When Morecambe & Wise dominated Christmas

12 November 2025, 13:54 | Updated: 3 December 2025, 12:16

How Eric and Ernie ruled the seasonal airwaves for over a decade.

If you forget about the King's Christmas message, the very biggest seasonal TV shows this year struggle to reach six million viewers.

In an age of a squillion channels, streaming, video games and the rest, it's no surprise that the whole country doesn't sit round the telly the way we used to.

• Remembering Glenda Jackson's hilarious turn as Cleopatra in Morecambe & Wise sketch
• When Angela Rippon stunned the nation with her high-kicking dance routine on Morecambe & Wise
• Listen to the Kirsty's Christmas Crackers Live Playlist on Global Player, the home of Gold

Half a century ago, tens of millions of people would watch the very biggest shows on Christmas Day, and they were often in for a treat.

For over a decade of Christmases, we had Morecambe & Wise. Year after year, Eric and Ernie – and their coterie of special guests – came to pretty much rule the season.

Below we take a look at the time that Morecambe & Wise dominated Christmas.

The Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show (1969)

Excerpt from the BBC Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show 1969

After six series of Two of a Kind and a couple of runs of The Morecambe & Wise Show came Eric and Ernie's first Christmas special.

Broadcast on Christmas Day in 1969, we're lucky enough that the show hasn't been wiped and still gets the odd repeat today.

The guests on the show were actors Alan Curtis, Diane Keen and England's first lady of the double entendre Fenella Fielding, alongside singers Frankie Vaughan, Nina and Sacha Distel.

Sacaha performed 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head', and Nina performed 'Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?', which she had sung in that year's James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Little did anyone know then, but a new tradition had begun.

The BBC years: Morecambe and Wise at Christmas from 1969 to 1977

Over the next seven years, Eric and Ernie returned every Christmas with a special episode.

In 1974 they didn't record a full hour but had Parkinson Takes A Christmas Look At Morecambe & Wise and a new interviewing the duo to accompany the clips.

And those episodes are a who's who of some of the biggest stars of the era across music, theatre, TV and the movies, as well as "serious" news types.

Best of all, no matter how big (or sensible) the name, they didn't mind getting incredibly silly with Morecambe and Wise. Some had so much fun they came back again and again.

There was Peter Cushing (who still hasn't been paid) Shirley Bassey, Glenda Jackson, Patrick Moore, Dick Emery, Vera Lynne, Vanessa Redgrave, The New Seekers, Diana Rigg, Robin Day, Elton John Dennis Waterman, Kate O'Mara, André Previn, (Andrew Preview!), The Nolans, Angela Rippon, Penelope Leith, Michael Aspel, Barry Norman, Arthur Lowe, Paul Eddington, Richard Briers... more than we can list here.

It wouldn't be possible to list every single classic moment here and we're not going to try, but there are a couple that have to get mention.

Maybe the most famous sketch of all the Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials was Angela Rippon's leg-flashing antics on the 1976 special.

A News Flash screencard appeared to interrupt the show.

Angela was there, sat behind a desk doing her usual new shtick, before she uttered those words...

"A report on the economy has just come through from Number 11 Downing Street. The Chancellor's statement reads as follows... There may be trouble ahead. But while there's moonlight and music and love..."

And amazing, amazing dancing.

Glenda Jackson would star in Antony and Cleopatra on the West End stage before the end of the decade, but she actually played Cleopatra for a much bigger audience a few years earlier, in the 1971 Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show.

As well as all the word play, nod to reference to Eric Morecambe's beloved Luton Town and the the Match of the Day theme, we had the delight of the actual Glenda Jackson delivering lines like "All men are fools and what makes them so is seeing beauty like what I have got."

And then there was the last special for the channel: Eric & Ernie's Christmas Show 1977.

Maybe the starriest cast (certainly the biggest, with the stars of massive sitcoms Dad's Army and The Good Life along for the ride), the show racked up a frankly unbelievable 21.1 MILLION viewers.

Given the UK population was only 56 million odd at the time, that means that over a third of the whole country watched Morecambe & Wise doing their thing.

And as well as a classic Starsky and Hutch parody and return for Angela Rippon, there was a gaggle of newsreaders doing 'There Is Nothing Like A Dame' (the Rodgers and Hammerstein number from South Pacific), and Elton John and original Poldark star Angharad Rees doing 'Baby, It's Cold Outside'.

Eric and Ernie on ITV: 1978 to 1983

Morecambe & Wise Christmas 1978 (Leonard Rossiter)

Morecambe & Wise were no stranger to commercial telly, having done six series for ATV between 1961 and 1968, and in 1978 just weeks after their incredibly successful Christmas special the year before they jumped ship to Thames Television.

They were now making The Morecambe and Wise Show for ITV, and that included the annual Christmas special.

While Barry Cryer and John Junkin came along for the ride, producer Ernest Maxin didn't make the leap and, initially, nor did writer Eddie Braben. That plus Eric's health issues meant that by the end of the show, they would make only 33 more episodes over four series.

So after a one-off special in October 1978, they had another one-off special, this time on Christmas Day, 1978, billed as Eric & Ernie's Xmas Show.

The magic was still there, as were the special guests. Leonard Rossitor, Sir Harold Wilson and Frank Finlay, among them. When the ex-PM Wilson made a jab about the travails of Luton Town, Eric wandered off and returned with a Maggie Rules OK banner, ahead of the future PM's election.

As well as the stars, there were the viewers: a whopping 19.15 million that was up there as one of their most-watched.

Eric suffered a heart attack – his second – in March 1979, so their very next episode was another Christmas special, that year's Christmas With Eric & Ernie.

The episode lent on past glories somewhat, with a returning Glenda Jackson and Des O'Connor, while new guest star David Frost did much of the heavy lifting as an interviewer.

By this point, Eric's health improved and with Braben now back writing with the pair, he and Ern would put out several actual series at their new home. Each was punctuated with a Christmas special scoring 10 to 15 million viewers.

Not quite the peak of their last BBC special but still incredibly impressive, especially since the show was shifted from its Christmas Day home (to December 23 in 1981, and December 27 the following year)

The guests were a mix of old friends and new faces: Glenda Jackson and Peter Cushing rubbing shoulders with Alec Guinness and Peter Vaughan. Alvin Stardust and Robert Hardy one year, Rula Lenska and Richard Vernon the next.

Yes, there was the odd bit of old material given a spit and polish and sprinkled about, but there were new sketches too. They still absolutely had it.

Last Christmas: Eric & Ernie's Xmas Show (1983)

1983 ITV Continuity Morcambe and Wise Christmas 1983

On Boxing Day 1983, 11.2 million people tuned in for Eric & Ernie's Xmas Show.

The special guests included the likes of Nigel Hawthorn and Derek Jacobi, while Nanette Newman played The Planter's Wife in the final Play What Ern Wrote, and things ended hilariously with some jokes at the expense of Des O'Connor.

Sadly, it was to be not just the last Eric and Ernie Christmas special, but the final TV appearance of Morecambe and Wise.

After taking part in a charity show at the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury, Eric Morecambe died on May 27, 1984 at the age of 58. Ernie would continue to appear on our screens till his retirement in 1995 at the age of 70. HE died on November 27 at the age of 73.

They were gone, but never forgotten, and their Christmas specials return year after year to remind us of the time they dominated the season.