We’re back to the ranking posts, and following yesterday’s solo entry, it means our numbers are no longer nice and clean. This is also our first day with 11 entries and we’ll have a few more just as part of my organization. We’ll also never have fewer than 10 on these. It’s math, baby!
Today we slide a bit further into the “Hmm…okay,” category. There’s still stuff here that I am unlikely to ever return to, but there’s also some stuff in here that I watch just about every year. Now, I hesitate to call those particular specials good, but they obviously do something right or appeal to a certain part of me and flawed Christmas specials can be watchable. The first one on our list though is a bit murky.
Courtesy of the “new” Woody Woodpecker show comes “A Very Woody Christmas.” I could make this short and say this series had another Christmas episode, but I never watched it. I had my fill here. It’s not terrible, it just didn’t really make me laugh. It’s three segments: two Woody cartoons sandwiched around a Chilly Willy. I’d say the Chilly Willy one is the best of the three, but I always liked the little penguin. The third one is also in the discussion as Woody tries to get himself off the Naughty List by doing something nice for his neighbor, but everything just goes wrong. The show premiered in 1999 and it looks okay by those standards. Woody’s redesign is slight and not unsightly and I did like Billy West in the role, I just wish the cartoon was funnier.
You could take a lot of what I just said about Woody and apply it here. One would think a Christmas special centered around Bugs Bunny would be pretty funny, but this is not. Perhaps one of the most disappointing Christmas specials I’ve ever seen, this comes post Looney Tunes shorts when the made-for-television animation was obvious and the voices started sounding a little different. It doesn’t look particularly good and too much time is wasted on a tired A Christmas Carol parody that does nothing clever. My affection for these characters has helped to prop it up all the way to this spot and the fact that my kids love Bugs Bunny has kept this in semi-rotation over the years, but this is the worst Looney Tunes Christmas anything on this list.
We go from the Looney Tunes Christmas special to the superhero who wants to be a Looney Tune. The Mask is not a show I’ve spent much time with outside of this episode and I’m not likely to. Even so, this wasn’t bad even though it’s another “Character takes over for Santa” plot. Rob Paulsen is a good Mask and there were at least a few spots that made me smile. It also has Tim Curry and he’s great. I did enjoy the look of this one as it’s much better than the other Jim Carrey movies turned cartoons in that respect. And with this one, I can watch it and think, “This isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not made for me.” And that’s because it’s made for kids and if I were a kid I’d probably think higher of this. And had I been a little kid when this was on, maybe my nostalgia for it would have pushed it higher? Or not as we’ll see in a few entries.
I avoided this one for years because of that title. “Dickens” implies only one thing when paired with Christmas and my appetite to watch unfamiliar A Christmas Carol takes is nonexistent. This one isn’t really what I thought the title implied. Instead, the Brown family (and Marty) travel back in time to find that A Christmas Carol is essentially a true story. They don’t really come to that conclusion, but that’s basically what it is. The Brown kids get mixed up with an Oliver Twist like kid and a Scrooge-type gets it in the end. It’s all right. A cromulent Christmas episode from a cromulent cartoon. There’s so little Back to the Future things outside the movies that there was a temptation to rank this one higher, but if I’m being honest with myself I’ll never watch it again.
Speaking of surprises, this one definitely surprised me. I knew the Berenstain Bears as a series of children’s books. I read and enjoyed them as a kid. I also vaguely recall an animated series. The only specific of the animated version I could recall was the opening title. An actual plot from an episode is just not something my brain can recall. I assumed this would be a preschool styled show and when I went to watch it for the countdown that year I thought there was a really strong chance I was wasting my time as I avoid preschool shows for this blog. There just isn’t much to talk about with them. I was wrong as this was really a straight-forward comedic show aimed at kids. It didn’t exactly win me over, but I was charmed by elements of it and came to enjoy the dumb father character. I think if this were in the 11 minute range it would have been stronger as I just got sick of it. The plot didn’t have enough meat on the bone to sustain the full run time, but it wasn’t bad. If my kids had been raised on this franchise then I would have been fine introducing this to them. Since they weren’t, I don’t have to.
The last of the Jim Carrey movies turned cartoons I covered was Dumb and Dumber. Coincidentally, it was also the last to be released and the same is true of the movie and cartoon. And it’s also the best of the three, which I’d say is also true of the movies which is quite the coincidence. As for series, that I can’t attest to as I haven’t seen enough of any of them, but for Christmas specials I’m taking “Santa Klutz” over the other two. Part of the reason for that is the run time – this one is short. I like short. It is ugly as sin and I don’t really like looking at it, but unlike the other two this one did have some genuine funny moments. It can be hard to write stupid characters, but this cartoon did a good job with that. There’s some misdirection to jokes and the plot setup is also a strength. Reflecting on it, I’m almost talking myself out of ranking it here and moving it up, but I’m not here to second guess myself.
A Cosmic Christmas is a special that’s more interesting than good. I say that as someone who didn’t grow up watching it so my nostalgia here is nil, but the main plot beats are pretty standard Christmas stuff. The animation is rough, but in an artistic and interesting way. Some characters have weird flow or large blocks of color. There’s lots of smoking which is unusual in this day and age and some odd effects with the aliens and their spacecraft. I was never bored watching it even if the story wasn’t exciting. I also enjoyed the Christmas message contained in this one which is largely to help the less fortunate – the sort of thing a lot of high profile church people lose sight of. RIP Nelvana.
Here’s the one I was mostly calling out in the intro paragraph as one I tend to watch every year. X-Men was my favorite show as a kid so nostalgia plays a big role. I was predisposed to liking any Christmas episode X-Men did. And this is a pretty bad Christmas episode, but it’s also intentionally bad. The writing staff was tasked with doing a Christmas episode so they tried to get every trope they could come up with into this one because, on the surface, Christmas with the X-Men is pretty absurd. It just wasn’t the type of show that was going to tackle the subject. The only problem here is the writers were almost too good at making a bad Christmas episode. There’s no sense of irony within the episode, you’re only in on the joke if you happened to read an interview concerning it.
I don’t have a ton of nostalgia for the Teddy Ruxpin cartoon, but I did love my Teddy Ruxpin doll and the book this episode was based on. I feel like I can almost recite that story from memory because Teddy and Grubby told it to me so much. It’s not a true Christmas special as it’s one of those other world stories where they have their own customs that just so happen to resemble Christmas an awful lot. The only thing missing is Santa Claus. Teddy and his pals deliver gifts to their friends while the villain, Tweeg, tries to ruin their time, but he’s an idiot with idiot followers. It’s a little too syrupy sweet at times, but I was entertained.
Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas was so good that they had to come back for another one. Too bad that along the way someone decided that this should be animated in 3D as opposed to 2D and the classic Disney characters just weren’t ready for that. This thing is Ugly. Mickey looks weird, Goofy more so, and it’s an all together downgrade across the board. The duck nephews who are tasked with carrying one of the longer segments of this one look almost monstrous. It’s also a weird setup where we’re going with what is essentially a 90 minute block of programming broken up into 5 segments of varying lengths. It does improve the pacing when compared with Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, but the stories aren’t the best. The saving grace is the final segment where Pluto accidentally winds up at the North Pole and Mickey thinks he ran away because he got mad at him. It’s cute watching Pluto frolic with the other reindeer and it has a really sweet ending. It also helps that Pluto made the jump to 3D better than most of the cast. If you’re interested in this one, I recommend just fast forwarding to that part. The rest is filler.
Tex Avery’s contribution to Christmas is this short that’s also a sequel to the classic story The Three Little Pigs. Well, sort of. It doesn’t really matter, but we have two married pigs and their bratty son and old Mr. Big Bad is going to try and sneak into this home on Christmas. It turns out to be a bad idea as the little kid is a true screwball cartoon character with all the powers of the screwball. We get to watch this kid brutalize the wolf and get some laughs in the process. It’s light on your usual Christmas tropes, but there’s something there. What holds it back is just that, at this point in Avery’s career, there wasn’t a whole lot more he could do. It’s a lot of the same gags you’ve seen before and the attempts at making them bigger just lack imagination. I also don’t like the protagonist. I dislike his voice and most of his mannerisms so it ends up being one of those cartoons where you almost want to root for the bad guy. Eat the damn kid – he sucks!
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
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One Christmas special I seem to break with my peers on quite a bit is the Rankin/Bass television special The Year Without a Santa Claus. The special was originally aired on ABC in 1974 and is sort of a sequel to Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. It’s one of the later arriving Christmas specials from the company and I’m guessing there was a feeling of diminishing returns at this point. As best as I can recall, The Year Without a Santa Claus never had a sustained run on broadcast television in the years to follow unlike its predecessor as well as other Rankin/Bass specials like Rudolph and Frosty. This one wasn’t on my radar as a kid and I’m not sure when I first saw it. I’m not even sure I ever sat through an entire viewing until now.
During the 90s, Christmas made the leap to cable. The Family Channel, which is now known as Freeform, was one of the networks that started making a habit of turning over much of its broadcast schedule to Christmas specials come December and The Year Without a Santa Claus was featured rather prominently. Is that the source of its enduring popularity? It could be, or like a lot of things with Christmas specials, it just happened to find its audience at the right place and right time. So many Christmas specials largely came and went and even though you may have folks who grew up during the same era, their idea of the best Christmas specials might differ quite a bit depending on what they were exposed to.
It’s not 1:1, but there’s some cohesion here with past Rankin/Bass specials.
I am not a huge fan of the Rankin/Bass stuff. I know, doing a Christmas blog and saying that sounds almost incompatible, but it’s really just nostalgia goggles that helps me even appreciate the few I do like. I tried to watch this one in the past mostly because people my age would cite it as one of their favorites, but it never took. In an effort to meet them halfway, I have decided that in order to feel like my Christmas rankings are complete I better give it another go. And I’ll say upfront, it’s not as bad as I remember. It’s still not all that good which is why we’re talking about it at this point in the countdown, but it at least has something to say even if I think it kind of chickens out in the end.
