We’ve got another 11 special slot for you today. After all, it is the season of giving, is it not? And once again, we’re mostly sticking to the land of children’s fair or G-Rated content. In fact, our most aggressively G-rated special leads things off today.

126 – Bluey – Verandah Santa

I detailed in the write-up for this one that I basically have a “No Preschool” shows rule when I do this and that’s because that’s a genre that is very specialized. It’s not that adult comedy isn’t, but preschool might be the only genre that really can’t entertain a demographic other than its intended one. However, one show rises above them all: Bluey. I know many adults who adore the Australian import and her canine family – I’m married to one of them. The show is charming and clever and it manages to impart worthwhile life lessons without feeling too formulaic. The adults are incredibly patient with their children and always down to play making them seem like the idealized version of a parental figure. Unfortunately for our purposes, the Christmas episodes aren’t the best. This one unfortunately is a bit formulaic as Bluey is wronged by her toddler aged cousin and basically seeks revenge by hurting her feelings. Still, there’s some fun stuff and I really like the food coma impacted adults. Bluey might make the parents play like kids, but it’s also not afraid to show them as adults.

125 – Pokémon – Holiday Hi-Jynx

Pokémon may not be as popular as it was in the late 90s and early 2000s, but it’s still plenty relevant. The show, in its various forms, number hundreds of episodes and yet this Christmas episode from 1999 is one of the harder to view today. That’s all due to the presence of Jynx, the pocket monster who resembles a character in blackface. Even though she’s been recolored to deemphasize that, this episode still remains “lost.” Is that a big deal? Only if you really like Christmas episodes. In this one, Ash and his pals wind up at Santa’s village and need to help him out and thwart Team Rocket in the process. There’s a bit of a B plot with Jessie and her connection with Christmas, but it’s nothing profound. It’s a pretty okay episode of TV with some interesting lore (that I think the show dropped) if you’re a Pokémon fan.

124 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) – The Christmas Aliens

It still blows my mind that the 1987 iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles never tackled Christmas. There was no Christmas episode, no Christmas themed action figures, nothing. The 1991 movie The Secret of the Ooze got a Christmas-themed poster to help sell VHS copies of the movie which feels like the closest thing we got. We really should have had a mutant reindeer or something in the Playmates line. Anyway, this holiday episode comes from the 2003 series and it remains the only Christmas episode any TMNT cartoon has featured – which is perhaps even more insane. It’s based on the Michelangelo one-shot from Mirage Studios and features a simple plot where Mikey thwarts a Christmas robbery and also adopts an adorable kitten. Klunk is the original ice cream kitty. The issue was adapted for the show and it’s pretty faithful. The only major change is that while Mikey is out doing stuff the rest of the gang is back at the lair hosting a bunch of friends they’ve made throughout the show. It’s solid, nothing spectacular or revolutionary, and it does feature some nice Christmas outfits during the final scene that I’d love to see in action figure form. At least in 2025, the Christmas drought comes to an end for TMNT with the theatrical short Chrome Alone 2: Lost in New Jersey. It’s from the current version of the franchise and is attached to a new SpongeBob movie opening on the 19th. Hopefully, it can be viewed easily without seeing that movie.

123 – Beauty and the Beast – The Enchanted Christmas

In 2017 I had the crazy idea to dedicate one of my write-ups to a movie – what was I thinking?! If I had to guess, I was just curious if this direct-to-video midquel for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was any good. The actual movie is one of my wife’s favorites so it was something we could check out together. And it’s okay. Honestly, most of the direct-to-video Disney stuff I’ve seen has been perfectly fine. Not on the level of the theatrical output, but mostly entertaining. It doesn’t look as good, naturally, and features some regrettable CG that hasn’t aged well, but it tells a decent Christmas story that mostly fits into the movie without creating too many obvious plot holes. And it has Tim Curry who is wonderful in everything. Honestly, if you’re able to separate this from its theatrical better then it’s perfectly fine. That’s just an admittedly difficult thing to do if you’ve already seen it a bunch.

122 – The Weekenders – The Worst Christmas Ever!

Interesting that we wind up at The Weekenders a mere three spots ahead of Pokémon. That’s because the legacy of this show seems to be that it temporarily dethroned Pokémon as the Saturday morning ratings king. I honestly don’t really know why. The Weekenders isn’t a bad show or anything, it’s just a bit of a low energy one which feels a bit out of place for Saturday morning. Then again, it’s from ABC which always had the low energy Saturday morning shows. It was like their specialty or something. I was a Fox Kids kid so I didn’t watch much of the stuff on ABC and by the time this show was airing I wasn’t awake on Saturday morning anyway. This one is fine though. It does the thing where it gathers a bunch of kids from different backgrounds, gives a snapshot of their holiday experience, and also sneaks in one wacky adventure that mostly goes wrong. I don’t like the look of this one at all, but the kids are well represented and feel authentic. It’s an emotionally mature cartoon, whether or not that’s something you like is more subjective than anything.

121 – Doug – Doug’s Christmas Story

Interestingly enough, this leads us to Doug. Doug was the quiet Nicktoon. It’s grounded, to a point, but has its own cartoon traits to distinguish it from live-action. And most of those traits rest with the dog, Porkchop, who is the subject of “Doug’s Christmas Story.” Porkchop is a bit like Scooby Doo, though without the talking. He gets accused of attacking one of the kids in town which is preposterous for all regular viewers of the show, but it gets taken very seriously. We basically see the titular Doug imagine his dog getting put down and it’s made rather apparent that euthanasia is on the table for old Porkchop. It’s a humorless Christmas special that’s rather weighty as a result. And that’s fine as long as the show does the plot justice. As far as that goes, the results are a bit mixed. It loses me in the final act, but it’s not bad and a sad story about a dog at Christmas is sure to bring about some Christmas feels.

