Mainlining Christmas

If you're a Muppet fan, you may have heard of this, but you may not have seen it. It is technically a special episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, and hasn't been released on DVD. All the great early Muppet staff worked on it: Jerry Juhl, Joe Raposo, Frank Oz, and of course Jim Henson. It's obviously early work, but solid.  The plot revolves around Cosmo Scam (an evil wizard) and his plan to replace Santa Claus.  Both Cosmo and Santa are played by Art Carney, everyone else is a Muppet. Sesame Street would have been just in its second year, and this feels very much in tone with Sesame Street.  There's nothing too scary for kids (all of Cosmo's monster lackeys have soft hearts) and there's moments of sly humor on the side for adults.  Also, plenty of very bad puns. The music is sweet and funny, and overall I found the hour charming, although it was slow here and there.  Later work would learn from this, tighten the pace, reuse puppets and ideas created here. 

The Fraggles are usually pretty great, and this episode is no exception. In this Christmas/Solstice themed episode, Gobo questions the utility of their holiday, The Festival of the Bells. He sets out to challenge the myth and find out whether or not the Great Bell actually exists. There's a surprising amount of existential angst in this episode for a children's show starring puppets. Meantime, Doc and Sprocket do a bit of exploring of different holiday traditions, and Doc teaches Sprocket about the link between Saturnalia and Christmas in about ten seconds. It's awesome. There's more than a bit of sappy “look inside for the truth” type stuff by the end, but it really amuses me that not having their festival has actual measurable implications. Also, I'm a sucker for Fraggles, and a sucker for Solstice-themed holiday episodes. I really enjoy the main song of the episode: “There's a Promise” aka “Raise Your Voices” is fun. And Cantus is in it! What'

The Christmas Toy , you may recall, was Toy Story before Toy Story . It's a Henson production, a television special about toys coming to life when you're not around. My vague recollections of The Christmas Toy actually gave me some conceptual trouble with the Toy Story movies. The toys of The Christmas Toy die if they are seen out of place by a human. They DIE. Well, their consciousness is sent to some sort of Limbo, but it's basically the same. Without the same stakes, I sometimes had trouble with why the Toy Story toys bother to hide their mobility from humans. It's kinda weird, if you think it through too hard. Well, the actual plot of The Christmas Toy is about Rugby the tiger, and how he doesn't understand that even though he was Jessie's favorite Christmas present last year, he'll be replaced this Christmas with a new favorite gift. (And it's about a space toy who initially doesn't understand that she's a toy.... but I digre

Awww.  This is a sweet movie, with a few weaknesses. Casting Gonzo and Rizzo as tag-team narrators was the main stroke of genius here.  It worked so well that they were asked to carry the next few movies as well.  Their comedy is pretty great, and as a fan I appreciate that their personalities are consistent, not drastically changed to play "Dickens".  Without them, this could have been pretty dour. Also it gives surprising gravitas to Dickens' words to hear them coming out of Gonzo.  Or maybe that's just me. Erin appreciated that Michael Caine could be playing Scrooge in any version of A Christmas Carol.  He resists the temptation to ham it up for the Muppets and plays it just as straight as could be.  Erin didn't much like the music, though. I like the songs: I think they're sweet, but that could easily be due to long familiarity. Also, the TV edit we saw cut "When Love is Gone", the most boring song in the movie, but that did put a hiccu

This goes beyond "so bad it's good" into the land of "so horrible it's great." This half-hour, made-for-TV special is brought to us by Bell Telephone, a fact that's reiterated by the Bell representative, who introduces the two segments while standing in front of a brigade of grinning phone operators. The first half is described as telling the tale of how Twas the Night Before Christmas was written. Turns out, this guy had an idea on Christmas Eve and wrote a poem in his study using paper and ink. This riveting tale is interrupted by the poem brought to life. When I say "brought to life," I'm lying outright, because there's no similarity whatsoever between the cold, dead marionettes on screen and anything alive. In fact, in spite of their bright paint, these resemble the walking dead, both in appearance and in movement. When Santa tilts his head to one side and looks through those cold, empty eyes, you can sense his hunger for