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

December 12, 2017

Dec. 12 – The Futurama Holiday Spectacular

By Joe

Presented by Gundersons!

Back before the advent of home video, when a show aired you either saw it or you didn’t. Miss something all of your friends were talking about the next day and you were at the whim of re-runs until your favorite show hit syndication – if it hit syndication. When VCRs were popularized you had the option of recording television shows for later use, but re-watching a show was a great deal more difficult than it is now. When children’s shows were sold on VHS they were usually obnoxiously expensive costing upwards of twenty dollars for an episode or two. The home video market for television just wasn’t something studios paid much attention to, at least not until DVD made it a whole lot easier, and cheaper, to sell television shows to fans.

Futurama owes a great deal to home video and syndication. When the show originally debuted on the Fox Network it struggled to find consistent air time. Often banished to that time-slot before The Simpsons on Sunday nights, it was the first thing bumped if an NFL game ran too long. Many blame the poor time-slots of the show on its lack of success, because once the show was cancelled and appearing in syndication on Cartoon Network’s adult swim block, it suddenly found an audience. DVDs of the first few seasons sold well enough that Fox brought the series back, as it did with Family Guy before it. The only change was that Fox declined to broadcast the new shows and instead optioned the series to Comedy Central, who would eventually gain control of the first four seasons from Cartoon Network. After four direct-to-video Futurama movies were released, the show returned with “Re-birth” in 2010 and would run for two more seasons totaling 52 episodes.

During its original run, Futurama gave birth to two Christmas specials – “Xmas Story” and “A Tale of Two Santas.” For the return season we were gifted with “The Futurama Holiday Spectacular.” The general opinion by most fans is that the post-cancellation episodes are inferior when compared with the pre-cancellation ones. There are of course those who feel the show came back better than ever, or at least as good as it always was, but I tend to agree with those who feel the post-cancellation episodes were lacking when compared with the others. In that sense, “The Futurama Holiday Spectacular” is similar because it’s not as good as the previous two Christmas specials (I guess I should say Xmas Specials), but it’s still an enjoyable episode with some good holiday jokes and puns.

The crew preparing for Xmas, with an obvious Gundersons tie-in to keep that joke running.

Unlike the first two Xmas specials, this one is a non-canon anthology episode like the Anthology of Interest episodes and the anthology ones that followed. It’s broken up into three segments that focus on three holidays. Only the first one is an Xmas story and the homicidal Robot Santa makes a return in this segment. The second segment concerns Bender’s made up holiday, Robanukah, which he came up with as an excuse to avoid work in the season one episode “Fear of a Bot Planet.” And the third segment is about Kwanzaa with Hermes being a celebrator of that holiday. It also features the return of Kwanzaa-bot, voiced by Coolio, who first appeared in “A Tale of Two Santas.”

Our first segment opens with an ad for Gunderson’s Nuts – they’re “nut” so good, as we pan around the Planet Express headquarters. Inside the crew is decorating for Xmas and Fry is feeling blue, much like he was back in “Xmas Story.” He’s just down because the future version of Xmas is more about survival than good cheer, and we’re soon visited by Robot Santa after Fry asks for everyone to, once again, explain this crazy holiday and do it preferably through song. A little song is sung and we get some visual gags of fruit cake bombs and egg nog molotov cocktails. Robot Santa enters and departs just as quickly, letting them know that to properly celebrate Xmas they need a “tree that’s coniferous.” Also, Scruffy dies.

The White House Xmas tree isn’t very impressive in the year 3010.

Fry wants to get a real Xmas tree, but Professor Farnsworth explains that the pine tree has been extinct for generations and that they’ll need to head to a seed vault in Norway. Gaining access to the vault is surprisingly easy as the guard, surrounded by barking snakes in a callback to the first segment, is willing to let them in to rummage about. Next door to the vault is the germ warfare vault and Leela expresses concerns about cross-contamination with the seeds. Inside, the guard happily gives them some pine tree seeds and reveals the tree is extinct due to an emergency toilet paper need during the Fifty Year Squirts. Amy notices the seeds have traces of green crud, but no one is overly concerned.

Back home, Fry plants his seeds and a year later we see he has a sickly looking pine tree for his efforts. Passer-by’s think it looks great, including President Nixon who is immediately advised by Vice President Dick Cheney that he needs to steal it to improve his poll numbers. He apparently does, because soon after The White House is hosting a tree lighting ceremony, and very much like A Charlie Brown Christmas, the sickly little tree suddenly appears a lot more full once decorated. Fry and the gang are there too, so apparently they weren’t too sore about their tree being stolen, but soon the tree grows massive. It was apparently mutated by being stored near the germ warfare containment vault (duh!), and at first Leela thinks it might be a good thing it mutated since it suddenly looks a lot more healthy than it did before. Soon it starts shooting off pine cones, pine cones that in addition to exploding also lead to massive reforestation.

Soon the entire planet is covered in pine trees. Leela, ever the optimist, still believes this could be a good thing and the Professor remarks that global warming has all but been eradicated as a result, and we get our required Al Gore cameo here. The Professor quickly realizes that oxygen levels are climbing dangerously high, and Bender remarks that he hasn’t done anything for awhile and lights a cigar. The air starts to sparkle before it catches fire and we get a view from space of the whole word being destroyed. Robot Santa flies into view laughing about how everyone is dead and tells us to stay tuned for more hilarity!

Robanukah features six and a half weeks of fembot oil wrestling, let the good times roll!

The second segment centers on Bender’s made-up holiday Robanukah. It’s just after Xmas and Professor Farnsworth remarks they need to destroy all of the Xmas gifts they failed to deliver. Bender immediately gets salty about how they have to celebrate every dumb human holiday but not the robot ones. Everyone is well aware that Bender’s holiday was made up by him to avoid work, but that doesn’t stop Bender from singing a song about Robanukah in a bid to legitimize it. During that song we get a taste of the holiday and it basically takes all of the Chanukah customs and perverts them, most notably by including six and a half weeks of fembot oil wrestling. When Bender finds out they only have enough petroleum oil for four and a half weeks of wrestling, he makes the crew set out to acquire more.

At Mombil, they learn that petroleum oil is all gone, and Al Gore pops in again to reprimand the viewers that he warned this would happen. Bender isn’t satisfied and is determined to find more petroleum oil and he makes the crew head for the center of the earth. There they drill for oil, but the intense pressure kills everyone except Bender. Five-hundred million years pass and Bender, after apparently occupying his time by singing about how great he is, notices his friends have become petroleum oil. He heads back to HQ with his oil friends to find the two fembots still wrestling in oil – a Robanukah miracle!

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It wouldn’t be Kwanzaa without Kwanzaa-bot and beeswax candles.

Our third segment opens with the Planet Express crew arriving at the home of the Konrads and Leela is concerned her chocolate cake may be offensive in some way. They are there for Kwanzaa, and even Barbados Slim shows up shirtless and covered in snow, much to the dismay of Hermes. When everyone is gathered for dinner, it’s decided we need our third song of the episode to explain the holiday featured in the segment, so Kwanzaa-bot bursts in Kool-Aid style to rap about the holiday. The joke of the song is that even he isn’t completely sure about anything concerning the holiday, but he does know they need authentic beeswax candles to celebrate or else they might as well be white. It’s noticed that the Konrads do not have authentic candles, so Hermes takes the crew out to acquire some on the last night of Kwanzaa.