120 – Doug – Doug’s Secret Christmas

I didn’t know how to separate these two, so I didn’t! This episode comes from Disney’s take on Doug which is largely viewed as inferior to the Nickelodeon years. I mostly subscribe to that notion, but I honestly didn’t keep up with the Disney version. I am by no means the authority on Doug, but I did enjoy this episode just a little more than the first one. The plot is Doug’s family is preparing for a new baby and that basically consumes his parents at Christmas time. His dad is apparently afraid to leave the house or has money concerns with a new kid on the way so the Funnie family won’t be buying anything or doing anything this Christmas. Doug hates this lack of Christmas spirit so he and Porkchop vow to have their own, secret, Christmas up in his room. It honestly takes up only a few minutes of the episode’s duration as most is devoted to Doug navigating the holiday and then the final act is all about the baby. It’s charming though and the final act hits better than the first Christmas special.

119 – Justice League – Comfort and Joy

The DC Animated Universe has made a few attempts at Christmas episodes, but I don’t think any are really a home run. This is the one from the ensemble show which brings its own challenges, but also opportunity to view the holiday through different perspectives. Writer Paul Dini attempts that with “Comfort and Joy” and the results are just decent as opposed to a Christmas classic. I think I enjoyed the more offbeat plot between Flash and Ultra-Humanite the most. It had some solid humor and I like the depiction of Ultra-Humanite. The Martian Manhunter plot is the one that I think the episode wants us to be moved by, but it’s pretty conventional “Guy goes to small town and finds the Christmas spirit,” plot. It’s fine, but it’s been done before. And the Hawkgirl and Green Lantern plot is a waste of time. No Batman and no Wonder Woman so if you wanted to see them you were let down. Considering Batman has already taken a go at Christmas, it’s not a big loss. I guess I would have liked to see what Wonder Woman was up to, but at least she wasn’t shoehorned into one of the other plots which were crowded enough.

118 – Bedtime for Sniffles

If you want a brief, Christmas, short that looks pretty cozy then have I got the cartoon for you. Bedtime for Sniffles is a Chuck Jones directed Warner Bros. cartoon starring the mouse in his cute days. Sniffles would evolve into more of a pest since his cartoons weren’t funny enough, but here he’s just a sweet character trying to stay awake on Christmas Eve. There’s some visual humor, but nothing outlandish. This is Jones really trying to audition for Disney as the look of this one is very evocative of a Mickey Mouse short with realistic and well-detailed backgrounds and a character that emotes in the cutest way possible. It’s harmless fluff and better than a lot of other Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies Christmas specials.

117 – Bobby’s World – Miracle on 34th Street and Rural Route 1

More cutesy stuff as we’re onto the Fox Kids series Bobby’s World. This was a Howie Mandel creation back when it felt like a lot of comedians were getting opportunities in television. We had Camp Candy, Little Rosie, and Life with Louie among others. Bobby’s World felt like an early breakout hit for the Fox Kids Network on its march towards Saturday morning dominance. Bobby was pretty wholesome, but the show was also a comedy so there’s plenty of silly stuff to entertain the kids. For this one, Bobby travels to see his grandparents and engage with his extended family. He wants a video game for Christmas really bad, but he’s going to have to learn the Christmas spirit instead because everything goes wrong. It’s solid, though I did kind of hate the resolution. It’s worth watching and you could really put together a solid viewing party of Christmas specials from Fox Kids if that was your goal.

116 – Yes, Virginia

Boy, did this one take a tumble since I first mentioned it? This one was part of my initial list of my 25 favorite Christmas specials which I compiled back in 2015. Then, I had it ranked all the way up at number 16! There may have been some recency bias at play for even though this special debuted in 2009 I think I had seen it for the first time fairly recently in 2015. Back then, I mostly stuck to “the classics” when it came to my Christmas viewing and it was doing this blog that really caused me to both branch out and to rediscover Christmas specials I had not seen in years. Yes, Virginia suffered as a result, but it’s still plenty fine. It might have worked a little better as a shorter subject as it is a little slow, but I enjoy the story which is loosely based on reality. In it, Virginia is a believer in Santa, but she’s at that age where her peers stop believing and she’s getting left behind. Her dad has a saying that “If it’s in The Sun, it’s true,” referring to the local paper so Virginia decides to write to the paper asking if Santa Claus is real. And wouldn’t you know, they print a reply that says “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!” It’s a great climax, it just takes a bit to get there and some of the stuff along the way is less fun. Plus, it revolves around mostly adult characters who dismiss the idea of Santa which limits the special’s reach with kids. I never liked showing my kids stuff that might create doubt about Santa so maybe this is more of a special for kids in Virginia’s age range. They do sneak in a real Santa at the end, but I don’t know how reassuring that is. By far though, the real reason why this has dropped so much is it is ugly to look at. Cheap, 2000’s, CG has not aged gracefully and maybe that’s why it’s no longer on TV? There are other versions of this story out there which I should check out, but even though I no longer have this one in my top 20, I still think it’s worth watching provided you’re not bothered by the Santa stuff I already mentioned.