Mainlining Christmas

I saw several episodes of this series back in 2002/2003, but stopped watching before this episode aired. Kim Possible, for those of you who don't watch enough cartoons, was a Disney animated series about a super-spy in high school. Elements of both The Powerpuff Girls and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer can be felt, and its creators worked on the criminally underrated Sky High. This Christmas episode was almost entirely comedy, focused around Ron Stoppable (Kim's partner) and Drakken (her bumbling nemesis). Normally, that might grate on me, but here it seemed to work. The writing was snappy and clever, with the exception of a running gag about X-Treme sports that didn't age well. The episode did a good job juggling the absurdity of Kim's world, along with the trappings of holiday cheer, and while the result wasn't Earth-shattering, it was absolutely entertaining. If you're flipping through the channels and stumble across this, I definitely recommend giving it

This isn't much of an episode if you're unfamiliar with the show, and even if you are it's just fine. I found it sweet and amusing, but not compelling in any way. The plot follows Mary first learning she has to work on Christmas, and as soon as she comes to terms with that emotionally, she gets conned by a co-worker into covering his Christmas Eve shift too. Of course, everything turns out merry and bright, if not what she had planned, so all is well. I actually like the idea of this episode a lot more than the execution. It's true to the idea of the series, following a young woman making her way in a new life in a new city. And sometimes working in the industry you want to work in means you have to work holidays. The feeling of co-workers and friends coming together because you can't be with family isn't dated at all. Some of the humor... is. However, I absolutely love everyone's 70's wardrobe. I also liked that the majority of the jokes in th

I just recently read the short story, so a lot of watching this special was spent comparing it to the source material. It compares pretty well, I think. So far as I know, this is the last of the Rankin-Bass holiday specials, so the production values by this point were pretty high. The animation is smooth and the character designs are pretty great. The special opens with the Council of Immortals meeting to decide Claus' fate; his life story is then told within that frame. I found the Immortals much more interesting and full of gravity here than in the book. It probably doesn't have anything to do with me being conditioned to like anything set to the same kind of 70's style faux medieval folk-rock that was also used in The Hobbit, Flight of Dragons, etc. Really. The special goes on to be a credible adaptation of Baum's story, although it skips a lot of amusing details for time and adds some side characters to explain plot points to. It also cuts a lot of annoyin

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus L. Frank Baum, 1902 Cross-posted at Blue Fairy's Bookshelf This is a rather unique little... novella, I guess I would call it by the length. Probably one of the earliest attempts to really codify a “logical” life story for Santa Claus. I found it interesting, though, that even given a few animated specials that adapt this story directly, very little of this story has directly migrated into the popular conception of Santa. This could be one of the things that pulled the idea of Santa into the framework of “fairy tale” rather than “religious/mythic figure”, but I couldn't find out much about its original reception or effect. Eschewing any references to Saint Nicholas, the historical figure, this Santa is a foundling raised by wood nymphs and fairies, called Claus because it means something like “small one”. Most of the story is pretty cute: the fairies raise Claus, and since all manner of immortal spirits are his friends and prote

This is a bizarre little animated special on a collection I found cheap on Amazon. This was the first special on the first disc, so here we are. The special opens with caroling children singing, then immediately transitions to tanks firing, followed by a description of the Middle East now, then finally settling on the Ancient Roman Empire. The next five or ten minutes introduce a flurry of characters and locations. From a narrative point of view, this offers very little in the form of a coherent story, but then again, neither did the New Testament. What this does surprising well is depict a complex social and political landscape, complete with intrigue and danger. When we follow a couple Roman soldiers through the streets of Bethlehem, it's genuinely fascinating, and the special's depiction of Herod - while certainly not even-handed - makes for an interesting foil. Things start to drag when the story shifts to Mary and Joseph, who are obnoxiously two-dimensional (as usual

At some point I reached an important realization about this movie. It wasn't that I was watching a bad movie - I knew that going in - but rather that the movie was the wrong movie. I don't mean that I wasn't watching the movie I'd set out to see - for whatever reason, I actually chose to put this on - but that the filmmakers had literally produced the wrong film. See, by all rights, this should have been a Tim Allen vehicle. The lead was clearly written like his character from Home Improvement. Casting Schwarzenegger made no sense. I don't mean to suggest this change would have made the movie better; just that it would made the movie's existence make sense. On the scale of bad Christmas movies, this isn't on the bottom. Before you read too much into that comment, keep in mind the scale we're considering descends into a very deep, very dark pit. And parts of this movie were actually funny. There's a scene in the middle involving an army of m

Ugh. I don't have a lot to say about this lame television special. It was boring, banal, and badly produced. The animation is pretty sub-par, even by the Rankin-Bass standards. The voices are terribly chosen, just incredibly boring. Poorly written dialogue, weird lighting mistakes, completely forgettable musical numbers, and not much more to this. Bleck. Okay, I guess you can have a few more details. So, in this highly padded story, the Little Drummer Boy (Aaron) hates humans. We know this because the narration tells us approximately six hundred times, and Aaron says it a few more times for good measure. Hates. Humans. All Humans. Hates them. Why does he hate humans? Because his parents were killed, by HUMANS! Yeah, this kid's logic was a little shy of becoming Batman rather than a pint-size misanthrope. Pity - the special could have been a lot more interesting. There are a lot of awkward phrases and lines in this thing. Like "Show Caravan". It's a t