A Christmassy Ted

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A Christmassy Ted
Father Ted episode
Episode no. Season Christmas
Episode Special
Written by Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews
Directed by Andy DeEmmony, Declan Lowney
Guest stars Gerard McSorley (" Fr. Todd Unctious"), Tony Guilfoyle (Fr. Larry Duff)
Original airdate December 24, 1996
Episode chronology
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"Flight into Terror" "Are You Right There, Father Ted?"
List of Father Ted episodes

"A Christmassy Ted" is an episode of the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. It is the 17th episode overall and was broadcast between the second and third series.

[edit] Synopsis

Christmas is coming to Craggy Island, and Ted, Dougal and Mrs Doyle go to a department store to do the Christmas shopping. Dougal left Father Jack in the creché thinking it was a place where you can just leave anyone you don't want to take shopping. Ted and Dougal were looking for perfume for Mrs Doyle when they wandered in into the lingerie section. Meanwhile in the creché Jack taught the kids how to swear then the kids started swearing when Jack falls asleep. After helping seven priests who accidentally wandered into "the largest lingerie department in all of Ireland" escape from a possibly scandalous fate, Father Ted receives a top Catholic award known as the Golden Cleric. After receiving the award, a priest, who refers to himself as Todd Unctious, claims to be an old friend of Ted's and pays a visit to the Parochial House. He stays overnight and makes an attempt to steal Ted's prized trophy. He is ultimately foiled by Ted, who wakes up in the middle of the night to gloat over his trophy for an invisible audience, catching Todd in the act.

[edit] Miscellanea

  • This episode is 55 minutes long, as opposed to the usual 21-22 mins of all other Father Ted episodes. It was aired on Christmas Eve, seven months after the second series had ended.
  • Stephen Tompkinson and Dervla Kirwan have cameos as their Ballykissangel characters, Father Peter Clifford and Assumpta Fitzgerald, in Ted's dream.
  • Graham Linehan has clearly stated in his DVD commentary of this episode that he thinks this Chirstmas Special was far too long and at moments expresses his boredom and use of bad language towards the end of the commentary track.
  • Irish comedian Ed Byrne makes an appearance as one of the rude pranksters who interrupt Ted's phone call to the hotline.
  • The Lingerie section scenes were filmed in a Dunnes department store, .[1]
  • The scene where Mrs Doyle must guess "Todd Unctious"'s name is supposedly based on a similar scene in the novel The Third Policeman. [2]
  • In one of his earliest TV parts, Kevin McKidd plays a young priest.
  • The scene in which "Todd Unctious" rappels down from the ceiling to steal the Golden Cleric is a parody of a famous scene in Mission: Impossible which came out in the same year (1996).

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:


  1. ^ Internet Movie Database.
  2. ^ Father Ted FEQ