Mainlining Christmas

Since moving out of New York, Lindsay and I have been frequenting used book stores, many of which have a surprisingly impressive selection of used Christmas merchandise. We found "The Legend of Frosty the Snowman" going for a buck in the clearance section of one and bought it. I'll admit it was a bit overpriced, but at least we didn't wind up paying something exorbitant - like $1.50 or $1.99 - for this piece of junk. The front of the box proudly advertises that the story is "Told and sung by Burt Reynolds." Before watching this, I wouldn't have thought that Burt Reynolds could sing. Funny thing: now that I have seen it, that hasn't changed. Fortunately, he only gets one chance, and that's (of course) Frosty the Snowman. It's actually the only song in the entire thing, though there are a number of musical montages that feel like someone was planning on putting a song in later but never got around to it. The Legend of Frosty the Snowman i

Okay, do you remember the book A Cricket in Times Square? Me too. Do you remember the animated special adapted from the book, or at least that there was one? Yup. This is the holiday-themed sequel to that animated special. And it’s really quite good. We meet back up with our heroes from the first story: Harry the cat and Tucker the Mouse, who live in the tunnels near Times Square. Tucker is upset with how loud and angry everyone seems to be, even though it’s the holidays. The two mull it over for a while, then decide to get their friend Chester (the musical cricket) to return to New York to bring everyone a little Christmas Spirit. It’s Chuck Jones animation, which means that the movement is kinetic without being totally unrealistic, and the character designs are lovely. The soundtrack, however, might be the biggest star here. The montage that opens the special is meant to convey the insanity of New York City, and it does a pretty good job. There are a few songs sung or spoken-in-ti

This is going to be the year of the really boring obscure specials, isn’t it? The Christmas Orange is a weird little piece from Canada based on a kids’ book. It’s about a kid named Anton whose birthday falls on Christmas, and he gets upset when he realizes that most kids get presents on their birthday and on Christmas, but he only gets one day of gift giving. (Incidentally, this is a totally acceptable gripe, but the proper way to deal with it is instituting half-birthday parties.) Anton asks Santa for 600 gifts, Santa brings him a nice shiny orange instead, and so Anton decides to answer a sleazy late-nite tv ad and sue Santa for breach of contract. That sounds much more interesting than it is. This special is basically a mess; nothing makes much sense, the only plot twists are visible miles away, and the moral, I guess, is that oranges are nice and kids get too many toys? It’s really dull. However, I did notice something kind of odd. All the people live in a town called Bleakney. A

You probably know whether you like Garfield or not. It seems like the funniest idea ever when you’re a kid, or when I was a kid, anyway. This is one of a handful of specials that predate the Garfield and Friends tv show. In the final estimation, this is a fine special. The songs aren't annoying, there are some cute moments, and while it isn't terribly funny, it isn't bad or all that boring. The plot, such as it is, revolves around Jon taking Garfield and Odie to his parents’ house for Christmas, and a series of scenes that establish the characters’ relationships and quirks. Like It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, this has the feel of a bunch of loosely connected vignettes rather than a single story. About the only plotline that is longer than two scenes is the one where Odie is making Garfield a present. Some of the scenes almost contradict each other, too, in things like whether Jon and his brother are poking fun at their parents’ traditions or not. Jon’s

Arggh. I knew I should have just fast forwarded past this without looking. I found this on a VHS of programs recorded off of the Disney Channel when I was small.  This is one of the stupidest specials I've seen in a while. Not quite scratch-my-own-eyes-out, but that's mainly because it's short. Okay. The Tiny Tree is a completely nonsensical special about a tree that lives in a meadow with a bunch of folksy animal friends who all have different caricatured regional accents. A little girl and her family move into the house by the meadow, and the tree and the animals make friends with her. You have to understand that the little girl is in a wheelchair, but doesn't seem to be able to reach the wheels for some poorly-animated reason, so this amounts to a handicapped child being repeatedly kidnapped by a bunch of half-clothed, talking animals. But it's okay, because the child loves the tree. Now, I loved trees as a child, but the way the narration keeps stress

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

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

I am so glad that this was wonderful. So much of what DreamWorks puts out is awful, except for this one franchise. But this franchise is absolutely fantastic. This half-hour special, set between the two movies, deals with the same themes as the series as a whole: family, choices, self-knowledge, parents and mentors. Shifu assigns Po to host an important fancy holiday dinner for a group of Master martial artists. Po is excited and stressed with the responsibility, but also dealing with his father's disappointment that he's leaving behind their holiday traditions. It's sweet and touching, and also absolutely hilarious. There's a fantastic frenetic montage as the pace of preparations for the holiday picks up, and some completely silly sub-plots that I loved. The animation is wonderful, the voice acting delicate and lovely. The ending gives me the warm-and-fuzzies, which is really what you're looking for in a holiday special. This is a strong addition to the se