Like the trees and oil, beeswax proves hard to come by and the crew is forced to return to the hive from “The Sting” to get the necessary wax to create their candles. There they find the space bees have been infected by some kind of mite and they’re in some distress. The mites are causing the drones to crash and explode, and the workers are at odds with each other. The queen bee is the only one who appears unaffected, despite the presence of mites on her, and she explains the situation to Hermes. During this, Leela is able to acquire plenty of beeswax but Hermes can’t leave the bees like this, not on Kwanzaa! He explains the meaning of Kwanzaa to the bees, and his message of unity together with the spirit of Kwanzaa causes the bees to embrace each other and the mites to fall off and die. With their minds fully functioning once more, the bees turn their attention to the Planet Express crew. Kwanzaa-bot returns offscreen to save them, and is quickly killed, also offscreen. The bees attack and we fade to black and re-emerge to be wished a Happy Kwanzaa by Hermes who is encased in wax. The camera pans back to reveal the entire crew as wax candles and a curtain falls on the special.

Al Gore is a reoccurring presence throughout the episode, and even gets to close the show.

Al Gore emerges, still as a floating head, to assure us, the viewers, that the crew will return next year in all new episodes. We get one final send-off from Gunderson’s, and the holiday special is ended. In re-watching it for this post I will say this episode is funnier than I remember. It still suffers from too much fan-service as many jokes exist just as a call-back to an older season (“My ice cream man-which!”) which just feels kind of lazy. There’s still plenty of witty dialogue and exchanges between characters, but the anthology format sacrifices pay-off as the stories are forced to be quick and concise with less room for everything, including jokes.

As a Christmas special, “The Futurama Holiday Spectacular” is mostly underwhelming because only a third of it is devoted to Christmas, and a bastardized version of the holiday at that. And with most of the Xmas parody handled by the past episodes, there’s little left for the show to tackle here. The inclusion of songs is the easiest form of parody, but they sometimes feel too much like padding as not a lot happens in these short segments. The best Futurama episodes are able to be funny while telling a meaningful story containing characters we genuinely care about. I suppose killing off these characters in three separate segments is kind of a play on holiday specials itself, but it’s not really as funny as it could be. It’s cool that they found room for more holiday lampooning, and not just Christmas, even if the Kwanzaa jokes felt a bit too easy. There’s always room for more holidays, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s the most obvious aspect of this special that makes it stand out. Criticisms aside, this one may do little to evoke the Christmas spirit, but it’s still a worthwhile inclusion in your annual holiday viewing.

If you want to watch this one this year, Futurama is shown on Comedy Central and they will play the crap out of the Christmas episodes (as of this update, the episode is scheduled to air Thursday December 21 at 5:20 PM EST). The show is also now syndicated on the Syfy channel and that channel is also set to air the Christmas specials this year. Syfy is showing a Christmas Eve marathon of Futurama including all of the movies and ending with the three Christmas specials. This one will be last to air at midnight, right when Santa is arriving!

1 Comment | tags: al gore, bender, billy west, christmas cartoons, comedy central, coolio, david x cohen, fox, john dimaggio, katey sagal, leela, matt groening, phillip j fry | posted in christmas, Television

December 10, 2017

Dec. 10 – Rocko’s Modern Christmas

By Joe

Rocko’s Modern Christmas first aired December 1st, 1994

Rocko’s Modern Life may be the most 90s cartoon created during that decade. It’s certainly the most 90s of the Nicktoons, Nickelodeon’s very successful foray into original animation after years of airing other studio’s work. Rocko’s Modern Life centered around a wallaby named Rocko, naturally, and his journey into adulthood, which most notably includes self-reliance. He has to maintain a job, a home, friendships, and relationships, in a world that mostly seems out to get him. It’s very adult for a children’s show, and I don’t mean that in just the sense that some of the humor skews older, but the subject matter. Rocko deals with stresses kids don’t have to, but maybe they’ve seen their parents do so and are able to relate that way. And if not, there are plenty of gross gags to keep them occupied.

Since Rocko is very much a good-natured person, he’s a natural protagonist for his own Christmas special: “Rocko’s Modern Christmas.” This is Rocko’s first Christmas on his own away from his family back in Australia. He wants to have a nice Christmas with his closest friends, and is in search of Christmas cheer. Across the street, a new family is moving into a previously vacant house and they’re apparently really into Christmas since their yard is outlandishly decorated with Christmas cheer. Rocko notices the family appears to be elves, and they’re cleverly designed to kind of resemble rolled up wrapping paper with limbs. Next door, Rocko’s curmudgeonly neighbor Ed Bighead, is this special’s Scrooge. He hates Christmas and the good feelings it brings out. He wants the world to be miserable like him, and he is very distrustful of these elves.

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Rocko wishes for snow. Apparently he didn’t think to check outside for snow before heading out with his sleigh and snow suit.

Rocko is a bit down at the lack of Christmas cheer in his community. It’s rainy, and there’s no snow, and few people decorate for the holiday. To explain the lack of snow, there’s a cloud over Rocko’s house that’s basically struggling to take a dump, hence the lack of snow (and our first dose of the show’s brand of visual humor). Rocko decides his house needs decorations, and he wants to throw a party for his friends. He calls up his two best buds, Heffer and Filbert, and invites them over for a Christmas party. Those two are eager to share the news around town, even though Rocko didn’t intend for them to, and soon the whole town is RSVPing to Rocko excited about coming to his party.

Heffer: The Tree Slayer

To get prepared, Rocko and his dog Spunky head out to the mall to do some shopping. Along the way they see their new neighbor, a shy little elf. He doesn’t respond warmly to Rocko, and instead tries to hide from him. Rocko is not offended and leaves the little guy to his own whims. At the mall, Rocko stops to buy a Christmas tree at a tent outside that’s being manned by Heffer and Filbert. In a sort of sad (but funny) gag, picking out a tree is like picking out a puppy, only the puppy-tree dies when it gets cut down. After securing a tree, Rocko heads into the mall. The little elf has basically been stalking Rocko this whole time, and eventually he gets accosted by some literal crocodile shoe salesman. Rocko sticks up for the little guy, and soon finds himself in over his head. He cleverly disposes of the salesmen, and finds the elf hiding in a shoe. They hightail it out of there and Rocko brings him home. There he meets a surly head elf, who seems to feel obligated to invite Rocko inside. Once in the home Rocko meets the other elves, who all have simple names associated with tools like Hammer and Drill. Like most Christmas elves, they’re toy makers and hard at work with Christmas just around the corner. Rocko also finds out one of the elves is missing. Mitch, who was the first elf to make it snow (or the last?), has been gone for sometime and is why there’s no snow. He also has three feet, for some reason.

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The shy little elf from next door.

Rocko decides to invite his new neighbors to the party, and Ed finds out via spying. He tells Filbert that elves have nasty foot fungus, and the hypochondriac Filbert immediately breaks out in a rash in fear of contracting the elven foot fungus. Just like how news of Rocko’s party spread quickly, so does word that some infected elves are planning on attending. The party-goers all get scared, and when the night of the party arrives Rocko surprisingly finds his house empty. He’s pretty disappointed, but a knock at the door brightens him up a bit. It’s the shy little elf, and Rocko welcomes him in, but can’t hide his disappointment that no one else came. The little elf feels bad for Rocko, and after Rocko falls asleep reading him a Christmas story he heads outside. It’s there he looks up at the cloud over Rocko’s house and thinks about how the quiet little wallaby helped him out back at the mall. Then a heart pops out of him and floats up to the cloud. Like cloud Ex-Lax, the rear of the cloud begins rumbling in a rather gross fashion before he unleashes some snow – hallelujah!

The cloud struggling to “snow.”

