TV’s Winter Wonderland

Pingu

Check out the episode "Pingu's Lavatory Story" on Pingu Forever! (1987)

Otmar Guttman’s claymation penguin family who live on the South Pole was cited as a bad influence by Madonna. Apparently her daughter Lourdes loved Pingu so much she wouldn’t stop watching TV. Enter David Hasselhoff who in 1989 released his single “Pingu Dance”, sampling Pinguish dialect. This episode was actually banned in some countries because it shows Pingu urinating on the bathroom floor. Returning home from lunch, Pingu desperately needs to go to the toilet. Dad’s occupying the bathroom, so Pingu tries to use sister Pinga’s potty. That doesn’t work, so he rushes outside and rings the doorbell. This fools his father into exiting the bathroom to answer the door. Pingu storms the bathroom, but in his rush sprays the floor as the toilet is too high for him to reach. When even trying to reach the toilet on stilts fails, Mum builds him some steps out of ice. Problem solved!

Reyka, The Ice Princess

Check out the episode "Castles In Space" on Lost in Space-Season 3 - Disc 4 (1967)

Reyka has been transported away from her homeland by her parents to protect her from being kidnapped. She is discovered by the Jupiter II crew suspended in an ice coffin. While Doctor Smith and the Robot stand guard, Smith accidentally lets his electric blanket fall onto the coffin, melting it and awakening Reyka. Suddenly they are confronted by a Latino space bandit named Chavo who’s out to kidnap her. This episode is chock full of highlights; Chavo gets the Robot drunk on wine in order to try to find out where Reyka is; trying to put Chavo off the ice princess’ trail, the Robot creates a waxwork dummy of Reyka, which Smith provides a girly voice to; and Will Robinson sits around a campfire strumming a guitar singing the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B accompanied by sister Judy. Oh, and Corinna Tsopei, the first Miss Universe from Greece, plays Reyka.

Rocky and Bullwinkle

Check out the episode "Jet Fuel Formula" on Rocky & Bullwinkle - Season 1 - Episodes 1-7 (1959)

Rocky and Bullwinkle are frozen solid by the ray gun of two moon men, Cloyd and Gidney, who they encounter mountain climbing in the Grimalayas. Better still is the opening title sequence. Rocky J Squirrel is hovering above a mountain, while somewhere below Bullwinkle J Moose is hiking dressed like an Austrian adventurer. Distracted either by the sight of the flying squirrel as it approaches, or when he walks past a giant billboard announcing him as star of the show, Bullwinkle trips and falls off the edge of the cliff. He rolls and rolls and rolls forward down a slope, turning into a huge snowball as he goes. Heading for yet another treacherous ledge, Rocky flies in and holds back the snowball’s momentum, saving Bullwinkle from a great fall.

The Ice Warriors are coming, The Ice Warriors are coming!

Check out Doctor Who - The Seeds of Death (1969)

Late in the twentieth century the T Mat allows everyone to travel anywhere on the Earth instantly. Only trouble is Martian baddies, the Ice Warriors, are messing with the T Mat’s relay station on the moon. The Doctor volunteers to check things out, only to find the Warriors have taken control of the station and are preparing for an Earth invasion. They’re planning to use the T Mat to bombard Earth with seed pods full of fungus, sucking up all the oxygen. Watch out for the freaky way the Ice Warriors hiss rather than talk; they’re used to living in a different atmosphere.

Philip J. Fry – the Walt Disney* of his age

(*Even though it’s really just a rumour Walt Disney was frozen after his death...)

Check out the episode "Space Pilot 3000" on Futurama - Season 1 - Disc 1 (1999)

December 31, 1999 – pizza delivery guy Philip J Fry takes an order to a cryogenics lab. Once there he realises the order for I.C. Weiner is a prank, so decides to see in the new millennium with a beer. Reclining back in his comfy chair a tad too much, Philip falls back into the cryogenic capsule. It closes on him, freezing him. Fast forward to December 31, 2999, and Phil is ‘defrosted’. He teams up with a thirty-first century Cyclops-type woman Turanga Leela and a robot called Bender. They all get a job with Phil’s relative Professor Hubert Farnsworth at Planet Express. In this pilot episode, discover that in the future New York actually gets flattened and rebuilt more than just the one time suggested in the movie Planet of the Apes.