Mrs. Claus gets to assume more of a starring role this time, but maybe not as much as I would have gone with.
The Year Without a Santa Claus is a stop-motion holiday special and it follows with a similar story structure to other past Rankin/Bass specials. In the role of narrator, we have Mrs. Claus who is voiced by Shirley Booth. The stage queen would retire from acting after this role at the age of 74. That’s an old age to retire, but don’t feel too bad for her as she would live another 18 years. Unlike Sam Snowman and Special Delivery, Mrs. Claus is actually a key character for the plot as opposed to a passive observer or story-teller. She is reflecting on a Christmas from long ago, but it hardly matters for the story. And it’s another one that takes place at an almost impossible to nail down moment in time. It’s just sort of vaguely 1900s America.
Almost the exact same picture from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.
The special begins with Mrs. Claus setting the scene. She’s up at the North Pole doing North Pole stuff, but who is not is Santa Claus (Mickey Rooney). He’s not feeling so hot as we find him climbing into bed. It’s a single bed, and it appears to be the only one in the room so I guess Santa and the Mrs. keep things very old-fashioned. The castle and setting are not exact copies of the North Pole from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, but it is similar and I appreciate that attention to detail. Mrs. Claus goes back and forth between talking and narrating, sometimes even adding a “Said Santa Claus,” after he talks about his achy back and such. It’s annoying and unnecessary. Before Mrs. Claus gets Santa into bed, he walks about to a painting of himself driving the sleigh. It appears to be the same such painting from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. Once again, I appreciate the attention to detail.
This doctor needs a new profession.
Santa gets in bed as Mrs. Claus welcomes a doctor in. The elf doctor (Bob McFadden) is a pretty grumpy sort. He also doesn’t look much like an elf. The doctor is not surprised he’s not feeling well and suggests he never got over that case of pneumonia he picked up riding in the sleigh. I was expecting some made-up, funny, ailment, not a real world one. This doctor is a real kill joy as he tells Santa no one cares about Christmas and no one cares about Santa. Geez. He best hope this doesn’t drive the old man to suicide. When the doctor leaves, Mrs. Claus discovers that Santa has taken his words to heart. Declaring no one cares and that he’s due for a holiday, Santa instructs his elves to inform the masses: Santa is taking the year off.
This elf is seeing pink elephants they’re so distraught!
Time for Mrs. Claus to sing the title song as the opening credits play. It’s not a terrible jingle, but there’s a reason why it hasn’t become a radio classic in the ensuing years. During the song we get some lines from Santa himself explaining his weariness and sightings from towns of people taking down Christmas. How depressing. When it concludes, we get a little more Santa informing the men that there will be no Christmas gallivanting this year. He instructs the stables to close down and the toy shop shuttered. During her explanation, Mrs. Claus refers to the workers as elves and gnomes which I find interesting. None really look much like elves. Sure, they dress in silly clothes with bells and such, but where’s the pointed ears? Where’s the continuity? You had two specials already that heavily featured elves and these guys don’t resemble them at all. At least the reindeer are more or less consistent with Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.
Jingle (right), Jangle (right), and Vixen (sleeping, though you probably could have guessed that).
Mrs. Claus is going to take it upon herself to get Santa back into the Christmas spirit. And to do so, she’s going to call Santa’s number one elf, Jingle Bells (McFadden). He answers the phone as the number one elf and I don’t know if that’s confirmed elsewhere. He could just be really full of himself. With him is, get this, Jangle Bells (Bradley Bolke) who has a really of the era design to him with shaggy, blond, hair. I was expecting him to introduce himself as the number two elf, but he does not. Jingle doesn’t seem to think highly of him and boots him off the phone. He then just says “Yes, Mrs. Claus,” a whole bunch and we’re not privy to the other side of the conversation. When he hangs up the phone, Jangle asks “Who was that?” and Jingle responds in an exasperated manner, but maybe Jangle was just being polite and not listening in on the conversation?
Oh my!
We cut back to Mrs. Claus as the elves assumedly head her way. She’s admiring her reflection in a mirror while wearing Santa’s hat and remarking that she could pull off the look. This launches us into another original song, “I Could be Santa Claus.” It’s a song about how she thinks she could pull off the gig and she’s pretty convincing. Why not? This could almost be a female empowerment type of song if the special decided to run with it, but no. Jingle and Jangle arrive at the end and are surprised to find Mrs. Claus in Santa’s suit. It’s not played off salaciously or as if this is some major faux pas, which could have worked comedically. Instead it’s just general surprise, and then they move on. Apparently, just their look of surprise is enough to convince Mrs. Claus that she can’t be Santa and she takes the outfit off and declares they need to move onto Plan B. I guess her heart just wasn’t in it? Plan B is for the elves, and a diminutive little Vixen, to head south and find some Christmas spirit. Mrs. Claus is convinced that’s all it will take for Santa to feel motivated to resume his usual Christmas activities.
Santa isn’t even going to give his elves a chance to fail.
When the two leave, there’s a familiar music sting that’s pulled right from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. It sounds like it’s done on a xylophone. You’ll know it when you hear it, it’s apparently the reindeer take-off sting. Mrs. Claus heads back inside to do some ironing while Santa asks what’s going on. Apparently everyone hears that xylophone when reindeer fly? She tries to be evasive, but rather poorly. Santa gives her a chance to tell him if she thinks he’s making the wrong decision, but she declines to challenge her husband. He can tell she’s up to something and she comes clean about the mission Jingle and Jangle are on with Vixen, though she doesn’t tell the boss she put them up to it. Santa is concerned for their safety, especially Vixen since she’s just a baby (they really should have taken a bigger reindeer, or why not two?). I get the impression he doesn’t care what happens to the dumb elves. He also references the Miser Brothers and his doubt that the two can get past them. Santa has no other choice but to get out of bed, put on his Sunday best, and set off on Dasher to go after them.
The real stars of this special, or so I’ve been told.
We then find the trio as they have to pass between the two warring step brothers: Heat Miser (George S. Irving) and Snow Miser (Dick Shawn). These guys, as best as I can tell, are a big part of why this special is beloved by some. Heat Miser is a round and brightly colored fellow with red-orange hair that resembles a flame. He’s like the Burgermeister, but colorful. Snow Miser looks like Dick Van Dyke with hair made of ice. The snow effect is just okay and looks more like aloe vera gel to me. They’re basically sitting on clouds and fighting over where it should be hot and where it should be cold in the world. The elves know they should avoid them, but are pretty damn terrible at piloting reindeer (Mrs. Claus, who has continued to narrate this adventure, puts the blame on the baby reindeer and I am not having any of that). They fly right in between the two and a burst of light from Heat Miser knocks them from their reindeer. So much for Plan B.
For some reason, everyone who isn’t a main character in this one is a total dick.
The special decides to just “yada yada” the whole falling from the reindeer thing as we next find the two back on Vixen flying through the sky. Seriously, do elves bounce or something? We were denied an incredible midair rescue by Vixen. The pair fly over a town and decide it’s as good as any to find some Christmas cheer. Southtown, USA is the chosen destination, but the elves are not accustomed to traveling these parts. They land in the street and are surprised to see them empty. A cop (Bolke) comes up on a bicycle and do you think he’s going to be helpful? No, of course not, he gives them a ticket for riding a “Vixen” the wrong way on a one way street. The stupid elves think the problem is people being unaccustomed to reindeer, so they put socks on her ears to try and pass her off as a dog. Sure. They then find a woman and approach her about Christmas. She’s horrified by their “dog,” which they have dubbed Rover, but the mere mention of a dog proves disastrous. The woman was holding her hands in one of those warmers that have a hole on each side, only it’s not one of those warmers. It was actually a cat this whole time who freaks out when Jangle tells Vixen to bark like a dog, which she does. The cat turns the tables though and chases Vixen, who is apparently afraid of cats as she bolts forcing the elves and woman to chase after her.
Up in a tree is a good place to be when you’re scared of the world.
We next find Santa who has also made his way to Southtown, USA. How did he know the elves would end up here? I guess we’ll just attribute it to Christmas magic. Or reindeer somehow leave their scent floating in the sky when they fly. Santa is talking to the same cop who gave the elves a ticket and he confirms he saw the pair earlier and seems delighted at the idea of a judge throwing the book at them. This guy sucks. Thankfully, Dasher was smart enough to hide in the bushes and doesn’t come out until the cop leaves. Santa expresses worry to the reindeer about the pair and assumes they must be scared to death. We then cut quickly to the trio high in a tree and Jangle remarks he’s scared to death. That Santa sure is perceptive, isn’t he? Jangle is ready to bail while Jingle is happy to blame everything on his elf partner. Jangle at least has the bright idea that if they want to find Christmas spirit they should look to the children. Jingle thinks that’s a great idea and they remove themselves from the tree.
Hello children, we would like to talk to you about Christmas.
The pair are shown approaching a school and they’ve removed their jackets because it’s quite hot. Vixen also isn’t doing too well. She’s not accustomed to heat so the two decide to just leave her in a shady spot in the town where cops hope you get incarcerated for riding an animal the wrong way on a one way street. This will go well, I’m sure. The elves then approach the kids who are just playing with balls. They recognize the two as Christmas elves right away and then also share they know that Santa is taking a holiday – it was in all the papers! Things get confusing when the kids then express no interest in Santa and remark how they’re too old to believe in him. But, he was just reported on in the paper? I am so confused. Do they think papers only print lies? This is the opposite of Yes, Virginia. The elves are soon equally confused when the kid points out that they have bigger problems. Naturally, it’s the dog catcher and he’s got Vixen. The elves can’t continue their conversation on the subject of Christmas as they now need to chase after the truck that’s making off their dog, I mean, reindeer.
