Mainlining Christmas

This is not one the best episodes of Bonkers, but it has moments of amusement. But then again, I liked Bonkers, and plenty of people just plain did not. I get it, it was a farcical comedy for the most part, and it was loosely based on the world of Who Framed Roger Rabbit while being entirely animated. But hey, I thought the show (about a toon who joins the human police force to help them deal with toon crimes) was cute and had promise. I’ll admit this Christmas episode was pretty weak, though. Santa has a malfunction testing a new sleigh, and ends up at Fall-Apart Rabbit’s home with some amnesia. Fall-Apart takes his new friend “Jim” on some unseasonal adventures, which mostly seemed there to kill time with bad jokes. Meanwhile, some elves show up at the police station to enlist their help in tracking down the missing Santa. Bonkers takes on the case (though he doesn’t seem to get very far), while the elves try to get his partner, Lucky, to train to be a Santa stand-in in case they

Holy crud-muffins. I thought I vaguely remembered this show, and a lot more came back to me as I watched, but I had forgotten just how utterly insane it is. If you were not a Nicktoons watcher in the 90’s, you might have missed this one. It’s about Rocko, a wallaby who moves to the city with his dog Spunky, and his friends (a neurotic turtle-thing and a big dumb cow raised by wolves) and his enemies (the catfish-thing that lives down the street). It’s sometimes satirical, often subtly adult, and sometimes just gross-out. It wasn’t as biting or as gross as something like Ren and Stimpy, though. In this episode, Rocko’s feeling down about being on his own for the holidays, so he invites his friends over. A game of telephone later, and the whole town’s invited to a party, along with some magic Christmas elves that moved in across the street. Of course, professional jerkass Mr. Bighead gets involved, and it looks like Rocko will be alone for Christmas after all, until his new friend th

A few years ago, I looked at Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire , the series' pilot/Christmas special. It held up incredibly well. But while that was the first, the series has certainly racked up some additional Christmas episodes in its twenty-four seasons on the air. The two I'm looking at today were included on a DVD called "The Simpsons Christmas," along with the pilot and two others which really shouldn't count as Christmas episodes at all. But the DVD was released in 2003, back when they only had a handful of actual holiday episodes to choose from. First up, we've got "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace," from season nine. I remember those years: we used to debate whether it was time for the show to wrap up. It seems almost quaint now. At any rate, Bart accidentally destroys the family's presents and Christmas tree, hides the evidence, and blames their disappearance on a burglar. While the plot meanders from there, the jokes are solid and th

While I maintain the previous year's 2-parter about Scully's genetically engineered baby represents what was bad about X-Files, this is a perfect example of the show at its best. Whimsical, darkly humorous, and fun, this was a fantastic episode which works as a standalone. It's better if you've seen a few other episodes of the show, but it's really not required. This one opens with Scully joining Mulder outside a cliche haunted house on Christmas Eve. The two immediately start sniping at each other like a married couple. The dialogue is witty and clever and sets up the premise quickly: long ago, two young lovers killed themselves here and, according to legend, their ghosts still haunt the mansion every Christmas Eve. Scully dismisses the story and is ready to take off. Unfortunately, she can't find her keys. Reluctantly, she follows Mulder inside, and they begin investigating. Things escalate quickly, and they soon uncover two decomposed bodies that bear

I actually considered skipping the write-up for this two-parter or combining it with the following year's Christmas episode, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas , but decided it really needed to be considered in its own right. The first half focuses entirely on Scully, who's gone home to spend Christmas with the members of her family who weren't killed in earlier episodes. Scully is shocked to receive a phone call from her dead sister, who simply says that someone needs her help. Apparently calling rates from the great beyond are low enough to allow ghosts to place calls but just a little too high for them to have time to offer any useful details. Scully immediately has the call traced and finds it was placed from a house where a woman has just apparently killed herself and not been murdered at all. Later investigation will reveal - I hope you're sitting down for this - that she actually was murdered, and that the murder was made to look like a suicide. As I recall, th

