solstice to the enchanting legend of Santa Claus and Prince Albert's 1841 unveiling of the Christmas tree.

Z-grade horror flick "The Hideous Sun Demon" re-dubbed and re-edited into a monster-movie spoof about a suntan lotion that works from the inside out (it also has a certain side effect).

Matt Helm is an American mystery television series which aired on the ABC Network during the 1975-1976 season. The title character was played by Anthony Franciosa.

A race-car driver finds himself in a romantic triangle and a machete-swinging stranger trying to kill him.

Captain Foster plans on raiding German-occupied Tobruk with hand- picked commandos, but a mixup leaves him with a medical unit led by a Quaker conscientious objector.

A middle-aged husband falls for his childrens' teenaged babysitter.

Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud of the small western town of Taos, New Mexico is assigned to the metropolitan New York City Police Department (NYPD) as a special investigator.

Chicago February 14th 1929. Al Capone finally establishes himself as the city's boss of organised crime. In a north-side garage his hoods, dressed as policemen, surprise and mow down with machine-guns the key members of Bugs Moran's rival gang. The film traces the history of the incident, and the lives affected and in some cases ended by it.

In 1906, two American brothers join the French Foreign Legion and, led by a sadistic Sergeant-Major, they defend a fort against Berber and Tuareg attack.

Wealthy entrepreneur Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson lead a double life: they are actually crime fighting duo Batman and Robin. A secret Batpole in the Wayne mansion leads to the Batcave, where Police Commissioner Gordon often calls with the latest emergency threatening Gotham City. Racing to the scene of the crime in the Batmobile, Batman and Robin must (with the help of their trusty Bat-utility-belt) thwart the efforts of a variety of master criminals, including The Riddler, The Joker, Catwoman, and The Penguin.

American Mike Harper, sent to do business in England, moves there with his wife, Janet. But she soon becomes convinced that Mike is carrying on with his attractive new assistant, Claire. Mike also has been spending a considerable amount of time with his British bachelor buddies. Vexed and lonely, Claire hires charming antiques expert Paul to decorate the Harper home and maybe make Mike jealous in the process.

Straitlaced senatorial hopeful David Stratton has no idea what he's in for when he arrives home from a trip to find sexy teen Jody curled up asleep in his daughter's bed. Soon, delinquent Jody is holding David -- and his plush suburban home -- hostage while she hides out from the cops and throws wild parties with her beatnik pals. David, terrified of scandal, agrees to drive Jody and her friends to Mexico, a decision he regrets when the ride gets out of control.

Daniel Boone is an American action-adventure television series starring Fess Parker as Daniel Boone that aired from September 24, 1964 to September 10, 1970 on NBC for 165 episodes, and was made by 20th Century Fox Television. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Cherokee friend, for the first four seasons of the series. Albert Salmi portrayed Boone's companion Yadkin in season one only. Dallas McKennon portrayed innkeeper Cincinnatus. Country Western singer-actor Jimmy Dean was a featured actor as Josh Clements during the 1968–1970 seasons. Actor and former NFL football player Rosey Grier made regular appearances as Gabe Cooper in the 1969 to 1970 season. The show was broadcast "in living color" beginning in fall 1965, the second season, and was shot entirely in California and Kanab, Utah.

Kraft Suspense Theatre is an American anthology series that was telecast from 1963 to 1965 on NBC. Sponsored by Kraft Foods, it was seen three weeks out of every four and was pre-empted for Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall specials once monthly. Como's production company, Roncom Films, also produced Kraft Suspense Theatre. Writer, editor, critic and radio playwright Anthony Boucher served as consultant on the series. Later syndicated under the title Crisis, it was one of the few suspense series telecast in color at the time. While most of NBC's shows were in color then, all-color network line-ups did not become the norm until the 1966-67 season.

The Human Jungle is a British TV series about a psychiatrist, made for ABC Television by the small production company Independent Artists for transmission on ITV. Starring Herbert Lom, it ran for two series which were first transmitted during 1963 and 1965.

Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.

Red Kirby is a seasoned bush pilot. When he crash lands his plane near a remote lake in northern Alberta, he is initially optimistic that he will soon be rescued. However, as the months drag by, Kirby realizes that he must take his fate into his own hands. To combat the loneliness, he befriends a family of Canada geese.

From chicken thief to cabin boy, riverboat pilot to circus performer, Huck Finn outsmarts everyone on his way down the muddy Mississippi.

A series of unrelated stories containing drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, and/or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist.

A dedicated FBI agent recalls the agency's battles against the Klan, organized crime and Communist spies.

Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of the life of real-life marshal/gambler/dandy Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry and the half-hour black-and-white shows ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961. The series was produced by Ziv Television Productions, the company responsible for such hit series as Sea Hunt and Highway Patrol.

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse is an American television anthology series produced by Desilu Productions. The show ran on CBS television between 1958 and 1960. Two of its 48 episodes served as pilots for the 1950s television series The Twilight Zone and The Untouchables.

After exposure to radiation, an atomic research scientist finds himself changing into a murderous, lizard-like creature every time he is exposed to sunlight.

Maverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, an adroitly articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart, and from that point on, Garner and Kelly alternated leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode. The Mavericks were poker players from Texas who traveled all over the American Old West and on Mississippi riverboats, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both. They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. More often than not, their consciences trumped their wallets since both Mavericks were intensely ethical. When Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, Roger Moore was added to the cast as their cousin Beau Maverick. Robert Colbert appeared later in the fourth season as a third Maverick brother, Brent Maverick. No more than two of the series leads ever appeared together in the same episode, and usually only one.