When Christmas morning arrives, only Rocko’s house is covered in snow. The whole town comes out to marvel at it, and they apologize for skipping out on his party. Mitch the elf even shows up and explains he’s been gone due to the lack of Christmas cheer, but the cheer of his little brother, the shy elf, has brought him back. Everyone heads inside for the party, and Ed Bighead is left to stew in his house as he looks on. The little elf shows up at his door though and invites him to the party. Ed starts to show hints of being touched by the gesture, when the little elf whips out a hammer and smashes his kneecap. Ed reacts accordingly, and then chases after the elf and manages to get tangled up in Christmas decorations and plunges into Rocko’s house, much to the delight of his wife Bev who was already at the party. As one last dose of Christmas cheer, Rocko gets a call from his parents wishing him a merry Christmas. And as a parting gag, we get a look at the next morning when everyone chucks their tree carcasses in the street.

It’s a Christmas miracle!

“Rocko’s Modern Christmas” succeeds both as a charming Christmas special and as a funny one. Rocko’s brand of humor is on full display, with a lot of bad stuff happening to our main character and a lot of visual gags that are sometimes gross, sometimes mean, sometimes uncomfortable, but usually also pretty funny. It’s an extended episode, as most Rocko’s Modern Life cartoons were split into two cartoon shorts. Pretty much every character that had appeared on the show up until now is present as well, and the cast was pretty big after only 19 episodes. It’s also fully dressed up to feel like a Christmas special with its opening sequence and ending credits. This is the best Christmas special to come out of the Nicktoons besting Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy. And I’m torn on if it’s the Nicktoon that’s held up the best, but it’s a close call between this and Ren & Stimpy.

Ed is forced to embrace Christmas.

Thankfully, Nickelodeon has caught onto the nostalgia thing and realized that the kids who used to watch their shows in the early 90s are now adults wanting to relive those moments and share them with their own kids. Which is why we have The Splat, a block of programming on one of Nickelodeon’s channels that airs usually late night and focuses on 90s programming. There’s a lot of crap on there, but the Nicktoons are mostly well represented (except Ren & Stimpy, for some reason). And ever since they started airing The Splat, they’ve re-run a lot of the Nicktoons Christmas specials every year so you will likely be able to catch “Rocko’s Modern Christmas” on there more than once before the month is through, and I suggest you do.

3 Comments | tags: christmas cartoons, filbert, heffer, joe murray, nicktoons, rocko, spunky | posted in christmas, Television

December 9, 2017

Dec. 9 – Yogi Bear’s All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper

By Joe

Ugh.

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with Hanna-Barbera. Well, mostly hate. Their animation is lazy, a lot of their characters (including many in this so-called comedy Christmas special) just aren’t funny, and they were also impossible to ignore because they made so many damn, formulaic, cartoons. At the same time though, I grew up watching re-runs of their older material and even their newer stuff like The Smurfs and The Snorks. For a good portion of my childhood, it seems like every cartoon either ended with the whirling Hanna-Barbera star logo or the DiC moon (and DiC was no better at this game) so there’s a lot of nostalgia there for me.

Yogi Bear’s All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper is certainly a mouthful. Released in 1982, it was Yogi’s second Christmas special following Yogi’s First Christmas, which if you can believe it is actually worse than this one and unbearably long too (oooh, a pun!). As the title suggests, this special is an ensemble affair. Yogi may be the central star, but basically all of the major players (and some of the not so major players) from Hanna-Barbera are going to appear, save for Scooby and the gang. It’s basically all of their animal characters, plus a few cameos, and almost all of the Daws Butler characters. Butler was basically Hanna-Barbera’s Mel Blanc (who coincidentally is also in this special), but less celebrated because his characters are mostly terrible. He did help Nancy Cartwright get her foot in the door though, so at least we have him to thank for Bart Simpson.

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When Yogi’s not on screen everyone should be asking, “Where’s Yogi?”

The special opens with a van full of characters heading to Jellystone Park to celebrate Christmas with their pals Yogi and Boo Boo. They are: Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Hokey Wolf, Super Snooper, Blabber Mouse, Augie Doggie and his dear old dad too. They drop in on Ranger Smith, who’s content in his little ranger station because Christmas means the park is closed and Yogi is hibernating. As such, he’s not too happy to hear this gaggle of oddly colored animal folk is here to rouse Yogi from his slumber to celebrate Christmas. He has no interest in waking Yogi, but Hokey Wolf (who the heck is this guy?) threatens to call his friend from the Department of the Interior if he doesn’t help them out. Unfortunately for them, they get Yogi’s answering machine and it seems he’s departed with Boo Boo to head for the city to spend Christmas with them there. Oh my!

Yogi and Boo Boo have stowed away on a bus heading to “the big city.” Yogi is quite unsatisfied with the food he’s found amongst the luggage, but soon enough they reach their destination. Ranger Smith has apparently phoned ahead because two animal control officers are waiting and they chase Yogi and Boo Boo into a department store. In a bit of surprising cleverness from Yogi, he makes an announcement over the intercom that two bears are on the loose to create some chaos and aid their escape.

Yogi and Boo Boo meet Judy, which sets the wheels in motion for this one.

Meanwhile, a young girl named Judy Jones is getting dropped off at the store. Her dad, apparently a wealthy businessman of some kind, is riding in the backseat of a big yellow limo with her and advises her to head into the store and charge a Christmas gift for herself to his account. She asks him to come with, but he’s too busy, and this animation is absolutely terrible as she exits the car. Inside, Yogi and Boo Boo have disguised themselves as Santa Claus and an elf and have infiltrated the Santa training program. As they exit the training room, little Judy takes note and wants a word with Santa Yogi. At this point, her father is already looking for her. Since he just dropped her off, we’re left to assume he’s not a horrible father and saw the huge commotion and decided to come in after her. He gets security involved who begin looking for her.

Yogi is a bit humbled by the girl as she speaks to him as if he’s actually Santa. He says a bunch of nonsense that’s supposed to be funny (it’s not), but does hear her out. She wants a father who will spend time with her at Christmas, which Yogi takes to mean she has no dad. By now security is onto him, and they know he’s not a part of their Santa program, and a chase ensues resulting in Yogi, Boo Boo, and Judy crashing a sleigh into a Christmas tree. Judy reminds us numerous times throughout the chase that she’s having a wonderful time, so I guess the producers worried Yogi kidnapping a little girl would seem kind of dark.

This looks enjoyable – a picnic in the snow.

Yogi and the gang manage to escape the store, and since it’s a Yogi cartoon, they actually manage to find the one couple in the city looking to have a picnic in the snow. The writers at least acknowledge the ridiculousness of this scenario by having the husband say he always wanted to have a picnic at Christmas time, with his wife not wanting any part of it. Yogi uses his “cunning” to convince them to let him have the picnic on their behalf, and they hand over the picnic basket. Meanwhile, Ranger Smith has arrived in the city and overhears a news report about an imposter Santa kidnapping Judy Jones, the daughter of one of the world’s wealthiest men. The chief of police describes the Santa as resembling a bear, and we find out Yogi is 5’7″ and since he’s as tall or taller than basically everyone else it means this world is inhabited by some very short people. Yogi’s friends have also arrived in the city looking for him, and director Steve Lumley did a terrible job ordering who speaks first so characters that sound almost exactly the same speak one after the other. Plus we get another exchange from Augie and his father – I hate them so much.

Judy enjoys her picnic with Yogi and Boo Boo, and when Yogi comes clean about not being the real Santa, she reveals that she was well aware of that (one thing I’ll give this special credit for is that everyone seems capable of seeing the obvious and is well aware that Yogi is in fact a bear dressed as Santa). Yogi wants to bring Judy home, but can’t get her to tell him where she lives. He tried looking her name up in a phone book, but Jones is too common a name for that to be effective (more surprising logic from this show).

Well this is kind of unexpected.

