Mainlining Christmas

As soon as I heard this existed, I knew it had to be the last version of A Christmas Carol I watched and reviewed for this project. Twelve Hundred Ghosts is, at least in theory, a supercut of more than 400 adaptations, homages, and reimagined spins on a Christmas Carol, arranged and edited by Heath Waterman, who completed the project over a year and a half. So that certainly puts the fifty-some-odd versions I covered here this year to shame. I do want to return to that "supercut" moniker. Strictly speaking, it's not inaccurate, but I don't think it does justice to the experience of watching this. Waterman isn't simply cutting between scores of adaptations across multiple mediums; he's creating a montage that explodes both the original narrative, as well as the incredible breadth of media it's inspired. He uses split screens to combine versions from different eras and styles, he plays audio tracks over incredibly different films, he includes audio plays, re

I stumbled across this looking for adaptations of A Christmas Carol, and it sounded both interesting and significant (at least in England - I don't believe this has gotten any kind of release in the states). For reasons I'll get to in a moment, I'm glad I gave this a chance. First, I want to explain to the best of my ability what this is, which is a little difficult as the background on this BBC comedy Christmas special is substantial. I'm going to try and cover this quickly, with the caveat I haven't seen any of Mischief Theatre's other work. A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong is the second BBC holiday special produced by Mischief Theatre. The first, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, is itself a sequel to The Play That Goes Wrong. All of these (along with several other plays and a later TV series) center on a fictitious acting troop called the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society who are supposedly performing the plays in question. The joke is that the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Soc

This 45-minute-long Australian animated adaptation of A Christmas Carol is sort of a mixed bag, which frankly is quite a bit better than I was expecting. It stars Ron Haddrick as the voice of Scrooge, apparently for the first of two times - he's credited in an animated '80s version as well (no promises, but I'll try and get to it). I'll start with the visuals. The backdrops vary in quality and style from scene to scene. At times, they look like pastel crayons, like something out of a children's book. But there are also moments, particularly some early establishing shots, where they're more evocative, almost like it's mimicking Van Gogh. I have no idea how intentional that was, but a few of the scenes are surprisingly atmospheric for a low-budget animated special from this era. The character animation is at least easier to summarize: if you've seen early Scooby-Doo, this is virtually indistinguishable. That's not a bad thing! Scooby-Doo featured good

I doubt this TV adaptation left much of a mark on future interpretations, but I will say it was interesting , albeit in the same way it's interesting looking at the wreck of a 1954 Chrysler Station Wagon on the side of a road. First, I better give a little context. Shower of Stars was an anthology show from the 1950s. For Christmas, they produced an hour-long adaptation (and I use that word generously) of Dicken's classic. Like every episode, this was broadcast in color, which was unusual for the time. This is of particular significance because every color copy of this episode has been lost. Black & white prints are pretty easy to find, though there's not much reason to bother. The role of Scrooge is played by a comedically long prosthetic nose affixed to [checks notes] Frederick March. Basil Rathbone, who'd play Scrooge a few years later in The Stingiest Man in Town, shows up briefly as Marley's Ghost. Virtually every existent adaptation of A Christmas Carol ma

This is one of those things that both is and is not an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Specifically, it falls within the sub-sub-sub-genre where the idea is used to establish a frame story justifying the use of loosely connected clips to repackage old material as a new special. Only this time it's Sesame Street doing it, so it's kind of good. I assume it goes without saying that the Scrooge analog here is Oscar the Grouch. There's a bit of narration courtesy of Tim Curry (who voiced Scrooge himself in a 1997 animated movie) establishing the setting, though Curry immediately bows out until the very end. We don't get much setup at all: there's no Cratchit, Tiny Tim, or Fred analogs, nor does Oscar actually do anything more aggressive than hanging a sign on his can demanding not to be bothered until after the holidays. But Joe Marley, who works for a ghost-related delivery service, shows up to deliver the first of three ghost-o-grams (an antique can of beans) along wi

