Category Archives: christmas

December 22, 2017

Dec. 22 – Johnny Bravo: ‘Twas the Night

By Joe

TwasTheNight-JB This thing kicked off this year with the What A Cartoon! original George & Junior’s Christmas Spectacular. The comedic bear duo failed to make a lasting impression and faded away from sight. Johnny Bravo, on the other hand, debuted via the same show, but to a much warmer reception earning him his own series. The character was created by Van Partible and some guy named Seth MacFarlane was a writer for the show. Johnny Bravo was essentially a modern guy with the personality of a 50s greaser who talked like Elvis. He wants to help the ladies and be kind of a stereotypical macho man. I guess he’s kind of like Uncle Jesse from Full House, except he thinks he’s as strong as a super hero and probably not as bright as the frontman for the Rippers. It honestly wasn’t a character that resonated with me right off the bat. I guess I just preferred child protagonists or animals in my cartoons, but it was a success and I think it was voted the #2 cartoon of the year by viewers of the What A Cartoon! show, behind only Dexter’s Laboratory which also got its own series.

“‘Twas the Night” is a cartoon from the show’s fifth episode. It, for some reason, premiered on August 4th, 1997 as the third segment in the half hour show. Why they chose to a premiere a Christmas episode in August is possibly due to many delays the show supposedly had in production. It’s possible it was meant to air closer to Christmas, or maybe even earlier for Cartoon Network’s then annual Christmas in July, but was ready when others were not. Or maybe they just didn’t care, since the broadcast lists online don’t appear to contain many gaps during the first season.

I can’t tell if Johnny is supposed to be sitting on the roof or standing awkwardly.

The episode opens on a scenic look of a bridge and a city. There’s a narrator spinning a rendition of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” but with different words, and in a familiar voice. It’s Adam West! Oh, how we miss you Adam. He would guest star as himself on a later episode. The scene takes us to Johnny’s house where he’s preparing for bed and needs to silence his mama’s snoring. While laying in bed he hears a sound outside, he heads for the roof and spies a burglar. No, Johnny! It’s Santa! We cry out, but the thick-headed blond can’t hear us through the television and takes the poor bastard out. Santa has a busted arm as a result, and he’s pretty ticked, but also understanding, since he knows Johnny is an idiot. That and this Santa only has six reindeer, so Johnny was justified in thinking he was a fake. The problem is now he can’t fulfill his obligation to the children of the world, so Johnny is going to have to take his place.

Johnny hopes for cash and chicks in return for doing Santa’s job, but Santa threatens him with violence so he puts on the coat and the hat and takes off through the night. He screws up the names of the reindeer, then questions where the freak with the red nose is. We get a sort-of cut-away depicting laser wielding bad guys that look like Cobra rejects doing battle with a laser-nosed reindeer at the North Pole. The blasts even reach Johnny in the sky, but he pays them no mind. He whips out the list of gifts and it contains nothing but Senators all scheduled to receive coal. Johnny Bravo getting political! Their names are also almost all references to Hanna-Barbera and Warner properties so it’s worth a pause or two to read them. One senator is actually receiving a gift: Senator Puffnstuff.

At least the suit fits.

Johnny sets to delivering the gifts. The mayor is the first to receive his, new underwear, and he prances around happily in his living-room until his wife knocks him out with a rolling pin, “You promised me no cavorting!” He next visits little Suzie and squeezes down her chimney. He eats the cookies and drinks the milk while little Suzie is sleeping peacefully in an easy chair, “She’s kind of cute when her mouth isn’t flapping.” He then visits Jungle Boy in the jungle and delivers a new loin cloth and makeup for the gorilla girls. The gorilla king gets coal and Johnny calls him Magilla, and he’s right to take that as an insult. He then visits a hibernating Cronos the bear and gives him an alarm clock, which goes off almost immediately forcing Johnny to scramble out fast. Then he pops in on Scooby-Doo and gives him a slip of paper for speech therapy with Cindy Brady. I always thought he spoke pretty well considering he’s a dog and all.

And he can also squeeze down a chimney.

Johnny continues on through the night, and has a near miss with a space shuttle that’s woefully animated as it kind of bends in flight. He leaves gifts for a sleeping pair of twins, Tim and Tom. He’s depicted going all over the world causing him to question how Santa stays fat considering the work is hard. I guess working hard for one night can’t make up for all of the milk cookies throughout the year, Johnny. As Johnny gets to the bottom of the list he realizes he has one gift left to deliver: Bunny Bravo, also known as mama. The problem is he has no gifts left – he must have delivered her gift to the wrong house. We then cut back to the mayor and his wife finding some woman’s garment and she accuses him of cavorting with some woman named Bunny. He tries to tell her he’s not, but gets another rolling pin to the noggin for his honesty. She’s rather abusive.

Johnny returns home, sad to not have a gift for his precious mama. As he sits sheepishly on the roof, he hears his mother cry out with joy from inside the house. He dives down the chimney and sees she’s sporting a new diamond ring. It says it’s from Santa, but she thinks it’s from Johnny. What a weird thing to give your mama. There’s also another gift and it’s for Johnny – a new pair of boxing gloves and mouthpiece. As Johnny admires his gift, Santa appears in the window to angrily remind him he didn’t forget how the night began, “Merry Christmas, you pinhead. Round two is next year!”

These Hanna-Barbera folks love cameos.

“‘Twas the Night” is a pretty simple little cartoon short that goes the predictable route of casting its protagonist as Santa. Really, that feels like the number 3 Christmas cartoon cliche at this point behind parodies/adaptations of A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. The narration is carried throughout the short and Adam West delivers all of his lines with great timing. He sounds sincere, even when he’s saying something funny, “And mama was sleeping, you can tell by the snoring. After four times today, Jimmy Stewart gets boring,” and It’s a Wonderful Life’s title card is depicted on the television set to complete the joke. Because of the narration, Johnny is sort of just there and he gets in a line every so often, but aside from the “Magilla” comment I didn’t find them memorable. I did like how Santa was depicted as professional and understanding of what happened. He can’t just blow-up at Johnny because he needs to focus on the task at hand, but he’s also pretty pissed and he isn’t just going to forget that Johnny Bravo broke his arm on Christmas. The animation is kind of cheap and minimalist. Johnny moves with quick actions that don’t require a lot of frames, but that’s a stylistic choice. The backgrounds though are quite static and droll. The best I can say for the show is it’s bright and colorful, and the Rudolph bit was funny.

If you like Johnny Bravo then you probably like this short well enough, even if it feels like a novelty due to the inserting of the poem. I love Adam West, so I’m inclined to at least give this one a passing grade. It may show up on Boomerang this year, but it also may not. I’d be surprised if Cartoon Network bothered to air it as they don’t do much with their legacy programs. Season one was released on DVD in 2010, and so far it’s the only season to receive a Region 1 release on DVD and it’s actually still easily obtainable so I guess they still print the things. For whatever reason, probably poor sales of season one, none of the other seasons have been released or even scheduled for release. If you like Johnny Bravo then you probably already have it at this point, and if you don’t well then I guess you stopped reading about a thousand words ago.

2 Comments | tags: adam west, cartoon network, christmas cartoons, hanna-barbera, johnny bravo, seth macfarlane, van partible, what a cartoon | posted in christmas, Television

December 21, 2017

Dec. 21 – A Pinky and the Brain Christmas

By Joe

For as great as this episode looks, that is one ugly title card.

When Warner Bros. was looking to launch its own network which would feature weekday afternoon and weekend morning cartoon blocks they looked to the past to fill out the ranks. In particular, they went to their cartoons that had been running on the Fox network for sometime. When the rights to those shows expired, such as with Batman and Tiny Toon Adventures, Warner simply moved them to their own network. For something like Animaniacs which was still ongoing, they simply created a spin-off. And probably the most popular part of Animaniacs, aside from the main Warner siblings, was Pinky and the Brain.

This special, like many holiday themed episodes, received a VHS release.

If you were a kid in the 90s then you’re likely familiar with this odd couple duo. Pinky and the Brain, as the theme song informs us, is a duo of lab mice where one is a genius and the other is insane. You can probably guess which is which based on their names. Each short they were featured in on Animaniacs involved Brain coming up with a scheme for world domination, and it was always introduced with this setup:

Pinky: Gee Brain, what are we going to do tonight?

Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to take over the world!

Brain is voiced by Maurice LaMarche doing his Orson Welles impersonation that has been featured on The Simpsons and Futurama at this point. Cartoon veteran Rob Paulsen handles the role of Pinky in his most outlandish toon voice (I seriously forgot it was him until doing research for this write-up) that he can probably do. Familiar voices Frank Welker and Tress MacNeille were also regulars on the show. The show lasted four seasons airing from 1995 – 1998. Almost every episode involves Brain coming up with a crazy scheme and Pinky usually messes it up for him. Why a brainiac like the Brain kept Pinky around is something we’ll never understand. For their own show, the plots were freshened up some to seem less redundant, but the goal was always there. Brain, surprisingly, is actually pretty gentle with Pinky. He’s a not a Ren-type who slaps his dim-witted partner when he fouls-up, so maybe he actually genuinely likes his mentally-challenged friend. Also a bit surprising, is during the show’s first season the writers tackled a Christmas episode. Airing on December 13, 1995, “A Pinky and the Brain Christmas” involves the Brain coming up with a plan to use Santa Claus to take over the world.

Adding some holiday flair to the opening credits is a nice touch previously seen with Tiny Toons.

The episode opens with the familiar credits dressed-up for the holidays. There’s snow falling and some of the lyrics are changed-up to reflect the coming Christmas holiday. It’s a nice touch and one the Warner cartoons did on more than one occasion. Pinky is in a jolly mood bouncing around being his looney self singing Christmas carols while Brain is hard at work. Pinky sits down to start writing his letter to Santa, while Brain drops a doll that resembles himself behind Pinky. When Pinky turns to look at the Brain-doll, Brain starts speaking through it and is able to hypnotize Pinky. He makes Pinky do some stuff to demonstrate the doll’s power including making him think he’s standing in hot sand (Pinky doesn’t try to get off the “sand” and instead screams) and asks him to impersonate William Buckley resulting in Pinky just shrugging his shoulders indicating he has no idea who that is. Brain asks him to do Regis Philbin instead and Pinky goes bonkers giving us our first dated joke of the episode.

Behold the Noodle Noggin!

After releasing his hold on Pinky, Brain explains he can use his doll, Noodle Noggin, to also hypnotize humans. Pinky then asks him if he’s sure he wants to take over the world on Christmas and we get some cut-away gags! I didn’t watch this show a lot as a kid, but I don’t remember the cut-away being a big part of the show’s construction. They’re introduced just like Peter Griffin would, “Remember that time you played Santa?,” and it’s kind of amusing for that reason. The actual jokes aren’t great, although the second one references those suction-cup stuffed animals tons of people would have in a car window. Brain insists he wants to go through with his plan on Christmas and explains it to Pinky. They need to get a Noodle Noggin into every home so Brain can hypnotize the world. Unfortunately, creating the billion dolls they need to pull this off would require over 100 years of labor for the two of them. Then Brain notices a help wanted ad in the paper for elves at the North Pole giving him the idea to use Santa’s work shop to create the billion dolls they require.

Pinky is over-joyed to be going off to see Santa as the duo plan to play elves. They create a very crude dummy (during the commercial break) to play the role of their caretaker and hitch a ride on a small plane to the North Pole. The pilot isn’t very bright and just thinks her passenger is quiet comparing him to a previous boyfriend, who she informs us turned out to be a propane tank. She’s a character, all right. While riding in the plane, Pinky continues work on his letter to Santa. When Brain ridicules him by saying Santa could not possibly read every letter, Pinky corrects him by saying the elves in the mailroom handle that and enter everything into a massive computer. Brain bristles at the thought, but I’m certain Pinky’s assumption will prove true because that’s the kind of joke this series likes to make.

Pinky and Brain disguised as elves.