Now begins the part of our special where we get inundated with cameos. First, the bus of Yogi’s friends arrive and they knew to look for him in the park. They agree to help him figure out where Judy lives. Snagglepuss sets out on his own and finds Fred and Barney dressed as a couple of Santa’s seeking charitable donations on a street corner. He points out that this is a cameo, and a particularly preposterous one as they’re about 3 million years from home. Fred and Barney play it straight though, and when they can’t help him they tell him to go ask a wealthy looking woman across the street. When Snagglepuss does, the woman freaks out that a lion is approaching her and Fred and Barney tackle Snagglepuss. The woman, thinking she’s just been saved, makes a large donation to Fred and Barney’s effort and they remark that the kids in Bedrock are going to have a pretty fine Christmas party now.

Next we get a quick cameo from Mr. Jinks and the mice Pixie and Dixie when Quick Draw knocks on their door. Their cameo is brief as Mr. Jinks is no help, but the mice give him a Christmas present after the others leave, which just happens to be a massive bull dog. Wally Gator, Magilla Gorilla, and Yakky Doodle are up next as they just drop by the park to say they got nothing. Boy, I’m sure glad they were able to get those guys into this one. The police have spotted the efforts of this animal clan though, and are quietly pursuing them in an effort to “rescue” young Judy.

Mr. Jones is seen alone in his mansion, missing his daughter. He’s apparently coming around to understanding why he’s in a Christmas special as he remarks how big and lonely the house is without her. At the police station, Super Snooper and Blabber Mouse are using their connections to see if they can figure out where Judy lives, only to find out the police are seeking someone who fits the description of Santa and resembles a bear. They race off to warn Yogi, but the cops arrive at the park too quickly. Mr. Jones is there and demanding they arrest Yogi for kidnapping, while he insists he did no such thing and that Judy ran away. When Mr. Jones questions why his daughter would run away when he buys her everything she could possibly want, Yogi points out he doesn’t give her any time. This of course causes him to see the error of his ways and he declines to press charges telling the police it’s all his fault. Judy is delighted to see a change in her father’s attitude, she was already starting to miss him after watching Augie and his dear old dad fawn all over each other, and is ready to give him a full embrace. Yogi and Ranger Smith even share a nice merry Christmas moment, and everyone has a party in the park and sings “Jingle Bells” as this one draws to a merciful conclusion.

Wait, why doesn’t the rich guy offer to host their party instead of hanging out in the park like a pack of bums?

When I was a kid, this special worked on me. I pitied poor Judy and rooted for Yogi and his friends to help make her father see the light. As an adult, I see it for what it is: a lazy, thrown together Christmas special designed to get most of Hanna-Barbera’s most recognizable stars in one place. The problem is, their stars aren’t particularly funny or interesting and it sacrifices narrative for cameos. These characters are so damn hack that it drives me nuts. I was a bit surprised at The Flintstones cameo as it was one of the few genuinely amusing moments, not because I have any particular affection for The Flintstones, but because of how Snagglepuss acknowledged how preposterous their cameo was. The animation though is bad, and Daws Butler is stretched too thin as a voice actor. At least there were no annoying musical moments.

If you want to watch this one, and if it isn’t clear at this point it’s not something I recommend, it might air on Boomerang this season at some point. It used to air regularly on Cartoon Network around the holidays, but those days appear to be long gone unless the network does something unexpected. It also used to be easy to find on YouTube, but now it’s behind a paywall there so you can expect YouTube is now actively trying to prevent people from uploading it. The special is readily available on DVD, and for not much money, though anything more than a few bucks is probably too much. If you absolutely insist on watching Yogi this Christmas season, I will reiterate that this is better than Yogi’s First Christmas. That special is structured a bit better narratively, but it has no real hook, isn’t funny, and is about four times as long. This one is at least only about 24 minutes.

1 Comment | tags: augie doggie, boo boo, cartoon christmas specials, cartoon network, daws butler, hanna-barbera, huckleberry hound, mel blanc, mr. jinks, ranger smith, snagglepuss, the flintstones, yogi bear | posted in christmas, Television

December 8, 2017

Dec. 8 – It’s A Very Merry Eek’s Mas

By Joe

I apologize, but there are not many high quality images on the internet of this one, so we’re making do with what we got.

For a pretty sizable chunk of the 90s, the Fox network really dominated the Saturday morning cartoon landscape. A network, at the time, more synonymous with “filth” somehow managed to corral the kid demographic away from the more wholesome ABC and CBS. Fox was largely able to do this by partnering with some big players: Steven Spielberg, Warner Bros, Saban, and Marvel – all before a lot of them would go off and do their own thing such as Warner launching its own network. It was also rather impressive that Fox had a ton of original programming and it wasn’t relying on old standbys to fill air. Some of the shows it launched are still pretty beloved: Tiny Toons, Animaniancs, Batman, X-Men, The Tick. Sure, not all of those shows debuted during the Saturday morning block, but they often ended up there and helped make way for more shows.

Eek and his beloved Annabelle, who is voiced by Tawny Kitaen, of all people.

One show that probably isn’t remembered all that fondly is Eek the Cat. It’s not that Eek was a bad show by any means, it just kind of got lost in the shuffle of many hyper-active 90s cartoons. It was also usually one of the earlier shows in the block when some kids were just getting out of bed, and its star had no pedigree. Eek was a round purple cat who is pretty dim but has a heart of gold. He wants to help those in need, but often gets the short end of the stick leading to numerous instances of pain and misery. His girlfriend, Annabelle, is an obese pink cat that towers over him. She has a pet dog, the appropriately named Sharky, who hates Eek and bites him whenever he gets the chance. Eek’s existence is in many ways miserable, but he always finds the bright side which makes him a pretty likable cat.

Christmas is a holiday that should suit a fellow like Eek pretty well. He adores Christmas, as we would expect him to, and at the opening of his own Christmas special we find him carrying a stack of gifts as he remarks to himself how much he enjoys the holiday. He narrowly avoids mayhem as he works his way through the crowded, snowy streets and puts his gifts down to make a donation to charity. In doing so, his stack of gifts is gobbled up by a street sweeper, and we’re under way!

Santa’s reindeer, lead by Blitzen (Bobcat Goldthwait) are on strike despite only working one day per year.

We’re soon taken to the North Pole. Santa’s reindeer are striking, despite Santa pointing out that they only work one night a year. Santa, voiced by William Shatner surprisingly competently, is distressed and voices his concerns to his reindeer assistant, Elmo. Soon his helpers go on strike, and even Mrs. Claus has left him. Who will save Christmas?!

Eek visits his beloved Annabelle and is surprised when Sharky doesn’t devour him. Annabelle is worried about Sharky, and the two enter his dog house which is typical looking from the outside, but inside it’s basically a mansion (I always loved similar gags in cartoons for some reason). Sharky is depressed and we find out it’s because he misses his family, who he hasn’t seen since he was a little pup. Eek, even though Sharky has never treated him well, resolves to help Sharky find his family for Christmas.

Due to a mishap with a discarded banana peel, Santa finds himself laid up in bed just two days before Christmas. He’s despondent, but Elmo the brown-nosed reindeer volunteers to head out into society to make people aware of Santa’s predicament and get help. Meanwhile, Eek and Sharky set out to find Sharky’s family with Eek deciding they need to consult a wise, all-knowing individual. Sharky, through guttural noises that Eek can understand, suggests Rush Limbaugh (apparently Sharky is a hardcore conservative) while Eek corrects him and suggests Santa Claus. They seek out all of the street corner Santas to no luck. While this is ongoing, Elmo appears on a call-in show to ask the public for Santa’s help. When no one calls, he’s booted out and happens to collide with Eek and Sharky in an alley outside the studio. They both reveal to one another how they need help, and they decide to set-off for the North Pole together. They have to take a commercial airline, since reindeer can only fly on Christmas Eve, and Elmo happily enjoys an issue of Play Doe while they ride.