Santa and the Thistlewhites.
The kid heads home and our narrator informs us he’s somehow pretty important. Outside his home, he runs into Santa Claus. That’s when he introduces himself as Ignatius “Iggy” Thistlewhite (Colin Duffy) and asks Santa for his name. He was apparently not prepared for someone to ask him his name. He’s also not great when put on the spot since the only thing he can come up with is Claus. Why not just go with Chris? Iggy shares that he saw a couple guys dressed like Christmas elves and Santa can only respond with a sneeze. This gets the attention of Iggy’s mom (Rhoda Mann) who insists on inviting him in to give him something for that cold. He accepts and inside we meet Mr. Thistlewhite (Ron Marshall) as well and everyone sits around the table and Santa asks more about what happened earlier. This ends up leading into a conversation about believing in Santa. When Iggy asks his dad if he believes, he responds in the affirmative. He then turns to Santa who also confirms he believes.
Iggy’s dad as a kid. This is a strange family.
Time for another song. This one is called “I Believe in Santa Claus” and it’s pretty self-explanatory. Santa kicks it off and then Iggy’s dad picks it up from there. It’s a bit odd as he starts singing about a time when he thought he grew out of believing and the camera zooms in on a picture of Mr. Thistlewhite as a kid with his parents. He looks like Iggy, but what’s really weird is his mom looks almost exactly like the current Mrs. Thistlewhite. Did this guy marry a woman because she reminds him of his mother? His first name must be Oedipus. We’re treated to a flashback, and this special does something I hate. The dad stopped believing in Santa until something happened. What do you think that was? Why, it was Santa himself! He woke the little bastard up to basically admonish him for not believing anymore. Now, imagine you’re a kid who is starting to doubt all of the Santa stuff and you’re watching this. Wouldn’t it just make you wonder why he doesn’t reveal himself to you like he did here? We’re creating some unreal expectations here, folks. More specials need to deprive the main characters of actually seeing Santa.
Aww, poor little reindeer.
Poor Mrs. Thistlewhite doesn’t get to sing her own section and the song ends with Iggy seemingly feeling bad for not believing. Well, that’s all it took to right this ship. With Iggy’s belief in Santa restored, the real thing can now ask some more about his friends. Apparently, Iggy had yet to get to the part about the dog catcher which immediately worries Santa. He’s also smart enough to figure out that the dog in question must be Vixen and we cut to poor, sick, Vixen in the pound looking mighty miserable. The attendant at least knows something isn’t right as we see him holding a thermometer and he looks a little concerned. The camera zooms in on Vixen, who sheds a few tears. Aww!
See what I mean? Guy married his mother.
Santa gets directions to the pound and heads off. He’s in such a rush that he summons Dasher and the two take off right in front of the Thistlewhites. They’re surprised, but not too surprised, and that clever Iggy figures out that Mr. Claus is really Santa Claus! He remarks to his dad that he wishes he could do something to help Santa and his elves and his dad tells him when he has a problem he should take it straight to the top like a true Karen. That means going to the mayor to inquire about getting the reindeer released. Mrs. Claus interrupts to inform us that Jingle and Jangle were told to do the same by the man at the pound and we’re soon introduced to the mayor of Southtown. This laughing, giggling, asshole of a mayor (Marshall) of course doesn’t believe their story. That’s not what makes him an asshole, it’s his reaction to the whole thing. Iggy is there to share what he saw, but the mayor is not buying it, but he’s willing to make a deal. He’ll believe their story if Santa makes it snow in Southtown. And not only that, he’ll free the reindeer from the pound and spread the word about Santa and all that. Jangle accepts, much to the chagrin of Jingle, and the trio take their leave.
Did the jerk-ass mayor really need his own song?
Song time! The mayor is apparently something of a believer since he runs out into the streets to sing his own song, “It’s Gonna Snow Right Here in Dixie.” Dixie, eh? As he prances about and sings his little song I’m now noticing that the population here is very white. There is not a single individual of color to be found anywhere in this town. A big part of the song is about how excited he is that it will be “all white overnight,” which is just moving us into uncomfortable territory. Let’s move on. The song sucks anyway.
It’s the Mrs. Claus-mobile.
Santa is able to get Vixen released. He apparently travels with cash. The little reindeer is so sick that Santa can’t waste any time looking for Jingle and Jangle and heads back to the North Pole with Vixen across his lap. This leaves Jingle and Jangle, along with Iggy, to sit and ponder how to free their reindeer and make it snow, even though part of that issue has been resolved with them not knowing. Now it’s Jingle’s turn to have a supposed great idea, which is just to call Mrs. Claus. I guess they dialed collect, but it works and that night Mrs. Claus arrives with a reindeer pulling a different sleigh than Santa’s typical one. The trio are waiting for her on a rooftop and she seems pretty happy to see them. She also has a plan – they’re going to go see Snow Miser! Iggy is apparently coming too.
I have questions.
Time for the part that everyone seems to love best. We’re a half hour into this 50 minute special and we’re just now finally getting to the Snow Miser song. It has a thumping beat and this obnoxious horn section to announce the arrival of the character. He comes dancing in looking like a snow-themed Dapper Dan and he has a bunch of tiny versions of himself dancing around as well. How did those guys come into being? It is a fairly entertaining number, though I don’t think the lyrics matter much. It’s all about those comical sounding horns. When he’s done doing his thing, Snow Miser comes across as a pretty affable guy. He’s hospitable towards Mrs. Claus and crew, but when she requests he make it snow in Southtown he has to inform her the only way that can happen is if Heat Miser okays it.
Heat Miser doesn’t seem to be as into the song and dance thing as his brother.
You know what that means – off to see Heat Miser! The special cuts right to the chase and we join Heat Miser already into his own song. It’s the exact same song as Snow Miser, just with different lyrics to suit Heat Miser. He also has his own minions, but they don’t look like him. They look like little gremlins or monsters. Heat Miser also gets to show off his fire powers which exposes the limitations of stop-motion animation. Their solution for fire is just colored cotton. In the past they used foil or colored paper and I can see why they would feel that’s fine for standing flames, but not for Heat Miser’s fire breath. Heat Miser isn’t as helpful as his brother and demands something in return for letting it snow for one day in Southtown – The North Pole! Mrs. Claus calls Snow Miser on a video phone – pretty fancy for a cloud dweller. He has no interest in surrendering the North Pole to his brother, which comes as no surprise. Now it’s Mrs. Claus’s turn to behave like a Karen and go over the heads of the two squabbling siblings – to their mother!
So that’s Mother Nature…
Who do you suppose is the mother of these two boys? Iggy can’t even guess it so I guess he’s not too bright. If you guessed Mother Nature (Mann) then you are correct! Everyone acts scared and intimidated over going to see her, but when they do we find she’s just a pretty normal looking old woman. Only she has a bird’s nest in her hair. Honestly, pretty underwhelming character design. They couldn’t even make her a tree or something? She’s fine though, very accommodating, and immediately summons her boys to her side with a bolt of lightning. The two grumble, but Mother Nature informs them how this is going to all go down. Snow Miser is going to make it snow in Southtown for one day and Heat Miser can bring summer to the North Pole for one day as well. They try to protest a bit, but another bolt of lightning silences the pair and they do as their mother tells them.
Looks like Snow Miser was true to his word. And unlike Santa, Mrs. Claus doesn’t ditch kids on the roof.
Time to check in with Santa who has returned to the North Pole (it’s still frozen). He puts Vixen in his own bed and finds a note from his wife informing him that she went after Jingle and Jangle. Satisfied she can handle things, Santa settles himself into a rocking chair for a little rest. Down in Southtown, the snow is falling. The mayor is shown taking a phone call from his wife where his wife is instructing him to wear his goulashes, bundle up, and so forth and he’s doing the whole “What?!” schtick until he finally looks outside. We then jump back to the North Pole where Mrs. Claus and Jingle are rousing the old man from his slumber with a newspaper. The headline concerns the snow in Southtown and Jangle enters with more papers about a day off for Santa. He looks them over and informs his wife that she was right the whole time, but his conclusion is that the world is giving him a day off and he settles in for more nap time. Mrs. Claus can only shrug in the direction of the elves.
Aww, geez.
Mrs. Claus then returns to her narration duties to inform us that the children of the world became committed to giving Santa a day off. Now we get a multi-cultural group of children running over a map, writing letters, and wrapping gifts. They’re basically returning the favor and sending them to Santa and Mrs. Claus tells us they had more fun that December than any they could remember. Santa is then shown waking up and stumbling around. It’s like he’s having a senior moment as he just wanders the grounds grumbling taking note of the quiet workshop and sleeping reindeer. He pauses outside as a bird delivers a letter to him. He opens it up and it’s a picture of a sad, crying, girl with the message, “Dear Santa, I’ll have a blue Christmas without you.” I guess she wasn’t one of the kids having the most fun ever. This begins the song, “Blue Christmas.” Pretty surprising to see a licensed song enter at this stage of the production. I guess since this wasn’t adapted from someone else’s song they had room in the budget for a different one. The song is sung by a little girl (Christine Winter) and a children’s choir (The Wee Winter Singers) and it’s an even more somber version of the song compared with the Elvis version. It’s nice though. Most may like the Miser Brothers and their song, but I like this more. I will concede it’s weird the girl is clearly drawing a blue Christmas tree while singing about a green one, and the lyrics don’t work as well when they’re supposed to be about Santa and not a former lover. Especially sung by kids. Let’s not think about this anymore.
Tonight, we ride!