When the pilot tells the dummy to take the wheel for a minute they go into a dive. She slaps the dummy and his head pops off, though she doesn’t react in a horrified manner to decapitating her passenger. Instead she continues to scold it while Pinky and Brain struggle to remain in their cage. The passenger door pops open and the dummy tumbles out. Brain is able to grab the dummy’s falling head, which was apparently a pillow case, and he and Pinky are able to use it as a make-shift parachute. As they fall, Pinky remarks to Brain that he doesn’t want to be an elf. “What do you want to be?” “A dentist!” “You’ve seen too many Christmas specials, Pinky.”

The mice somehow manage to acquire a team of sled-dogs and manage to find the North Pole with minimal effort. Once there, they put on their elf disguises and head in for a job interview. Brain lists his many qualifications to the interviewer whom agrees they’re worthy of a hire, but sends them to the mail room. As expected, the mail room is exactly as Pinky imagined. He’s loving being in Santa’s work shop, and Brain isn’t too down-hearted as he sees a way to make this work to their advantage. Brain simply adds Noodle Noggin dolls to all of the lists and we cut to Santa working out (while eating a turkey leg) and looking over the lists wondering what a Noodle Noggin doll is.

The duo are unable to evade Schotzie, who was previously mocked by Santa for still having a goatee.

Back in the mailroom, Pinky is delighted to see all of the elves are being invited to a party at Donner the reindeers house. Brain remarks that he sees no appeal in joining the Donner party for anything – hah! I bet that one went right over the heads of this show’s target audience. When Brain finishes with the letters, Pinky points out there’s still his to enter and Brain tells him to grow up. They set out for the work shop with Brain’s Noodle Noggin blue prints so they can get these dolls into production. They spot the design room and when the elf in plain sight heads off somewhere, they enter to drop off the plans. They, however, run into the elf that interviewed them (Schotzie, who appears to be Santa’s #1 elf) and he questions what they’re doing there. Brain tries to say it’s a union-mandated break, but the elf points out they don’t have a union prompting Brain to question if that’s wise. Santa’s work shop is apparently very against unions because the elf reacts negatively and gives chase, pulling off their ear disguises in the process. Recognizing that Pinky and Brain are in fact not elves, he sounds the alarm.

The work shop in action.

Pinky and Brain run into a toy room full of toy cars. They try a girl’s toy first, but it’s just a fancy makeup case that won’t drive. The second is a dump truck that is much too slow, while the third is a race car that’s plenty fast. Unfortunately for them, it’s also an RC car and Schotzie has the remote. He crashes the car and apprehends the two, pulling off the remainder of their disguise. Brain tries to tell him they’re Canadian elves just trying to blend in, but Schotzie informs them they’ve failed.

I’m not sure if this was a print ad or something, but it would have been a much better title card for the episode.

After the break, Pinky and Brain find themselves under the bright lights in an interrogation room. Schotzie wants answers, but Brain is naturally reluctant to reveal why they’re really there. They’ve also been fully undressed and they’re just sitting there as lab mice. Another elf finds the Noodle Noggin blue prints and Schotzie immediately thinks it’s espionage. He accuses them of working for other various holiday institutions before Pinky tries to explain how they really came to have the blue prints. Brain hushes him, happy to have Schotzie and the elves think they’re common thieves and still produce his doll. Schotzie falls for it and tells the other elf to get these into production and fast. While doing so, Brain and Pinky run off. They’d have probably been able to escape but Pinky happily yells out that they’re getting away, thinking it’s all a game, apparently.

A chase scene commences and we get a look at the rest of Santa’s work shop. Various assembly lines are shown constructing toys, including Brain’s Noodle Noggin. Brain decides to hide out among the dolls by jumping into the assembly line and instructs Pinky to do the same and to just look like him, which he does rather well. Schotzie almost spots them, but gets called away because Santa can’t remember that thing he always says to make the sleigh fly. The plan is going well, until Brain realizes they’re about to have Noodle Noggin arms jammed into their bodies. That’s not as bad as what’s next – head removal so a speaker can be inserted. Brain tries to free himself from the assembly line’s feet shackles, but can’t, and a doomed look crosses his face. Off-camera, the technician apparently fails at removing Brain’s head and he’s tossed into a bin marked “Rejects.” There, we see Brain’s head has been turned completely around. He fixes it just as Pinky comes sailing in. A janitor elf, with what appears to be a candy cane dangling out of his mouth to resemble a cigarette, comes by to empty the bin into his garbage can.

They’re not the most convincing reindeer.

Outside, the duo finds themselves in a dumpster, but they’re just in time see Santa as he heads to his sleigh. Brain sees this as an opportunity for escape, while Pinky sees it as his last chance to give Santa his letter. Brain angrily tells Pinky they’re not going to do that, and the two disguise themselves (poorly) as reindeer amongst Santa’s team (which includes Rudolph!). Santa and Shotzie stand over the two ridiculous looking mice and regard them appropriately, but not enough to remove them from the team. Santa takes off and when Brain notices they’re above ACME Labs they remove their harness and plummet all the way through the ceiling window (apparently they didn’t really need that parachute earlier) smashing onto a lab bench. Unfortunately, they landed on Brain’s transmitter for his Noodle Noggin dolls and he must scramble to rebuild it.

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I never thought Brain could appear so sad.

Pinky, now realizing he’ll never be able to give his letter to Santa, becomes inconsolable. Brain needs Pinky to stand by a power switch and turn it on when the meter hits red, but Pinky is basically sobbing and hysterical. Brain grows ever-frustrated, snatches the list, and places Pinky into position who just whimpers obediently. Brain, standing with a maniacal look on his face, prepares for the moment to arrive. We see Noodle Noggin dolls have been delivered all over the world, including even to President Clinton. As Pinky goes to throw the switch, Brain takes notice of Pinky’s letter. Turns out, it was a letter to Santa from Pinky telling Santa how much he loves his best pal, The Brain. It includes observations about how determined he is in spite of his many failures, and asks Santa if he has The World in his sack. Brain is overcome with emotion, and when the time comes to broadcast he’s at first speechless. Pinky implores him to speak through his machine, and finally finding words, all Brain can do is command the world to have a Merry Christmas while sobbing like a child. He then goes about smashing the device, apparently viewing it as something that caused him to hurt his dear friend Pinky.

The world reacts accordingly, and it appears everyone does indeed enjoy a very, merry Christmas. Brain gives Pinky a Christmas gift – a spell checker, apparently inspired by Pinky’s letter writing. Pinky gives Brain his gift too – the world, as a keychain, plus a great big hug. Brain resists only slightly, as Christmas carols lead us into the familiar Pinky and the Brain theme song.

Pinky gives Brain what he’s always wanted.

“A Pinky and the Brain Christmas” is pretty entertaining, and I’m surprised I didn’t see the ending coming until basically it got there. I figured Pinky’s letter to Santa would play a role in foiling things for Brain, just not in that way, though I probably should have. The humor isn’t as manic as Animaniacs, and some of the jokes are quite dated, but Pinky manages to be over-the-top without being too annoying and Brain is the perfect foil. I like that Brain ended up foiling his own scheme this time. The plan essentially worked, and global domination was in his hands, but he turned it down because his quest made him treat his friend like crap. It’s a cute ending, though maybe not as emotional as the writers thought it would be. The animation is wonderful though, and that whole ending sequence shows it off with the various facial expressions made by both Pinky and Brain, which are the type we hardly ever see from them.

As for watching this special this year, that remains to be seen. Boomerang was showing Pinky and the Brain, but I don’t know that it still does. The show was released on DVD in its entirety and this special even had its own VHS release back in 1996, if you really want to dust off your VCR. Perhaps more than any other special I’ve covered this year, this one feels worth digging up because it’s pretty unique, and for me it’s still pretty fresh as I’ve rarely seen it on television. I always enjoy cartoons the focus on diminutive main characters as seeing the world from their perspective is a great deal of fun for me. Check it out, if you can.

4 Comments | tags: animaniacs, christmas cartoons, kids wb, maurice lamarche, pinky, rob paulsen, the brain, the wb, warner bros | posted in christmas, Television

December 20, 2017

Dec. 20 – The Simpsons: Marge Be Not Proud

By Joe

In this episode of The Simpsons, Bart runs afoul with the law and finds himself on the naughty list!

For the titles of these Christmas entries I like to just go with the episode/special title when possible. Most of the time it’s obvious what series the episode is from based on the title such as is the case with “Tis the Season to be Smurfy.” With “Marge Be Not Proud” I wasn’t sure. Is the name Marge now synonymous with The Simpsons? Perhaps. After all, I don’t think I’ve met a woman under the age of 60 named Marge. Obviously I decided to play it safe with the title for this one, but that by no means is meant to diminish what The Simpsons is to our culture. Even if the show’s glory days are long over, the show is still one of the most recognizable properties in the world. And even though the show is more known for its Halloween specials, they’ve done more than a few Christmas episodes and the most culturally relevant one just may be the one we’re talking about today.

The Simpsons premiered with the Christmas themed “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.” It wasn’t drawn up that way, but production delays on the first season made it so. That episode is great and one I adore, but “Marge Be Not Proud” is full of jokes and bits that I still hear referenced today. When someone does a Sonic the Hedgehog impression it’s often stolen from this episode (“Take it!”). If you get a Christmas gift you did not want it’s basically your version of Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge. And “Buy me X or go to Hell,” is a pretty effective way to illustrate what you really want for Christmas every year. It’s also the first Christmas special since the infamous debut and that’s credited by show runner at the time Bill Oakley as being due to no one wanting to tackle the subject since it was famously done in the premiere. Since this episode, the show has gone back to the holiday numerous times, though arguably not with as much success as it did here.

055-2 While watching a Krusty holiday special, an ad for the video game Bonestorm is run that is aimed directly at Bart ending with the famous tagline “Buy me Bonestorm or go to Hell!” Bart makes a similar demand to Homer and is rejected by both he and Marge. Homer’s concern seems to be with the cost of the game, while Marge doesn’t want Bart playing such violent games (Bonestorm is clearly a parody of Mortal Kombat) forcing Bart to declare he’s not a kid anymore. Marge’s attempts at mothering Bart, such as tucking him in at night, are met with defiance from the spikey-haired boy as he views this affection by Marge as contributing to her perception that he’s too young for Bonestorm.

Admit it, you wanted a copy of Bonestorm too.

The next day, Bart sets out to acquire a copy of Bonestorm by any means necessary. He sees a sign at The Android’s Dungeon advertising it for 99 cents. Turns out, that’s the rental price and Comic Book Guy explains capitalism to the young lad after he tries buying a copy for 99 cents. He then tries renting it from the comic book shop, only to be told by Comic Book Guy that all copies are spoken for, but he can rent Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge if he wants. Obviously not interested in a golf game, and one focused on the most boring aspect of golf, Bart seeks out other means. While passing by the home of Milhouse, he hears the game from the street and immediately barges in (Milhouse had just entered his name: Thrillhouse). Bart tries to play the game with him, but Milhouse keeps inventing excuses why Bart can’t that Bart keeps pointing out are false prompting Milhouse to just yell to his mother that Bart’s swearing resulting in him being shown the door (it had been established in a previous episode that Milhouse’s mom has a very low opinion of Bart and thinks he’s a bad influence on her son).

If you remember one scene from this episode, it’s probably this one. Take it! Take it! TAKE IT!

Having been thwarted by the comic shop and rejected by his best friend, Bart decides to head to the Try-N-Save thinking if he gazes at the game with enough sadness on his face that some rich person might take enough pity on him that they’ll buy it for him. He runs into Nelson and Jimbo and they’re happy to show-off the goods they’re shop-lifting, planting the seed in Bart’s brain to do the same. He then witnesses a rich kid bossing his mother into buying two copies of the game, one for him and one for his sister because he refuses to share. When the clerk leave’s the cabinet of video games open by mistake to go ring-up their purchase, Bart starts to feel emboldened. Parodies of Mario and Sonic and other video game stars float around his head and are pretty entertaining for gaming geeks. Bart decides to do it and stashes a copy under his purple sweatshirt (so that’s why they actually gave him a jacket in this episode). He walks calmly through the store and reaches the exit. Thinking he’s home free he celebrates, only for a strong hand to find his shoulder and request he return to the store.