Not much is going to get this purple cat down.

When they arrive at Santa’s house, they find Santa is in a pretty low place. He’s depressed and even asks Eek to call him Mud at first. He has no help, the toys aren’t finished, and he can’t deliver them even if they were due to a broken leg. Eek, in an attempt to cheer him up, teases a song that Elmo and Sharky are eager to assist with, but Eek has to inform them he only prepared a speech. Santa finds his words nice and all, but they don’t change the reality of this grim situation. Eek volunteers to finish the toys and make the deliveries and a short montage takes place of Eek assembling numerous toys and piling them onto the sleigh. Elmo informs him they have no way of getting that sleigh into the air, and Eek tells him some stuff about bumble bees with his usual dose of optimism. We cut to Eek freezing in the snow, his optimism gone, as he realizes there’s no way he can get that sleigh to fly. They need to consult some serious minds if they want to pull this off.

Santa is in need of some cheering up.

The Barbi Twins are those minds, and they end up being really smart because if they weren’t then the joke wouldn’t work. If you don’t remember or never knew who the Barbi Twins were, they were a pair of identical twins who were pin-up models in the early 90s. They were popular enough that their appearances in Playboy broke sales records. The twins devise a rocket, and the boys are eager to try it out. Their first flight only succeeds in destroying Santa’s house, but the second is more successful. In between launches, Santa is somehow able to rebuild his entire house. He can construct a home just fine in his condition but can’t fly around in a sleigh. The second rocket may be successful, but it also takes out Santa’s house. Poor guy can’t catch a break.

The Barbi Twins are ready to help. Who knew they possessed such knowledge?

While flying around the world, Eek notices the island of shark dogs on Santa’s map and deduces that this must be where Sharky is from. Before they can check it out, he overhears a small voice calling for help and he steers the rocket-sleigh down to investigate. There they find a young girl who’s lost her bunny. Sharky is plenty eager to track a rabbit, and he and Eek are able to find him rather effortlessly. While doing this, the rocket-sleigh starts to slide and Elmo is unable to get it under control. It plunges off a cliff but Elmo is able to grab a tail fin and prevent it from falling to the ground. Somehow he’s able to hold the impossibly large rocket until Eek and Sharky show up to help. A Grinch parody takes over as Sharky’s heart grows three sizes and he’s able to lift the rocket high over his head. When Eek points out that this is the wrong Christmas special for that, Sharky’s strength vanishes and the lot of them fall with the rocket smashing as they hit the ground.

With the rocket destroyed, they have no alternative but to pull the sleigh themselves. Eek is able to make it budge about six inches, which is all the motivation Elmo and Sharky need to lend a hand. They start dragging the sleigh and delivering gifts montage style as news crews from around the world flock to take up the story. The coverage centers on how these three brave souls are willing to do what it takes to save Christmas, while no one else will as the camera pans to reveal hundreds, if not thousands, of people just watching the trio freeze and struggle to pull the sleigh. The montage ends and we find out they still have tens of thousands of houses to get to, so it wasn’t as effective as a montage typically is. Just then, the little girl who lost her bunny, Dolores, returns with some friends to help them. Better yet, her giant of a brother is with her and they all help pull the sleigh. This attracts more kids, then Santa’s elves, and finally even the reindeer pull themselves away from their new gig as wall ornaments to finally pitch in.

Eek-The-Cat-Season-2-Episode-14-It-s-a-Very-Merry-Eek-s-Mas

Elmo and Sharky, even with all that’s going on, still find time for some TV shopping.

With things now running smoothly, there’s only one gift left which is to reunite Sharky with his family. Elmo gets them right on trajectory to Sharky’s home, and the reindeer then depart. As the sleigh speeds through the air it attracts a military plane which is advised to shoot the unidentified object down. We then are taken to the island of shark dogs, where Sharky’s family is saying it’s form of grace before Christmas dinner, remarking how they wished they had a cat for dinner and how they miss their favorite son (this is all done through subtitles as Sharky’s dad speaks in grunts like his son). In an answer to their prayers, Eek and Sharky fall from the sky and land in the giant cooking pot. Sharky is delighted to see his family, and even gives Eek a hug. Eek remarks on how this has been a wonderful Christmas, then hopes aloud they can stay for dinner because something smells good as the camera pans back to reveal he’s still in the pot and the other shark dogs are dumping salt and fixings on him. With a wave of his hand, Eek wishes us a merry Christmas and our special is concluded.

Eek the Cat’s first Christmas special is a solid entry. It takes an unoriginal premise but goes about it differently enough that it doesn’t feel too familiar. This was, after all, before The Santa Clause re-popularized this type of story and the most noteworthy before it was probably “Christmas Flintstone.” This episode is less manic, less loud, than I remember most Eek the Cat episodes being. It’s also longer as it takes up the full run-time of the half hour block. Also, to my surprise, this special debuted in primetime on Fox in front of Martin, which was pretty popular at the time. I never remembered Eek being that big of a star as to warrant a primetime debut, but maybe Fox was really pushing him. The show had a pretty decent run of five seasons, so it had staying power, even if it’s not remembered as fondly as its peers. Because of that, this special is a bit tough to come by these days. The show has not been released on DVD, and likely never will be at this point, so the internet is your best bet for seeing this one. If you don’t mind watching Christmas specials on YouTube, this one is actually worth the effort as it’s different and entertaining enough, though it does lack some real laugh-out-loud kind of moments and the animation is just so-so. If you just want something different though, it gets the job done.

1 Comment | tags: bill kopp, bobcat goldthwait, christmas cartoons, christmas specials, eek the cat, fox kids, tawny kitaen, the barbi twins, william shatner | posted in christmas, Television

December 7, 2017

Dec. 7 – Woodland Critter Christmas

By Joe

“It’s Critter Christmas, dude, it sucks ass”

This episode of South Park feels so infamous that I don’t feel the need to include South Park in the title of the post. South Park’s most recent Christmas special, now 13 years old mind you, is a rather notorious episode. It’s so farcical that it feels silly even by the standards of the show, and if you’re at all familiar with South Park you know how ridiculous it can get. After centering most of its Christmas episodes around a magical, talking poop, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone probably felt like there was little left for them to do with South Park. In the year before this episode, they sent the boys to Canada for a Wizard of Oz parody that felt a little off, as far as Christmas episodes go. It was the special before that, “Red Sleigh Down,” that felt like a conclusion to the stories they had been telling centered around the holiday. In some respects, it’s a bit surprising they didn’t stop there, but maybe since the show originated as a Christmas special they felt compelled to keep returning to the subject. And it suddenly makes sense that the framing device for this episode is a boy telling a story about Christmas. A woodland, critter Christmas, if you will.

The little boy in the red poof-ball hat and his new “friends.”

The episode opens with a narrator, a narrator who will stick with us throughout the episode and is very obviously Trey Parker (like most of the voices on the show). The episode sets up South Park as a quiet little mountain town getting ready for Christmas, and we’re taken to the forest where the little critters are busy getting ready for Christmas too. It’s over the top in its sweetness, complete with a sappy song, but the episode does a good job of playing things off as sincere. The episode even gets its own title card with all of the critters as they sing their little song about Christmas being almost here. The narrator introduces all of the critters and they all have simple names which is just the name of the animal with an “e” sound added to the end, e.g. – Rabbitty the rabbit, Beary the bear, etc. The scene is evocative of “Frosty the Snowman” when the animals in that special decorate the forrest for Christmas. South Park takes it one step further by making these critters able to speak and they also all wear a festive scarf, sweater, or hat. It’s also probably inspired by the Chucklewood Critters, and if you aren’t familiar with that series then tune in a bit closer to Christmas for something on them.

