Mainlining Christmas

From Bing Crosby: The Television Specials Volume 2 - The Christmas Specials The third Bing Crosby special we watched, and it’s a doozy. At least I guess this one had a coherent theme. This time around, Crosby is joined by his second wife and kids. I’m glad the trend of show business families performing together has gone mostly out of style. It just feels so forced. Just cast some dang kids! Also appearing are Mary Costa and Robert Goulet. Everyone’s on deck for a boring opening number, in some of the ugliest costumes yet. The lighting design and set work are pretty decent though. There’s an interesting tension here between the idea of “live” television and scripted. Obviously this is all pre-recorded and a lot of it is lip-synced, but certain cuts and set moves are purposely intended to mask the fact that you’re not watching live. Robert Goulet sings a boring, but booming, “Do You Hear…”, and then he and Crosby do an extremely odd extended song/sequence based loosely on an O’

From Bing Crosby: The Television Specials Volume 2 - The Christmas Specials I laughed aloud very early on in this one, but it wasn’t at a joke. It was the announcer talking about the sponsor, Clairol: “The natural look, so appealing in a woman.” Different times. This special, unlike the first, is in color. The DVD we had gives it a slightly fuzzy quality, but it’s definitely in color. I’m not sure anyone told the set designer, though. Most of the special takes place in a featureless gray void which is rather depressing. There’s two credited co-stars for this special: Mary Martin and André Previn. Ms. Martin switches back and forth between charming and tedious, but Previn, a pianist and composer, is fairly amazing. Too bad he doesn’t get to do more here. We open with a long, illogical sequence full of dancers in decent costumes doing mediocre choreography in front of that ugly gray void. Bing has a number I can’t recall, and then Mary Martin sings for far too long about nothi

From Bing Crosby: The Television Specials Volume 2 - The Christmas Specials This is a very very weird TV special. A lot of it is just impenetrable references and stylistic choices that made sense in the context of the day… maybe. It’s in black-and-white, and the definition on the DVD we watched was really sharp. Almost too sharp, it often emphasized the weaknesses in the writing to be seeing the actors so clearly. It opens with a rousing song about judgement day, and then proceeds to ignore the fact that it’s supposed to be set at Christmas for the next hour. It’s mostly about Crosby wandering around England in search of distant relatives, making thin excuses for cameos by British singers and actors. He looks sort of dazed or drunk, often glancing off-camera as if for a cue card. However, I think this is generally just part of his shtick. We start up the main sequence with a long sequence in a tea shop, with a selection of songs and lazy choreography. Some of the jokes are almo

Halloween is Grinch Night was made in the late 70's, presumably in an attempt by Dr. Seuss to cash in on the popularity of How the Grinch Stole Christmas . It is in no way a great work of art, but it's nowhere near as bad as the last part of the "trilogy", The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat . There's very little plot to this thing. Mostly, it's a series of Seussical rhymes and jokes (almost all of which are below the expectations we've formed for the good Doctor). The special focuses on a Who named Euchariah who gets lost on Grinch Night and runs into the Grinch. He allows the Grinch to subject him to various horrors in order to buy time until daylight. When I say horrors, I'm referring to a magic cart apparently full of specters, ghosts, and illusions; sort of a portable haunted house. The sequence is a little unpleasant, actually, not from the content but from the premise of a young child allowing a creepy man to subject him to scary things

Until I saw this special referenced in an article about the Grinch last year , I didn't realize there were other Grinch specials produced. Once I knew, though, I really had to track them down, even if their connection to Christmas begins and ends with The Grinch. But as far as I'm concerned, having the Grinch in something is pretty much the same as including Santa: de facto Christmas. I'm sure we'll get to the Halloween one eventually, but I wanted to take a look at the "The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat" while it's seasonal. It was pretty easy to find on Youtube if you're interested in checking it out after reading my review. But, honestly, if you're still interested after my review, it probably means you have anterograde amnesia. Don't take chances: take a polaroid of the opening credits and write, "Don't waste your time" at the bottom. Shit. Who has a polaroid camera anymore? I guess you're screwed. While I

I'm pretty sure Here Comes Peter Cottontail represents Rankin-Bass's first attempt to push into a holiday other than Christmas. This largely forgotten artifact features Danny Kaye as the narrator (as well as a handful of other voices) and Casey Kasem as the title character, which means you'll spend most of the special expecting Peter to ask for a Scooby snack. No, that's not quite right: you'll probably spend most of the special looking for a ledge to jump off of. But you'll also notice that the main character has Shaggy's voice. The special, which is based on some book called "The Easter Bunny That Overslept," starts in the magical land of April Valley, which I'm assuming is a reference to Baum's "Laughing Valley." Either that, or it's just stupid. Regardless, all the Easter Bunnies live in April Valley, where they color eggs using paints brought to them by Seymour S. Sassafrass, who grows the plants to... you know what