Lawrence Tierney guest stars as store security guard Don Brodka.

Security guard Don Brodka (voiced by guest star Lawrence Tierney) brings him to a security room and shows Bart surveillance footage of his thievery. He then makes him watch a tape on shoplifting hosted by Troy McClure while Brodka calls Bart’s parents. They’re not home, but he leaves a lengthy message on the answering machine before telling Bart he’s banned from the store. He then lets Bart go, who knows he has a small window of time to make it home before anyone hears that message. He races home in a Ferris Bueller parody as Homer and Marge do the same (Maggie has an exceptionally stinky diaper that needs changing, causing Homer to rush home) and manages to just beat them and switch the tape. Bart’s victory is short-lived however, as Marge informs him they’re all going to the Try-N-Save to get their family photo taken for Christmas.

Bart tries to spare his mother the pain of seeing him act as a thief.

Bart tries to disguise himself to avoid detection, but Marge makes him remove it. Despite his numerous protests and complaints, the family goes through with heading to the store. When Bart is reluctant to enter, Homer decides to playfully scoop him up and put him on his shoulders. Bart is exceedingly nervous, but they get to the photo section without detection by Brodka. As Bart impatiently insists they get on with it, the family sets up for the picture only for Brodka to yank Bart by the collar the second the photographer engages the shutter, ruining the picture. Marge is incredulous to see her special little guy being treated this way, and when Brodka informs her of Bart’s deed she insists he must have the wrong kid. Brodka produces the same surveillance tape he showed Bart and enters it into a store display TV and VCR. Just as he pushes play, Bart blocks the view of the television to confess his crime and tell his mother he doesn’t want her to see him this way. Unknown to him, the store display was also connected to the various television sets on the wall as well and all show his crime. Marge, clearly heartbroken, says little and the family leaves the store.

The picture.

At home, Bart expects a swift, brutal punishment but is instead met with silence from his mother. When he asks what he can do she suggests he go to his room. He’s clearly affected by what he’s done to his mother which is a side of Bart we really don’t see often. He climbs into bed and, upon hearing his mother tuck in Lisa, outwardly grumbles about how she’s on her way to do the same babyish routine with him. Instead Marge simply appears in the doorway and says “Good night,” before shutting off the light. In their room, Marge confesses to Homer she’s not sure when she lost her son, but blames herself for mothering him too much. She feels she needs to do better by him and vows to treat him differently going forward. Homer, on the other hand, has been mostly furious with Bart this whole time and seems to be taking glee in devising various punishments for the boy.

beyond-bonestorm-12-perfectly-cromulent-simpsons-video-game-parodies

Kids are easily amused.

When Bart wakes up the next morning he finds his mother hasn’t done the usual amount of things she normally would do for him. When he wonders why he has no marshmallows in his hot coco she suggests he can do it himself. Bart fails at doing so, and is pretty miserable. He heads over to Milhouse’s for some cheering-up only to find Milhouse playing with a simple ball in a cup toy after getting bored with Bonestorm. Bart seems to think he’s crazy at first, then demands a turn with the ball in a cup toy which only causes Milhouse to scream, “Mom, Bart’s smoking!” As Luanne goes to toss Bart out of her house again he stops her and asks if he can hang out with her while she does “mom stuff.” She’s a bit taken aback by the request, but agrees to let Bart hang around and he helps her mail Christmas cards, “Tell me I’m a good boy.”

A sad, slushy, snow Bart.

When Bart returns home, he finds his family finishing up building a snow family. When he asks why they didn’t wait for him, Marge says she thought he wouldn’t want to spend time with them, but tells him he can build his own “snow Bart” with the leftover snow stuck on the underside of the car. He makes a crude, gray, slushy Bart and depressingly heads inside. Later he takes off, cursing his family in the process. He runs into Nelson once more, who taunts Bart with his latest stolen goods. Bart then heads back to the Try-N-Save angrily vowing to show everyone what a black sheep can do.

A present for Marge.

When Bart returns home he’s clearly concealing something in his coat once again. Marge sees him and immediately suspects the worst. When Bart tries to run away she gets angry and vows to get him. Homer jumps in and helps corner the boy. When he has no where left to go, Marge demands he open his jacket and he reluctantly does to reveal a framed photo of himself, along with the proof of purchase. Marge is a bit overcome with emotion, and affectionately showers Bart with all of the mothering she’s been withholding. She places the photo inside the frame of the family portrait from the other day, covering up the image of Bart being yanked out of frame. Since she got her Christmas present early, she tells Bart he can have his early and he excitedly rips off the wrapping paper to reveal a copy of Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge. He thanks her, mostly hiding his disappointment and gives his mother a warm hug. During the end credits, we’re treated to some gameplay of Putting Challenge and Bart amusingly elects to use a driver despite Carvallo’s insistence he select a putter.

And a “present” for Bart.

“Marge Be Not Proud” is a sweet little story about an adolescent facing peer pressure and a mother responding to a child that is growing out of a lot of the things she used to love most. It’s a story most can relate to as we probably all can recall a time we disappointed our parents either through something like Bart’s shoplifting or just by expressing that we didn’t want to do something anymore because we were too old for it, despite how that made our parents feel. The scenes between Marge and Bart following the reveal of Bart’s shoplifting are uncomfortable and kind of heartbreaking to watch. And for parents, it’s something all will inevitably go through as our children grow out of things, be it their first favorite book, bedtime routines, or just simple play. The Christmas aspect of this episode is merely a framing device as opposed to a focal point. It serves as a reason for Bart to expect his parents to buy him something he wants and as an excuse for Bart to get his mother a gift. It probably could have been told during really any other time of the year, but it does add a little extra sentimentality to make it occur at Christmas. And it’s always nice to see Springfield dressed up for a holiday.

The rare episode where the Simpsons visit a store that isn’t the Kwik-E-Mart.

“Marge Be Not Proud” is from the show’s seventh season (first airing December 17, 1995) and thus can be found on the DVD collection for that season. Surprisingly, it was left off of both Simpsons Christmas DVDs in favor of non-Christmas, but winter themed, episodes. FX streams every episode of the show via its FXNow app and website plugin which is accessible for anyone with a cable subscription that includes the channel FXX so you can watch this episode whenever you want. And if you don’t have a subscription, I think you can actually gain access for an hour on a trial basis or something. FXX is also guaranteed to play this during the holiday season, though with it now being December 20th, your chance may have passed you by (Update: It’s airing Thursday December 21st at 11 PM EST). This is not only a good Christmas episode, but a great episode of The Simpsons in general. If you love the show, then you should probably just get the season 7 set as it’s basically a must own for all fans of The Simpsons.

2 Comments | tags: bart simpson, bill oakley, bonestorm, christmas specials, don brodka, josh weinstein, lawrence tierney, marge simpson, the simpsons, thrillhouse | posted in christmas, Television

December 19, 2017

Dec. 19 – The Ren & Stimpy Show: A Scooter for Yaksmas

By Joe

Original air date December 16, 1996

The Ren & Stimpy Show seemed to delight in being absurd and perverse. It’s then no surprise that it’s two Christmas specials center around farts and a drunk who delivers pre-chewed gum and sausage. “A Scooter for Yaksmas” is from the Bob Camp era of the show and is the final episode to premiere on Nickelodeon. As the title implies, this is a parody of Christmas and not a true Christmas episode, but it counts for the purposes of this countdown. It’s also a call-back to an earlier filler short of Yak Shaving Day from the show in which a yak pilots a canoe through the night air and enters the home of children to shave. And it’s also a re-debut of sorts for Stinky Whizzleteats, the singer of “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.” As we shall see in this episode, the concept of Yaksmas has been expanded to more closely resemble Christmas.

The object of Stimpy’s desires.

The episode opens with Stimpy working at the Cobbco factory making tongue depressors, or popsicle sticks if you prefer. He uses an absurd amount of wood to create just one stick, then discards it when it contains a crack into a comically high pile of rejected sticks. When the whistle blows he happily races to payroll where he is paid in popsicle sticks and gets a bonus half a stick (in addition to his usual one) for Yaksmas. As he giddily leaves work he admires the Yaksmas decor and seasonal traits: soot in the air, children building soot-men, a street vendor selling roasted rubber bands. I’m not sure if this is supposed to just be seen as weird and the opposite of Christmas or if it’s a commentary on factory life in middle America and how those once wrecked the local ecosystem. It’s probably the first one.

He really wants that scooter.

Before heading home, Stimpy stops at a store window to gaze longingly at a scooter. He promises the scooter that they will soon be together before heading home. There he covers the house in obvious hints for his pal Ren that he wants a scooter for Yaksmas. He lays a note across the toilet seat, puts up neon signs, and even wears a giant one on his head when he sits across from Ren at dinner. Ren doesn’t acknowledge the “hints” and even emerges from the bathroom with the sign stuck to his butt. Stimpy does not appear phased or disheartened in the least, being the eternal optimist. He tells Ren they need to get ready for bed or else Stinky Whizzleteats won’t visit their house and leave them sausage and pre-chewed gum. Getting ready includes making the house valuables easily accessible, leaving a place for Stinky to pass out on the front lawn, and decorating the Yaksmas stump and hanging long underwear. Ren admonishes Stimpy for being childish, but still lets Stimpy dress him in the appropriate sleeping attire – a bunny costume (Stimpy sleeps beside him in a tuxedo).

The traditional Yaksmas stump.

During the night, Stimpy’s faith is rewarded as the Yak, piloting a magical sausage cart, brings Stinky to the house. Stinky is clearly drunk and vomits more than once. They clear out the fridge of mayonnaise, pickles, and other stuff that shouldn’t be combined with those before passing out on the lawn. Stinky and the Yak deliver though and fill the pair’s underwear with cooked sausage and pre-chewed gum. When morning arrives, Ren and Stimpy giddily bounce down the stairs, landing on their heads as the song commands (this whole sequence is set to music), and enjoy a heaping helping of their goodies. Stimpy suggests they exchange gifts and Ren agrees. For Yaksmas, Stimpy gives Ren exactly what he wanted (which he threatened with death) – a jewel-encrusted golden statue of the Queen of England. Ren is delighted and Stimpy is ever eager for his gift. Before Ren can produce it, Stimpy runs off-camera to grab his helmet and straps it on. As he trembles with anticipation Ren produces a box much too small to house a scooter. Stimpy’s demeanor immediately changes, but he’s much too polite to actually say anything mean to Ren. Instead he shakes violently as he opens the box and every soft curve of his body is now a squiggle. Inside the box is another box of popsicle sticks. Stimpy remarks it’s a thoughtful gift, as the background reveals an entire wall in their home lined with the things. He says he needs to step out for some gum, and disappears, Ren is completely oblivious to his friend’s distress. This entire sequence is easily the episode’s highlight in terms of animation as Stimpy’s disappointment, rage, and conscience wage war across his body.

The yak and Stinky hard at work.

Stimpy returns to the store window to apologize to the scooter that they are not together. He’s illustrated in a real rough manner and even has nipples and man-boobs briefly. He loses his cool and pounds on the glass in despair, only for it to break and the scooter land in his arms. An elderly woman nearby sees it and immediately accuses Stimpy of thievery. A cop shows up and Stimpy panics, choosing to flee via scooter. The cop and old lady chase after him with the cop remarking that Stimpy will be taken dead or alive for stealing a $39 scooter. This feels depressingly topical right now.

Stimpy on the run from the law.

Stimpy is able to escape the lawman and hides out under a bridge with his ill-gotten scooter. He falls asleep and has a nightmare about being caught and forced to sit in an interrogation room. There he’s accused and humiliated by the police, Ren, Stinky, and others. A cop says he stole the scooter he was going to buy for his sick daughter, and commands Stimpy “and now look at her,” and a decrepit looking marionette falls into view. I wonder if this was supposed to be a corpse or something and the censors wouldn’t allow it as it’s pretty weird as-is. I do appreciate how child-like Stimpy is portrayed, and his internal fears seem to be exactly what a kid would fear if in this otherwise implausible situation. Stimpy awakes from his dream in distress, and decides to go seek help from Ren as he’ll know what to do.