The Costanza snowball effect

Check out the episode "The Kiss Hello" on Seinfeld - Season 6 - Disc 3 (1990)

George cops Elaine’s wrath after asking her physical therapist friend Wendy for advice on his sore arm. Wendy books George in for a consultation. When he has to cancel, she bills him for it anyway as he didn’t provide twenty four hours notice. Once again George gets all agitated and apoplectic about everything; more so when he discovers Wendy has cancelled their next appointment to go skiing with Elaine. George demands HIS refund as she didn’t give HIM twenty four hours notice! Meanwhile, after their ski trip, Elaine does her shoulder carrying her skis home when Wendy refuses to drop her off any closer than three blocks away from her apartment.

That 70’s Show

Fez: I love the snow! I am a winter nymph! I love America! (passes out in snow)

Check out the episode "Ski Trip" on That 70's Show-Season 1 - Disc 2 (1998)

That 70s Show goes all Brady Bunch and does a road trip to Jackie father’s cabin in Alpine Valley. Jackie’s boyfriend Kelso gets left behind after getting caught pashing Pam Macy behind the gym. Finding Kelso sitting alone in the basement listening to Nazareth’s Love Hurts, Kitty Foreman talks him into hitching up to the snow to make up with Jackie. By the time he gets there, Fez is suffering the after effects of a bottle of Amaretto, running through the snow in his underwear. It seems the coldest it ever got in winter in his native South America was twenty one degrees.

Homer and Monty

Check out the episode "Simpsons",The-Season 8 - Disc 2 (1996)

Monty Burns orders the staff of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant on a team bonding survival weekend. The aim of the challenge is to be the first to find a cabin on Mount Springfield using only a map. Smithers is both angry and distraught that Burns is paired with Homer. Burns cheats by using a snowmobile, and the pair reaches the location first. Celebrating with some champagne, the clinking of their glasses causes an avalanche, burying the cabin in snow. Attempts to tunnel out only result in more avalanches. Burns and Homer are overcome by cabin fever, with Burns’ paranoia driving him to try to kill Homer. If only Homer’s Mr Plow or Barney’s Plow King vehicles had still been around to save the pair.

Sir Ernest Shackleton

Check out Shackleton (2002)

This huge British Channel 4 production recreates Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 journey to the South Pole. His ship Endurance is crushed in pack ice and Shackleton and his crew of twenty eight must camp on the ice for months, before rowing eight hundred miles to Elephant Island. From there they sail to South Georgia where they have to scale a mountain to finally reach help. Directed by Charles Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited), the first half looks at the struggle to get the funding from sponsors to mount the expedition. Noted Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh plays the title role. Watch out for Matt Day as the expedition’s Australian photographer and camera man Frank Hurley.

Snowy and Captain Haddock are on the piste

Check out the episode "The Crab with the Golden Claws" on The Adventures of Tintin - 75th Anniversary Collection - Disc 1 (1990)

Tintin’s white fox terrier Snowy loves a tipple. He probably wishes he was born a St Bernard with a barrel of his favourite Loch Lomond whisky tied around his neck. This episode introduces his drinking buddy Captain Haddock. Snowy is nosing around garbage bins when he finds a can with a crab on the label - the same crab photo Tintin’s hopeless detective mates Thomson and Thompson have found in the pocket of a drowned man. On the back of the drowned man’s photo is written the name of a ship – the Karaboudjan. Tintin can’t help himself and boards the ship. He discovers crab tins full of opium - and a dodgy bloke wearing a necklace with two gold crabs. Will Tintin survive and smash an international drug ring?