One letter is apparently all it took. If all of those kids were bullshitting everyone and really wanted Santa to come bring them toys, then they have this girl to thank. Santa, feeling especially vigorous all of a sudden, announces that Christmas is back on! Santa can’t take a day off on Christmas, he has stuff to do! Santa assembles the troops and starts barking orders and asserts that he’s feeling just fine. Set to the tune of “Sleigh Ride,” everyone gets back to work as Santa announces, “Tonight – we ride!” There’s almost a violence to how he says it, like they’re about to go crack some skulls. Might I suggest they start with that asshole mayor?
Looks like everything turned out fine in Southtown.
Santa flies off with a complete team of eight reindeer, including wee little Vixen. We get a partial moon shot as we head to Southtown, USA where the mayor has put up a sign designating it Santa Claus Lane. I bet you can guess the song chosen for this section. That makes two full songs they had to pay for. Santa reveals himself to the entire town as the sleigh touches down and slowly makes its way literally down Santa Claus Lane. Kids and adults are there to wave him along before he returns to the sky. Mrs. Claus gets the last word as she narrates over children, including Iggy, finding their gifts under the tree the next morning. She affirms you can always count on Santa Claus which takes us into a reprise of “The Year Without a Santa Claus.” Santa leaps from his bed and puts on his coat. He jumps into his sleigh and they take off into the night sky. As they fly towards the full moon, the special comes to an end. There will never be a year without a Santa Claus.
Everyone seems to like these guys, but they’re barely in it.
That wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I still think this is a pretty mid-level Christmas special. It’s just too uneven for me. The first chunk of the special almost feels unneeded. They could have easily just jumped to taking their concerns to Snow Miser to bring snow to a place in need of Christmas cheer, but it’s like we have to screw around for a half hour first because ABC wanted a full hour broadcast. I found it funny how Mrs. Claus narrates that Iggy is very important to the story, and then he proceeds to just be along for the ride. Yeah, he had to pass along the information about what happened to Vixen and the elves to Santa, but that’s it. Anyone could have done that. For as memorable as the Snow and Heat Miser are, they’re not in this one a whole lot. They did more recently get their own Christmas special, but I have never heard anyone recommend it nor do I have any interest in checking it out for myself.
Some of the effects could have used some refinement.
What I did like about this one is that the music by Maury Laws is very similar to the past Rankin/Bass specials. As I mentioned during the write-up, some music and sound effects are lifted straight from them while a lot of the instrumentals just call-back to them without exactly duplicating them. It helps to create this cohesive feel to everything. I’m surprised they didn’t drop a “Jessica” somewhere in reference to Mrs. Claus or make the elves resemble the old ones a bit more, but it still feels like a sequel or at least like this is the same Santa from before.
Mrs. Claus plays a big role in this one, but could it have been even bigger?
What bothers me most about this one is just the missed opportunity for a better story. I think I would have rather seen a Christmas where Mrs. Claus steps into the role of Santa. Maybe she would have found it’s really hard to do what he does and have some mishaps, but still get it right in the end. She so rarely steps into the spotlight, and even though the special didn’t take that path, this is still more Mrs. Claus exposure than we’re accustomed to. She did at least orchestrate the resolution to the story, even if it was just complaining to the manager. I also would have preferred an ending where Santa does just take a day off. The world lets him know how appreciative they are and he returns the following year with renewed vigor! Instead, there’s an outpouring of love and one kid is sad she’s not getting presents. Crisis averted, Santa is magically feeling better and Christmas is back on!
The general vibe is at least good. This little girl is adorable.
I guess what I’m saying is, there was a chance to subvert this one a bit, but Rankin/Bass decided to just pull a fake-out. The title is a lie as there never was a year without Santa. He just needed a little extra motivation one year. And we never did get to see Heat Miser bring warm weather to the North Pole. I kept waiting for the special to come back to that. I fully expected an ending with Santa and the Mrs. enjoying the sun at the beach for a day after the holidays. We were denied seeing Santa in a bathing suit. What a pity.
They squeeze in quite a few moon shots in this one. I went with my favorite of the bunch.
If you’re one of the people who does love this holiday special then you probably know where to find it. It still airs on cable each year and it’s sold on physical media and on streaming networks. If you’re opposed to paying, it’s also pretty easy to find online for free without having to go anywhere seedy. For me, I consider this one a little better than most of the other Rankin/Bass specials, but I also dislike most of them, which is why I rank it at #169 out of 209. Too low? Too high? Just right? If you have opinions to share, let me know in the comments. Hopefully, no one reading this will have a blue Christmas over it.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
In 1985, a little film called Back to the Future debuted in theaters. Starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, the story about a modern day teenager going back in time 30 years to encounter his parents when they were teens was an instantly timeless tale. It spawned two sequels which were shot back-to-back and…
It’s the fifth of December so that means we are returning to one of the 25 Greatest Christmas Specials (as decided by me because it’s my blog) to take a deeper look than what was done some 8 years ago. When I re-evaluated my Top 25, one of the biggest fallers was A Flintstone Christmas.…
This year, I’m bringing back a feature from last year where I take another look at, what I consider to be, the greatest Christmas specials ever made. I explained my reasoning for doing this in prior posts, but in short, the first time I looked at some of these specials I did just a short…
We’re getting closer, ever closer to the Christmas specials that are most worth watching every year. That’s not necessarily a bad thing that we’re still kind of in the weeds considering today’s entry covers entries 180 through 171. It’s a reminder that there are a lot of Christmas specials out there. Yesterday’s entries on short subjects is so far the outlier in that some of them are worth watching just because they’re so brief. And there’s some historical value. Today’s entries are not so brief and not so old so they need to get by on entertainment value and nostalgia. And, for me anyway, there’s not a ton of nostalgia to be found in this cast of Christmas specials. Oh, there is some, including one that I pretty much watch every year because of how I know it, but there’s a lot of “filler” here as well. These are mostly from children’s entertainment and if there was a theme I suppose it would be Christmas episodes from cartoons that are not well-remembered. There are a few exceptions and as I look over my list and the days to come I can see some that I could have flip-flopped out of here. Though in the case of many, it’s more an issue of seeing a special yet to come that I really don’t think is all that good and wondering why it’s not here, but then I look at what we’re talking about today and it starts to make more sense. I could tinker with this list all month and never feel like it’s perfect so let’s just move on, shall we?
Donkey Kong managed to elevate himself above his more popular genre-mates Sonic and Mario, but let’s not pretend like his Christmas episode is all that great. For me, it’s most memorable for being the kind of show I had very low expectations for going in and it managed to exceed them. That doesn’t mean it rose to the level of something I’d consider good, but it’s not terrible. There’s some silliness to be found with the long lost brothers plot to the point where it kind of works. What does not and never will are the visuals. If this ranking was purely on visual quality, Donkey Kong might be in last place. It’s hideous. Those early 3D CG shows have not aged well.
This is a Christmas episode that was always going to have to really knock it out of the park to be placed higher in the rankings. That’s because it’s a Christmas in July episode and in it our monstrous protagonists find themselves trapped in the mall after hours. The Christmas element is purely visual as the mall is decorated for a big summer sale, but there’s a lot of actual Christmas episodes that don’t do much more than add a visual element as well. This one is also short since it was only one segment from a half hour television spot and judged strictly on the quality of the entertainment it’s probably better than where I have it. It’s just not very Christmassy. Plus, I’ve never liked the visual style of this show.
This is the one I teased as being a special I watch annually, even if I don’t really like it that much. It was featured on my beloved Christmas tape growing up so I saw it all of the time and I still see it quite often. As a kid, it was the spot on the tape where I was most likely to drop-off. Thankfully, it had Rudolph backing it up so that’s what usually got me through. Had it been last on the tape then I probably would have seen it far less. If you somehow have not seen this Rankin/Bass production, it’s the origin story for Santa Claus and Mickey Rooney’s debut as the character. The story is pretty silly with a local ruler outlawing toys, but the approach isn’t silly. There’s a lack of fun here and it’s just so long and plodding. None of the songs are particularly good either. Sure, “One Foot in Front of the Other” can get lodged in your head, but that doesn’t mean I want it there. For nostalgia’s sake, I’ll sit through this one at least once this month, but that’s all I’m giving it.
For a little while, there was an attempt at making the Flintstones into some sort of holiday tradition in the 90s. There was a A Flintstone Family Christmas and there was this, A Flintstones Christmas Carol. Now, I have some affection for The Flintstones. I never actively sought the show out, but if it was on I’d often watch it as a kid. I do like A Flintstone Christmas and the episode of the show “Christmas Flintstone” it was based on, but that’s sort of my limit. And when you take a dated franchise like The Flintstones and pair it up with one of the most overused Christmas tropes on record by adapting A Christmas Carol, well, you don’t really end up with anything remotely special. I’ll give it some credit in that the special tries to blend a meta component by having it be a production in-show, but Fred lets stardom get to his head to the point where he starts acting like Scrooge. It’s for serious fans of The Flintstones only, the rest need not apply.
There have been many attempts at melding Halloween with Christmas. The most famous is obviously The Nightmare Before Christmas and it’s also probably the most successful. On television in the 90s though, we had stuff like Little Dracula. It’s a cartoon where the cast is basically all monsters, but the approach to the macabre is so tepid that it tends to undermine any real spooky element it could have. In this one, the goal is to capture Santa Claus. I guess that’s what vampires do. It’s very by the numbers for such an unusual plot as we just get a lot of setup where the entertainment is supposed to be seeing how monsters decorate for the holiday, but nothing is particularly clever. The villain of the show, Garlic Man, wants to pose as Santa to enter the house or something, even though he knows they’re trying to capture the big man. And, of course, the real Santa shows up and we all learn something. Or not? It’s not very memorable.