Ren being Ren.

When Stimpy returns home he sees a news crew and they’re interviewing Ren. Predictably, Ren has turned on his best pal in order for his five minutes of fame in front of the camera. Stimpy is forced to run before anyone sees him and decides he needs to disguise himself if he’s to be a fugitive and dresses in a leopard-print vest and a wig that resembles Moe of the Three Stooges. Now disguised, Stimpy asserts that only one person can help him now: Stinky Whizzleteats.

While on the run, Stimpy crashes into an oaf. Fearing he killed the poor guy, Stimpy weeps only for the large lad to declare he’s fine. They strike up a quick friendship in which Stimpy convinces the lad he’s a CIA agent that needs to deliver the scooter to Stinky. As the oaf, riding on the handlebars despite his monstrous size, gazes back at Stimpy a wanted poster collides with Stimpy’s face and the image on the poster perfectly aligns with Stimpy’s actual face. He screams and runs off shouting for the police and Stimpy is forced to forge on ahead – alone. As he races on, the front tire blows out on his scooter and Stimpy loses control crashing into a pole. Stimpy arises from the wreck only to see he has crashed into The West Pole Motel! Joy! This is the apparent home of Stinky Whizzleteats, but Stimpy’s joy is turned dark when he sees his beloved stolen scooter in shambles.

Stimpy lovingly gathers the poor scooter into his arms and heads into the motel to find Stinky and his yak passed out inside. He then spies a gift in the corner. Upon closer inspection it bares a tag reading “To: Stimpy, From: Ren.” Stimpy immediately tears the paper off to reveal a brand new scooter! Ren didn’t ignore the pleas of his friend, Stinky simply forgot to deliver it! Then Stimpy turns to his stolen scooter, and assuring it Stinky can fix him, he giddily climbs atop his new scooter and rides off. Just as he leaves, the police show up at the motel smashing into it and find Stinky asleep inside with the stolen scooter.

All’s well that ends well.

Stimpy and Ren are then shown happily enjoying a scooter ride with Ren’s gigantic statue of the queen. Stimpy remarks he has his new scooter and his good name back and wishes everyone a merry Yaksmas. The yak and Stinky then go screaming past on their busted up scooter and the holes through their bodies imply some police brutality as our special comes to an end.

“A Scooter for Yaksmas” is an incredibly silly parody of Christmas with a little dash of A Christmas Story tossed in for good measure. Stimpy, being a pure-hearted soul, is actually a good protagonist for a Christmas special and even though he spends half of it on the run from the law it’s still nice to see him a bit happier than he was in the previous Christmas special, “Son of Stimpy.” Ren is barely in it, but when he is he serves his role of just being a mostly unkind jerk who takes his friend for granted, but he is some-what redeemed by the end even though he wasn’t at all concerned with the missing gift on Yaksmas morning. The sequence with the oaf feels like padding, I guess the only purpose he serves is to show us that the cops are still on Stimpy’s trail? He knew where Stimpy was heading, not that this show really needs to explain how the cops show up at the motel in the end. The musical number depicting Yaksmas is probably the episode’s highlight. While it isn’t on the same level as “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy” it’s still pretty entertaining. Speaking of that song, I did appreciate them using Stinky Whizzleteats in the Santa role, as I don’t recall seeing him in-between the debut of his now classic song and this episode. As for low points, the backgrounds in this episode are particularly bare. The show often went minimalist with the backgrounds as a matter of style, but here it seems like they went way too far with that.

Oh, God what is that?!

Overall, I’m not sure which of the two Christmas specials I prefer when it comes to The Ren & Stimpy Show. This one is better than I remembered as it aired when I had kind of lost track of the show, though I did see it when it was originally broadcast. “Son of Stimpy” basically plays the story straight with the humor coming from the fact that we’re talking about a lost fart (also named Stinky) trying to get back to the cat that dealt it. This episode is just silly, which might make it more entertaining. If you want to watch either this holiday season, you may have better luck tracking down the DVDs or streaming them. Nickelodeon’s retro block The Splat seems to rarely play The Ren & Stimpy Show, perhaps feeling it’s just too controversial (which seems ridiculous for a late night block that happily plays Rocko’s Modern Life, even if it chooses to censor some of the episodes) so it unfortunately can’t be counted on to play the christmas specials from this show.

4 Comments | tags: billy west, bob camp, christmas cartoons, nickelodeon, nicktoons, ren, stimpy | posted in christmas, Television

December 18, 2017

Dec. 18 – Bob’s Burgers: “Christmas in the Car”

By Joe

First aired December 15, 2013

Among the Fox programs airing on Sunday nights, Bob’s Burgers has become the one most likely to deliver a good Christmas special year in and year out, especially now that American Dad has fled to cable. It also still feels like a relatively new series to me, but it’s now in its eighth season. Bob’s Burgers is about a guy named Bob Belcher who runs a burger joint with his family; Wife Linda, eldest daughter Tina, son Gene, and daughter Louise. The restaurant is only semi-successful and everyone in the family is a bit odd, but they actually have a rather sweet family dynamic. “Christmas in the Car” is not the show’s first Christmas episode, but the season 4 episode is probably the show’s best holiday themed special, mostly because of its unique premise.

Halloween and Christmas together?! Tim Burton’s gonna sue.

When the show opens, Linda is eagerly erecting the family Christmas tree on the day after Halloween. Apparently Linda is a real mark for Christmas and when Bob sasses her for her illogical enthusiasm she poo-poos him, as do the children. The show has a quick cut to the Belchers tossing out the now dead tree while all looking mournful, except Bob who saw this coming. We then repeat the gag, only Linda is putting up a tree on the day after Thanksgiving. While it’s a little more understandable (Black Friday might as well be National Decorate for Christmas Day for those of us who don’t leave the house to go shopping) to put up a tree then, a living one will have little chance of seeing Christmas Day. Which is what happens to this second tree. Now it’s Christmas Eve and the Belchers are without a tree. Linda and the kids are despondent while Bob is more concerned with finishing up Christmas dinner so they can have their traditional meal.

There’s going to be a lot of this in this episode.

Linda isn’t going to settle for a tree-less Christmas (maybe she should just get a fake one?), and finds a lot still open that will basically let them take whatever is left. With everyone in the family against him, Bob reluctantly goes along with them and loads everyone into the car to drive an hour away for a scrappy tree. The kids though aren’t entirely eager as they have a plan to capture Santa Claus. Gene and Louise are very much consumed by it, while Tina is mostly along for the ride. Things get worse for poor Bobby since the kids are crazy in the car and try to tickle him most of the way while Linda mostly mocks him for being a “lump of coal.”

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A tree lot on Christmas Eve is kind of a depressing place to be.

When they get to the tree lot the pickings are naturally slim and unappealing on Christmas Eve. Linda has a hard time settling on one, so Bob joins the kids in their Santa scheming. They’re not eager for his help, and Bob strikes up a conversation with Tina about how it’s weird that Louise still believes in Santa assuming Tina will agree with him, but she just seems confused forcing Bob to ease out of the conversation gently. The kids stage a dry run using a port-a-potty and it gets surprisingly violent. Linda finally settles on a tree and they’re all ready to leave. Bob asks the kids to help him get out of the lot, but they basically do a terrible job and Bob cuts off a guy driving a giant candy cane truck. It gets worse as Linda yells at him and beats on the horn to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”

The truck continues on its way and the Belchers are heading home. Bob is pretty much done with this whole thing and wants to get home, but when the candy cane truck driver decides to drive at a snail’s pace in front of them, Bob decides to pass him. It gets a little Christmas Vacation-y here as Bob tries to pass the truck only for the truck to speed up and not let him by. The family freaks out as Bob is finally able to maneuver their station wagon in front of the truck only for the trucker to start aggressively tailing him. Bob loses his cool and plunges off the road to let the truck by further terrifying his family. With Gene’s bladder begging for relief, the family heads to a nearby diner so Gene can use the facilities. Bob is eager to get back on the road, but Gene takes a little extra time: “My bladder asked if my colon could come out and play, and my colon was like, “‘Sure thing.'”

Just let the man eat babies in peace, Bob.

Linda sees the diner serves Dutch Babies, a type of fancy pancake, but they take 25 minutes to make. Bob is concerned about his ham in the oven (“Just fart, dad”), but he’s talked into calling family friend Teddy to turn off the oven while Linda waits for the Dutch Baby that she just has to have. Teddy isn’t doing anything, because he’s never doing anything, and is eager to help out. As Bob tells him what he needs to do, Teddy becomes overwhelmed even though Bob is literally telling him how to turn off the oven – nothing complicated. He then becomes concerned that Bob didn’t get his Christmas card and Bob is forced to hang up on him.

Teddy is not the most reliable.

It’s then Bob notices a police officer sitting in a booth eating a Dutch Baby (that’s a really weird thing to type) and he decides to report the candy cane driver to the cop. The cop sits there disinterested (really similar to a bit on Seinfeld) while Bob delicately describes what happened while the kids pipe-in with sarcastic quips when it becomes obvious the cop isn’t taking their father seriously. That only irritates Bob, and when the cop starts to poke fun at him he swings his arms and accidentally hits a waitress. Then the cop starts asking him why he assaulted a waitress and things just spiral out of control with Bob angrily declaring they’re leaving without the Dutch Baby. Just then it’s ready, at 22 minutes, causing Linda to happily refer to it as a preemie, “Just like Jesus!”

The Belchers pile back into the car and start making their way home. As they do so, Teddy shows up at their apartment to turn off the oven. He basically narrates what he’s doing, wondering why Bob made it sound so complicated and why his Christmas card remains unopened. He notices some cookies left out and decides a cookie is an appropriate payment for his services today. The cookies though are part of the Santa trap laid by the kids. A note is present informing the recipient the milk is in the fridge. When Teddy goes to retrieve the milk he slips his hand through a little noose and becomes trapped in the fridge. Meanwhile, Bob and Linda are arguing about the Diner experience while the kids are concerned they’ll miss Santa, spoiling their trap. Just then, Bob spies the candy cane truck and it’s soon after them. The Dutch Baby gets lodged under the pedals while everyone freaks out, mostly about the truck, but Linda also over her fancy pancake.

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Impending doom.

Now that they’re all convinced the driver of the candy cane truck is out to kill them, the family heads off the road and tries to hide from view. Bob wants to call the police, but during the entire trip for a tree Gene has had a radio station on hold to request “Jingle in the Jungle” and now the battery is dead. While the family is hunkered down in the car in the woods they all, apparently fearing their own demise is near, begin to confess to secret shames or things they’ve been keeping inside. Gene decides to tell the family he has the best legs, while Tina admits to being the one who didn’t flush (she was apparently proud of her “creation” and Linda admits it looked just like one of her father’s). Bob just wants everyone to stop talking, but then they ask where babies come from and Linda deadpans “You all come from my vagina.”

Bob is able to spy the truck through the trees, hears it honk, and sees it drive away. Everyone is overjoyed for a minute, especially Bob who declares he saved them all, but then discovers the car is stuck in the snow. Trapped in the car, the family has a moment of levity when “Jingle in the Jungle” comes on and all seem to enjoy it. They resign themselves to their Christmas in the car as it’s now past midnight. Then the candy cane truck returns, and panic sets in.

Turns out the truck driver (voice of Bobcat Goldthwait) isn’t very intimidating once he isn’t in his giant truck.

Not knowing what else to do, they all jump out of the car. The kids are prepared to run, but Bob seems to know he needs to confront the driver. When the driver emerges from the truck Bob sees how small he is and seems to feel a little bit more emboldened. Bob confronts him, rambles on, apologizing and also asking if the guy could help them get their car out of the snow, but the trucker just wants to fight. There’s a humorous moment when he tells Bob that he wants to “bang his ass,” and Bob kind of snickers knowing that’s probably not what the guy meant to say. Bob tries to strike a deal; help them get their car out and he’ll let the guy punch him in the stomach. Linda is not on board, but Bob just sees this guy as a sad little man and thinks he’d be giving him something worthwhile that will probably make his day. He makes the observation that this guy is probably having a worse Christmas than them, and Linda takes some pride in hearing her husband recognize that.

