Mainlining Christmas

What kind of fever-dream-caused-by-too-much-eggnog is this? On the topic of Rankin Bass animated specials that we heretofore missed, we actually bought this on DVD years ago and then forgot we never watched it. And we definitely hadn't watched this before, because we definitely would have remembered it. We were left with the overall impression of an animation director with a lot of big artistic ideas, a contracted number of songs, and absolutely no interest in whether the final product makes a speck of sense. The animation designs are stylized in such a way that they don't move well, and the whole experience is best summed up as "odd." The story of the special isn't actually the story of the novella; the credits even say "suggested by," rather than "based on." I think this is a shame, as I actually enjoyed the original story (despite it not really being set at Christmas at all). The character list is pared down drastically and several character

The Last of the Spirits Chris Preistly, 2015 As I continue my dive into Christmas-Carol-adjacent novels, I found this oddity. I guess it's supposed to be for kids? The author seems to specialize in kid's horror, although the books advertised in the back looked like adult novels? For me this one rode an odd line. It's not that it's bad; it just seems so superfluous.   The book invents a young protagonist, Sam. Sam and his younger sister are living on the street in London due to a complex series of catastrophes. One night, Sam is so angered by the idea that some people (Scrooge) have so much when he has so little that he decides he wants to steal from him, or possibly kill him and steal from him.  However, before this can happen, Sam and his sister fall asleep in a nearby graveyard and are accidentally drawn into the world of the spirits, witnessing all of the events of A Christmas Carol. Sam is simultaneously granted his own visions of the past and of the future if he co

The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge Charlie Lovett, 2015 After my first two forays into expansions on A Christmas Carol, I was worried that I would never find something enjoyable that respected the source. Happily, this one was a delight. Set ten years after the events of the original story, this sweet and playful novella takes the form of both a loving parody and a thematic expansion. Scrooge is still the subject of gossip in the street, only now the consensus is that he's taking this whole keeping-Christmas-all-the-year thing a bit too far. He's generous beyond his means, affectionate to a fault, and comes off as more than a bit eccentric, wishing people Merry Christmas in July. I was a bit worried early on that the story would conclude on a wishy-washy moral of moderation in all things. I could not have been more wrong. Instead, Scrooge realizes that as one man, he can only do so much to help the world. So he proposes a scheme to the Christmas Spirits to multiply his

You probably noticed that we've been watching a lot of versions of A Christmas Carol. As we went, I started noticing how many musical versions there are. As a lifelong musical theater fan, I'm a sucker for a good musical. Because these are all adaptations of the same story, many use songs in similar places for similar purposes. I find it interesting how these songs can make very different choices, so let's take a few minutes today to explore that together.  I don't remember enough music theory to get too bogged down in whether these songs are necessarily "good" by any specific musical metrics. I'm interested in only a few things:  Does the song support the story, expand the character(s), or enhance the tone? Is it enjoyable to listen to: lyrics understandable and not annoying, tune catchy, performed well?  How do the songs which fulfill the same purpose in the narrative compare across adaptations? Here are the versions of A Christmas Carol I'll be visi

Jacob T. Marley R. William Bennett, 2011 After my first attempt at reading a Christmas-Carol-adjacent novel led me to a pile of trash masquerading as a book, I just hoped this one would be better. And it was, at least at first. The first half or so of this book was actually pretty good. It creates a plausible backstory for Marley and his relationship with Scrooge that works with the original, while expanding aspects of it. It occasionally flirts with stylish prose without trying too hard. This Scrooge and Marley choose to act greedily within the letter of the law (unlike the mess in the other book), showing that the law is not enough when you don't care about anything but wealth and your own advancement - capitalism without human kindness leads only to exploitation, loneliness, and misery. So far, so good. And if it had ended, as the other book did, with Marley's death, I could give it a cautious recommendation: not a great book or anything brilliant, but a nice little piece of

Marley: A Novel Jon Clinch, 2019 Well, that was a waste of time and energy. This book, obviously, purports to be a backstory for A Christmas Carol . However, it fails on every level. The writing itself is fine for a modern historical novel, but it only occasionally makes a half-hearted attempt at the kind of clever prose that characterizes Dickens' work. The story is a ridiculous mess. It doesn't match up with any of the character relationships as presented in A Christmas Carol, and, in fact, attempts to undermine the very heart of the story. In this novel, Marley is portrayed as a lifelong villain through and through. He is already a liar, extortionist, and forger by the time he meets Scrooge as a child. (Where he picked any of this up is not explained.) His sins only grow from there, including using shell companies to continue to profit from slavery after it is made illegal, extorting favors and money from prostitutes, and paying for the murder of his enemies. He softens a li

