Mainlining Christmas

This is the last of the "four pillars" of the classical animated Christmas specials.  No, wait.  It's the last of the four AMERICAN animated Christmas classics. There is... another.  But we'll leave that ominous assertion for another day. Rudolph is a tough nut to crack.  It's a decent special, but it certainly lacks the consistency or quality control of How the Grinch Stole Christmas or A Charlie Brown Christmas.  This is a flawed gem, that much is certain.  There are some slow spots, some weak writing, and some songs that are hard to sit through year after year.  Plus, all character growth takes place off screen: between scenes, Rudolph miraculously decides he can't run away from his problems, even as everyone at Santa's workshop realizes they were ripe bastards. Despite all that, it's really intriguing.  It's just so damned imaginative, it's impossible not to like.  Between the elf wanting to be a dentist, Yukon's team of show do

Damn. When this show is good, it is so amazingly good. I love this episode. We watch it every year, and every year I'm reminded anew how great it is. “Holiday Knights” consists of four little holiday vignettes, in which plenty of characters get a chance to shine. On Dec 22nd, Harley and Ivy drug Bruce Wayne so he'll pay for a holiday shopping spree. It's a fantastic showcase for the two villainesses, and a fun piece in general. A great use of an extended shopping montage, and there's an especially excellent score in this section. On Dec 24th, Batgirl is shopping at “Mayfield's” when she has to help Bullock and Montoya arrest some shoplifters who aren't what they seem. Barbara is smart and professional here, and the cops are undercover in an amusing disguise. On Dec 31st, the Joker plans to massacre the New Year's Eve crowds, and Batman and Robin (Tim) go after him. Nice planning by the Joker here, and his character is very well written: a good bal

Just about everyone my age has some memory of watching this when they were young, although most of us can't seem to remember the details all that well.  Lindsay and I came across this in a drug store about a year ago and snatched it up. This viewing actually helped me put this in perspective.  By the time we got around to it, we'd already seen around seventy or eighty Christmas specials.  You'd think the burnout would work against this one, but, if anything, the contrast underlined just how good this special is. Before I get involved with that, let me take a moment to explain why such context might be needed.  The thing about Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (and, just to be clear, it is a THING, not an ISSUE), is that it's slow.  Last year, when I saw this for the first time in two decades, I found it a little too slow for my tastes.  If it makes sense, I wouldn't call the special "boring," but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bored. T

This felt really long, and I don't think it's just because we were watching it on TV with commercial breaks. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Shrek at the best of times.  I thought the first movie was cute, but already felt dated when I watched it, and I don't remember the second one at all, although I know I saw it. So if you are a huge fan, your mileage may vary. Overall it's an okay special, I guess, but there is too much idiotic sitcom-style behavior in one half hour for me.  What do I mean by sitcom-style?  Characters changing their personality or motivation scene-to-scene as demanded by the plot, painfully obvious misunderstandings, useless plot twists that just add time, poor usage of dramatic irony... that sort of thing. There are about 20 seconds at one point where it gets pretty cute, and then the characters are all idiots for 15 minutes, and then the end is okay.  Okay, but still unfunny and plagued with terrible music and Eddie Murphy.  Nothing was eve

Remember how in my review of The Muppet Christmas Carol , I said it wasn't my favorite Muppet holiday thing? This is my favorite Muppet holiday thing. In this rarely seen television special, the Muppet gang is headed to Fozzie's mother's house for Christmas.  Much singing is done.  I watch this entire hour with a big silly grin. (FYI: Because of rights issues, in the United States three full songs and two partial songs have been cut from all video releases.  Don't believe anyone who tells you this doesn't impact the quality of the special; there are plot points in those songs!  I found a full copy on YouTube. ) The special plays out like a fantastic extra-long episode of The Muppet Show: loosely connected vignettes and songs, and only one human to be seen.  There are ten full songs, plus a medley of eleven more.  There's no new music for this special: it's all classic holiday songs, except Pass It On from Fraggle Rock, and Together at Christmas from Th

First of all, I'd like to send a very special "thank you, but I thought we were FRIENDS" to Jeff Burns for sending us the link to this delightful holiday classic. I actually remember seeing this when it first aired.  Hey, I was a child of the 80's, and Alf was a part of that.  I remember Gordon Shumway, Melmac, and even that music video he made for the Tanners' daughter.  I have good memories watching this show as a child. Yes, Virginia, children are stupid. That editorial, by the way, gets read twice during the special.  It's the abridged version you hear everywhere, of course, with all the great fairy references omitted. The "plot" of the hour-long special revolves around Alf getting in a fight with the Tanners and winding up trapped in the back of a van with a bunch of Christmas presents on their way to the hospital.  He winds up getting handed over to a dying girl, who teaches him the true meaning of melodrama in a long, drawn out, sapp

If you're a Muppet fan, you may have heard of this, but you may not have seen it. It is technically a special episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, and hasn't been released on DVD. All the great early Muppet staff worked on it: Jerry Juhl, Joe Raposo, Frank Oz, and of course Jim Henson. It's obviously early work, but solid.  The plot revolves around Cosmo Scam (an evil wizard) and his plan to replace Santa Claus.  Both Cosmo and Santa are played by Art Carney, everyone else is a Muppet. Sesame Street would have been just in its second year, and this feels very much in tone with Sesame Street.  There's nothing too scary for kids (all of Cosmo's monster lackeys have soft hearts) and there's moments of sly humor on the side for adults.  Also, plenty of very bad puns. The music is sweet and funny, and overall I found the hour charming, although it was slow here and there.  Later work would learn from this, tighten the pace, reuse puppets and ideas created here.