The holiday special was the product of a Jewish producer from San Francisco and a Mexican-American Catholic whose mother brought him across the border in the 1920s.

Today the chances of selling a Christian-themed, anti-commercialism Christmas special would seem just as slim as they were in the 1960s.

“You made me. You live with me.”

At a distance “Under-cover Boss” would seem to be yet another of the “gotcha” surveillance series in which employers and detectives root out dishonest or incompetent employees.

You don’t earn heaven on earth—and you don’t earn it in purgatory either.