Just so there's no confusion, this isn't a movie: it's a 25-minute version of A Christmas Carol made for television. Actually, Wikipedia claims it's the first TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol - I have no idea if that's actually true, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt. If you're wondering how they're able to condense the entirety of A Christmas Carol into 25 minutes, rest assured the answer is "poorly." Very poorly, in fact, and it doesn't help that a significant portion of that runtime goes to overlong opening credits where Scrooge's first name is misspelled (seriously) and an intro from narrator Vincent Price. Don't get too excited: he's warm and friendly here - picture the Platonic ideal of "Christmas special host," and you should have a good idea of what he's wearing, how he's dressed, and what the set looks like. Also, try to act surprised when I tell you he reads the story from a book. Still, Pr

Here we are, back in Equestria for the holidays again, but not the same holiday we knew from Friendship Is Magic . This special is from a series of follow-ups to the 2021 movie that rebooted the My Little Pony continuity with a huge time jump (MLP: A New Generation). I saw that movie, and I remember it being enjoyable enough, if not amazing. All you need to know about this new special is that it's not terrible, but it's so bland that it's just sort of a time waster for kids.  Ok, all you need to know to follow the plot of the new special is that in the movie a group of young ponies met and became friends: earnest earth pony Sunny, ditzy artsy unicorn Izzy, neurotic rule-following earth pony Hitch, and the princess pegasus sisters Pipp (bubbly pop star) and Zipp (sardonic tomboy). They ended up working together to restore lost magic to Equestria. By the time of the special, people are still figuring out what that means.  The ponies have been living together in Sunny's l

Well, this is the worst thing I've seen this year. I mean, okay, the year isn't over yet, and I'm playing a little fast and loose with the term "worst". They poured time, money, and effort into this stop-motion special, and the finished project reflects that. It's just... that's part of the problem. If you're going to invest in this art form, I expect something notable about the end result. And this... it's just empty. Soulless. Pointless. It feels like executives went over the script with a magnifying glass and meticulously removed anything anyone could conceivably find objectionable. What's left is less a story than a branding exercise showcasing the studio's intellectual property in the least interesting way imaginable. To the limited extent it matters, let's talk about the plot. This special starts with Mickey decorating a cabin for Christmas and picking up his friends, who have been celebrating in town. Through it all, Mickey's

This is one of those times where I find myself a bit lost. Ostensibly a comical retelling of A Christmas Carol, this is really better described as a farcical sketch special loosely tied together with a frame story about Scrooge. The key word here is "loosely," in that the majority of the sketches have nothing at all to do with the story or its characters. Also complicating matters is the fact it's part of a franchise of comedic British films with what I assume is a similar style of humor. That style, incidentally, is a longstanding British tradition utilizing innuendo, absurdity, and intentional shock. While I suspect this is a form of comedy deserving of respect, it's also kind of the forerunner of what would eventually turn into things like Scary Movie. In short, I didn't like this, but I'm having a hard time parsing out whether that's because it's bad, it's dated, or I'm simply lacking the context necessary to appreciate what they're doi

This should be a short review, but I think I can make it even shorter: you need to track this down and watch it. "On the Twelfth Day..." is a 20-minute British comedy special from 1955 that's more or less just playing with the premise of adapting the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" literally, without dialogue other than the lyrics. Suffice to say, it sinks or swims on a combination of the comedy and visual design, and... you know what? It doesn't sink or swim - it floats away in a hot air balloon. It is joyful, ridiculous, and beautiful. Just a joy, start to finish. It's directed by and stars Wendy Toye as a progressively more exasperated woman dealing with a suitor literally named "Truelove" in the credits (played by David O'Brien), who gifts her everything outlined in the song, in the quantities specified. Toye and O'Brien act silently, with O'Brien seemingly channeling Charlie Chaplin. Both give great comedic performances, as

Brer Rabbit is a character with an extremely complex legacy going back to African folklore. Unfortunately, the vast majority of modern versions have racist connotations, largely due to the character's appropriation by white writers and filmmakers exploiting those stories (looking at you, Walt). Whether the character can be untangled from that exploitation is an open question I can't answer, but I believe it should go without saying that it shouldn't be white people trying. Brer Rabbit's Christmas Carol was an hour-long 1992 made-for-TV movie, a sequel to a 1991 TV movie called Brer Rabbit Tales. It was produced and directed by Al Guest and Jean Mathieson, and I wish I had a concrete answer to the obvious question. Guest and Mathieson were Canadian animators who made a number of shows and TV movies over the course of their careers. Based on her IMDB picture, Mathieson appears to be white. Guest doesn't have a picture on his page, and I can't find any additional p