Yes, we're embarrassed about this one. What about it? After being sure we'd done every Rankin/Bass Christmas special, we're still discovering that some slipped through the cracks. It only added to the surreality that while watching this, both Erin and I became convinced that we'd seen this at some point in our lives. I guess it just wasn't in the last 13 years. This isn't a stop-motion special, rather it's traditional animation in the Rankin/Bass style. The voice cast does good work, the dialogue isn't bad, the songs are pretty catchy. So why is this holiday special on the more obscure end? Maybe because the story is just a bit... odd. It starts out late on Christmas Eve with the first eight lines of Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," of course, as recited/experienced by Joshua Trundle, a clockmaker. Then the story is taken up by a father mouse living in the wall of that house who is decidedly stirring. He tells us that e

A Christmas Carol (revisited) Charles Dickens, 1843 In preparation for reading and watching a bunch of things related to A Christmas Carol, I thought I should first refresh my memory of the original.  It continues to be a delight. Looking back, I am somewhat appalled by my casual dismissal of its brilliance in this blog's first year ; I heartily regret that.  When I read it this time, what most delighted me were little details, turns of phrase, and metaphors that I'd either forgotten, overlooked, or not bothered to examine in depth during previous readings. So I thought I'd share a few of those with you now. In the Preface, Dickens makes a pun about his ghost story containing the "Ghost of an idea" and hopes that it might "haunt" the readers "pleasantly, and no one choose to lay it." What a cute and playful way to say: this book has a point; it should bother you; don't ignore it. I'm a sucker for an amusing Shakespeare reference. "

It has been a few years since we've done more than a smattering of Hallmark Christmas movies, so this year we're taking a relatively random sample to see what's been going on in the most generically inoffensive place on earth.  This movie has a predictably bonkers premise, although the execution was surprisingly low-key. I can't decide whether or not that was better than the alternative.  The movie centers on Haley, your stereotypical workaholic go-getter. (In the opening scenes she literally tells her assistant that she's canceling a date because she wants to concentrate on work.) She works in branding/marketing, and she wants to land a new account with a big toy company - part of her plan to land a big promotion. Her boss, however, says that the toy company is all about holiday traditions and Haley doesn't understand those, so she sends Haley to "Christmas Camp."  Christmas Camp, it turns out, is a one-week special event run by an inn in Western Mass

TWO Aardman holiday specials this year? Woo! While Robin Robin featured a slightly different look and style for the studio, Shaun the Sheep is right in their comfort zone: hilarious comedy done with extremely professional stop-motion animation. If you've never seen any Shaun the Sheep, you can jump in at any time. There's a television series, two films, and multiple specials. All of them feature roughly the same premise: Shaun and his sheep pals live on a farm. Shaun is much more intelligent than the farmer knows (as are the other sheep, if less so), and comedy ensues. The farmer (who is an idiot) and the farmer's loyal dog often come up with plans to improve the farm, which often come into conflict with capers run by the sheep and other animals.  And it's all wordless. There's no dialogue in Shaun the Sheep, only mumbles and expressive animal noises. The simplicity lends itself to brilliantly outlandish physical comedy.  This special might be the funniest entry I&#

A few years ago, we were surprised and delighted by Angela's Christmas , which was a joy in basically every way. I actually remember seeing that this sequel existed last year, but I was hesitant about it. No more source material plus a lot of good press for the first one could easily lead to something rushed and poorly written. And even in the best-case scenario, what could possibly live up to the first special?  Well, not this, but it's still very good. Funny, charming, adorable, uplifting, and really grounded in ways that animation often isn't. It's just not, you know, transformative children's media. If you liked the first one, I recommend you check this out. If you didn't see the first one, go watch that! Angela's Christmas Wish (also marketed as Angela's Chrismas 2) starts with an introduction that takes place before the events of the first movie, in which we see Angela's dad get on a boat for a job in Australia. (Reminder that this all takes pl

Netflix had been pushing this on me for a while, and I thought, well, I haven't watched any mediocre reality competition shows this year yet, why not? And that's more or less what I got: a mediocre reality competition show with some pretty art and a few weird, possibly unpleasant quirks. Apparently there have been two seasons of this glass-blowing competition show before this, and this holiday event invited five previous competitors to come back for another shot - so far, so normal for a special (or in this case, a special short season). The host for these four episodes is Bobby Berk of Queer Eye, while professor Katherine Gray is the judge.  The first thing I want to say is that, despite the show's attempts to sneak in little captions or asides that explain specific techniques or tools, I found the footage of the actual glass blowing surprisingly boring. I didn't see enough of any one piece to be able to follow it from inception to completion, and the pieces in progres

This episode has actually been on my radar for a while. I have vaguely positive memories of the show being around, even though I was in high school when it premiered, and we're always looking for ways to build up our archive of Hanukkah content. So when I saw that the show landed on Disney+ this year, I sought it out.  Unfortunately, this is just a boring episode of what (judging only by this episode) was a mediocre example of animation in the 90s. In fact, between the fashions, the inline skates in the opening, and the character dynamics and stereotypes on display - this is aggressively 90s content.  The only thing I remembered about the show was the absolute earworm of a theme song, but the animation of the song opens with a few seconds of a dream sequence where the main character is fighting off some... racist caricatures of native people? Yikes. So it's obvious from the beginning that not everything has aged well about this series.  On the other hand, some brief research te