Bob and the trucker, turns out his name is Gary, then have a little heart to heart. Gary is just having a bad day and is pretty upset he has to work on Christmas. Bob is sympathetic and things seem to be calming down, until Gary slugs him in the stomach. Feeling great after nailing Bob, Gary is suddenly in a much better mood and more willing to help while Bob fears he has internal bleeding. Linda insists that Gary take their tree and their Dutch Baby and an incredulous Bob is unable to muster much of a fight as he’s still reeling from the blow. They get the car unstuck and return home to find Teddy had tipped over the fridge and made a general mess of things in the house. He’s less concerned with his own safety and more concerned with why Bob never opened his Christmas card. He insists Bob open the card before freeing him. It’s a cat and it says “Meowy Christmas” and the episode ends with “Jingle in the Jungle” during the closing credits.

Christmas_Car_Credits There’s no write-up that can be done for an episode of Bob’s Burgers that does it justice. A lot of the humor is situational relying on the timing of the voice actors and animation to make a successful joke. There’s tons of little one-liners through-out, mostly from the kids, and the sequences with Teddy on his own are pretty entertaining as he basically thinks out loud the whole time. I mostly enjoy the episode though because it’s really entertaining as an episode of Bob’s Burgers while also injecting a little Christmas spirit without sacrificing anything. The kids don’t really learn anything and no one feels obligated to apologize to Bob for not believing him about the truck, and for making him go on an ultimately fruitless quest for a third tree on Christmas Eve. The night was basically ruined, though the Belcher family, except Bob, seems immune to feeling any kind of lingering depression. They take things in stride, mostly due to their very optimistic matriarch, so it’s hard to actually be mad at them for how they put their father through hell.

“Christmas in the Car” will almost certainly be shown at least once this season on Cartoon Network’s adult swim programming block (Update: December 21 at 10 PM on Cartoon Network). Bob’s Burgers routinely airs at 10 and 10:30 each nice and adult swim is very good about unloading a ton of Christmas specials as the holiday approaches. Otherwise, you can stream it in various places (for a fee) or pick up Season 4 of Bob’s Burgers on home media.

3 Comments | tags: animation domination, bob's burgers, bobcat goldthwait, christmas cartoons, dan mintz, eugene mirman, h jon benjamin, john roberts, kristen schaal, larry murphy, loren bouchard, the belchers | posted in christmas, Television

December 17, 2017

Dec. 17 – It’s A Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special

By Joe

IAWTTCS-TC On December 6, 1992, Tiny Toon Adventures aired its series finale, a Christmas special. After three seasons it was time to move on to spin-offs, additional specials, and new shows. It’s interesting because this episode deals with the show getting cancelled in a hypothetical way. It’s also a parody of It’s A Wonderful Life which means I’m loathe to watch it, but here goes nothing.

The episode opens with its typical opening – but wait! It’s all dressed up for Christmas and even the lyrics have been changed to reflect that. This I like. Once the episode starts, it gets right down to the parody nature with shots of various characters from the exterior of their homes praying to the heavens for someone to look out for Buster Bunny. Plucky tries to hide the fact that he’s looking out for Buster, but he also reveals he doesn’t want Buster to quit cartoons because then the show will be cancelled. Interestingly, a menorah appears in Hamilton Pig’s window. That seems like the wrong religion for a pig to choose, but I won’t judge. We then head up into the celestial bodies where two beings are communicating with each other about the prayers concerning Buster. The one in position to be our Clarence is actually named Harvey and he sounds a lot like James Stewart. Stewart also starred in a picture named Harvey about a guy who befriends a giant rabbit. This is not a coincidence.

A little Grinch joke early on gets this one off on the right foot.

Just like the film it’s lampooning, this one then becomes a flashback and we see Buster and Babs sledding through a snowy landscaping singing a little song. There’s a Grinch-like character they thwart and a snowman that resembles Burl Ives who nearly gets taken out as well before the two reach an auditorium. They’re preparing to put on a performance for Christmas, and Buster is apparently in charge. Babs also has cleavage – this is something I did not remember from my youth. As they’re getting ready to rehearse, Montana Max shows up in a wheelchair probably to evoke images of Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life. Elmira tries to steal a kiss from him and he promptly kicks her right in the ass! Violence against women, or girls, is also something I did not remember from this show.

Max is demanding and irritated that they got started without him. He pays off the network executives who were in attendance so he can take control of the show. Buster tries not to let it bring him down and gets back to rehearsing with Little Sneezer doing some Ebesneezer Scrooge bit with Bob Hope (not actually Bob Hope, in fact all of the celebrities are impersonations) that doesn’t go so well. Buster turns his attention to a duet ice skating routine from Babs and Cher. When he compliments Cher on her wardrobe, but fails to do the same for Babs, she gets a little ticked. Max is there to further inflame the situation by suggesting to Babs that Buster is flirting with Cher, which causes Babs to rough her up during their routing in which they sing a pretty poor parody of “I’ve Got You, Babe.” After Cher falls through the ice and the bit ends in disaster, Buster tells Plucky he can go on as The Little Drummer Duck for a scene with William Shatner. Plucky, after having his other roles be re-cast as Urkel previously (he was pretty hot in 1992), is overjoyed to take the stage and promises to wow the executives. When Max replaces the microphones with TNT the bit goes up in smoke – literally. By now Max has thrown enough money at the executives to gain full control of the production, and everyone else is pissed at Buster for how terrible it’s going. He sulks out, and the other toonsters seem to immediately start to regret how they acted.

When Go-Go gets the canned boo’s you know you’re in trouble.

Buster, feeling dejected, decides to throw himself out of the picture and literally walks to the edge of the celluloid. That’s when Harvey is dropped in to prevent him from doing so. Harvey, depicted as a lanky white rabbit with a bow tie, hears Buster utter the magic words to set the second act in motion – “I wish I were never on Tiny Toons.” Buster gets his wish, and Harvey and he set out to see what life would be like for Tiny Toons had Buster never been involved with it.

Buster is whisked away to Montyville where literally every business on the street is owned by Montana Max including his Savings and No Loan. He and Harvey hit a store display TV to check out Tiny Toons without him and find that Plucky Duck is the star here. They watch the intro in which Plucky sings about how great he is and Babs repeatedly has anvils dropped on her head. When the show begins, Plucky and Babs introduce themselves and use the “No relation” line she and Buster would do, which Babs points out makes no sense before she’s hit with another anvil. Buster has seen enough and demands Plucky cease dropping anvils on Babs. Plucky, having no idea who Buster is, is offended when Buster calls him Goofy and accuses him of being a Disney spy. He has security remove him and takes a parting shot at Disney’s Jeffrey Katzenberg for good measure.

The Plucky show has a different vibe than Tiny Toons.

Little Sneezer, being one of the guards, is confronted by Buster but claims to not know him. Buster gets booted out and winds up at Acme Looniversity, which is now Montana Max’s Business University. Max pops up on a closed circuit TV to announce that in honor of Christmas he’s shortening the school day to a mere 18 hours. He’s also heading off to Aspen with Morgan Fairchild, her second reference of the episode leading me to believe a writer thinks pretty highly of her, and Buster is left in a state of disbelief. Still clinging to the hope that someone will know him, he heads to his old home room. Harvey warns him there’s nothing funny going on inside there anymore, but he takes a peak anyway to find Madonna teaching the class and advising the students to wear their underwear on the outside to get some of that Warner money (which makes no sense since most of them don’t even wear pants let alone underwear). Buster still doesn’t get it, prompting Harvey to give him an ear full about how he was never a part of Tiny Toons and even says he never existed. Since this show is pretty metta, I suppose if he was never on Tiny Toons then no one would have ever created him. This thing just got pretty dark.

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Buster doesn’t particularly enjoy his new reality.

Having accepted the situation for what it is, Buster asks Harvey about Babs and if she has a different boyfriend in this reality. He tells him to go find out for himself and directs him to the film library. There he finds Babs, in librarian attire, watching cartoons. Porky lassos the moon for Petunia, while Pepe Le Pew puts on perfume before he resumes sexually assaulting that poor cat. Babs turns off the projector and laments her co-star-less life when Buster approaches her. Things go well, until he tries to tell her that they’re the stars of Tiny Toon Adventures. After hearing that, Babs just thinks he’s a crazy stalker and runs out. Buster, now satisfied with what he’s seen, asks Harvey to undo his wish, but Harvey can’t just yet because – commercials.

The real star of the show.

After the break, Harvey vanishes and Buster is left confused. Babs enters the film room to see what’s up and he’s relieved that she knows who he is giving her a big hug and crushing her spine in the process. The animation really gets a little wacky for that part. Then Buster goes on his love tour just like George did, he loves Acme Acres, he loves his rabbit hole, he loves Spielberg, and even kisses the TV screen (I kiss it too). He returns to the auditorium to find everyone hates Max’s ideas for the show, including the network executives. He apparently didn’t bribe them enough because he’s soon fired and Buster is re-hired. Buster consoles him by assuring him he’s the star of the show. Cher flirts with Buster a bit, reminding Babs that she’s still mad at him. Cher tells her Buster was only whispering to her earlier to get a suggestion from Cher on what to get Babs for Christmas. When she asks Buster what she suggested, he plants a nice, long, lingering kiss on her smacker.

This I like.

Buster and Babs hop in a sleigh and start to sing a little Christmas song all about togetherness. The other toons get their little moment to shine during the song and several of the “celebrities” cameo as well. Max gets to take his place as the star of the show – atop the Christmas tree. He hates it, and he really hates it when Elmira uses the fact that he’s incapacitated in his star costume to steal a kiss. No means no, Elmira! There’s also a very brief Charlie Brown parody, which I snicker at, and the horse-drawn sleigh takes to the sky and flies off. The camera pans back to reveal Harvey who remarks the show wasn’t bad, before producing a zipper and revealing that he was in fact Bugs Bunny this whole time. He adds a “for amateurs” qualifier to his previous statement, chomps a carrot, and walks out to end our picture.

The whole gang on a musical sleigh ride. So long, Tiny Toons.

“It’s A Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas” plays this pretty conventional as far as It’s A Wonderful Life parodies go. It relies on a lot of its usual brand of humor of mocking celebrity culture and breaking the fourth wall. Sometimes these jokes land, and sometimes they feel lazy. Just inserting a cartoon version of a celebrity doesn’t count as a joke, and sometimes I feel like the show doesn’t quite get that. The animation is mostly good, but I feel like characters go off-model a lot in this episode, more so than I remember from the show. Maybe the third season had a smaller budget, or maybe it was an attempt to make the show look more “toon-like” or something. The voice cast for this show is exceptional though, and they do not disappoint. Tress MacNeille, John Kassir, Dan Castellaneta, Cree Summer, Danny Cooksey, Maurice LaMarche, Joe Alasky – all fantastic voice actors. The show sticks to its parody format pretty strongly and doesn’t even deviate for a Santa mention. That’s fine and I do actually like this one. I find the show’s premise charming and since it’s so wrapped-up in Hollywood culture it does make sense for it to tackle It’s A Wonderful Life for its Christmas special. If you want to check this one out for yourself, I can’t think of a channel that would show it this year. A few years ago you could rely on Hub to do so, but that channel underwent a format change and eventually dropped the show in 2015. Tiny Toon Adventures is available on home media and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, and VUDU, and if you want my opinion, it’s a worthwhile show to own.

1 Comment | tags: babe bunny, bugs bunny, buster bunny, christmas cartoons, cree summer, dan castellaneta, fox kids, it's a wonderful life, john kassir, looney tunes, noel blanc, steven spielberg, tiny toons, tress macneille, warner bros | posted in christmas, Television

December 16, 2017

Dec. 16 – ‘Tis the Season to be Smurfy

By Joe

Original air date: December 13, 1987

The Smurfs were originally conceived as a comic in the 50’s by Belgian artist Peyo, but most know the series thanks to those purveyors of subpar animation Hanna-Barbera. Truth be told, Hanna-Barbera pioneered television animation after running Tom & Jerry for MGM. The company put out so much content that it’s not at all surprising a lot of it was junk. They would find a formula that worked, like teenagers with a wacky animal sidekick solving mysteries, and run with it until it was no longer profitable. The Smurfs was one of their biggest hits of the 80s and followed a group of little blue men, and their one female, who lived in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. Their antagonist, Gargamel, was out to get them because he wanted to eat them. Gross.