Spoilers below for Doctor Who Series 7 (2012-2013) through this episode. This is the first episode in the Pond-less era of Doctor Who. As such, it devotes quite a lot of time to mourning the loss of the Doctor's last companions, particularly Amy. The episode begins in Victorian England, where the Doctor's more or less retired. His friends, Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax are attempting to break him out of his depression, but not having much luck. Enter Clara Oswald, an energetic young woman with a dual identity as a barmaid and a governess. Oh. There's also a curmudgeon who's being followed around by an army of evil snowmen from outer-space, but that's just the plot. Honestly, you could have cycled him out for just about anything without changing the core of the episode, which is about the Doctor coming to grips with the loss of Amy and Rory Pond. Which is, frankly, a little silly. I understand that he cared deeply for these characters, but he's

When we last left Rudolph, Christmas had been narrowly saved from destruction, and he was returning to the North Pole along with Santa and the other reindeer. Of course, when we last left Rudolph he also had a full set of antlers and was more or less grown up. Rudolph's Shiny New Year opens on the same Christmas Eve but with a younger version of Rudolph, presumably because the producers thought kids would have an easier time associating with a talking deer closer to their age. Well, it turns out all is not right. Christmas may be saved, but they hear Santa's old friend, Father Time, is in trouble. That's right: now New Year's Day is in trouble. For some reason I can't fathom, they care. See, I get wanting to save Christmas: it's when we get presents. But New Year's? Who gives a damn? What's next? Are they going to risk their lives to make sure Arbor Day isn't ruined? Okay, there's some lip service about how it'll be New Year's Eve f

You knew we were going to get to these eventually. They’ve actually been on the list since the beginning, we have them on DVD, but we kept holding off on them, keeping Doctor Who as a sort of fallback option for when we ran out of other stuff or got too tired of terrible things. And then that didn’t happen. So one day last week we just decided to finally re-watch these. Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion (2005) I have very fond memories of the first time I watched this episode. It introduced David Tennant’s Doctor and I loved it. I loved it a little less on this viewing. The murderous robot Santas and trees are still fun, but a lot of this hour is humans being whiny. Whenever Tennant is on it really picks up, but there’s a big boring chunk in the middle without him. The writers were still sort of trying things out with Ten at this point; his character doesn’t solidify for a bit, and that adds to the surreality of watching this episode. Plus the end with Harriet Jones is kinda nas

Japan has an incredibly bizarre relationship with Christmas. Without getting too involved in the details, the holiday has been appropriated and transformed into something akin to Valentine's Day. That said, they do seem to understand what Christmas means to Europe and America and the concept of Santa Claus. They understand, but they clearly have no problem reinventing it as something completely different, as they did in the two-part OAV, Itsudatte My Santa! I suppose I should mention the first episode is based on a manga. Before we go on, I want to make it clear the episodes we saw were dubbed, not subtitled. Setting aside the fact dubbing is usually pretty bad, it injects an element of uncertainty around whether or not what we saw accurately reflects the original. There were plot points and ideas here that seemed absurdly random, which adds to my skepticism. I tried to find some indication online as to whether this was accurate or not, but I had very little luck one way or t

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

It’s rarely so clear to me that Erin has no fundamental appreciation for children’s media that’s actually aimed at children. Because I really enjoyed watching this. Okay, a lot of it was laughing at bits that weren’t necessarily meant to be funny, and some of it was laughing at Erin, but that is enjoyment nonetheless. You know what? I am actually completely okay with variations on Winnie the Pooh. This is a franchise in which I would be a major hypocrite if I tried to pretend to be a purist. After all, I was raised on Welcome to Pooh Corner (“Be Too Smart for Strangers!”) and I loved The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (“He’s round and he’s fuzzy, I love him because he’s just Pooh Bear! Winnie the Pooh Bear!...) and I was in a stage production loosely based on the stories when I was about... nine, I think? (I was the bee who pointed out to the other bees that Pooh was hiding behind the piano.) So, I’m fine with Darby, and I’m fine with trying out different sorts of plots. A

This special is one of four Dreamworks Christmas collected on Netflix under the title, "Dreamworks Holiday Classics." While it's not awful, it is an utter waste of time and effort. To be fair, I wasn't a big fan of the movie this was spun off of, though, so your mileage may vary. The story takes place at Snoggletog, a stand-in for Christmas. Everyone's getting ready for the holiday, and they're all excited, since it'll be the first since they enslaved   made peace with the dragons. Without warning, all the dragons suddenly take off, leaving the Vikings confused and terrified for no discernible reason. Did I say all  the dragons? I meant all but two: Toothless is stuck because he needs Hiccup's help to fly, and Meatlug is stuck, because his owner friend  secretly locks him up. Hiccup feels bad that his dragon isn't free, so he makes him an improved tail. Toothless then predictably takes off. Eventually Meatlug is accidentally freed b