Make way for Don Coyoooooote! Don Coyote hails from a mostly forgotten Hanna-Barbera cartoon and rightly so. The main character is incredibly annoying and he just bumbles his way through adventure after adventure in a model similar to Inspector Gadget, only Don Coyote didn’t have a niece and a really smart dog looking out for his well-being. The only saving grace for the show is that most of the other characters see Don Coyote for what he is: an idiot. The villagers in the town he tries to help in this one all think he sucks and it’s a bit humorous to see. It’s not a big Christmas vibes sort of episode either, it just takes place at Christmas and the bell referenced in the title has some meaning for the holiday. There is a light faith element to the plot, so if you like your Christmas to appeal more to that aspect of the holiday as opposed to Santa and Rudolph then maybe you can appreciate this on that level. Maybe. It’s still not very good.
Heathcliff may have originated close enough to Garfield that the two can be considered peers, but he’s mostly lived in the fat, orange, cat’s shadow in my lifetime. And that’s despite sounding like Bugs Bunny! Heathcliff did have a solid run on television in the 80s getting two similar, but separate, cartoons and around 100 episodes of entertainment. His grand finale is a Christmas episode in which his letter to Santa is returned so he and Spike (all dogs were required to be named Spike in cartoons) head to the north pole to investigate. There they encounter a jerk of an elf who is hell-bent on destroying Christmas, but as is often the case, things work out in the end and it turns out the elf isn’t such a bad guy after all. There aren’t any memorable gags to find and this one does something I hate. It has Santa literally tell the audience that a year of bad behavior can be redeemed at the last second to get on the Nice List. What a crock! I get needing to give kids something to reach for, but to come out and say it like that is just wrong.
Okay, I really didn’t know where to rank this one. Visually, it’s offensive to my eyes. It’s cheap and ugly. It’s also Ace Ventura who is a pretty annoying character. On the big screen, at least the physical acting of Jim Carrey can help make him tolerable, but as an ugly cartoon the charm is gone. This one does have a somewhat clever plot though and it feels pretty original. Since the character is a detective (which allows them to make liberal use of the term dick), there’s a mystery component and it’s not bad. Santa’s reindeer have gone missing, and Ace needs to get them back. It’s a good setup for a pet detective. It’s just…a lot. I can only handle so much of this character. I do think if you really like the character then you’ll like this a lot more than I do. It’s the sort of Christmas episode where I’m glad I did experience it, but once is enough.
The Nickelodeon Christmas special by Ralph Bakshi that doubled as a pilot for a show that never was, Christmas in Tattertown is quite possibly the most uneven special in this countdown. There are moments in this one that look terrific. There’s a throwback quality to the character designs and animation of the 1930s and it mostly works. There’s also moments where the quality dips and then there’s just the uneven performances. This is especially seen in the character Muffet, who is at times sympathetic and at times a horrible villain. She is a doll that doesn’t really want to be a girl’s doll and she’s frustrated that her life has seemingly been decided for her. She just decides to go full villain in response to that. The voice work is also so up and down that watching this is like experiencing whiplash. I wanted to like this because the premise is solid, but there are too many moments for me where I questioned if I actually hated it. It’s exhausting to watch, but it looks so interesting that I think it’s something everyone should see once. At least, everyone who has ever been enchanted by a cartoon.
Our last entry for today comes courtesy of that other children’s cable network, the Cartoon Network. I Am Weasel was a spin-off from Cow and Chicken which in turn was born out of the What a Cartoon workshop. I have no idea why I Am Weasel was chosen to be spun-off. I liked Cow and Chicken to a certain degree, but I did not care at all for I Am Weasel. It’s a setup where the weasel is basically an ideal character and does everything right and he’s juxtaposed with I.R. Baboon, a selfish, stupid, jealous character. He basically tries, and fails, to undermine the weasel and steal the spotlight for himself. In this Christmas edition, Baboon is surprised by his family when they show up for Christmas. He is ill-prepared, so he runs out to get a tree and all the trimmings, but leaves his family out in the cold. Weasel then comes by and notices the frozen solid group of baboons and invites them into his palatial estate. They become rather enamored with Weasel which just makes Baboon jealous when he finds out. He then tries to sabotage Christmas. It has a happy ending, and it’s actually a lot of plot for what is a short cartoon. It’s a solid setup and premise for the show, it’s problem is it’s just not very funny. Maybe I’ve aged out of this era of visually loud humor, but I didn’t really laugh. If you have fond memories of this or Cow and Chicken then maybe you’ll get more out of it.
And that does it for today’s entries. Tomorrow, we take a break from the countdown to spotlight a forgotten Christmas special. I think it’s a bit of a crowd favorite, but maybe the winds have changed for it over the years and I’m mistaken. Or it’s just become properly rated since we are talking about entry #169. What is it? Well, you’ll have to come back tomorrow and find out. Unless you’re not reading this on December 4, 2025. In that case, you can just click the little button for the next entry. I hope you were surprised!
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say last year on this day and beyond:
Last year, I made an effort to get to a lot of the Nicktoons that I had yet to cover. My initial thinking when I started doing this Christmas blog was to try and avoid the specials that had been covered in depth many times over. Then I realized that, hey, if you want to…
Last year, we covered in depth the inaugural Christmas episodes of Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show, two of the three original Nicktoons that premiered in 1991. Now, we’re going to look at the Christmas episode for the other original Nicktoon: Doug. Doug was created by Jim Jinkins and was one of the first…
Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were among the first stars of cartoon creation to burst onto the scene. Together, the duo would work for Disney, Warner, and MGM (among others) creating and overseeing some of animation’s most memorable characters from the golden age. After working with Leon Schlesinger’s studio to produce Looney Tunes shorts, the…
There’s going to be a lot of toys in these ones. And some are very familiar looking.
I mentioned yesterday that my rankings of Christmas specials are by quality and personal preference, but also by genre. When it makes sense, I’m trying to keep similar specials together when it comes to the general vibe and the vibe today is public domain shorts. The domain of the short used to be the movie theater and seemingly every major studio had a series of cartoon shorts. Some were bigger than others and a lot of the less popular ones have slipped into the public domain. Most of these shorts fall into that category, but not all. And most of these are going to have a very similar plot. A lot of these shorts liked bringing Christmas to poor kids. And almost all of them have something racist in them which is just incredible from a modern perspective. It got to the point over the years of doing this where it stopped being surprising. Even Mickey gets in on the action. It’s nuts. Anyway, let’s get to it.
Little Audrey and a diverse group of kids want to leave a surprise for Santa.
This is a Little Audrey cartoon who was a rip-off of Little Lulu and probably less successful. Maybe I’m being a little tough on this one by ranking it last because it does have a unique premise. Audrey and her friends decide Santa deserves some presents of his own on Christmas so they sneak into his sleigh and try to do something nice for him. It’s cute. I just don’t care at all about Little Audrey. The group of multi-cultural children that accompany her on this quest are also not the most sensitive depictions of such one is going to find. Usually, stuff like that is what helps get cartoons into the public domain because the companies that owned them originally don’t want to re-release them and if they’re not going to re-release them then they’re worthless.
He may not look like much, but this toy soldier is pretty special.
Here’s our first one where a poor kid gets a visit from Santa Claus. In this one, it’s a kid who lives alone in a shack with his cat. On the way back to his home, he finds a discarded toy soldier in the street and brings it home. When he goes to bed, the toy becomes sentient and uses the radio to call for Santa who shows up and does his thing. Most of the short is just toys doing stuff, the sort of thing we’re going to see a lot of. The kid eventually wakes up, is happy to have toys (and food) and that’s pretty much it. The short looks okay and it is in color. It’s also been re-released since my entry and there is a much better looking version out there now. It’s still a pretty boring short, but at least it will look nice.
Another one that would probably rank a little higher if I cared about the property. The Captain and the Kids is a series I don’t know much about, but it had a brief run of shorts and among them is a Christmas one. It’s basically a Captain character who takes care of some orphans and he’s harassed by the pirate John Silver and his crew. This one is interesting because the Captain is going to dress as Santa to surprise his boys, but John Silver and his crew get to him first. Silver takes the Santa suit for himself and they proceed to enter the dwelling and mess everything up. Because it’s Christmas, the bad guys feel terrible about what they did and eventually make it right. A large portion of the short is dedicated to a song that’s not very good performed by the pirates. It’s not terrible or anything, and the version I was able to find actually looked great, so there are worse ways to kill 8 minutes.
Mickey has had many goes at this whole Christmas thing.
Mickey Mouse’s first Christmas cartoon is among his worst. I rank this ahead of Mickey’s Christmas Chaos mostly out of respect, but that mediocre short might actually be more entertaining than this one. Mickey and Minnie wind up with some orphans in their care and try to give them a decent Christmas, but they’re also jerks. The little orphan cats just destroy the place and don’t seem to care that Mickey made the effort to give them a decent Christmas by playing Santa. There’s no real message here, no lesson to be learned, the kids just destroy everything until the short is over. It’s very bizarre in that aspect. It is in black and white, but the animation is pretty smooth, so it has that going for it.
This is an early Merrie Melodies short. It’s very similar to Gifts from the Air in that it’s another poor boy who seemingly lives alone. It begins almost exactly the same way with the poor kid walking through the snow on Christmas Eve getting progressively more upset over the sounds of other people enjoying Christmas. Only with this one, when the kid gets back to his shack he gets a visit from Santa before he goes to sleep! And not only is Santa there to bring Christmas cheer, he actually takes the kid back to the workshop and that’s where the toy antics come into play. It’s pretty crazy how similar the toy antics are from one short to another, and not just this and Gifts from the Air, but this and other shorts we’ll talk about shortly. This is another that ends abruptly, a fire breaks out and the kid is able to put it out and that’s it. Did he stay at the North Pole? Did he become the next Santa? Is he Santa’s slave? Is this where elves come from?! No one knows.