The Smurfs had a higher budget than a lot of the other Hanna-Barbera stuff, or at least it appeared to. The best thing about the show was the solid animation, bright colors, and shrunken world. Each character had a very simple personality, kind of like the seven dwarfs, so the show wasn’t particularly engaging, but it did possess an annoyingly catchy theme song made worse when the characters in the show “sang” it and the only words to it were “La la la-la la la.” It was still successful enough to spawn two Christmas specials that actually debuted in prime-time, along with several non-Christmas specials. The first of the two, simply “The Smurfs Christmas Special,” aired in 1982 and the second, “‘Tis the Season to be Smurfy” aired in 1987. And since A Cartoon Christmas already covered the first one, we’re going to talk about the second one here.

smurfs-tis-the-season-to-be-smurfy-christmas-tree

What a Smurfy Christmas tree!

The special opens with a very snowy sky and some Smurfs riding a sleigh pulled by a dog with their Christmas tree tied down to it. They’re singing their own Christmas song to the tune of the Smurfs theme while a brief montage takes over depicting the various blue folk decorating for Christmas. Wild Smurf, who sounds exactly like Slimer and speaks in gibberish too (and yes, is voiced by Frank Welker), wants to help but Brainy Smurf seems to hold the lad in low regard. He hands him some garland to string up and he does so by swinging around like Tarzan and makes a mess of things. The other Smurfs start ragging on him, but Papa Smurf steps and lets them know they’re all being assholes. This is Wild’s first Christmas, so he has no idea what’s going on. Papa Smurf explains it before heading out to deliver a gift. The other Smurfs want to get down to exchanging gifts too, but they need to wait for Grandpa and Sassette to return.

Wild, you are my hero.

We change locales and head to a human village where all the villagers are doing Christmas stuff and street vendors are hawking products in the streets. There’s a pretty neat multi-plane camera effect in use as the camera zooms in between the onlookers. This special actually looks pretty good, all things considered. Grandpa and Sassette, whom he affectionately refers to as Sassy, are observing what Christmas Eve is like for humans from under a fruit cart. An apple falls to the ground and Grandpa scoops it up for later, even though the thing is about as big as he is he seems to have no trouble carrying it with one hand. Sassy possesses a really annoying high-pitched and slightly distorted voice that is akin to fingernails on a blackboard. They start to make their way through town when Sassy notices a cut purse stealing a wealthy looking man’s purse. Grandpa, apparently an excellent athlete in his day, chucks the apple a good 30 yards with enough velocity to hurt the man’s hand, causing him to drop the purse.

Hitting the town with Grandpa.

That crisis averted, Grandpa and Sassy hide under an old toy maker’s cart as he starts leaving the square a bit down-hearted at not selling many toys. A little boy runs up to tell him he admires his toys, and the old guy doesn’t hesitate to gift him one as he’s seemingly delighted that someone took notice. Almost immediately the young boy’s father, well dressed and emerging from a horse drawn carriage, admonishes the boy for speaking with the poor and tosses the toy puppet to the ground where it breaks under the weight of the carriage as it rolls away. The old toy maker, wiping a tear from his eye, sets back on his way home. Sassy is upset at the sight and doesn’t understand and Grandpa Smurf has little to say that can comfort her. A nearby woman asks the toy maker, Gustav, where he’s going and he reveals more of his sad story: his wife is sick and he needs to make it home in time to meet the doctor. Sassy wants to see what’s the matter, apparently not hearing the conversation Gustav had with the woman, and Grandpa and she chase off after him.

You don’t need me to tell you this guy’s an asshole.

Another awesome multi-plane tracking shot takes us through a snowy little village to Gustav’s home. The doctor is leaving and informs Gustav that his wife’s, Elise, spirit is weak. Maybe Christmas can cheer her up because there’s nothing he can do. He must be some kind of homeopathic doctor. Gustav tries to cheer his wife up with a Jumping Jill marionette that he made and it works a little, but then she gets glum recalling all of those Christmas wishes that didn’t come true. He tries to tell her to cheer up, and mentions a story about Christmas elves (referencing the elves and cobbler folk tale, I presume), but she seems pretty depressed and too far gone for stories. Sassy and Grandpa watch from the window sill and get an idea. They eagerly hop away, while Gustav hears something and notices their little footprints left behind in the snow.

Back in Smurf Village, the other Smurfs are still busy decorating and preparing for Christmas in their own way. Wild even gets in on the fun by standing under the mistletoe and gets a little something from Smurfette for his troubles. When Grandpa and Sassy stroll in they immediately start asking around for help with bringing Christmas to the elderly couple. Everyone they ask though is too busy with their own stuff to care, leaving Sassy and Grandpa no choice but to pack up two massive sacks of presents and head out themselves. Wild notices though, and he pulls up on a sleigh lead by his squirrel companion for Sassy and Grandpa to load presents onto and the trio heads off to the human village.

This is such a sad shot.

Papa Smurf returns to the village and is alarmed to see that Grandpa and Sassy are no where to be found. The other Smurfs fill him in on what they were up to, and when Brainy shares his opinion that those two are crazy for wanting to leave their party to help some old people, Papa Smurf gives him the business. He puts them all in their place and they decide to pack up the big sleigh with their tree, presents, and all of their decorations and set off after Grandpa, Sassy, and Wild.

Meanwhile, those three have hit a snag. The snow is falling fast and the squirrel can barely move in it. It’t so high that it towers over the Smurfs. Apparently it’s super powdery if even they can’t travel on top of the snow, and that squirrel apparently eats too much. Upon closer inspection, they actually no longer have a sleigh for some reason and are just slinging the sacks over their shoulders. The other Smurfs soon arrive, their sleigh having no problems navigating the weather, and they pile on to resume their trip to the village. Brainy continues to be a dick and tells Wild everything was his idea. I hate this guy.

Papa Smurf is dismayed to find out his children are a bunch of jerks.

Gustav and Elise are getting ready for bed. Elise is declaring Christmas Eve over and seems resigned to death. Gustav mournfully pokes at the coals of the fireplace and tries to convince himself things will be better in the morning. The cut purse from earlier emerges from another home remarking how this is a fine night for purse snatching. He sets his sights on some rich guy carrying a pile of a gifts – the rich guy from earlier who chided his kid for speaking with Gustav and broke his toy. The cutpurse is able to snatch his purse, while the Smurfs come streaking down the alley and knock the rich guy over, unintentionally. Brainy and Hefty are knocked off of the sleigh, unknown to Papa Smurf. They observe the thief running away, while the wealthy man calls out for the sheriff. It’s at this point that I notice these old houses all have modern gutters on them.

I find it strange that the thief is one of the characters I dislike the least in this thing.

Hefty wants to go after the thief, but Brainy would rather sit and be miserable about the fact that he left the village for this. A rat decides Brainy looks rather tasty, and Hefty has to come to his aid. He subdues the rodent by tying its tail to a wall and the duo is able to escape. The other Smurfs arrive at the elderly couple’s house to find them asleep. Sassy is dismayed, but Papa Smurf lets her know this is actually for the best. They get down to business decorating the place with Wild playing a central role. At the same time, Hefty and Brainy catch up with the thief who’s returned home, which is across the street from the elderly couple. He drops the wealthy man’s purse at their door after taking the gold from it before entering his own home with Hefty and Brainy running in after him.

Clumsy Smurf, ever the useless one, breaks an ornament as they’re finishing up which rouses Gustav from his sleep. He emerges from his bedroom to see the Smurfs scrambling around. He immediately gets his wife, and the Smurfs surprisingly hang around to show off their handiwork. Elise is overjoyed, and then the Smurfs start to sing. Ugh. At least it’s an original song.

smurfs-tis-the-season-to-be-smurfy-sassette-grandpa-smurf-couple

I think everything will be just fine for these two before this is over.

Across the street, Brainy and Hefty are hiding in the thief’s house pondering their next move. When Brainy hears the singing he remarks “Hey, that’s Grandpa!” Of course, the thief hears them, but when they run away they wind up standing in front of a candle and casting a huge shadow on the wall. The thief, apparently not too bright, thinks they’re evil spirits based on their shadows. The two convince him he’s the evil one for stealing and that he needs to start giving instead, especially at Christmas. Wow, this is really easy.

The wealthy man soon reappears. He’s got some armed guards and for some reason his wife has joined him on the manhunt for the thief who snatched his purse. They find the discarded purse outside Gustav’s home and assume the thieves are inside. All the while, the Smurfs and the couple are enjoying themselves and Elise gives Sassy her Jumping Jill doll. The scale of things keeps changing as the the Smurf tree is now colossal. Elise thinks she’ll be better, but then the guards come in and ruin it all. With the Smurfs hiding under the bed, no one believes their story about Christmas elves decorating their house and they assume Gustav and Elise were able to acquire all of their decorations in the brief amount of time that has elapsed since the wealthy man’s purse was stolen. Papa Smurf is about to command his followers to reveal themselves in a bid to save the couple from arrest, but the thief soon emerges to confess. He now understands the spirit of Christmas and the wealthy man has a change of heart too, because Christmas. They start acting nice towards the old couple and decline to press charges against the thief. When Elise goes to show the wife of the wealthy man the Christmas elves, she finds they’ve disappeared.

The Smurfs, on their sleigh heading home, remark how everything turned out so well and assure us that Elise will now be just fine. Christmas trees are powerful medicine. Brainy tries to give everyone a Christmas present, some quotations from him apparently, and they all pound him with snow. Easily the best part of the episode. Roll credits.

I actually don’t hate this. Aside from some moments where the scale of the diminutive Smurfs seems to change with the background and objects around them, the special looks really good. The dialogue amongst the Smurfs is still pretty annoying, but the story is solid enough. It kind of hits all of the right beats of a Christmas special. There’s a little tragedy, a lot of kindness, some bad folks see the error of their ways, and the spirit of Christmas saves the day. It’s corn, but it’s kind of good corn. The resolution probably happens too quickly, and I’m not sure we really needed the plot with the rich guy. Maybe if he wasn’t in it the thief could have had some more meaningful transformation in the end. I do appreciate that they tied everything together though and at least Hanna-Barbera tried to create an original Christmas story. I thought it would be like the The Elves and the Shoemaker where the elves build a bunch of shoes while the guy sleeps, only this would be the Smurfs either making toys for Gustav to sell or decorate his house to make his wife feel better. And it still kind of was, but it’s different enough that I don’t know that I would consider it an adaptation. So consider me surprised that “‘Tis the Season to be Smurfy” isn’t terrible. If you want to watch it for yourself, it’s readily available on home media and digital and there’s a decent chance it will air or has aired on Boomerang this season as well. You could do worse.

2 Comments | tags: christmas cartoons, hanna-barbera, peyo, prime-time animation, the smurfs | posted in christmas, Television

December 15, 2017

Dec. 15 – Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales

By Joe

Bugs_Bunny's_Looney_Christmas_Tales Once upon a time, Bugs Bunny was a big enough star to land numerous television specials. He’s still a recognizable character across the world, but I sometimes feel as if Bugs isn’t as loved as he should be. I can’t recall the last time I saw him standing next to a Warner Bros. logo in front of a film. I just feel like he should be on the same level as Mickey Mouse and Disney does a much better job of promoting their mascot than Warner.

In 1979 Bugs returned to the small screen for a Christmas special. Unlike some other Bugs TV specials, this one wasn’t just a collection of previously released theatrical shorts but a collection of all new shorts with an obvious Christmas theme. It features the most recognizable of Looney Tunes as well as the voice of Mel Blanc. It’s broken up into three acts that are each different shorts: Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol, Freeze Frame, and The Fright Before Christmas. Fritz Freleng directed the book-end shorts as well as the joining segments while Chuck Jones handles Freeze Frame.