A party of archaeologists discovers the remnants of a mutant five millennia-old Sumerian civilization living beneath a glacier atop a mountain in Mesopatamia.

Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers is a television series broadcast in the United States by NBC during its 1956-57 season. In a period in which much of the programming on U.S. television consisted of Westerns, Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers could best be described as an "Eastern". It consisted of the adventures of a fictional regiment of the famed real-life cavalry of the British Indian Army. The leading characters were the 77th's officers: the commander, Colonel Standish and two of his lieutenants, William Storm and Michael Rhodes. Rhodes was portrayed as a Canadian, purportedly because the actor portraying him, a native of New Jersey, could not be coached to produce a credible British accent.

A couple vacationing in Morocco with their young son accidentally stumble upon an assassination plot. When the child is kidnapped to ensure their silence, they have to take matters into their own hands to save him.

Canadian Mountie Sgt. Preston patrols the wilds of the Yukon with his horse Rex and his faithful dog Yukon King, battling both the elements and criminals.

Ventriloquist Jerry Morgan has failed with another love affair. The reason: when the relationship reaches the point when it is time to discuss marriage, his two dolls become mean and jealous. Morgan's dollmaker Papinek is a member of a spy ring who has stolen the secret plans for the top-secret Lafayette airplane. Since Morgan is leaving for Zurich the same night, he decides to hide the secret plan in the heads of the dolls.

Freshly arrived Sandhurst-trained Captain Alan King, better versed in Pashtun then any of the veterans and born locally as army brat, survives an attack on his escort to his Northwest Frontier province garrison near the Khyber pass because of Ahmed, a native Afridi deserter from the Muslim fanatic rebel Karram Khan's forces. As soon as his fellow officers learn his mother was a native Muslim which got his parents disowned even by their own families, he falls prey to stubborn prejudiced discrimination, Lieutenant Geoffrey Heath even moves out of their quarters, except from half-Irish Lt. Ben Baird.

The mother died under the executioner's axe; the daughter rose to become England's greatest monarch -- the brilliant and cunning Queen Elizabeth I. Jean Simmons portrays young Bess in this rich tapestry of a film that traces the tumultuous, danger-fraught years from Elizabeth's birth to her unexpected ascension to the throne at a mere 25. Charles Laughton reprises his Academy Award®-winning* role as her formidable father Henry VIII. Deborah Kerr plays her last stepmother (and Henry's last of six wives), gentle Catherine Parr. And Simmons' then real-life husband, Stewart Granger, adds heroics as Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour. In a resplendent world of adventure, romance and court intrigue, Young Bess reigns.

Two brothers flee America and join the Canadian North West Mounted Police. One brother is good, the other bad, both men on a collision course just as trouble starts to brew with the Indians.

Based on the story of Australia's colonization, this atmospheric drama stars Alan Ladd as Hugh Tallant, an American medical student falsely convicted of robbery and sent on a torturous voyage with other prisoners to the penal colony at Botany Bay. Because of his attempt to escape, evil Captain Gilbert decides to return him to England on charges of mutiny.

Honest Robert Maynard finds himself serving as ship's surgeon under the infamous pirate Blackbeard.

After overcoming polio, Annette Kellerman achieves fame and creates a scandal when her one-piece bathing suit is considered indecent.

During the Mayflower pilgrims' long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on their way to America, Captain Christopher Jones falls in love with William Bradford's wife Dorothy.

During WWII, the valet to the British Ambassador to Ankara sells British secrets to the Germans while trying to romance a refugee Polish countess.

The life and career of Erwin Rommel and his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

The wicked Alain plots an elaborate revenge against his younger brother Edmund, leading to a deadly confrontation in his dungeon deathtrap.

Mary Herries has a passion for art and fine furniture. Even though she is getting on in years, she enjoys being around these priceless articles. One day she meets a strange young painter named Elcott, who uses his painting skill to enter into her life. Little does she expect that his only interest in Mary is to covet everything she has.

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok is an American Western television series which ran for eight seasons from 1951 through 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from 1955 through 1958, and, at the same time, on ABC from 1957 through 1958.

Kiplingesque tale of British forces in 19th-century India.

The son of Robin Hood carries on his late father's tradition.

Borneo, 1941, during World War II. When the Japanese occupy the island, American writer Agnes Newton Keith is separated from her husband and imprisoned with her son in a prison camp run by the enigmatic Colonel Suga.

A Christmas Carol was a 1949 syndicated, black and white television special narrated by Vincent Price.

In the early days of daylight bombing raids over Germany, General Frank Savage must take command of a 'hard luck' bomber group. Much of the story deals with his struggle to whip his group into a disciplined fighting unit in spite of heavy losses, and withering attacks by German fighters over their targets.

After a beautiful but unsophisticated girl is seduced by a worldly piano player and gives up her out-of-wedlock baby, her guilt compels her to kidnap another child.

Following World War II, a woman tries to help her fiance understand his son's traumatic experience as a G.I., during which he lost a leg and was imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp.

Amber St Clair, orphaned during the English Civil War and raised by a family of farmers, aspires to be a lady of high society; when a group of cavaliers ride into town, she sneaks away with them to London to achieve her dreams.