This one is a sequel to the Silly Symphony short Santa’s Workshop. If you like the part of that one where Santa just demoes the toys and laughs at them then this is for you. Santa delivers some toys to a house and we get to see him play with them. There’s even a Mickey Mouse cameo! Santa just laughs at everything and it gets real obnoxious. Eventually, he has to run and the kids come down and find their stuff. One cute kid gets a puppy. There’s a blackface gag, which is probably why it’s never been added to Disney+ to join its predecessor. It’s fine.
We have a lot of cartoons of kids finding toys under the tree, but not many of puppies finding toys under the tree. We do have this one from Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising and it’s about what you would expect. Santa has made his delivery and the children are up in the middle of the night to check it out. Among them are two puppies who get into all kinds of mischief when it comes to the toys. In particular, there’s a toy tank that apparently has a personality all its own and it battles it out with the puppies. No puppy is seriously harmed, and they are cute. It does run a little long, which is an odd thing to critique a short for doing, but if you’re a dog person then you’ll probably enjoy this on some level.
This is one of the oldest Christmas specials in color out there. And it was also recently restored to look as best as it possibly can. And it is a good looking short. It’s a Fleischer Studios production and there’s some use of live-action references including a spectacular Christmas tree spot at the end, but the cartoon itself is pretty similar to everything else here. Grampy wants to bring Christmas to an orphanage, but since he can’t just will a bunch of toys into existence, he uses household objects to make toys and distribute them. The kids have a good time, and it’s a reasonably merry Christmas. Worth a watch to appreciate the impressive restoration, if anything.
Mickey is going to experience some hardships in this one, but it works out in the end.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, a character wants to bring Christmas to some poor kids and so they do. In this case, it’s Mickey Mouse who is very poor as well. He wants to help a family of cats (again), but in order to do so he needs money and the only thing of value he owns is his dog, Pluto. Some rich asshole’s kid wants Pluto so Mickey reluctantly sells him thinking Pluto will have a better life with the wealthy man than he would on the streets with him. He takes the money, buys a bunch of stuff, and makes a Christmas delivery to the kids. Unfortunately, that spoiled, rich, kid really sucks and is abusive towards Pluto who eventually gets away, but not before he makes off with a turkey. He finds Mickey all alone in the snow and there’s a happy reunion in the end. Thankfully. I get the idea of having a character sacrifice to make Christmas better for the less fortunate, but I don’t want to see them give their dog away! At least it all works out, and the animation is really nice. It was made in black and white, but there is a color version out there if you’re adverse to that.
The more popular Christmas themed Silly Symphony short. This one takes place at the titular workshop where we see toys being made, inspected, and tested. That’s it. I just rank it this high because I think it looks just lovely. There’s a whole bunch of gags similar to other ones we’ve already seen and it also had its own racist gag (which the Disney+ version omits), but at least it doesn’t have any orphans! Seriously, I’m getting a little sick of that trope. And seeing Santa prepare for Christmas is just more interesting to me than the process of infiltrating homes and the aftermath.
That concludes the public domain theatrical shorts category. Not all of those are in the public domain, but they all have a very similar feel to them, and as we saw, similar plots. There isn’t much separating the worst from the best in this case, I mostly ranked them on visual quality as that’s what appeals to me most. And not just how well it’s animated, but the emotive aspect of the characters since we get a lot of inanimate objects doing interesting things. They are all indeed short though and also pretty damn old. The historical aspect makes them worth watching, in my opinion. And they won’t take up much of your time. I bet they’re all on YouTube or Daily Motion too so they should be easy to find. It will give you something to do until tomorrow when we move onto the next group of 10. In looking ahead, there isn’t much of a theme in our next group other than it’s all stuff made for kids and almost all of it is comedic in nature. There might be one surprise in there, but we’re still firmly in the realm of mediocre and not quite to the point where we’re hitting on some essential viewing type stuff.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
It feels like it has been a minute since we took a look at an American Dad! Christmas episode. The show can be counted on to produce such an episode almost annually and often times the Christmas episode is among the best of the season. 2024 is also the year we had to say goodbye…
Children’s cartoons often take to Christmas when the season rolls around. The holiday is usually ripe for parody or just direct adaptations so it’s easy for the writers to kind of phone it in. What’s not customary is for a cartoon series to feature two dedicated Christmas episodes in a single season! That’s what Animaniacs…
Last year for the Christmas Spot we took a look at the 1960’s TV series Popeye the Sailor and its Christmas episode “Spinach Greetings.” There are a lot of Popeye fans in the world and my assumption is that most would not put Popeye the Sailor above the theatrical shorts that helped catapult Popeye to…
Today, we move on with our Ultimate Christmas Special Rankings starting with number 199. As you can probably guess, we’re going to generally stick to 10 a day in order to have this neatly conclude on Christmas, but we’ll have a couple spots where we’ll have to do more. This isn’t one of those spots as you just get 10 today. Like yesterday, these specials are what I would consider to be genuinely bad, for the most part, but we’re working our way to the “meh” part of the rankings. We’re also going to kick things off with one I probably dislike more than most. There is a part of me that feels like I’m being unreasonable, but I pretty much loathe number 199.
Hah! It’s a snowman with a nut right where…his nuts…you know…
The Ice Age franchise had a nice run for itself, commercially speaking, during the 2000s. I can’t say I really loved any of it, but my memory of the movies I did see are that they were fine. Decent family entertainment that I never have to see again. For some reason, I hate this Christmas special. Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I went back to it last year for the countdown, but I just hate-watched the damn thing. Every plot point irritated me, it was so predictable, cliche, and talked down to the viewer. The attempts at humor were supremely irritating. I think this style of humor just didn’t age well. The competent CG doesn’t come close to rescuing it and I get no feels from it other than white, hot, rage. I honestly expect most people to see my take and not quite get it. Most probably see this as a pretty by the numbers, ho-hum, Christmas special. Let’s move on though as I’m already sick of talking about Ice Age.
Okay, this is a bad Christmas special. Very bad. It’s also entertainingly bad and it helps that I didn’t make my parents spend $30 on a VHS of this thing when I was a kid. It’s brief which helps. If this was your more typical hour long special then it would likely be intolerable. The only bummer for me with this one is that it’s the only Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Christmas special from this era. The ’87 cartoon had an episode where the turtles met the freakin’ Easter Bunny, but no Christmas episode. Instead we got this: repurposed live show costumes with unrecognizable voices and actors. It’s bad, and the budget must have been almost nothing. The songs suck in such a way that they’re funny, and the special is so well known now that we even got some NECA toys last year based on it. What a time to be alive.
He’s laughing, but there’s nothing funny about this one.
This one is barely a Christmas episode as it’s a made-up version of the holiday by Mario to supplicate some cave people he deems as lesser than him. Poor, misguided, cave, people, if only they had a holiday to believe in? Mario the missionary brings them Christmas and it just turns one cave person, Oogtar, into a spoiled brat. He almost ruins Fake Christmas, that little Ratgoo, but everything turns out fine in the end. It’s just phenomenally stupid and the Super Mario World cartoon was pretty terrible. There’s a reason why Nintendo wants nothing to do with it or its predecessors these days.
In this holiday special, the Smurfs are tasked with saving some kids from Satan. Yes, you read that correctly.
Oh boy, this one took a pretty surprising turn. The Smurfs holiday themed episodes manages to be both forgettable and also get mixed up in my brain. The other Smurfs holiday episode I covered is a better Christmas special, but so unmemorable. This one? This is the one where the Smurfs have to take down the god damn devil! What other conclusion is there to draw from the villain? Every other plot point here is pure corn, just garbage, Christmas, stuff. The Smurfs are a pretty terrible franchise that has somehow endured – I guess people really like little, blue, men?
Another video game mascot with a Christmas special, and it’s not much better. This is a cheaply thrown together episode of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, the wacky cartoon and not the more serious Saturday morning one. I hate the visual style and the plot is nonsense, plus an unspeaking Sally Acorn role? They did her wrong. It just manages to be memorable because of the wild turn at the end. Spoilers if you haven’t seen it, but Santa Claus retires! Yes, the big man hangs them up, but don’t worry as he has a successor ready: Sonic the Hedgehog. In the world of Sonic, he is now Santa Claus. It’s canon and I’ll hear no argument against it, I’m just patiently waiting for one of the video games to acknowledge this fact.
Pretty convenient all of these video game cartoons landed so close together, eh? It’s by design. This list has a subjective element to it where I did try to group things together to some degree. Especially when it comes to kids specials and the more subversive adult comedy ones. And spoiler alert, tomorrow very much has a theme to it. Anyway, this is another lousy Super Mario Bros. cartoon that takes place during Christmas and this one has a more conventional holiday plot. Koopa is out to take over Christmas and Mario and the gang have to save Santa. Toad learns a lesson and Luigi gets to help out. It’s all pretty conventional. There’s some awful animation and if you watch the full episode this is from you get some live-action stuff that has nothing to do with Christmas. Seriously, what a wasted opportunity. The only redeeming element to this one is basically the same as the Super Mario World cartoon: Koopa. I find him entertaining. Oh, and it’s also really short.
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had one Christmas episode and it came during the White Ranger era post the departure of the original red, yellow, and black rangers. In other words, it’s from an era of the show I didn’t watch as I fell off during the second season. I came back for the White Ranger mini series falling for the hype, but didn’t stick around. This one is pretty damn stupid. The Rangers have to go to the North Pole and stop the forces of Lord Zed who have taken it over. It’s an episode that was clearly conceived of on the US side because we don’t get a single shot of the Rangers in action. They stay in their teen persona so there’s very little action. Instead, there’s lots of bad acting that wouldn’t even be passable for a soap opera. The storyline back at Angel Grove with the sad kid or whatever? Terrible – no one cares. I wanted to see the Megazord slice and dice some massive reindeer monster or something and this did not deliver.