A little boy in a red poof-ball hat happens upon the scene of the critters decorating their tree. The boy is Stan, and he’s kind of surprised to see animals behaving this way, but also couldn’t really care less. The critters need a star for their tree, but they can’t make one themselves, and they implore Stan to give them a hand. Stan is our unwilling participant in this story as he’ll need to be pushed along, often times trying to ignore the will of the narrator or being outwardly defiant towards him. Since making a star isn’t too bad, Stan obliges then goes home. The critters are appreciative and celebrate Stan (I should say, Stanny) as their new best friend while Stan walks away probably hoping to never see them again.

Evil Satanic powers at work.

That night, the critters surprise Stan by visiting him in his room. They wake him up in the middle of the night with some “exciting” news: Porcupiney is pregnant! There’s a catch though, she’s been impregnated immaculately and the critters believe she will give birth to their savior. A savior of their very own! They need Stan’s help though to build a manger for Porcupiney, and Stan reluctantly helps. He leaves the warmth of his bed to drowsily assemble a pretty decent looking manger, only for a mountain lion to show up and frighten he and the critters. It is then revealed to Stan that this happens every year: a critter gets pregnant, and a mountain lion kills the critter before the birth can take place. The critters need Stan’s help to slay the mountain lion. Once again, Stan reluctantly helps out the critters and seeks out the mountain lion. He finds the creature in a cave and is able to get the beast to chase him up a mountain that looks suspiciously like Mt. Crumpet. There he is able to dodge the lion’s charge sending her plummeting to her demise in a scene reminiscent of Mufasa’s death from The Lion King. Once the lion strikes earth, its cubs emerge sad and dismayed to see their mother dead. Stan pleads ignorance, as the talking cubs question why he killed their mom and seem resigned to their orphaned state. Stan, speechless, slumps back to the critters.

Well, we were all expecting the episode to take a dark turn at some point, but few probably predicted this.

The critters learn of the mountain lion’s demise and are elated. Now their savior can be born – Heil Satan! What?! Stan is beside himself to hear the critters praise the dark one, and is speechless as they sacrifice Rabbitty to the devil and take part in a blood orgy. The camera lingers long enough for us to see most of the details of the blood orgy as the critters pleasure themselves around the manger in a scene no one probably ever expected to see in a cartoon.

Stan returns to his home, seemingly resigned to the fact that he played a part in the soon to occur birth of the antichrist. He wants no part in what’s to come, but our persistent narrator gets Stan to get off of his butt and head back to the forest. When Stan attempts to take down the manger he built, the critters are forced to use their evil, Satanic powers on him shooting him with lasers and summoning demonic flames. Stan is forced to run and the narrator clues him in to the fact that three mountain lions still live that can maybe stop this. When Stan returns to the cubs he’s mocked by the trio as they’re quick to point out they can’t do anything to stop the critters. Then Stan has an idea – he can take the cubs to an abortion clinic. There they can learn how to perform an abortion and perhaps prevent the birth of the antichrist from ever occurring! Stan does just that and we get perhaps the weirdest montage to ever appear in a Christmas special as the cubs happily mess around in an abortion clinic while patients giggle and the doctor is happy to show them all he knows.

Santa’s here and he isn’t messing around.

Armed wth this new found knowledge, Stan and the cubs return to the critters only to find out they’re too late. The antichrist has been born! The antichrist needs a human host though, and since Stan was raised Catholic he’s been baptized and thus can’t serve in that role. They had tried asking him earlier and were dismayed to know their old buddy couldn’t be of further use, but unknown to Stan the critters had happened upon his best friend Kyle. Kyle is Jewish, and therefore he has not been baptized. When Stan and the cubs find the antichrist born, they also find Kyle tied down to a stone altar of sorts. A red star bleeds in the night sky to mark the occasion, which also alerts Santa Claus of the danger. Santa arrives as the critters are preparing to put their savior in Kyle. Santa is rather displeased in the role Stan has played up to this point, and seems all together annoyed he has to deal with this situation. He produces a shotgun and immediately starts laying waste to the critters, their Satanic powers doing little to stop him.

With the critters destroyed all that is left is for the antichrist to die. Since it lacks a host, Santa informs the boys they don’t need to do anything, it’ll die on its own. That’s when Kyle springs into action. He wants the antichrist inside of him so he can make the world a better place for the Jews!

Ever see a mountain lion cub perform an abortion on a nine year old boy? You have now.

We’re immediately brought to a classroom scene as Kyle shouts for Cartman to cease reading his story. Apparently this whole time Cartman was essentially our narrator as he reads a Christmas story to Mr. Garrison’s fourth grade class. Kyle doesn’t want Cartman to continue since it’s become obvious the whole story served as a means for Cartman to mock him for being Jewish. Mr. Garrison tells Cartman he can’t continue because Kyle’s mom will raise Hell if he allows him to make fun of Kyle for being Jewish. Cartman reluctantly leaves his stool at the front of the class while the rest of the kids in class plead with him to say what happens, with Stan asking him if he has a merry Christmas. Kyle theorizes on where the story goes with Cartman insisting he has it all wrong. When the other kids plead with Kyle to let Cartman finish the story he angrily relents and Cartman returns to the head of the class.

When the setting shifts back into the story, we find Kyle is now the antichrist, only it doesn’t feel so good. He immediately comes to regret his decision, while Santa informs him that he has to kill him now. Stan has a different idea though, and tells the lion cubs to use the knowledge they gained at the abortion clinic to fetch the antichrist out of Kyle’s ass. They get right to work, and sure enough, they yank the yapping little creature out of Kyle’s rectum. Santa then smashes it with a sledgehammer and the skies return to their normal appearance. Santa, now not so sour about what took place, tells Stan he deserves a special Christmas present for all he has been through. Stan asks Santa to restore the life of the mountain lion, which he does. Everyone is happy as the camera slowly pulls back on a shot of the snow-covered town. Then it cuts quickly to Kyle in a hospital bed and the narrator informs us that he got AIDS and died two weeks later.

The critters returned years later as some of the chief villains of the Imaginationland trilogy.

“Woodland Critter Christmas” is an uncomfortably hilarious episode of South Park, and it’s not surprising they have declined to attempt a true Christmas special ever since. It’s one of the few episodes I can remember where everyone I knew was talking about it after it aired, “Did you see that episode of South Park with the woodland critters?” It takes the mold of a generic Christmas special and subverts it expertly. Most episodes that tried to do something like this probably would have abandoned the narrator after the first act, feeling the joke was done, but South Park keeps it up for the entire duration of the episode. The fact that the critters turn out to be a bunch of devil worshippers is not entirely surprising, since anyone familiar with the show knows there’s more to them than meets the eye when first encountered, but the angle is pursued in such an uncompromising fashion that it’s hard to believe. And it then takes things one step further by, in a Christmas special, using abortion as a tool to stop the antichrist and save the world. I remember being home for the holidays and making my little sister watch this episode on Christmas Eve because she hadn’t seen it. My dad watched with us up until the Satan reveal and then went to bed, remarking stuff like this is why America is so screwed up. I had never seen him react in such a way to anything before, and I haven’t since.

This special, and all of the others, can be found on the Christmas Time in South Park DVD released in 2007.

