Mainlining Christmas

This is the second episode of Danny Phantom I've seen, the first being the pilot. Had the pilot been more interesting, I might have watched a few more. The series is about a kid who winds up with ghost powers (flight, phasing, the ability to shoot blasts from his hands for some reason, and a handful of others) in a lab accident. He uses these abilities to battle actual ghosts, like you do. From what I've seen, the show's biggest problem is its uneven tone: the premise leans towards superhero, but the style is aiming for Hanna-Barbara. It's a mix that can work in the right hands (Powerpuff Girls being the obvious example), but this lacks a distinct voice and interesting characters. That's a critique of the series, not the episode. Actually, thanks to a cool premise, "The Fright Before Christmas" sidesteps these pitfalls and delivers something that's actually pretty cool. The episode opens the day before Christmas. Everyone's in the holiday

"O Christmas Tree" is a PBS documentary made in 2005 (or 2006 - it's seems to be a little difficult to get the date clarified). Lindsay and I found it at the local library and picked it up on a whim. The description claims it "traces the history of the Christmas through the ages - from its origins as a pagan symbol of fertility to a Christian symbol of rebirth." Technically, there is a section of the DVD devoted to that, but it's about as in depth and comprehensive as the sentence above: there's very little meat to that or anything else the documentary touches on. It's slightly less educational than the Frosty sequels with a fraction of the production values. But that's not important. All you need to know is that this thing is the Plan 9 of Christmas documentaries. It's completely fucking hilarious. First of all, it's narrated by Richard Karn. Don't bother with IMDB: he's Al from Home Improvement. And he just phones this in

Miracle and Other Christmas Stories Connie Willis, 1979 Crossposted from The Blue Fairy’s Bookshelf Awww, man! More disappointing Christmas stories. I went into this one with high hopes, because Willis’ story “Pony” was one of my favorites in Christmas on Ganymede . Unfortunately, it was one of my favorites here, too. It starts strong, with an introduction that was worth borrowing the book from the library for, just for the snark about Hans Christian *overrated hack* Andersen and the list of other recommended stories and movies, some of which weren’t on our radar yet! Sure, she thinks The/A Christmas Story is actually quality, and that's just wrong, whether you’re talking about the myth as literature or the movie as cinema (she likes both). But Willis is a Hugo winner! Surely, there are some good genre stories in here, right? Sort of. Lets run through the contents, shall we? “Miracle” Starts strong, woman receives visit from accidentally conjured hippy Spirit of Ch

This was one of several holiday episodes and specials we got when we picked up a DVD titled "Nick Picks Holiday." I've heard of most of the series represented on the disc, but this is an exception. Apparently, this is a sequel to Rugrats, picking up ten years after the original series left off. Wikipedia informs me it lasted fifty-five episodes over five seasons, which is pretty impressive for an animated spin-off. I can't help but wonder if this would have made more sense if I'd ever actually seen an episode of Rugrats. I guess I'll find out soon enough - there's a special later on the disc. The first word I'd use for this is bizarre. And that applies to every level of the episode. The animation is extremely weird, likely a side-effect of being based on a show about toddlers and committed to making the characters identifiable ten years later. The writing might be even stranger. Note I didn't say "bad": just... strange. The comedy

Much like It’s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown , this is a compilation of shorts. It’s an odd length though - 17 minutes - because it was initially produced to fill out an hour along with the original Charlie Brown Christmas . That just means it’s short and sweet. The vignettes start slow, each focusing on a different character, and I think the best one is Sally, who’s in the middle. They’re overall cute, but nothing amazing, and not as clever as the other collection. Not much more to say about this, really. If you’ve a hankering for more short Peanuts tales after It’s Christmas Time Again , you can probably find this one on Youtube or Netflix.

Whoa. WHOA. We just watched the epitome of stop-motion Christmas specials. I know, I know, you don’t believe me yet. Just give me a minute. You know Rudolph , and Frosty , and Rudolph’s Shiny New Year , and Frosty’s Winter Wonderland , and Santa Claus is Coming to Town , and The Year Without a Santa Claus . But did you know that every last one of these takes place in a vast shared universe, which involves still more epic figures deserving of winter myth-making? No? Then you haven’t seen this one. For me, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July retroactively improves all the specials that came before it. The premise is straightforward on the surface. An evil wizard who used to rule the Arctic wants to destroy Santa’s hold on winter, and to do so, he decides to take down Rudolph, using his friendship with Frosty as a lever against the young reindeer. Oh, and we happen to establish the source and purpose of Rudolph’s magic, which I don’t want to spoil for you. What? You d

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys was a direct-to-video CG sequel to the original stop-motion special . Before we go on, I'd like you to stop for one moment, close your eyes, and count in your head all of the direct-to-video CG movies made in a five year period around the year 2000 that didn't utterly and completely suck. Take your time: make sure you're not forgetting any. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you were able to think of zero examples. Once you add  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys to the potential pool, you'll find the final tally hasn't changed. Let's start with the animation. I appreciate this was a different era and CG animation was still new. But this was just pathetic. The characters were lifeless, the movement was constricted, and even elements you'd expect to be easy - camera movement and crowds - were lacking. I'd be extremely surprised if this thing