I have to admit, I don’t remember anything about this one. Or rather I didn’t until I went back to it before writing this. And yeah, it’s not very memorable. It’s from an era of cartoons on television where budgets were very small and the animation was very limited. This thing is capital U Ugly and I find nothing charming about the character designs. The audio quality is poor as well, though that may be a preservation problem and not something that was apparent at the start. It’s very similar in tone and quality to Tennessee Tuxedo, but shorter and therefore better. And for a character named Krazy Kat, she’s not very crazy. The craziest thing about her is her choice in grammar.
It’s big, beefy, dino-men in Santa hats – did you expect something else?
When it comes to cartoon dreck, there isn’t much lower than the direct-to-syndication cartoon that only exists to sell toys. And it gets even worse when that toyline is just a blatant rip-off of a more popular one. That’s Extreme Dinosaurs for you, which was an extension of Street Sharks. It’s terrible. It is the sort of cartoon where it can look okay in still shots because the character designs are big and colorful, but once things start moving around it turns to shit. I hate all of the attempts at “extreme” language or whatever and this is the sort of show that somehow makes dinosaurs seem lame. As for a Christmas special, it’s another let’s help Santa plot. Not a full-on The Santa Clause, but yeah, dinosaurs are going to help save Christmas.
Mickey does not subscribe to the whole “love thy neighbor” thing.
Around the turn of the millennium, Mickey Mouse tried to make it again in shorts and the results were mixed at best. Mickey’s Christmas Chaos is one of those shorts and it’s tonally kind of a mess. Mickey behaves more like a Warner Bros. character here as he goes to war with his neighbor Mortimer as each tries to one-up the other with their Christmas decorating. The animation is so flat that it limits the impact the gags can have. Plus, there’s really nothing new here. There are no pieces of physical comedy that feel original or offer a new twist on an old concept. I get trying to redefine Mickey or show a different side of him, but this isn’t it. Paul Rudish would figure it out much later. At least this one has a nice ending for best boy Pluto, and if you’re someone who disagrees and actually likes this one then good news! There are a pair of Christmas episodes from the House of Mouse series full of crap like this!
That’s all for now. Come back tomorrow as we move into the bland and the meh that also happen to be free and easy to view. We’re going into the public domain, folks!
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
Nothing puts one in the Christmas Spirit like carols about the refrigerator. Or so Dinosaurs would have you believe. Not that Christmas is actually mentioned at all in today’s special because it takes place in a setting on Earth millions of years before the Christ in Christmas was born. Back then, the sentient beings of…
In 1995, Warner Bros felt it was a big enough entity that it could launch its own broadcast television network. Dubbed The WB, it would try to compete with the big four of ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, but never really achieved that level of success which is why it no longer exists. The strategy…
In 1994, Nintendo and developer Rare Ltd. released unto the world Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo. It was a pretty big deal because with Sony prepping its 32-bit PlayStation console for release, and Nintendo no where near ready to unveil the Nintendo 64, the company needed to eke out a few more years…
There are a number of Christmas specials out there that are basically known by all and I’ve written about most of them here. Some have been annual traditions especially when we had more of a monoculture in the US, but the slow death of cable television has made those annual traditions fade away. One holiday icon endures though (well, two counting Rudolph): Frosty the Snowman. The story of a snowman come to life based on a 1950 song premiered on CBS in 1969. There it aired every year until 2023 when CBS at long last let the rights expire. NBC was there to pick it up where it aired in 2024 and is set to air this year on December 4th continuing its run in prime time television for another year.
Specials like Frosty the Snowman were appointment viewing for me as a child even with my beloved Christmas Tape at hand. It was just a thing to get excited for on the road to Christmas and with how popular specials like it have been I’ve always been surprised at the lack of toys. These are Christmas specials, after all, a holiday synonymous with toys. Jada apparently felt the same for it unveiled its own take on Frosty as seen in that Rankin/Bass special which coincidentally arrives a year after Super7 did the same with its ReAction line. Unlike that toy, Jada went all out in making Frosty an actual, modern, action figure. Is this something that’s long overdue for the magical snowman or is there a reason why Frosty has never made the leap to plastic in such a way?
Frosty has some pretty rad packaging.
There may have been some trepidation about wading into the Frosty waters as Jada opted to partner this release with Big Bad Toy Store. It’s an exclusive there where it will set you back $50 and I wouldn’t expect a sale on it anytime soon. That’s a steep price for an action figure, especially one from Jada. I don’t know if they’ve ever done an action figure at this high a price point. I suppose the release is technically a two-pack as it does come with the rabbit, Hocus Pocus. Still, is that enough?
He seems to size pretty well with other 1:12 figures.
The packaging for Frosty is pretty damn fun. The window box is modeled after an old, 80s, television set which is probably similar to the actual set many people saw Frosty on for the first time. It has faux wood paneling and even the rear of the box resembles a CRT television. The bubble is shaped to have a curve in it as well and if you’re an in-box collector this will display pretty well like this. I, of course, am not so I broke into this thing and I do think it will go back together after the holidays just fine, should I choose to pack-up and store Frosty in such a manner.
Until we get a proper Santa, one of these will have to do.
Out of the package, Frosty stands at about 6.375″ to the top of his head. The default portrait has the hat affixed to it so that one will take the snowman over the 7″ mark. From a distance, he’s basically just a big hunk of white plastic, but upon closer examination it’s evident that Jada applied a pearlescent overcoat to the figure to give him a little shine. It’s about as close to approximating the look of snow when the sun hits it they could come up with and it does help to at least give him a little nicer finish, though there’s no hiding from the fact that this is just a big, white, toy. There is paint on the face for the eyes, button nose, and the inner mouth which they opted to paint blue. This had me running back to the special to see if that’s what Rankin/Bass did and, no, they did not. Frosty’s inner mouth was red so I’m not sure why blue was chosen, but it may have been an artistic choice to work off the white. I don’t hate it, it just stood out to me as an odd choice.
And I guess the Peanuts gang will have to stand-in for Karen and the others.
The likeness of the sculpt is decent. The face is pretty much spot-on, though there wasn’t a lot Jada had to get right there. Where I do think the figure comes up a little short is just in the overall shape of the snowman. His torso is very pear-shaped when the character in the show was more round. It’s possible they had to mess with the proportions a bit to better suit the articulation. The head also sits a touch high as it’s not sunk-in at all into the body. Was this done to better accommodate the articulation? It’s possible, but I don’t know if the trade-off was worth it. I feel similarly about the waist cut on Frosty. I appreciate the attempt, and maybe I’ll appreciate it more if we ever get a Karen for him to interact with, but I wouldn’t mind seeing how the figure looked without it. And if I’m going to nitpick further, the hat seems a touch too tall, but on the other hand, it’s not consistent in the special and there are shots where it’s more like it’s presented here and others where it’s more squat.
For some reason, Frosty has acquired a scarf over the years. Even the Super7 ReAction figure (right) came with one.
Frosty does come with a handful of accessories, most of which are basically essential to the look of Frosty. We have his corn cob pipe which plugs into his smile. It’s basically essential since without it he just has a hole in his face that looks kind of lame. It doesn’t bother me as I would never choose to display him with out, but if you want your Frosty to quit his bad habit you may be disappointed. He does have his broom stick which is well-painted and sculpted. It’s basically in solid colors which matches the animation fairly well. He also has some optional parts. For hands, Frosty has a set of relaxed hands, a wide-gripping left hand, a tight-gripping right hand, a pointing left hand, and a right fist for when someone disses his fly girl. There’s also an optional portrait of “dead” Frosty from before the magic hat is applied. It looks fine and has the same hole in the mouth for the pipe and I like having this one as a means of displaying the figure in the lead-up to December. Lastly, there’s a soft goods, red, scarf which is a thing that has sprung up over the years. I’m not sure the origin, but lots of Frosty merch over the years has placed a red scarf around his neck despite him never wearing one in the cartoon (in the sequel, he wears a striped scarf). Super7 did the same thing so I can only assume it’s just something that has been added into the licensing art over the years. It’s here if you want it, though I don’t think I’ll ever use it.
If you prefer your Frosty to be non-animated.
Of course, the other accessory in the box is Hocus Pocus. The little white rabbit stands at just a tick over 2″ and has a goofy looking smile fitting the character. His pupils are not aligned, presumably as intended, though I can’t recall him looking that way in the special (I’m not saying it didn’t happen, just that I can’t remember a specific moment for it). Like Frosty, he’s essentially a lump of white plastic with the only paint being reserved for his red nose, the pink of his eyes and inner ears, and the black of his pupils. He has his freckles sculpted in, but they get lost in the plastic since there’s no outline applied. His whiskers are represented with black wire and his arms are permanently sculpted into the torso. He does feature articulation at the base of his ears, head, waist, hips, and ankles, but it’s pretty limited. He has one accessory – the hat. Hocus is designed to separate at the head which reveals a super long double-ball peg that can plug into the hat. There’s some sculpted out area for his arms inside the hat to get a snug fit and it successfully recreates the look of Hocus from when he makes off with the hat and delivers it to the children. It’s a good idea and a fun way to display him if you’re opting to display Frosty with his “dead” portrait.
This is pretty much the extent of his posing.