Our carolers for the evening, no Daffy is pretty disappointing.

The special opens with Bugs leading some other Looney Tunes characters in some carols before we’re whisked away to an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. In this, Bugs is sort of the narrator, but he’s also a part of the story as Fred and Jacob Marley. Yosemite Sam is Scrooge and Porky is Cratchit. Tweety is the Tiny Tim character, though he’s not really essential to the story. Bob asks Scrooge for some coal, which Scrooge denies because he gave him a piece last Tuesday (Disney will kind of steal that line). Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, is there to wish his uncle a Merry Christmas with the carolers and notices Bob’s predicament. When Scrooge tosses him out, Fred swipes a piece of coal and gifts it to Bob. Scrooge’s cat, played by Sylvester, sees this and alerts Scrooge who tosses everyone out and fires Bob. Bob thanks Fred, even though he did kind of get him fired, and invites him over to his home for dinner. There he meets the rest of the family and sees how little they have. A knock on the door is from a man with the light company and he comes in and takes the family’s candle. Another knock is from the bank – Scrooge is foreclosing on the mortgage and kicking the family out tonight. That’s one harsh lender.

You know what they say about a fool and his money.

Bugs takes it upon himself to teach Scrooge-Sam a lesson uttering a popular Looney Tunes line of, “Of course you know, that this means war.” He returns to Scrooge’s house to first annoy him with carolers. Then he throws snow in his hot bath. To really scare him straight though, he dresses up as a ghost and convinces Sam that he’s his deceased former partner Jacob Marley. Rather than run through the usual past, present, and future routine, Bugs is able to just get to the point by threatening Scrooge with eternal damnation. It’s enough and Scrooge heads over to the Cratchit house to set all the wrongs right, though he’s not particularly happy to do it. Once done, it’s revealed to be a sort-of play and Sam assures Bugs he’ll be getting his money back. Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner look on from outside the house, which leads us into the next segment.

The Coyote is busy researching road runners (book title “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Road Runners but were Too Afraid to Ask”) and discovers they love deserts and hate snow. One ACME snow-seeder later and the Coyote is buried under a pile of snow. Every time he tries to use the snow generator it just drops a pile on him, even when he takes shelter in a cliff face it just shoots the snow horizontally. Realizing that’s a dead end, he resorts to the tried and true method of switching two road signs, one pointing to the desert with one pointing to a snow summit. The Road Runner falls for it and ends up on a frozen pond unable to get much traction. The Coyote is ready with a pair of speed skates and calmly skates a circle around the Road Runner intending for the bird to fall through the ice. Of course, the ice under the Coyote drops instead out leaving the Road Runner floating on a circular piece of ice. He runs in place and creates an outboard motor effect to escape the trap.

Screenshot1-2 Next the Coyote uses rocket-powered skis to chase the Road Runner while some subtle Christmas music sets the mood. The two become buried in the snow with only their tails exposed. In a repeat from an old Bugs Bunny short, the Road Runner’s tail splits in two when he approaches a tree there-by allowing him to go around the obstacle, while the Coyote possesses no such ability and merely crashes into the tree. He then acquires a dogsled with a team of 12 92lb dogs guaranteed to run-down any road runner. Turns out, the dogs also love coyotes and they maul him. Had he checked the invoice more thoroughly he would have noticed. Next comes what’s probably the Coyote’s worst idea of the short – he rides a rocking horse like a sleigh while wielding a Road-Runner Lasso. All he does is entangle himself in the lasso while the rocking horse plunges off a cliff. It has the misfortune of landing on some train tracks. You know the rest. The Coyote then makes a giant snow ball he intends to crush the Road Runner with. He just ends up getting stuck to it and when it rolls towards a cliff he falls with the snowball close behind. He pops out of the snow looking like Santa Claus and holds up a sign wishing the viewer a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

We go back to the carolers and Bugs is still leading them in song when his nephew shows up to remind him that he owes him a Christmas story. Bugs informs him that he’s going to tell him all about Santa Claus and the night before Christmas. We’re then taken to the North Pole where Santa is speaking offscreen about getting a move on. High above an airplane soars by and the pilots are discussing their cargo – a tasmanian devil. The cargo falls from the plane and Taz ends up landing in Santa’s suit which was hanging out on a clothes line. He ends up in the sleigh (six reindeer, grrrr!) and the reindeer take off.

Clyde_in_Bugs_Bunny's_Looney_Christmas_Tales_02 Back in Bugs’ home, or his nephew’s, he’s reading the little bunny A Visit From Saint Nicholas when a sound on the roof causes his nephew to get all excited for Santa. Bugs sends him to bed while Taz jumps down the chimney and lands in the roaring fire below. Bugs cracks some jokes at Taz’s expense, but invites him in for a snack. Taz is eager for food and not only does he devour Bugs’ milk and cookies but the entire table as well. Bugs then reads him his nephew’s Christmas list while Taz sets to eating the decorations on the Christmas tree. Eating the lights cause him to get electrocuted, but it doesn’t seem to bother him too much. Bugs suggests he sit by the fire so he can make him some popcorn, but Taz eats the kernels before Bugs can get the popper and the heat from the fireplace causes them to pop in his stomach. He starts to wreck the place, and Bugs sets up a gift exchange booth and gifts Taz a present – a self-inflating rubber raft (I expected TNT). Taz eats it, and when it inflates he floats away.

Bugs’ nephew Clyde wakes up disappointed that Santa didn’t bring him anything. Bugs assures him everything will be all right and they set out to return Santa’s sleigh. As they soar through the air Bugs wishes us a Merry Christmas. Back from the break, the Looney Tunes are sleighing along and singing carols when Taz decides in to eat their sleigh. That’s basically the end and they must have only tacked on this final segment so Porky can chime in with his signature good bye, only he stammers his way through “Happy Holidays” instead of the usual.

Mmm, lights.

Bug’s Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales is pretty underwhelming for the old rabbit. A lot of the gags have been done before, and the animation is definitely television quality as opposed to move theater quality. Of the three segments, the middle one, Freeze Frame featuring the Road Runner and Wile E, is probably the best. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but it’s a solid Road Runner short with just a dash of Christmas thrown in. Yosemite Sam as Scrooge makes a lot of sense, but it’s still a tired tactic to adapt A Christmas Carol. At least the light department gag is probably the best joke in this one and probably the only time I laughed out loud. Tweety is essentially wasted though. And where’s Daffy? Did someone think he and Bugs could not co-exist in the same Christmas special? Is Daffy too big a star to play second banana to Bugs?

Watching this one, I inevitably feel compelled to come back to the Bugs and Mickey comparison. While Mickey was given Mickey’s Christmas Carol, yes a trope to adapt that story but done so well it’s probably my favorite adaptation of it ever, Bugs was gifted this. It’s unfortunate. While it’s true the format of a typical Bugs short doesn’t lend itself to a Christmas tale quite as easily as the more adaptable Mickey Mouse, they still could have done better. Why not have Bugs just wind up in the North Pole and his antics there mess up Santa’s plans or something? We don’t need to make Bugs more wholesome, we just want to laugh and get in a little Christmas cheer at the same time. Oh well.

Clyde_in_Bugs_Bunny's_Looney_Christmas_Tales_11

Of course Bugs would end up in Santa’s sleigh at some point.

Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales probably won’t be shown on television this year. If it’s shown at all, it would probably be on Boomerang. If you insist on viewing it, you can find it on the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection set of DVDs. They’re sold individually or as a box set with all six volumes and it’s actually really affordable and comes highly recommended by yours truly, even if this special isn’t particularly…special.

5 Comments | tags: bugs bunny, christmas cartoons, christmas specials, chuck jones, frizz freleng, mel blanc, porky pig, road runner, tasmanian devil, tweety, warner bros, wile-e coyote, yosemite sam | posted in christmas, Television

December 14, 2017

Dec. 14 – Bonkers: Miracle at the 34th Precinct

By Joe

Original Air Date November 27, 1993

Bonkers was a late inclusion in the Disney Afternoon, a post DuckTales/TailSpin/Rescue Rangers program and contemporary to Goof Troop and Gargoyles. It’s a show about a bobcat named Bonkers who serves in the Toon Police alongside his partner Lucky Piquel (pronounced Pickle by most characters, but it’s supposed to be Pee-kell, making it a running joke). Bonkers exists in a world where people and toons live together, making it sort of like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? except the entire show is animated. It’s a cartoon I never really gave a chance because by the time 1993 rolled around I was invested heavily in Batman and X-Men and I really had no appetite for a more traditional cartoon. I watched some Animaniacs and Ren & Stimpy and that was kind of it. Plus Bonkers, who has an over-the-top “toon” aesthetic like Roger Rabbit just kind of annoyed me from what little I saw. The show’s intro is obnoxious and I honestly can’t remember if I ever sat down and watched an entire episode. As an adult, I appreciate the show’s premise much more. After all, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is a personal top 10 film for me and one I adore so a cartoon that piggy-backs off of it sounds really appealing to me now.

Bonkers did have a Christmas special, and when I set out to do this it was one I looked forward to checking out. The title of the episode, “Miracle at the 34th Precinct,” implies a parody or adaptation of Miracle on 34th Street which also sounds appealing since it’s a classic Christmas story that’s rarely adapted by cartoons and sitcoms. Where as the contemporary show Darkwing Duck chose to do an It’s a Wonderful Life adaptation, which is so disappointing.

A haggard looking Blitzen has to inform the elves he lost Santa.

The episode opens with Santa trying to navigate a pretty treacherous looking snow storm. He’s being tossed around and we’re soon taken to a a work shop where a pair of elves are wondering where Santa could be. We learn, through their dialogue, that Santa was off testing a new sleigh with only one reindeer, Blitzen, to guide him. The female elf of this duo immediately reacts with worry that Santa didn’t take Rudolf given the conditions outside (score one Christmas point for this one, it actually acknowledges the existence of the 9th reindeer) and immediately starts to panic. A tired Blitzen enters the shop with only pieces of the sleigh remaining. Santa apparently fell out somewhere over Hollywood. With only two days to go until Christmas, this is a pretty alarming development.

In Hollywood, unseasonable conditions are striking the locals. It’s snowing. Why? I don’t know. The camera pans to a building with a hole in the ceiling. Inside we find a mangey looking rabbit apparently named Fall-Apart and a large pile of snow. The pile shakes and out pops Santa, only he doesn’t know he’s Santa. Amnesia! The bane of all television personalities! Fall-Apart doesn’t seem to recognize him, but seems happy to have him around. Meanwhile, Lucky Piquel is being roused by his wife Dill (Dill Piquel, get it? I can’t believe Rugrats would repeat this joke later) for breakfast. He seems grumpy and his wife tells him not to be a Scrooge, which makes me think he’s going to be a Christmas curmudgeon – he certainly seems like he could play the part. He’s unmistakably voiced by Jim Cummings, which is interesting because Cummings also voices Bonkers so he has both leads in this show. Anyways, Lucky’s daughter is waiting for him at the breakfast table, with a toon pencil casually tucked behind her ear which is awesome as it shows how casually the humans and toons co-exist. She’s heard that Santa isn’t real, and Lucky and his wife seem unsure of how to handle this, only to assure her that lots of people believe in Santa.

Fall-Apart meets Santa, I mean, Jim.

In comes Bonkers! He’s playfully tossing snow around and of course he hits Lucky in the face. My guess is these two are unlikely partners, just as Roger and Eddie were, with Lucky not exactly enjoying the relationship. Bonkers is there to assure the youngest Piquel that Santa does indeed exist, and he and Lucky head off to the precinct. Meanwhile, Fall-Apart (voiced by Frank Welker using a more intelligible version of his Slimer voice with a touch of Dustin Hoffman from Rainman) decides to take Santa (after dubbing him Jim since he can’t remember his name) for a little spin around Hollywood and loads him into his cab. He immediately becomes more of a tour guide and I’m wondering if he’s good-natured or if he intends to rob this Santa of all of his money by keeping the meter running. We shall see.