There is, inside of me, a swell of rage and hatred, and it's all thanks to the 2009 CG production, "Yes, Virginia." Now first off, I want to acknowledge what's good about the special. And, as much as I hate to admit it, there's a quite a list. The animation looks good, the designs are generally inspired, the dialogue was competently written, and the voice acting - featuring both Doctors Horrible and Octopus - was pretty solid. So why then does this special make me angrier than anything else I've seen this year? Because of what it is, what it does, and why it exists. I appreciate that most Christmas specials are designed to make money - hell, it's part of what I love about the holidays - but generally those specials are direct in their strategy. A special's produced and sold to a network, advertising revenue changes hands, and on the back-end maybe DVDs are produced. It might not be charitable, but at least there's something honest about the s

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to coherently describe what happened in the special, but I know I can explain how it came to be. There was a meeting, quite possibly in a studio boardroom, where someone said, "Hey. You know what we need? Another Rudolph." To which someone else added, "And we need something that's religious, really puts the Christ in Christmas." And fifteen minutes later the storyboard for Nestor: the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey was born. I don't think I've ever seen this before, probably because it doesn't have the same exposure most of the other specials have. This is kind of a shame, because it's just about the most screwed-up thing I've ever seen, and I feel like more people should be familiar with it. This is narrated by Nestor's descendant, whose name escapes me and I don't care enough to look up. I should probably add that Nestor's descendant works for Santa Claus at the North Pole. This i

I just recently read the short story, so a lot of watching this special was spent comparing it to the source material. It compares pretty well, I think. So far as I know, this is the last of the Rankin-Bass holiday specials, so the production values by this point were pretty high. The animation is smooth and the character designs are pretty great. The special opens with the Council of Immortals meeting to decide Claus' fate; his life story is then told within that frame. I found the Immortals much more interesting and full of gravity here than in the book. It probably doesn't have anything to do with me being conditioned to like anything set to the same kind of 70's style faux medieval folk-rock that was also used in The Hobbit, Flight of Dragons, etc. Really. The special goes on to be a credible adaptation of Baum's story, although it skips a lot of amusing details for time and adds some side characters to explain plot points to. It also cuts a lot of annoyin

This is a bizarre little animated special on a collection I found cheap on Amazon. This was the first special on the first disc, so here we are. The special opens with caroling children singing, then immediately transitions to tanks firing, followed by a description of the Middle East now, then finally settling on the Ancient Roman Empire. The next five or ten minutes introduce a flurry of characters and locations. From a narrative point of view, this offers very little in the form of a coherent story, but then again, neither did the New Testament. What this does surprising well is depict a complex social and political landscape, complete with intrigue and danger. When we follow a couple Roman soldiers through the streets of Bethlehem, it's genuinely fascinating, and the special's depiction of Herod - while certainly not even-handed - makes for an interesting foil. Things start to drag when the story shifts to Mary and Joseph, who are obnoxiously two-dimensional (as usual

Ugh. I don't have a lot to say about this lame television special. It was boring, banal, and badly produced. The animation is pretty sub-par, even by the Rankin-Bass standards. The voices are terribly chosen, just incredibly boring. Poorly written dialogue, weird lighting mistakes, completely forgettable musical numbers, and not much more to this. Bleck. Okay, I guess you can have a few more details. So, in this highly padded story, the Little Drummer Boy (Aaron) hates humans. We know this because the narration tells us approximately six hundred times, and Aaron says it a few more times for good measure. Hates. Humans. All Humans. Hates them. Why does he hate humans? Because his parents were killed, by HUMANS! Yeah, this kid's logic was a little shy of becoming Batman rather than a pint-size misanthrope. Pity - the special could have been a lot more interesting. There are a lot of awkward phrases and lines in this thing. Like "Show Caravan". It's a t

This was an interesting artifact to track down. Apparently, it was aired live in 1951, and then performed again in subsequent years to decent success, making it one of the first, if not the first, actual television Christmas specials to become a yearly tradition. This is the recording of the 1955 performance. Watching it now is... odd. Erin flatly hated it, while I found it amusing. Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera about the Three Kings stopping to rest with a poor family on their way to find Jesus. Except that it's a light opera, so much of the kings' behavior is played for laughs. Amahl and his mother are destitute, but somehow have this building big enough to have a dance in, that has no furniture. I guess what I'm trying to convey is that any logic in the situation is somewhat lacking. It's sort of slow and boring, although as I said, the humor was okay. I mean, Amahl goes at one point between his mother and the door, telling her a king is there, she