God, Home Alone 3 is a strange movie. Wikipedia sheds a little light on this thing: originally, they wanted Culkin back. He'd have been a teenager at this point, which would have explained the escalation with the villains. Obviously, they couldn't get him to return, so they wound up relaunching with a new character, who was about as old as Culkin in part one. This led to the second most disorienting aspect of the movie (I'll get to the first in a minute): the discrepancy between the tone and the threat the villains supposedly represented. Along with Culkin, the robbers from the original two were gone this time around. In their place was a team of elite espionage professionals fighting to regain a computer chip they'd stolen from the US Air Force only to lose because they failed to exercise common sense when going through airport security. The implication seemed to be that their employer would have them killed if they failed to recover the object. The computer chip

Generation X Holiday Spectacular (1995) Scott Lobdell, Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham This little story about Generation X (Generation X is a team of teenage X-men, mostly second and third stringers I don’t know much about) intervening in a hostage situation in a Maine town isn’t terribly holiday related except for the snow. And the fact that the narration seems to be done by an elf hiding around the edges of the panels. That doesn’t have any bearing on the story, though. It’s okay, I guess, although the little snippets of characters unconnected to the story are more interesting than the story itself, and the villain seems awfully annoying. Generation X Holiday Special (1998) Joseph Harris, Adam Pollina, et.al. The same super-lame villains strike again, this time trying to kidnap a kid on Christmas Eve who’s only wish for Santa is to not be a mutant. The art is stronger in this one, and there’s some interesting snippets of character stuff early on when all the young mutants

I can't remember ever hearing of "Bump in the Night," but Lindsay swears it was popular in its day. It was a stop motion series from the mid-90's about a monster named Bumpy and his friends. We wound up getting the hour-long Christmas special on the "Christmas Cartoon Collection" DVD Lindsay found for six bucks at Toys R Us. Calling this bizarre is an understatement: it's one of the strangest Christmas specials I've ever seen... and that's saying something. Bumpy sets out on a quest to steal Santa's sack of gifts from the North Pole. On the way he manipulates others into assisting him by promising them presents. The animation is impressive. It's warped and twisted, as is the writing. The jokes are farther apart than I'd have liked, but most are clever (some were exceptionally so). Ultimately, we're left with something mixed. It has an amazing tone thanks to a shockingly dark sense of humor, but the pace is way too slow. Th

I knew that this show existed, although I don't recall ever seeing an episode before. It's odd, but kind of charming. From what I gathered of the premise, Holmes has been awoken/resurrected in the far future, Captain America style, except with even more super-science. Watson is rebuilt as some kind of robot, and the new Lestrade is a lady cop. I liked her, she seemed to be the muscle. Overall I enjoyed this. It had some awkward made-for-children 'humor' and some cut corners in production here and there, but as a rather unique version of Holmes, I'm actually really on board with this. The tone of the setting was really interesting, and the whole pastiche seemed to be right on the best line between taking the source material seriously while being delightfully tongue in cheek when appropriate. I was wholly amused with the adaptation of the Blue Carbuncle story, in this case a popular animatronic toy with a program hidden inside, rather than a goose with a gemst

During the first year of Mainlining Christmas, we reviewed the original Charlie Brown Christmas Special . Well, Erin reviewed it. I sidestepped that one, in deference to the fact that my discomfort with it is rather personal. This, on the other hand, was just good fun. It’s Christmastime Again was released nearly 30 years after the first one. As an attempt to create another beloved classic it’s a failure, but as an animated Peanuts special, I found it solid. It’s an animated adaptation of several holiday-themed storylines from the comic strips; the half-hour special has no overarching plot. The upshot of this approach is that even if you don’t like the storyline about Charlie Brown selling wreaths door-to-door, you might like the one about Sally learning her lines for the Christmas Play, or Peppermint Patty and Marcie bickering about the same play. There’s a few nicely subversive scenes as well, which poke some fun at the original special. I laughed, I smiled, I rolled my eyes