First, I want to clarify that this isn't the infamous Christmas episode where the Devil shows up. That was released in 1982. and we discussed it back in the first year of the blog (apologies for the lack of detail - we had a very different concept of what this was back then). 'Tis the Season is a special from 1987, during the seventh season of The Smurfs. If you're just now realizing a seventh season exists, you're in good company - I'd have guessed three. Turns out there were actually nine, but that's outside the scope of this review. The three main characters featured in this are Grampa Smurf, Sassette, and Wild Smurf, and I don't know who the Smurf any of these Smurfs are. Grandpa, unsurprisingly, is basically an older version of Papa Smurf. Sassette is a young girl, so... I guess Smurfette isn't the only female Smurf anymore? And Wild Smurf is basically Tarzan. He primarily communicates by making animal noises, and from context I'm guessing he w

Released alongside the live-action Smurfs movie on DVD, The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol is a mix of 3D and 2D animation loosely adapting Dickens' story. I should probably note that I've never seen the movie this ties to: I only subject myself to things like that when Christmas is involved. The story is, of course, set in Smurf village, which is getting ready for Christmas. Everyone's singing "Smurf the Halls" and decorating except Grumpy Smurf, and when the others confront him, he tells them he hates the holiday and won't decorate or celebrate with them. This comes as a surprise to his neighbors: despite his name and personality, he apparently used to like Christmas. They all gather together to try and find a way to improve Grumpy's disposition - because it won't be the same if everyone doesn't conform to the culturally and commercially mandated yuletide enthusiasm. Seriously, cartoons need to stop pulling this crap. The problem with Scrooge isn'

I heard about this in a Twitter thread about another Canadian science-fiction Christmas special . Someone commented with a link to this with the addendum it was from Gerald Potterton, the director of the 1981 animated film, Heavy Metal. I'm not really a fan of that movie, but damned if it didn't pique my interest. Christmas science fiction is a weird subgenre in general, and this looked even more out there. This special starts with George decorating his Christmas tree. All that's left is to put a star on top, but the idea of using a common paper one depresses him. He decides what he really wants is an actual star, so he builds a working spaceship and heads into the cosmos to bring back the brightest one in the heavens. He crash-lands into an outer space motel, where he meets a friendly robot pianist named Ralph. The motel business isn't thriving in the vacuum of space, so Ralph joins George on his quest. Next, they're picked up by Space Rangers (not the Lightyear ki

Part of me thinks it's odd this slipped through the cracks for so long. As far as I can tell, it's the first Looney Tunes TV Christmas special, and it features some huge names in animation (Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Mel Blanc). On that level, it feels like this is something that should be important. Or at least it does until you watch it. It's not that this is bad - I'd describe two of the three segments as "fine" and the third as "pretty good" - but there's nothing in here that makes it feel bigger or more memorable than three random Looney Tunes shorts. And the one segment that might have left an impact, Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol, was supplanted four years later by the far superior Disney film with a similar premise. After a brief (though maybe not brief enough) intro sequence with Looney Tunes characters caroling, the special moves on to its spin on A Christmas Carol. This does actually feel like a transition between Mr. Magoo'

I watched and "reviewed" this back in 2011 , but those quotes are there for a reason. This is far from the only version of A Christmas Carol I'm revisiting as part of this year's project. I didn't much care for this when I last saw it, but I've seen some endorsements online and decided it was worth giving it another shot, if only to add some depth to the snarky, uninformative diatribe I wrote eleven years ago. I'll start by saying the re-watch didn't improve my opinion much, though there were a handful of good moments and aspects I failed to credit the first time around. I'll get around to those in a bit. First, let's do something else I apparently didn't feel was relevant in 2011 and actually describe the damn special. Bah, Humduck! is a homage/parody of A Christmas Carol featuring Looney Tunes characters as versions of themselves. This of course differs from versions where established characters are playing the actual characters of A Chri