Christmas in Tattertown is a rather bizarre piece. Originally intended as a pilot for an animated series, it's basically a love letter from Ralph Bakshi to the largely forgotten animated works of the early 1900's. It's got a lot of issues, but it's a fascinating piece on its own. In my opinion, it's a shame it was never picked up. The special is intentionally light on plot, but what's present follows a human teleported into a world inhabited by thrown out toys and other discarded objects. She sets out to teach the denizens of this new world about Christmas and eventually to celebrate. Meanwhile, the primary villain (the main character's doll), quickly assembles a criminal empire and attempts to take over Tattertown. I like that, by and large, characters don't play to type: in other words, a Christmas wreath is as likely to be a conman as anything else. It leads to some entertaining interactions, while adding depth to what could easily have been a t

We got a tip (thanks, Mom!) that this new special was going to be airing on network TV, so we sat down to check it out. Now, I’m only passing familiar with Spongebob, although that’s more than Erin is. My takeaway from this is mostly that I respect the attempt, but don’t think it fully came together. Maybe it’s funnier if you know the show better. This episode was entirely filmed in stop-motion, and the effort is appreciated, although it’s not an unusual choice these days when one wants to evoke the feeling of Christmas specials past. (See Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas for a better example.) However, I’m not sure all the character designs really make sense in three dimensions, particularly when they tried to replicate some visual tropes of the usual animation. The sets were neat, though, and while I didn’t ever think the voices completely matched the fuzzy little dolls, the aesthetic of the thing overall was kind of cool. The story follows the villain Plankton trying to get

Phineas and Ferb's second Christmas special was quite a bit smaller and less ambitious than their first. I also liked it quite a bit more. This is essentially a half-episode, which is a format the series is used to: most Phineas and Ferb episodes are broken into two unconnected 11 minute shorts. This differs from the norm in that it's a standalone: there's no "second short" following it. My guess is it was produced to be aired along with the much longer special from the prior year (with commercials, they should fill out an hour together). The plot to this episode is intentionally thin: the boys are putting on an old fashioned Christmas TV special in the middle of summer. While this ostensibly uses the show's normal formula, it doesn't really commit to it. The sequences with Perry and Doofenshmirtz are far shorter, and Candace's attempt to bust Phineas and Ferb is tacked on. I don't think this is a problem: in fact, it demonstrates the writers

Urgh. I tried to give this the benefit of the doubt. And at the beginning, it actually seemed like it might be good. And then the “jokes” started. Another sub-par mess from Dreamworks. No big surprises there. With the notable exception of the Kung Fu Panda Holiday Special, which is excellent, I don’t think anything we’ve seen from Dreamworks for this blog has been very good. This tried. It had moments of greatness, but the sum total wasn’t even good. The plot runs as follows: Santa gets shot down over Madagascar by the crazy Lemur army (that part was definitely the highlight), bumps his head and gets amnesia, and the main characters take it upon themselves to deliver the presents and, on the way, deliver themselves home to New York for the holidays. It comes close to being funny a few times, it comes close to being sweet, but most of it was dull as dishwater and as predictable as paint drying. The characters are divided neatly into categories: funny and heartwarming. Never shall a ch

Hoops and Yoyo are a pair of characters created for Hallmark. Personally, I find it disturbing to discover there are no laws on the books preventing greeting card companies from building their own franchises, but that's just me. According to Wikipedia, Hoops is a cat and Yoyo is a rabbit. I was not able to determine this from the special itself, but I can kind of see it now. The special is stylized to look kind of like it was done using paper cutouts, but it's all clearly cheap CG. The plot follows the two title characters, along with a mouse, as they somewhat accidentally stow aboard Santa's sleigh, then fall off while he's flying through a wormhole and get flung back in time. The wind up interfering with a young Kris Kringle and nearly destroying Christmas forever. This thing isn't without charm. The wormhole sequence is interesting if derivative, and the young Santa is handled pretty well. The special actually picks up some momentum as it follows him to a t

I've hated Barney on principle for years now, but until now, I haven't actually seen an episode, nor did I know anything about the character beyond the fact he was an annoying purple Tyrannosaurus Rex who sung badly and cultivated the company of young children. But I didn't know, for example, that he was a normal-sized plush toy who gets turned into a not remotely full-sized dinosaur by the children's imagination. Nor did I know that he has similar dinosaur friends, one of which is named BJ. You know, I think the fact that the show's producers couldn't think of a single good reason not to name a character "BJ" tells you a lot about the people who made Barney and their understanding of America's youth. This special starts at the home of one of Barney's friends on Christmas Eve. All her friends are coming over to help decorate and for Christmas dinner. I'm assuming they're all orphans whose parents were eaten by dinosaurs, because o

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