'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977 TV special) 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977 TV special) Twas the Night Before Christmas is a Christmas television special loosely inspired by the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore. It first aired December 7, 1977 on ABC. Directed by Tim Kiley, it stars Paul Lynde, Anne Meara, Martha Raye, and Alice Ghostley. The story is set on Christmas Eve in a New England town in the late 1890s. The Cosgrove family's home is in an uproar over the holidays. The patriarch, Clark Cosgrove (Paul Lynde) is frazzled by the gift demands of his loud children. His
Slough (poem) having ever written it". During her visit, Mrs Lycett-Green presented Mayor of Slough David MacIsaac with a book of her father's poems. In it was written: "We love Slough". In 2005, Ian McMillan published a poem titled "Slough Re-visited" using the same metre and rhyme-scheme as Betjeman's original, but celebrating Slough and rejecting mockery of the town as unfair. Punk band Gallows, who originally formed in Slough, and whose singer Frank Carter has frequently expressed his dislike for the town in interviews, have several references to Betjeman's poem in their music: their album "Orchestra Of Wolves" features a song entitled