Because the episode is so uncomfortable for some, I can understand if this isn’t exactly a beloved holiday classic. My very own sister thought it was pretty hilarious, but also doesn’t really enjoy watching it again. And to some extent, the episode doesn’t really hold up well with repeated viewings. Most of the humor is derived from the surprises that crop up and they’re obviously not surprising any longer. I still think it holds up as an absurd Christmas special. Maybe not a classic, but a lot of the shocking imagery still makes me laugh in an “I can’t believe they did this” kind of way, even though the show has probably done far worse since.

“Woodland Critter Christmas” is likely to receive numerous airings all month long on Comedy Central and wherever South Park is syndicated. The episode can also be found on the DVD set for South Park Season 8 and on the DVD release Christmas Time in South Park, which may be out of print at this point, but is still pretty easy and cheap to acquire. That set is pretty great if you just want all of the South Park Christmas specials, of which there are seven, in one convenient package.

1 Comment | tags: cartman, kyle, matt stone, santa claus, stan, the antichrist, trey parker, woodland critter christmas | posted in christmas, Television

December 6, 2017

Dec. 6 – “Gift Wrapped” starring Tweety Bird

By Joe

“Gift Wrapped” (1952)

After yesterday’s rather lengthy write-up, I need something a bit more bite-sized today, so how about a Looney Tunes short? Surprisingly, there really aren’t a lot of Christmas themed Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts out there. Sure there’s a Christmas gag here and there, but usually those are not in cartoons actually taking place on Christmas. Bugs Bunny did have a television Christmas special in the 70s, and Daffy Duck got one decades later, but when it comes to classic shorts the most well known starring a Looney Tunes character is probably “Gift Wrapped.”

“Gift Wrapped” is a Tweety Bird short so naturally it also features Sylvester the cat and Granny. Tweety isn’t one of my favorites as his shorts are almost all interchangeable. Yeah, you could say the same of most of these characters, but his just stuck out the most. In that sense, “Gift Wrapped” isn’t particularly remarkable as a cartoon, but it does take place at Christmas and if you’re only going to watch one Tweety cartoon why not go with the Christmas one?

If ever your cat eats one of your other pets just give him a firm slap on the butt.

The short opens with a shot of a cozy looking house in the falling snow. A narrator is reciting “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” and Sylvester feels compelled to confirm that there are indeed no mice stirring as he hungrily sits outside a mouse hole. The narration cuts out soon after and it’s Christmas morning. Sylvester comes running down the stairs like a kid all excited to see what Santa brought him. When he unwraps his gift to find a rubber mouse he’s dejected – he wants a real mouse. He soon overhears a small voice singing “Jingle Bells” and notices one of the gifts for Granny is a bird cage with a little yellow canary inside. In a move a little too clever for Sylvester, he re-wraps his gift and switches tags with Granny’s gift.

Granny soon emerges excited for Christmas. She’s a bit puzzled when she opens her gift and finds a rubber mouse, but quickly realizes the tags must have been switched. When she goes to give Sylvester his mouse she finds a contented cat and an empty bird cage, feathers floating in the air. She grabs him and starts smacking him on his rear and out pops Tweety, none too pleased. She dangles some mistletoe over the little bird and tries to get Sylvester to be nice, but it’s a non-starter.

Yeah, this isn’t going to work. Nice try, Granny.

From here the cartoon becomes a pretty typical Tweety vs Sylvester face-off. Tweety is in his cage and Sylvester is going to try his hardest to get that bird. Sylvester get his hands on the little canary, only to be directed to a Christmas present for him which turns out to be a giant dog. Sylvester tries to use a toy crane to snatch Tweety’s cage, only to accidentally grab Granny instead which earns him a few whacks with a broom. A classic Looney Tunes gag is utilized in which Sylvester cuts a hole in the ceiling to retrieve Tweety’s cage, only for Tweety to hop out and replace himself with a stick of dynamite. The explosion occurs offscreen, and Sylvester quietly lowers the now battered cage back into place before emerging from the ceiling a smoldering wreck. A Sylvester as Native American gag plays out next, only for Tweety to produce a cowboy outfit and pop gun, which wouldn’t you know, ends up firing like a real gun right in Sylvester’s face. Tweety then tries to take a ride on a model train around the Christmas tree, and Sylvester adds additional pieces of track to the train so it drives right in his mouth. The big dog from earlier is waiting though, and once Sylvester eats Tweety the dog eats him forcing Granny to swat the dog until Sylvester pops out, and then do the same to the cat in order to free Tweety.

Take that, cat!

By now Granny is fed up that none of her pets can get along, especially with it being Christmas! She declares that they will get along and we next see a shot of the three animals from behind as Granny is seated at a piano playing a Christmas tune. The camera eventually circles around and we see over-sized Christmas stamps have been placed over Sylvester and the dog’s mouths while Tweety is free to sing happily. The end!

It just wouldn’t be a Looney Tunes short if someone didn’t get shot in the face.

As I said, this a pretty straight-forward Tweety cartoon with Sylvester trying different schemes to get the bird, only for Tweety to outsmart him. All the while Tweety is free to break the fourth wall and talk into the camera uttering his typical catch phrases. Granny at least adds a fun dynamic as she gets involved in foiling most of Sylvester’s schemes and the Christmas theme is worked into almost all of the gags in some way. I also appreciate that all of the characters are happy that “Santa came” and no other origin for those gifts is suggested. Lets keep the kids in the dark, right? This is a fun short though, and while I don’t think it measures up to the Disney Christmas shorts from that era it’s still good enough. In the 90s, Cartoon Network could be counted on to play this and other non Looney Tunes Christmas shorts around the holidays, but they basically ditched all of that programming and kicked it on over to Boomerang, which can also no longer be counted on to show these. It used to be readily available on Youtube, but it would seem Warner has cracked down on that practice as I had a hard time finding it there so if you want to watch it I recommend getting the Looney Tunes Golden Collection which has this plus over 300 other cartoons and is usually pretty cheap, like under $40 cheap. There may not be a lot of Christmas cartoons in that set, but how can you go wrong with nearly 400 Looney Tunes cartoons? And you still have time to add it to your list for Santa!

4 Comments | tags: 1950s cartoons, friz freleng, granny, looney tunes, mel blanc, sylvester the cat, tweety bird | posted in christmas, Film, Television

December 5, 2017

Dec. 5 – The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin: Winter Adventure

By Joe

maxresdefault-12 For a brief time in the mid 1980’s, there was a stuffed bear by the name of Teddy Ruxpin who basically owned Christmas. He wasn’t just an ordinary teddy bear, but a bear built around a cassette player with motors in his face. Insert one of his tapes and press play and Teddy comes alive to tell your kids a story, or terrify them which happened a lot. Teddy was the first hot item at Christmas that I can remember. He set off a craze not unlike the one for Tickle Me Elmo would a decade later. Parents did dirty, shameful things to secure one for their kid at Christmas, and it’s probably not surprising to hear that Teddy was able to make the jump from retail shelves to television screen.

This is what people were going nuts for in 1986.

Creating a TV show based around Teddy Ruxpin was actually pretty easy. The stories and books that the toy worked with could be used to storyboard actual episodes of the cartoon without the need for much additional writing. The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin thus largely stayed close to the source material and was created with the idea of going straight to syndication. For a show with so many episodes, it’s kind of interesting how it just sort of faded away from the public consciousness about as quickly as it arrived. Now in 2017, there’s a new Teddy Ruxpin at retail, but as far as I know there are no plans for anything beyond that.

