Mainlining Christmas

Christmas on Ganymede and Other Stories Edited by Martin H Greenberg, 1990 Crossposted from The Blue Fairy’s Bookshelf I was so excited when I found this book! A collection of sci-fi themed Christmas stories, just the thing to break up the Christmas monotony, right? Now I know why I kept finding copies of it for a dollar. It’s not all bad. There are some stories I liked, but most of the authors are phoning it in here. It’s like everyone had one mediocre holiday story in them, and instead of reading it in a collection of other good stories on other topics or other good stories by the same author, it’s bundled with every other author’s one mediocre story. But let’s be more specific, shall we? “To Hell with the Stars” Jack McDevitt, 1987 To hell with your pessimistic cliche attitude, Mr. McDevitt, warp drive might still be possible - 1 Star “A Midwinter's Tale” Michael Swanwick, 1988 A nicely creepy Solstice tale, well done - 4 Stars “Christmas on Ganymede” Isaac

I loved this movie when I was in high school, but - despite having a copy - I haven't actually sat down and watched it in years. I'd more or less forgotten it was set at Christmas until I saw it on a list of holiday movies. I figured it would be cheating to count this as a "Christmas movie" and decided it would be a good time to re-watch it. Turns out I was wrong about it being a stretch: the holiday elements permeate the setting, tone, and music of the film. This is definitely a Christmas movie, and a fantastic one at that. The Long Kiss Goodnight is directed by Renny Harlin, better known for Die Hard 2. The writing is credited to Shane Black (hence the Christmas setting, I suppose), though Wikipedia mentions there was some script-doctoring involved. The movie is, among other things, absurd and implausible: if you can't suspend your disbelief, don't bother putting it on. But it's clearly not intended to be realistic. This is unapologetically pul

Olive, the Other Reindeer is an animated special produced by Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama, and features Drew Barrymore in the lead role. With that kind of muscle behind it, you'd expect Olive to be pretty good. And you'd be completely and totally wrong. The design and animation tops the long list of problems plaguing this thing. The majority of the special is done using 2-D animation on 3-D environments. The backgrounds are fine, if underwhelming (think video games from a decade ago). The characters, on the other hand, are astonishingly and unbelievably awful. The special is based on a picture book, which uses highly stylized two-dimensional images that resemble (intentionally) something a kid might draw. The special attempts to recreate this effect and winds up with something resembling what a first-year college student might animate. It's painful to look at. A few years later, this would probably have been done in Flash, and the results would ha

Man, I forgot how freaking weird this show is! It’s really, really weird. Watching this episode, about how one kid’s attempt to keep Christmas around a bit longer spirals into a battle for the ages between the Christmas Spirit and an evil Garbage Man with his own theme song is... well, there’s nothing else quite like it. Overall I’m glad we saw this. It certainly wasn’t boring. It was an exceptionally surreal experience and it suffered from the abuse of sound effects, but at least it wasn’t boring. If you’re looking to relive what you liked about Pete & Pete, you might want to start elsewhere. But if you want a very unique tale of holiday cheer, give this a shot. I found it on YouTube.

The episode opens with Frasier excited about spending Christmas with his family. There's a sequence at his office Christmas party introducing several elements: there's a drunk woman he's supposed to drive home, Ross got him a better gift than he got her, and one of his coworkers wants him to take his Christmas shift. Only one of these actually extends beyond the opening sequence and influences the episode at all. The others, which feel like plot hooks, just evaporate. I'm not really complaining: the amorous drunken woman and a gift imbalance aren't exactly episode premises I needed to see developed, but I'm baffled as to why they were included then left unresolved. Frasier gets home and receives some bad news: his son will be spending Christmas with his ex-wife instead of him. This leaves him depressed, which leads into a fight with his father. Rather than go to the family cabin, Frasier decides to work on Christmas (yeah, that required us to sit through t

Remember That ‘70s Show? That freaking show ran FOREVER, but it was one of those things you always could turn on and it would usually be funny. There were a total of five Christmas episodes over the eight seasons, and they were all pretty enjoyable to watch. That '70s Show: The Best Christmas Ever (1998) It took us awhile to get into this episode from the first season. As the complications and subplots mounted, we were amused, but weren’t engaged. By the end, though, it started to come together. Among other threads, this followed Eric’s attempt to throw a Christmas party (with beer) in the basement, Red having to work Christmas Eve, and Hyde trying to impress Donna with a gift. Not a bad little Christmas episode. That '70s Show: Hyde's Christmas Rager (2000) By the time we were watching this one, we were back in the rhythm of the show (and we were watching a later episode, so the quality had picked up a little). I know I’ve seen this episode before: it's about the boy

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