It was rather odd to find this on the DVD that claimed to be all animated holiday episodes. While intended for children, Wimzie’s House is a show starring puppets. Really boring puppets. Wimzie and her family are dragons, and Wikipedia helpfully identifies her friends as goblins and a troll, but they might as well have just been kids. Elmo is more of a monster than these guys. And probably smarter. The plot of this episode revolves around Wimzie’s idea of a “perfect” Christmas, so of course everything goes wrong. Her infant brother misunderstands something and puts all the gifts the kids got for each other in with the gifts her dad is taking to sick kids at the hospital, so the presents disappear. Due to a blizzard, Wimzie’s mom’s plane is late getting home. Her friends’ parents can’t come over to pick them up, so they have to stay over. This is all presented with maximum little-kid whining. “But WHY can’t we [whatever] I don’t underSTAND! Boo Hoo Hoo!” Oh, and there’s a truly

I had a bunch of Richard Scarry books when I was a kid. They featured anthropomorphic animals in either short, simple stories or in labeled pictures that taught vocabulary. I am not terribly familiar with this animated adaptation of said books. We found this Christmas half-episode on a DVD of various holiday cartoons. It’s two short stories that add up to under 15 minutes. The opening is cute and catchy, and some of the humor was kind of cute as well. This episode didn’t have much to recommend it to a viewer who was not a small child, though. The first story took place in New York City, in which some unknown force was stealing things by floating them up into the sky. A french detective arrives to solve the case, and after a few false starts, finds his nemesis in a dirigible with a giant magnet. It’s not actually as exciting as I probably just made it sound. The detective is slightly bumbling, the villain doesn’t really have a plan, and the final sight gag of things ending up retu

The Battle for Christmas Stephen Nissenbaum, 1996 Premise: Non-Fiction book tracing the origins of American Christmas traditions, with emphasis on the shift from a more public-focused carnival Christmas to a more child-focused domestic holiday. I found this book really interesting, if a bit long. Nissenbaum is a little too enamored of his own narrative, and sometimes doesn’t completely back up his proposals with evidence. That said, all of the stuff that is corroborated is really interesting. I most enjoyed the accounts of how Puritans fought the celebration of Christmas and then later, in the early 1800’s, how gift-buying became fully central to the expectations of the season. It was fascinating reading about the creation of “Gift Books”, which became popular very quickly in the mid 1820’s. They may be one of the first products produced specifically to be purchased as a gift, and one of the first items sold to specific demographics created by marketing. What I mean is, you might b

Not to be confused with Jack Frost (the animated short), Jack Frost (the Rankin/Bass special), Jack Frost (the family comedy from 1998), or any other Jack Frost production I'm forgetting, I just sat through the 1996 horror film. I use the term "horror" loosely: this is one of those campy horror/comedies that isn't remotely scary. Of course, it's no closer to being funny, but them's the breaks. The movie opens with shots of a bunch of holiday ornaments while a voice-over sets up the backstory. This is really badly done and yet still somehow remains the high point of the movie, thanks to the fact everything that comes after it is utter crap. The premise revolves around a serial killer who was arrested by a small-town cop. The killer's actual name is Jack Frost. He's being transported to his execution in the middle of a blizzard. If you're wondering why they didn't move him earlier, then you're clearly not drunk enough to be watching this

This is a movie from the 90's about a man coincidentally named "Jack Frost" who was killed in the aftermath of an automobile collision in a blizzard and is then reincarnated as a snowman, giving him an opportunity to fulfill some unfinished business in a small town. Please note that everything written above applies both to this movie and to the 1996 horror film of the exact same name. If you get confused, just remember that this is the one that's actually kind of creepy. Ostensibly, this is a family comedy about second chances, a boy getting over the loss of his father, and a dog peeing on a living snowman's leg. I'm not sure it did an adequate job of conveying any of those themes, though judging by the use of musical montages, someone really wanted to pretend it had. The film tried to convince the viewer that they were being moved, but clearly had no idea how to accomplish the Herculean task of incorporating actual human emotion into the picture. So ins