At the police station, the two elves from earlier are there to report a missing person – Santa. When Bonkers and Lucky stroll in they immediately suggest that Lucky could be a good stand-in, since he’s fat. Lucky’s boss thinks it’s a good idea, why he’s willing to give up a cop for this I don’t know, but Lucky wants no part of it. He regards the elves as being kind of crazy, suggesting adults in this world probably don’t believe in Santa (I wasn’t sure based on Lucky and his wife’s reaction to their daughters declaration). The elves toss some Christmas magic dust on him to make him envision his daughter waking up disappointed on Christmas since no Santa brought her presents. It’s enough to make Lucky openly cry and agree to put on the red suit.

At least Lucky looks the part.

Next comes Lucky’s Santa training. He seems to be having a hard time, but at least looks the part, while the elves are getting frustrated with him. Nearby at the beach, Fall-Apart is taking Santa water skiing because it’s snowing, so you’re supposed to ski. A fisherman somehow manages to hook Santa by the ass and reveals his underwear – classic. We then jump back to Lucky’s Santa training in the flight simulator. He makes a crack about the lack of an in-flight movie while he’s jostled around in a mechanical sleigh with a giant fan in his face, so the male elf activates a screen on the sleigh to give Lucky the rundown on what every kid wants for Christmas. Back at the beach, Fall-Apart crashes his boat and we see why he’s called Fall-Apart. Bonkers is there to help piece him back together, mistakenly putting Fall-Apart’s tail where his nose should be and his nose where his tail should be, which can’t smell great. Santa is out of the picture following the wreck, so Bonkers doesn’t see him. When he asks Fall-Apart if he’s seen Santa, he teases the viewer that he might say yes, but says he hasn’t seen him. I don’t think he’s doing that for nefarious reasons, he’s just stupid. He sees his frozen buddy, Jim, after Bonkers leaves and tells him they should go on a picnic, which just further confuses Santa-Jim.

Lucky’s Santa training has moved on from sleigh-piloting to breaking and entering, or rather chimney training. The male elf has whipped up a house of sorts for Lucky to practice on, though he expresses some concern with fitting down the chimney. We also find out that Lucky is actually fatter than Santa. Bonkers, basically frozen, returns to the Piquel residence to get warmed up. Lucky’s daughter hopes her dad can make it home for Santa and lets us know it’s Christmas Eve (I might have missed that morsel of info in the precinct scene earlier) while Bonkers withholds info on Lucky playing Santa. Bonkers tells the girl she’s not supposed to wait up for Santa, and manages to catch his tail on fire at the fireplace. Good thing there’s ample amounts of snow outside to put it out and he returns to his Santa hunt. Lucky, on the other hand, is not making any progress in his Santa training because he’s become lodged in the chimney. He manages to fall through and makes a kind of dark observation that having your life flash before your eyes can put you in the Christmas spirit. Whether he’s ready for it or not, they need to get moving if they want any hope of delivering the presents, and Lucky is still gung-ho to help out.

Bonkers-Miracle-at-the-34th-Precinct-002-403x300

This guy should probably never be let near an open flame.

Back at Fall-Apart’s apartment, the duo of Santa and the rabbit return with Fall-Apart remarking their picnic would have been better if Santa didn’t give away all of the food. It’s like he’s some gift-giving guy or something. When Santa sits on a toon lounge-chair he gets ejected out of the apartment. When Fall-Apart asks the chair why he did that he replies, “Because it was funny,” which makes a surprising amount of sense for a toon. Just then, a despondent Bonkers pops in. He’s afraid he won’t find Santa in time. Fall-Apart expresses some sympathy, then remarks he has to go help his friend Jim off the roof and describes him as a big guy in a red suit with a white beard. Bonkers realizes that Jim must be Santa, and when they find him on the roof his memory has returned thanks to the second bump on the head. With only an hour until Christmas, he needs to get to his elves Jingle and Belle (so they have names), but Bonkers first wants to bring him by the Piquel residence.

We cut to the Piquel house and the sleigh and reindeer are arriving. There are only six reindeer, which is bullshit. It’s Lucky and the elves. The elves felt that Lucky’s first house should be a familiar one. He expresses some hurt feelings over it while struggling to stand on the snow covered roof, before eventually falling off, which just justifies the concern the elves have in him. They get a call on their sleigh-phone from Bonkers to let them know Santa is all right and they’re relieved to hear it, naturally. Of course, Lucky is already on the job and fallen off the roof to boot, so they can’t tell him the good news.

Santa and Bonkers arrive on the scene.

Since he’s at ground level, and it is his house, Lucky decides to enter the conventional way even though it’s not the entrance he wants to make. Just as he enters the front door, Bonkers arrives with Santa. They shoot up to the roof where the elves give Santa the update on what’s going on. He grabs his sack and jumps down the chimney. Inside, Lucky’s daughter is already in tears about there being no Santa and left the room. As Lucky heads in further Santa drops in. Lucky doesn’t think he’s the real Santa, even though he has the Social Security card to prove it, and the two start bickering. Bonkers pops out of the chimney to admonish them when Lucky’s daughter comes in. At first she’s confused about there being two Santas, but not as confused as I would have expected. The real Santa gives her a gift, one she didn’t even tell her dad about, and Lucky finally believes Santa is the real deal when he pronounces his last name properly and gives him a gift to top it off. After Santa leaves, Lucky’s daughter gives her father a warm hug and Bonkers somehow gains the ability to float up the chimney like Santa just in time to see the big guy take off and wish him a merry Christmas.

“Miracle at the 34th Precinct” is not what I expected, since it isn’t really a take on the classic story at all. It also isn’t what I expected in that the plot is pretty straight-forward and it seems to take itself seriously. There’s very little “wacky” elements present for a cartoon world. The Fall-Apart and Santa scenes possessed some physical comedy, but for the most part I found the whole thing kind of subdued. I was expecting more parody, and maybe some satire, but instead this show was more earnest and genuine in its approach. I’m not about to judge the whole series based on one episode, but I don’t think I like this. It was kind of boring and the characters are just the sort of standard archetypes we’re used to seeing. I suppose there is some humor to be found in a world that looks at the toon elements as ordinary, but I feel like Tiny Toon Adventures already did that, and better. This does feel like Disney trying to do a Warner-type show, and maybe they just don’t have the ability to produce that kind of show. The animation, for the most part, is still well done though it’s not as crisp as something like DuckTales or Darkwing Duck. My guess is that’s intentional as they want the characters to have less definition and thus appear more “toon” in appearance. There’s an artful sloppiness in how the characters move and animate, in particular Lucky, which is kind of odd since he’s supposed to be the human. At any rate, at least it’s not A Christmas Carol parody though!

1 Comment | tags: bonkers, cartoon christmas specials, christmas, disney afternoon, frank welker, jim cummings, who framed roger rabbit | posted in christmas, Television

December 13, 2017

Dec. 13 – Christmas Commercialism Part II

By Joe

landscape-1448983725-screen-shot-2015-12-01-at-102800-am We’re about halfway through our countdown and ever so close to that magical day that is Christmas! And since these posts seem to be getting longer and longer, here’s a nice breezy one to save me some valuable time.

We’re often told and reminded over and over by Christmas specials that the spirit of Christmas is giving, being with one’s family, love, and even some mention that Jesus guy. I’m not here to suggest Christmas isn’t any of those things, but let’s not deny ourselves that a big part of Christmas is the commercialism. Christmas has a presence unlike no other holiday, at least in the US. It’s why when I hear about this so-called War on Christmas that I shake my head – there is no war on Christmas. First of all, to refer to something as trivial as how others celebrate a holiday as a war does a disservice to actual war. And second, it’s insane! Christmas permeates our society so strongly that you can’t escape it. I love Christmas and I love it when companies acknowledge it, but I sure as hell don’t expect it. The whole Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas store greeting? It’s capitalism! Retailers and other service industries just want to be inclusive so everyone that comes into their business feels like they were acknowledged in some individual way. It’s not a new invention and they’ve been doing it for decades because they think it makes good business sense, not out of fear of offending people. If you believe there is a war against Christmas then you’re an idiot.

war-on-christmas-vet Companies often go all out for Christmas because of its dominance and importance. Retailers live and die on the Christmas season. This year alone could make or break the venerable retail toy giant Toys R Us which filed for bankruptcy in September. If the returns for the holidays don’t come in at a certain level then the store could fold for good, and that’s sad. The only big box toy store in my area is Toys R Us, and it’s been around since I was a kid. I still can remember going into that store and knowing the quickest path to the ever important action figure aisle. Back then we never knew when a new toy line would hit stores so it was a surprise every time. I hope my kids get to enjoy something similar for the duration of their childhood. As convenient as online shopping is, there’s still no replacing the feeling of walking around a toy store.

Since Christmas is such a big business, everyone wants a piece of the pie. Candy companies will change the color of their wrappers for Christmas or shape their candy in something Christmas themed. Coca-Cola puts Santa on its cans, and even restaurants like Denny’s make Christmas themed food. Even companies that don’t alter their product in some way might still create a Christmas themed commercial as a way to capitalize on everyone’s Christmas high and hopefully boost sales. At the very least, they might make a memorable commercial and be featured on a blog like this one. Like these next few commercials. And if you think I missed an important one, check out Part I from a few years ago as I may have mentioned it there (such as the ever important Fruity Pebbles commercial).

Full disclosure: I’m writing this before Halloween has even taken place, because I could never find time to do all of this in 25 actual days, so the links in these YouTube videos could break or get blocked. I’ll do my best to fix them and keep them active as best I can.

The Hershey Kiss – “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”

This one is nice and simple – Christmas colored Hershey Kisses are arranged to resemble a Christmas tree and with each note of the song one pops up and “jingles” like a bell. Surprisingly, it’s now one of the longest running Christmas commercials ever and yet it doesn’t feel that old, maybe because it wasn’t on my 1987 VHS of recorded Christmas commercials. The actual candy, a Hershey Kiss, kind of sucks as it’s just a lump of cheap milk chocolate, but I somehow every year manage to end up with a sleeve of these things every Christmas.

Garmin – Give A-Give-A Garmin

Not all Christmas commercials are created equal or remembered for the right reasons. This one is the rare Christmas themed commercial that brings me no joy. It’s so damn annoying, and Garmin is basically obsolete now anyways because cell phones have replaced stand-alone GPS. I hope the people in this commercial never found what they were looking for.

Milk Bone Dog Biscuits

An oldie, and how often do you see Milk Bone commercials anymore? I don’t even have a dog, so I don’t know if Milk Bone even exists, or why I care so much about this commercial. It reminds me of the classic Oreo Christmas commercial, only with a dog replacing the kid, and he comes downstairs to check out his loot. A really bad puppet dog leg is used to make it look like he’s shaking his Christmas gift, and inside is a glorious box of Milk Bones. Merry Christmas, pal, Merry Christmas indeed.

Honey Nut Cheerios – Scrooge

Scrooge is obviously synonymous with Christmas, so he makes numerous appearances at Christmas time in various places. Mostly sitcoms. This commercial puts the bee, who I think was once named Buzz, in a Bob Cratchit role as he nervously approaches Scrooge. Scrooge is his usual salty, Christmas hating self, but a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios thaws his icy heart.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this one, except it existed when there were three chefs instead of just one (though now I think there’s none), and it appeared on my Christmas tape. There was a contest attached to it to win a Santa Bear, Mrs. Bear, and their airplane The Santa Bear Express tacked on at the end. I did not win that contest, and probably never entered, but decades later you bet your ass I bought those bears on eBay and gifted them to my sister at Christmas.

M&M’s Holidays

Back in the day, M&M’s went so far as to change their name at Christmas to simply Holidays, and the branding was used for Easter as well. They were just red and green M&M’s with little Christmas trees on them instead of the letter “M.” Now, they just release bags of the candy in red and green, but they still have special packaging so it’s okay. This commercial is cute though, even if it depicts a young girl essentially bribing Santa to get him to bring her everything on her monstrous list. By the looks of things it seems to be working.

Leave a comment | tags: 80s christmas commercials, christmas commercials, cinnamon toast crunch, garmin, hershey, honey nut cheerios, m&m, milk bone, toys r us, war on christmas | posted in christmas, Television

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