Mainlining Christmas

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 ...

Another Black Friday has come and gone, leaving desolation, holiday cheer, and suffering in its wake. The images are permeating the internet, and the stories will likely be told in hushed tones until next year's even greater excesses renders these events quaint in comparison. But until then we can enjoy the show. Since studios have yet to get on the ball and start producing stop-motion specials about the magic of Black Friday, we must make do with video captured by shoppers and spectators (apparently, we're not the only ones). Gawker assembled an impressive collection of shorts showcasing the festivities at various Walmart stores . Of their videos, we found the following most fascinating, as it manages to record the incident clearly: If you'd rather skip the suspense, the holiday cheer begins at about 1:25. It takes the crowd approximately thirty seconds to strip the display bare of electronics, leaving a pile of rubble behind. For the sake of comparison, ...

I don't believe I ever saw an episode of Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, nor do I recall ever having heard of an animated spin-off. But apparently not only does such a thing exists, it has a Christmas episode. The plot focused on Sabrina's rivalry with a rich, stuck-up classmate. She attempts to put this character through the premise of A Christmas Carol to what I really, really wish had been hilarious effect. Ultimately, the writing and poor comprehension of the medium made the result tedious and uninspired. Structurally, it clearly wanted to feel like a sitcom: the characters were two-dimensional, and the world was mostly constrained. The only reason simplistic characters work at all in sitcoms is that actors are able to add depth or - at the very humor - to the backdrop. Take away the nuance, and you're left with a blank slate, which is exactly what this felt like. Using a bratty rich girl as the villain was about as lazy as you can get. The character was constructed...

Lindsay came across a collection of Christmas cartoons called (oddly enough) "Christmas Cartoon Collection" in Toys R Us for five bucks. Each of the ten animated episodes comes from a different series. I've heard of exactly 30% of these shows. One of the series I've never heard of is "Archie's Weird Mysteries." Apparently, it lasted for two seasons from 1999 and 2000 and is about Archie and the Riverdale gang solving Scooby-Doo style mysteries (although apparently supernatural causes were the norm). Based on the era, I'm assuming this was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the X-Files. This episode is from 2000. Actually, according to IMDB, it originally aired in February of that year, presumably because whoever scheduled it was as dumb as whoever produced it. Before we continue, allow me to state the obvious: this was really, really bad. But I also had a hell of a lot of fun watching it. I honestly can't fathom why this exists, b...

Lindsay and I picked up a DVD containing a Christmas episode of Family Guy and one of American Dad. We got it dirt cheap at a warehouse sale. We saw both and divvied them up: she reviewed " A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas ", and I lost the coin toss. Where to start? As far as I can tell, American Dad is the show Seth MacFarlane made to make Family Guy look good in contrast. I've only seen a handful of episodes, but nothing I've sat through struck me as being funny in the least. This Christmas episode was certainly no exception. The premise sounds better than it was: Stan gets killed trying to find the perfect Christmas tree. After failing to make a case for deserving a second chance at life, he grabs a gun, breaks into Heaven, and tries to threaten God into sending him back to Earth. In case you missed the subtle subtext, Americans are arrogant and violent. In the hands of capable writers, this premise could conceivably have worked. But, uns...