Full disclosure, this episode is not technically a Christmas episode. It’s based on a story of the same name from the books and basically described a holiday that might as well be Christmas. To get you up to speed, if you’re not familiar with the world of Teddy Ruxpin, Teddy and his caterpillar-like friend Grubby are far from home on an adventure to find a treasure. They’ve befriended a human named Newton Gimmick, an inventor who was willing to share his house with them. There they live in the shadow of Tweeg’s tower, a villainous sort who’s very protective of his recipes (seriously) and has it in for Gimmick and his new friends. He frequently fires off cannons at Gimmick’s house, but his aim is notoriously bad and thus no one actually fears him. When they’re not at home, Teddy and his friends search for treasure in Gimmick’s airship.

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Teddy and his pal Grubby.

The episode opens with Teddy, Grubby, and Gimmick who are all freezing in Gimmick’s house. They realize winter has arrived when they notice the falling snow (which has already accumulated a lot so apparently they aren’t very observant) and decide to venture out and play in the white stuff after breakfast. We then get a brief scene of the chief villain of the series, Quellor, who looks like a pile of robes with horns. He’s distressed about the incompetence around him. This guy is basically after the same treasure Teddy is searching for, and leads an organization called M.A.V.O. (Monster and Villains Organization) which Tweeg is trying to gain entry into. He’s not real important for this episode, and we quickly join up with Teddy and his friends as they play in the snow and sing a happy song.

The villainous Tweeg, who’s mostly harmless despite his best efforts.

While outside, Teddy and Grubby discuss a custom from their homeward where at the onset of winter it becomes customary to give gifts and treats to those you call friends (which is where our Christmas feeling comes in). Gimmick is not familiar with the custom, but he loves it and suggests they carry on the tradition here. The trio head into the house to start baking and getting to work on making gifts while Tweeg pops up to spy on them. He notices they’re using buttermilk, and Tweeg’s character is convinced he has a recipe to convert buttermilk into gold, and so he becomes very suspicious of their actions and is convinced his subordinate, L.B., gave away his recipe.

Tweeg returns to his tower to scold L.B. He’s naturally confused by Tweeg’s anger and denies giving his formula away. Nevertheless, Tweeg kicks L.B. and his fellow bounders (little red creatures with no arms and a horn on their head) out of his tower during which we get a canned sound effect that Hannah Barbera used to use all of the time on The Flintstones when Fred would start running. After the bounders leave, some M.A.V.O. goons show up. Their boss wants Tweeg’s formula and they tie him up and start trashing his tower in search of the recipe. They’re brazenly stupid and some-what proud of it. There’s a lot of attempts at humor, but I’m not sure any are laughing. There’s even our first audio screw up where the wrong voice comes out of the wrong character. During all of this, Tweeg is tied up and mortified about how his stuff is getting destroyed. L.B. shows up by the window, for no apparent reason other than the writers wanted him to, and basically mocks Tweeg as he leaves him to his fate.

L.B. the bounder. Notice the “Return to Tweeg” stamp on the cannon balls.

Meanwhile, Teddy, Grubby, and Gimmick are busy putting together their gifts. When Gimmick steps out he warns the other two not to go poking around in the closet. Grubby wants to almost the second the door shuts, but Teddy, playing the straight man, lets him know that isn’t okay and Grubby doesn’t put up a fight. The bounders soon gather around Gimmick’s house. They’ve apparently grown to miss Tweeg already, since he was the only boss they ever had. Teddy, Gimmick, and Grubby soon emerge from the house with their gifts for their friends and head straight for the airship, completely oblivious to the four bounders gathered outside the house (they literally walk right past them without batting an eye, bright red creatures against a white backdrop). They take off and the bounders head inside.

Teddy and friends deliver gifts to the fobs.

The heroes take to the sky and embark on a musical montage of them giving out gifts to their friends. We get brief cameos from the fobs (little fuzzy bird-rats that speak like Alvin and the Chipmunks), the Wooly Whatsit, the Grunges, and Leota the wood sprite. Afterwards, they return home to find the house all lit up and the back door open, the bounders having just escaped detection. Apparently they just needed some supplies to create a dummy that looks like Tweeg. How they managed to stick one together without arms is a true mystery. They return to Tweeg’s tower to find everyone asleep and Tweeg still tied up. The goons apparently fell asleep after wrecking Tweeg’s kitchen. After trading insults, L.B. agrees to free Tweeg and they replace him with the dummy. The monsters awake soon after they leave and happily scoop up the dummy to bring to Quellor.

Back at Gimmick’s house, the friends are exchanging gifts and are all really happy with the gifts they receive from each other. Soon they’re surprised by a knock on the door and all of their friends from the earlier montage show up with gifts for them. The gift-giving song from earlier is reprised and we get our dose of warm, Christmas feelings even though no one utters the word Christmas. Tweeg, in a very Grinch-like moment, hears the singing and decides he needs to fire a canon at the commotion. The resulting canon blast creates an avalanche and Tweeg and his co-horts are buried in the tower. Teddy and company load up the airship and bring Tweeg some hot chocolate and seem to sincerely give him a shovel to dig his way out of the mess, rather than in a mocking fashion, before departing with a “see you in the spring.”

Gimmick, Teddy, and Grubby deliver a gift to Leota.

After they leave, Tweeg apparently was able to free himself and is bit by the gift-giving bug and gives the bounders snow hats for saving him early. They reward him by saying his name properly (all episode they’d call him something like Dweeb instead of Tweeg, a running gag throughout every episode). They comment on how this is the nicest day they’ve had, then vow to go back to being mean and nasty the next day. L.B. remarks how all of this niceness can make a guy gag. We then take a quick trip to M.O.V.A. headquarters where Quellor is gifted with Tweeg, which turns out to be the dummy. He’s irritated and demands the recipe book with the buttermilk to gold recipe. His lackeys soon realize they used the recipe book as wrapping paper for the dummy, but assure their boss they can glue it back together. Quellor then slumps back to his throne wondering why he didn’t just collect stamps instead of dummies before going out with a “Why me?” as so many 80s cartoons villains before him.

The source material.

That’s Teddy Ruxpin’s “Winter Adventure.” It basically feels like an 80s time capsule with typical animation, humor, and characters from that era. Virtually all of the enemies are dumb, and the only ones with an ounce of intelligence seem to only rely on imbeciles to do their dirty work. Meanwhile Teddy and his friends are pretty sterile. I find Teddy’s voice so saccharine that it’s grating. It’s the same voice actor as the toy, but in that format it never stuck out as much. This episode is mostly in-line with the book it’s sourced from. I should know as I still have the copy from my youth. Basically all of the stuff with Tweeg and M.O.V.A. was added for television as the book was basically just concerned with the gift-giving concept. The songs are even from there as well, and to be honest, they don’t bother me. I even kind of like them, but maybe that’s nostalgia.

If you want more Teddy, the entire series is available on DVD. All 65 episodes. Just make sure it’s what you really want.

The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin obviously are no longer on television and haven’t been for a number of years. If you’re interested in checking out “Winter Adventure” you can either watch it on youtube or purchase the DVD set of the entire series. You’re not likely to find it in a big box store, but amazon carries it. I can’t really recommend the DVD set. It’s 65 episodes of a forgettable cartoon with a pretty subpar transfer (I’m sure the masters weren’t in the best working condition since who ever thought this show would merit a home video release down the line?) and no special features. The packaging is kind of nice relying on some stock images from the books. The show was presented in a serialized format, so plot points carry over from episode to another which is pretty cool for an 80s cartoon. It’s still not enough to make it very interesting, so unless you’re really nostalgic for the show or have a kid that somehow got into Teddy Ruxpin, there’s almost no reason to purchase the set. Teddy Ruxpin would eventually tackle Christmas properly in the books, but never on television. Still, this feels like a Christmas special, which is why it’s here.

1 Comment | tags: 80's cartoons, dic, mova, teddy ruxpin, tweeg, worlds of wonder | posted in christmas, Television

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The Nostalgia Spot

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