I don't believe I ever saw an episode of Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, nor do I recall ever having heard of an animated spin-off. But apparently not only does such a thing exists, it has a Christmas episode. The plot focused on Sabrina's rivalry with a rich, stuck-up classmate. She attempts to put this character through the premise of A Christmas Carol to what I really, really wish had been hilarious effect. Ultimately, the writing and poor comprehension of the medium made the result tedious and uninspired. Structurally, it clearly wanted to feel like a sitcom: the characters were two-dimensional, and the world was mostly constrained. The only reason simplistic characters work at all in sitcoms is that actors are able to add depth or - at the very humor - to the backdrop. Take away the nuance, and you're left with a blank slate, which is exactly what this felt like. Using a bratty rich girl as the villain was about as lazy as you can get. The character was constructed

Before we wrap up our second year of Mainlining Christmas, we really need to correct an oversight. We've been meaning to get around to covering the three Futurama Christmas specials since day one, but we kept putting it off. Ironically, we were putting them off because we wanted to save them for when they were needed. Say, when we'd exhausted our supply of holiday specials and were waiting for Netflix to ship us something. Well, it turns out that's never going to happen. Contrary to our naive assumptions, the internet contains hundreds if not thousands of hours of holiday cheer. I dare say we could run this blog every Christmas for a decade and not run out. Lucky us. So, rather than rob our list of reviews of these three for yet another year, we're tackling them now. After some of the crap we've seen recently, these are a welcome relief. XMas Story (1999) This was the first of the Futurama holiday specials, and it introduced us to Robot Santa Claus, voice

We watched these two specials back to back – they're actually packaged together on Amazon Instant Video – and I feel that I should talk about them together. They have a lot in common: both revolved around the main character unmasking a villain standing in/taking over from Santa Claus, and both were made as a sort of afterthought to their affiliated series. Both were really awful. It's hard to identify one as being worse, though, because in that respect they were different. The animation was far worse on Inspector Gadget, as well as its egregious use of badly recorded singing. The voice recordings were so poor that I really thought they'd gotten different voice actors. The plot was arguably stupider on Sonic, the misuse of supporting characters worse, plus it added “X-treme” winter sports for no good reason. I know I haven't seen any Inspector Gadget in a while, but in this one they basically said flat out that if Dr. Claw hadn't sent agents after G

God, this series is weird. Part of me wants to see more, just to see if my memories are accurate. There's no question that this show had guts (the last episode ended with the extinction), but without seeing more I'm not quite ready to render a verdict on whether the show was actually good. This is the only episode of Dinosaurs I've seen in years, but it provides a good example of the dilemma I run into when thinking about this show. On one hand, it's a fairly scathing criticism of capitalism and consumerism. On the other, it's about as subtle as a rampaging T-rex. The premise is that, due to its importance in their lives, the dinosaurs celebrate the invention of the refrigerator with the same significance (and more or less all the same trappings) as Christmas. When Earl's Refrigerator Day bonus doesn't materialize, the family winds up having to make some hard choices between material objects (represented by gifts) and spiritual fulfillment (symbolize

Shari Lewis, the late ventriloquist and puppeteer behind Lamb Chop, was a beloved entertainer. That makes this a tad awkward, because this special was a steaming pile of shit. To be fair, Lewis is a phenomenal ventriloquist. But her sock puppets kind of suck, the writing is idiotic, and this thing makes little to no sense. The main plot revolves around Charlie Horse trying to win a contest by designing a superhero using a computer program which brings his creations to life. There's a subplot about Lewis and Lamb Chop trying to put on a Chanukah party for some washed-up guest stars, but that seemed fairly inane. The characters are astonishingly stupid, the jokes aren't the least bit funny, and the lessons drag even more than you'd expect. I appreciate the need for holiday options for Jewish children, but it seems tragic this is the sort of thing trying to fit that niche. Lewis comes off as genuinely talented, and I appreciate that there are people out there who are n