Mainlining Christmas

The strangest thing about the sitcom Son of Zorn might be that it doesn't air at midnight on Cartoon Network. Stylistically and conceptually, this would be right at home with any of the late-night Adult Swim shows, which were clearly an major influence on the program. The premise centers around Zorn, an animated - literally animated, in the style of He-Man - warrior from a magical island nation, who moves to California to reconnect with his teenage son. Everything from Zorn's homeland is animated against a live-action setting full of real actors. It's a bizarre show, but both the writing and production values are quite a bit better than you'd expect. In "The War on Grafelnik," both Zorn and Edie (Zorn's ex) want to spend the holiday with their son, Alan. This year, December 25th is both Christmas and Grafelnik, a holiday built around themes of vengeance. Taking an accidental cue from Edie's new fiance, Craig, Alan tries to play his parents off ag

A sitcom aired this year that I’ve never heard of? That… that sounds right. I'd be more surprised if I had heard of it. So, this new sitcom is about an Irish-Catholic family in Chicago who, after propping up appearances for too long, are forced to deal with a series of reality checks. This includes the parents’ divorce, and one of the sons (Kenny) coming out as gay. In this episode, the mother, Eileen, is determined to lead the church choir to victory in a caroling competition. Kenny is part of the choir, and supports her efforts at first. She also sends her athletic, if dim, older son Jimmy to spy on the Episcopalian competition. Meanwhile, the father Pat is with their youngest, Shannon. (All of the kids are teenagers, close in age.) She is a sardonic, intelligent kid, excited that her boyfriend has given her what she considers an excellent Christmas present: a watercolor of her hero, financial adviser Suze Orman. She declares that she has to give him a great present in

We definitely haven't seen every Christmas episode of the Simpsons, though we've discussed  the original holiday special , along with a few other early Christmas installments . Eventually, we may track down the others, but that could take some time - the series is on its 28th season, after all. But we stumbled across this recently aired episode on Hulu and decided to cross at least one more off our list. The plot, in classic Simpsons fashion, is more than a little disjointed. Attendance is down for Reverend Lovejoy's services, leaving him unsure how to proceed. Meanwhile, Krusty the Clown is trying to bond with his daughter (I'm assuming this was from a season I haven't seen). Krusty is wounded by a wind-powered machine, which leads to further difficulties in their attempt to find common ground: he's a Jewish clown, while she's a Christian with no interest in show business. In an attempt to help, Marge invites them both to celebrate Christmas with the Si

I saw this episode was available on Hulu, read the description about reuniting a family, remembered that this show might be decent, but nothing else about it, and clicked play. I got a bit more than I bargained for. First, a little background. Hey Arnold is a late-90s product of Nickelodeon, and it focuses on a group of kids in a fictional city that’s sort of a hybrid (according to the creator) of Seattle, Brooklyn, and Portland (Oregon). Arnold lives with his grandparents, who own a boarding house. This episode starts off simply enough - scenes of urban holiday fun, kids playing in a snowbound street, that sort of thing. Helga and her friend are walking down the street. (Helga is generally a bully, although she has a secret crush on Arnold.) Helga explains that she’s been asking for the hottest present of the season, official “Nancy Spumoni” snowboots, for months, and if her parents know what’s good for them, she’d better get them. We switch over to Arnold and his best frien

I've seen several episodes of the series, "Adam Ruins Everything" and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. That said, I think it has a tendency to fall into a similar trap that often snared Penn and Teller's Bullshit: it challenges a common, oversimplified narrative and replaces it with a less common, oversimplified narrative. In the process, you get a decent amount of trivia, but if you accept the episode's conclusions are completely true, you're really no better off. With that in mind, I'd like to try a slightly more meta approach to the Christmas episode, which contains clever humor and some interesting information, but doesn't really paint any more accurate a picture of the holidays than the one it deconstructs. The episode, as usual, is broken into segments examining different aspects of the holiday. The first takes on the subject of the non-Christmas roots of several Christmas traditions, including low-hanging fruit like the absence of evi

I want to take a moment and talk about this  Christmas album, which you can download for free on Soundcloud . But first let's get the "full disclosure" part out of the way: the "Burns" in "Kirwan, Greenwood & Burns" is one of my oldest friends. He lent me the first Batman graphic novel I ever read for Christmas's sake. Now that that's out of the way, this album contains some of the most unique, fascinating, gorgeous Christmas tunes I've come across. This stuff is amazing. The album contains music from an assortment of international musicians. It doesn't adhere to any particular genre, but is unified by the collaboration's philosophy of updating "old-time" music with modern elements without losing the spirit of what's being adapted. If you're a fan of modern folk music, you should check this out. Alternatively, if you like Celtic Punk or any of its offshoots, this is for you. Or, you know, if you're

These last two months have been really hard. The Christmas standards haven’t really been doing much for me this year, but music has still been a touchstone for me. Here’s a short playlist of some songs that are speaking to me today. There is a lot of Melissa Etheridge’s album A New Thought for Christmas here, because I’ve basically had it on repeat for all of December. Winter Song (Sara Bareilles, Ingrid Michaelson) Let’s start with some melancholy mixed with hope. I still believe in summer days, the seasons always change, and life will find a way. O Night Divine (Melissa Etheridge) This track takes a song I don’t much like, gives it a rock opening and new lyrics about the human need to face “the longest night.” This year I find the climactic statement more defiant than hopeful, but it’s still incredibly powerful. There’s Still My Joy (Indigo Girls) The most "Christmas" song here; a song about grief and change. I’ve read so many terrible things in the last mon