Hawkeye Trailer Has a Long History of Holiday Cheer

Deck the halls with bows and arrows. It is a wonderful time of the year for Disney+, which dropped the first Hawkeye trailer down the chimney.

Marvel’s latest live-action series will be a Christmas show, and Clint Barton, a.k.a Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), is re-gifting his archery set to young hero Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). Clint still has the vision to hit a target, but his hearing may not be so great anymore. We can plainly see Hawkeye’s hearing aid, which could end up being the result of an injury suffered on the show.

You can watch the trailer here:

The trailer features one of the most rousing fast-waltz celebrations ever crooned. “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year” was written by the songwriting team of Eddie Pola and George Wyle. It is such a standard it’s been the theme song for Christmas Seals several times. It is the backdrop to a memorable moment in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), and has provided hits for such artists as Johnny Mathis, Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Paul Anka, Chicago, and Harry Connick Jr.

But the song belongs to Andy Williams, the singer who may have single-handedly invented the holiday’s embarrassing sweater tradition. The song was a special order, crafted specifically for The Andy Williams Christmas Album, which came out in 1963. He would go on to record seven more Christmas albums, and reinterpret this song for all of them. Best known for writing the theme to Gilligan’s Island, co-writer Wyle was a vocal director for The Andy Williams Show, where the song debuted.

Strangely, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year” was not released as a single for the album. Columbia Records chose Williams’ cover of “White Christmas,” which hit the top ten. When “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” finally hit the Top 10, spurred by an ad campaign, it set a record as the longest time span between American Top 10 appearances. The record was broken a week later by Burl Ives’ “Holly Jolly Christmas.”

Williams started out playing with his three older brothers, Bob, Don, and Dick, in late 1938. The Williams Brothers quartet performed radio shows across the country before moving to Los Angeles in 1943 and singing behind Bing Crosby and appearing in musical films, like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Anchors Aweigh and Ziegfeld Follies. There is a myth alleging that Andy dubbed the singing for Lauren Bacall’s character in the 1944 film To Have and Have Not. But he was only tested, Bacall did her own singing.

Performing with Kay Thompson in Las Vegas in 1947, the Williams Brothers became the highest-paid nightclub act in the world. Williams went solo in 1953. His breakthrough hit came with Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” the theme from the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The album, Moon River and Other Great Movie Themes, stayed on the charts for three years. Williams opened the Moon River Theatre on May 1, 1992. It was the first non-country act to open in Branson and its architectural design won the Conservation Award from the State of Missouri.

Williams recorded more gold albums than any solo performer except Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, and Elvis Presley. He sang at the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy. Williams was an outspoken defender of John Lennon‘s right to stay in the U.S. when the Nixon administration tried to deport the former Beatle in the early 1970s. The album cover to Ringo Starr’s 1973 album Ringo includes Williams in the montage of caricatures.

But Andy Williams will forever be known as “Mr. Christmas” for his Christmas specials, which ran regularly until 1974 and continued off and on into the 1990s.

Hawkeye is the fourth live-action Marvel live-action Marvel Studios series for Disney Plus following WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki. It seems like the perfect way to spend the holidays. But please, before you think of getting someone a bow and arrow set for Christmas, remember what happened on The Sopranos. In the episode “Whoever Did This,” Ralph Cifaretto’s 12-year-old son Justin was hit in the chest with an arrow while playing The Lord of the Rings.

Hawkeye premieres on Nov. 24 on Disney Plus.