Mainlining Christmas

I'm following Wikipedia's convention and using the series's unofficial name to differentiate this from Punky Brewster. In the vein of Star Trek: the Animated Series, this is actually a sequel of the live-action series in which the main characters reprise their roles. Like many cartoons, each thirty-minute block was divided into two fifteen-minute chunks. We're only covering the half that relates to Christmas, obviously. The episode opens on a hot day in July. Punky Brewster and her friends stop to admire a skateboard in a toy store window. Punky muses over whether or not she's going to get it for Christmas, and she laments that she won't know for months. Fortunately, Glomer, the 104-year-old magical half-gopher/half-leprechaun in her backpack reveals that he's friends with Santa and might be able to help her find out. Maybe I should pause for a moment and give you a moment to review the opening credits to this show, which offer a tad more context:

When we decided to tackle more Christmas in July media, I did a search for books. The main one that came up when I searched was a romance: Christmas in July (A Christmas, Colorado, Novel: Book 2) by Debbie Mason. Romance isn’t a preferred genre for me, but sometimes I like it, and this book was available through my local library, so I decided to dive in. At the beginning, I was intrigued. The book (and, I imagine, the series) takes place in a town called Christmas. The main character, Grace, is a baker. Her signature dessert is a Sugar Plum Cake with a “wish” hidden in the decorations. Her husband, Jack, was in the army, but he’s been MIA for over a year, and she’s finally decided to move on. So far, a nice dash of holiday theme and an interesting premise. Of course, this is the moment when her husband and his crew are found alive. But he has amnesia, and doesn’t remember her, and he’s been attracted to this other woman in the meantime. And all of that could actually have

May you get everything on your list. [Photo collage from Holiday 2015 Balsam Hill Catalog and July 2016 Toys'R'Us Catalog.]

Camp Candy was, apparently, an animated series where John Candy voices a character based on himself at a fictitious summer camp he runs. I don't recall ever having seen or heard of this series before in my life, though if I still remember this episode an hour from now, I'll be both surprised and disappointed. The Christmas in July episode opens the same way Wikipedia assures me every episode in this series starts, with Candy trying to teach the kids a sport, leading to a flashback of something that happened earlier in the summer. This is portrayed as a story being told by Candy, though it's unclear why he's telling the kids about an adventure they were present for. It's also unclear how he's able to provide descriptions and commentary for other characters' dream sequences. Actually, this episode features dreams within dreams within a story. But don't get excited: it was all crap. Once we're firmly entrenched within a flashback, the kids and C

Christmas in July is an extremely odd black & white comedy written and directed by Preston Sturges, who adapted it from a play he wrote in the 1930's, which wouldn't actually be produced on stage until 1988. Astonishingly, all of that is less convoluted than the movie's plot. That isn't a criticism (though I will have a few later on) - the movie's refusal to follow convention makes it more interesting than most comedies I've seen from the period. Apparently, Sturges is remembered as something of experimental filmmaker, testing his boundaries and playing with structure in his comedies, at least if I'm understanding the Wikipedia article I just skimmed. That certainly seems fair: Christmas in July definitely played with expectation, tone, and theme. The story centers on Jimmy, a young man interested in advertising who has entered a contest to create a slogan for a coffee company. The contest carries a twenty-five thousand dollar prize, but the movie

YOU WON! Yes you, you lucky people. What did you win? MORE CHRISTMAS. It’s July, and this year we’ve decided that 32 days of holidays in the winter just aren’t enough, so we’re bringing you some special Christmas in July content. According to Wikipedia , “Christmas in July” has a few different contexts: First, starting in the 1930s, some American summer camps would hold a special Christmas in July celebration, including decorations, presents, and Santa. Second, places in the Southern Hemisphere where July is the middle of winter sometimes hold bonus Christmas in July parties to make up for the fact that it’s boiling hot on December 25th. Third, and perhaps most familiar to us, it’s a lovely excuse for a sale at a time when marketers are stuck in a lull between the Fourth of July and the Back to School season. We may touch on all these areas, or not. It’s summer, we’re not making too many promises. Maybe we’ll go to the beach and send you pictures of starfish photoshop

Home is a CG science fiction comedy from last year that’s ambiguously a Christmas movie. It’s loosely based on the 2007 novel, The True Meaning of Smekday . It’s not a clear enough example to be covered in the normal season, but we felt it deserved a spot in our archives. We’re trying something a little different on this one: instead of posting a review written by one of us, we’re presenting this as a discussion. Let us know what you think of the format: we're thinking of adding it to our standard repertoire. Erin: Let’s start with the story. The movie is set immediately after the events of a disappointingly bloodless alien invasion where the human race is transported to Australia. A girl’s left behind, and she befriends an outcast alien who’s inadvertently endangered the planet by sending a party evite to another alien race. The girl’s trying to find her mom, and the alien’s trying to undo the damage he’s done. You get the idea. Unlike me, you actually read the book. How