Bah, Humduck attempts to invoke the joy of classic Looney Tunes cartoons in telling a quirky version of A Christmas Carol, and it fails miserably on both counts. There's absolutely no charm, no fun, and no humor in watching this special drag out. There's a sense that this was made to mimic better movies. The backgrounds are filled with a constant barrage of old characters from Warner's past, but the references are hollow, adding up to nothing. It's as though the producers are trying to convince the audience they love these characters, too, despite clearly not understanding what makes the classics entertaining. The writing is dull and uninspired, driven by a need for instant recompense for any misdeed or heartless comment. The role of Scrooge is played, as the title suggests, by Daffy, who is impossibly rich for no discernible reason. If he threatens a child collecting for the poor, a door closes on him. If he dismisses Christmas, he falls down the stairs. Karmic p

Okay, so apparently at some point Harry Connick Jr was delusional or high enough to think producing an animated special based loosely on a stupid song he wrote was a good idea. And then somehow NO ONE involved thought: wait, this is a TERRIBLE idea! Thus was born the steaming pile known as The Happy Elf. Ugh, even the name is boring. The plot is idiotic, every single character is annoying. The only thing this has going for it is that it isn't very long. Rob Paulsen plays the lead, and if anyone could have pulled it out of the dive and made the twitchy hyper obnoxiously Pollyanna elf charming, it probably would have been Rob Paulsen. But it was not to be. The dialogue is so terrible, and the performances are all painfully overwrought. The animation... on a purely technical level, it might not be quite as bad as some of the CG we saw last year. It's bad, but the humans are maybe 5% less creepily mask-like. However, 99% of the designs and movements were poorly chosen,

Well, this is depressing. First the good news: this wasn't awful. In fact, taken on its own merits, it was even good. It was funny, cute, and kind of fun. But that's just not good enough this time. This isn't a new special existing in a vacuum: it's the sequel to the single best Christmas special made in more than a decade. And this one doesn't measure up. The original, while not being too dark for kids, was exciting. Yeah, half was devoted to heart, but when things turned, there was a real sense of danger. That was completely missing this time around: I never felt like the elves could actually die. There were still some cool scenes, particularly the opening, which expanded the series's mythology by showing the other half of the operation: the elves there to punish the bad kids. For a minute, there was a darkness to the tone, but they just couldn't hold it. Almost immediately, we shifted to the comic relief. And guess who played that role. If you

Like almost everyone who remembers Sesame Street before Elmo took over, I'm not really a fan of the red furball. I generally find him kind of cloying, and I wasn't really looking forward to an entire hour devoted to his adventures. But this won me over quickly. While it's certainly not on par with Christmas Eve on Sesame Street or a Muppet Family Christmas, this absolutely carries on that tradition. This is everything Sesame Street should be: funny, endearing, and a tad subversive. Oh, I suppose it's got a lesson or something for the kids. Right off the bat, the premise is explained in a loose frame story narrated by Maya Angelou (I don't think her presence really adds anything to the special, but then tossing guest stars in bit parts is common practice for these specials). Contrary to the title, the story is presented as the time "Elmo saved Christmas, then nearly lost it, again." And the special absolutely delivers on that promise. Elmo is presen

This had a fairly simple premise which seems like it should have worked better than it did. It's basically a parody of a traditional holiday special, featuring a string of guest stars and songs. You can feel Colbert's genuine love of the format shining through his cynical exterior, but that's a part of the problem here. Part of me wonders if this would have worked better if it were hosted by the "real" Colbert instead of his TV personality. Don't get me wrong: I love The Colbert Report , but that character only makes sense in that world. Removed from politics, the character feels flimsy, and the jokes lose some of their edge. It's still funny, of course, but it's nowhere near as strong as most episodes. The music is all original, mostly parodies of Christmas songs. It's pretty good, but nothing that makes me want to track down the MP3's. There are some great jokes, as you'd expect, but it ultimately adds up to good, not great. This

I remembered this one from my childhood and wanted to track it down. It might be my favorite Christmas Carol I've seen yet this year, but it's a very odd one. This is actually an animated remake of a live action musical version (also a TV special) from 1956. It's full of songs and music; there's actually very little dialogue. I really like the music, although bear in mind the style has a lot in common with old-fashioned movie musicals. Some of the songs are wonderfully surreal. Near the start, Erin asked me to confirm that we'd just heard a bunch of alley cats singing about how Scrooge was so stingy that Satan was going to complain about him in Hell. Yes, yes we had. They manage to fit digressions about both Santa Claus and Jesus into an hour-long Christmas Carol, so there are a few common scenes missing from this adaptation. Nothing about young Scrooge at school, and if you blink you'll miss the Ghost of Christmas Future. I like the voice acting most