Ho! Ho! Ho! As Santa prepares to make his worldwide rounds Monday night, it makes us think of these


Ho! Ho! Ho! As Santa prepares to make his worldwide rounds Monday night, it makes us think of these five actors who have played the North Pole’s most famous resident on TV:

v Lloyd Bridges: The “Sea Hunt” star and acting-family patriarch starred in the 1991 TV movie “In the Nick of Time.” This Santa was getting on in years and he had seven days to find his successor.

v Art Carney: The man best known as dimwitted Ed Norton on “The Honeymooners” played Santa twice. In the “Twilight Zone” episode “Night of the Meek” (1960), he was an alcoholic department store Santa Claus. In the TV movie “The Night They Saved Christmas” (1984), he played a Santa who was endangered by an oil company dynamiting in the North Pole in search of an oil field.

v John Goodman: The “Roseanne” star was Santa in the 2006 TV movie “The Year Without a Santa Claus.” His St. Nick had grown disenchanted with his gig and decided to take a year off from delivering presents, until a young man helps him rediscover the true meaning of the holiday.

v Ed O’Neill: In a classic 1992 episode of “Married ... With Children,” O’Neill’s character, Al Bundy, takes a part-time job as a mall Santa to earn extra money for his family.

v George Wendt: Norm from “Cheers” starred in the 2006 cable movie “Santa Baby,” in which Santa falls ill and his daughter (Jenny McCarthy) has to fill in for him on Christmas Eve. And in the cable movie “Merry-in-Laws” (2012), he again played Santa with his former “Cheers” colleague Shelley Long cast as Mrs. Claus.

“the sound of music” (7 p.m., abc): The recent admission by Julie Andrews that her beautiful, four-octave singing voice isn’t coming back makes us appreciate “The Sound of Music” even more. The Oscar-winning classic returns for its annual holiday airing.

“the cat in the hat knows a lot about christmas” (8 p.m., pbs): This new animated Dr. Seuss adventure finds the Cat in the Hat, Nick and Sally on a journey around the world to help a lost reindeer find his way home in time for Christmas.

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Les Levine show goes statewide

CLEVELAND

Time Warner Cable has announced that “More Sports & Les Levine,” a Northeast Ohio tradition for 20 years, now has a statewide audience on Time Warner Cable SportsChannel as of last week.

Most recently found on the Northeast Ohio Network (NEON) channel 23, “More Sports & Les Levine” can now been seen throughout the state live, Monday-Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m., on Channels 311 and 1311. Time Warner Cable’s channel 23 in Northeast Ohio will transition to a new format featuring local weather information in early January. Time Warner Cable SportsChannel 311/1311 will be the new home for local sports, including high school and college games, in addition to a variety of other original programming.

Levine has been a fixture covering sports in Northeast Ohio since 1989. His show began on radio before moving to TV with Time Warner Cable in 1996.