Frosty’s articulation is also nothing to write home about. He has the same double-ball peg setup at the “neck,” and another one at the hat. This is where the figure is most expressive as he can rotate and tilt at both the head and hat which provides enough nuance to be fun. He has hinged shoulders, single-hinged elbows, and hinged wrists that rotate. Unlike NECA and their many TMNT figures, Frosty actually has the proper vertical hinge for his broom and any other weapon you feel he should have. That waist joint is a ball joint so Frosty can rotate and tilt, but don’t expect too much forward and back. The legs are connected via ball-sockets, but they’re functionally useless due to the shape of the character. He has no knees and instead some ankles that hinge and rock. If your dream is to recreate Frosty’s marching pose on your shelf then you may have to get a little creative. He also doesn’t have any peg holes on the bottoms of his feet so finding a stand to work with him might be a challenge.
They’re both pipe enthusiasts.
Frosty isn’t going to impress with his poses, but no one likely expected him to. What will sell this figure are the aesthetics and the power of nostalgia. Nostalgia for Christmas. Is that sort of thing worthy of your $50? It’s a legitimate question and one not easily answered. If I were to grade this release on the quality of the figure and the amount of stuff in the box then I’d have to say “No,” this isn’t a $50 release. I’d feel better about it if we got a more expressive Hocus or maybe some optional parts for Frosty to recreate the signature poses from the special. This Frosty can’t even belly-whop because the range at the head doesn’t allow for it. He basically needs a third head with the socket for the ball joint in the back. Perhaps a future Karen release could come with such a thing?
“You want a hit of this, snowman?” “Happy birthday!”
Despite my feelings on the value present, I am happy to have this. I have a huge soft spot for Christmas specials (obviously) and there’s no way I was passing on this. It’s still a better value than a Super7 Ultimates! release (and cheaper) and it looks good enough on my Christmas shelf. And I do selfishly want this release to be successful because I’d like to see more from Jada and Frosty the Snowman. I already name-dropped Karen, but throw-in Santa and Professor Hinkle and that will make me pretty happy. It would be fun if each came with a different Hocus since he had some different looks/poses in the special, and in the case of Karen, that belly-whopping head would be nice. If you’re interested in this release as strictly an action figure, then it probably won’t win you over. If you have a lot of affection for the old television special and won’t miss the $50 then I say go for it. There’s plenty of Christmas magic in this box to take away the sting of the price.
If you’re curious to read my thoughts on the original special or just have an interest in Christmas toys then check these out:
Welcome back, lovers of Christmas, to the 7th edition of The Christmas Spot! If you missed the introduction a few days ago, we’re doing things a little differently this year. Yes, you’re still getting a dedicated write-up each day through Christmas about a beloved or not-so-beloved holiday special, but this year we’re also going retro…
It was looking like we were in for a photo finish this year. Last year, toymaker Fresh Monkey Fiction partnered with online retailer Big Bad Toy Store to launch the Naughty or Nice collection. Structured similar to a Kickstarter campaign, FMF posted several action figures for preorder with a minimum order quantity needed for the…
Fresh Monkey Fiction is back with Naughty or Nice Wave Two and just in time for…(checks calendar)…Valentine’s Day? Okay, so things didn’t go quite as planned with this line. In 2021, Fresh Monkey Fiction partnered with Big Bad Toy Store for this line of action figures based primarily on Santa Claus. That preorder took about…
It has been said before and so it shall be said again, but Christmas is the holiday that is the most commercialized of all. A massive component of that commercialization has been The Christmas Special, that one-off theatrical short, television event, or just a Christmas-themed episode of a popular (or not so popular) show. These often take the form of animation, but are not limited to that. Certainly, there are many live-action sitcoms out there that have made Christmas the subject of an episode or two and there’s no shortage of movies centered on the holiday. It’s impossible to know at this point how many such specials exist. I’m sure folks have tried to catalog them all, but such a task seems futile at best.
Here at The Nostalgia Spot, every December has been turned over to the Christmas holiday. And for the last decade that has meant an advent calendar style rundown of many popular and not so popular Christmas specials. Last year, when the countdown concluded I revealed that I intended to retire The Christmas Spot as an advent calendar countdown and I’m sticking to that. It’s a lot and I feel like I’ve said almost all that I have to say on the subject of Christmas specials in this space, but not everything.
This year, we’re going to go back through them – yes, all of them! It’s time to take the specials that have been covered here and sort them out. The Christmas season is only so long and if you’re in what I consider a typical Christmas-celebrating household, the season begins on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year, Thanksgiving fell on the 27th of November which is almost as late as it can fall in a calendar year. This is an especially short season – how can one possibly fit all of this essential Christmas viewing into such a short window of time?! And it’s already December 1st!
Fear not, for I am here to help guide you and your viewing schedule. Well, kind of. Since we’ll be unveiling this list in 10 special increments each day that means we won’t get to the good stuff for awhile. I guess this will be more helpful in the years that follow. It obviously can’t be all inclusive. I just said cataloging all Christmas specials would be a futile activity. However, there are a few that I’ve declined to report on in this space that feel like major omissions. When we get to them in the countdown, we’ll do an old school style write-up to make sure a wrong has been righted. I will almost surely miss someone’s favorite or one that simply stands out, but we can’t hit them all. I feel good about this body of work though and if I was only allowed to watch holiday specials from this list for the rest of my life I’d be okay with that.
Before we can get to the good stuff though, we have to talk about the bad stuff. Figuring out the best Christmas special of all-time is easy. It’s the Grinch (sorry, spoiler?), but what’s the worst Christmas special of all time? Now that’s a question with many answers. I’ve seen my share of crap throughout the years, and this dubious honor has more than one contender, but when the dust settled and I looked at my list there was really only one worthy of this title:
What a diaper-filled crap-fest! I wasn’t harsh enough in my rundown of this one back when it was covered. I think because it was so early in the season and I wasn’t feeling run down just yet. This show is brutally ugly, almost offensively so. I’ve seen and laughed at plenty of gross cartoons, but this is too much for me. It’s not particularly funny nor is it memorable. If I have to say one nice thing about it then it’s that it didn’t parody a popular Christmas special. That’s a low bar though and plenty of dreck at the end of this list can claim the same.
This redesign is worse than the one Toucan Sam got.
This special featuring semi-famous character George of the Jungle isn’t as offensively bad as some others, but I loathe its visual style. It has little to say or do to hold my attention and the art is just gross. It’s so cheap looking and comes from an era where everyone was cutting costs when it comes to animation. It’s basically Newgrounds quality and it makes me mad someone thought this was acceptable to put on television. Granted, I think it was on the equivalent of Canadian PBS, but the point stands. It has no reason to exist.
Just look at the dumb expression on the fox’s face. You just know this is going to be bad.
Chucklewood Critters represent something we’ll be seeing more of on this list. It’s a very bland, very boring, inoffensive sort of Christmas special. Well, inoffensive if you’re not offended by having your time wasted. There’s a bunch of stuff like this, but a lot of it is relegated to shorts where not much happens but at least it happens fast. And those shorts mostly look good since the shorts I’m thinking of were theatrical shorts. This is just an ugly, cheap, cloyingly sweet half hour of television. It probably won’t enrage you or anything, but it might put you to sleep. And these little bastards had a whole series of television specials! It’s crazy to think about and those poor children that were forced to watch them. I somehow dodged that bullet, but I took in this one in the interest of Christmas viewing as an adult. In that, I feel I was a worthy sacrifice.
It’s the terrifying story about the murder of a tree!
Speaking of sacrifice. Here we have the story of a tree that just wants to be given a purpose. And that purpose is to be cut down and put on display in front of the UN. Or White House, it depends on what version you saw. This is one of those specials that wants to put the Christ back in Christmas, or at least it appears to, but then it does this weird pivot to putting the Christopher back in Christmas. As in, Christopher Columbus. What an odd thing to insert into a Christmas special. And inappropriate. It’s a dumb special, but I place it slightly higher than something like Chucklewood Critters because it has moments where the animation looks nice. Basically, they blew the budget on the tree and some select sequences while side characters and backgrounds look like trash. I’m guessing there’s not a lot of websites out there that have dedicated as many words to Christopher the Christmas Tree as I have as this one is actually one of my most viewed Christmas entries. Weird, right? I guess it makes sense since there’s tons of places talking about Mickey, Frosty, Popeye, and so on, but what fool wants to waste their time on the tree that gave its life for Christmas? Me. I’m that fool, and because of my sacrifice you don’t have to be too.
And speaking of Popeye (we’re just mastering transitions today), here’s a terrible Christmas cartoon starring the famous sailor! I like Popeye, he’s the reason I ate my spinach as a kid even if I thought it was terrible. We’d get that frozen kind that smells like garbage after it’s cooked so you can’t blame me for not liking it. As an adult, fresh spinach all the way! Anyway, this cartoon sucks, but at least it’s mercifully short. It’s just a dumb Popeye saves Santa bit, but it’s so nonsensical and for some reason Santa flies around in an airplane shaped like a reindeer. It’s the most ludicrous visual I think I’ve seen in a Christmas special yet and that’s saying something because we already talked about Mega Babies. This series is from Popeye’s dark ages, best not to revisit them.
These 1960s cartoons tend to all have one thing in common: sucky animation. Tennessee Tuxedo is one the biggest offenders as characters barely move. Worse though, the whole thing feels incredibly lazy. Nothing happens! This is the Christmas special about nothing, they just have to decorate a stupid tree, but since they’re zoo animals they’re all dumb. We even have to pause so a character can teach us how to make the worst Christmas ornaments around. I don’t blame this thing being bad on whoever wrote it, they were probably charged with writing a whole series in a weekend or something. The only somewhat charming thing about this show is hearing Don Adams in the lead role. It’s just fun hearing the Get Smart/Inspector Gadget voice again.
Yeah, that’s more or less how I feel watching this one.
I tried to leave this one out of here until at least the next entry just because of the whole story surrounding it, but I just couldn’t do it. It sucks too much. This is another one of those inoffensive holiday specials that’s trying to launch a franchise, but it’s so inoffensive that it’s boring and no one cared about it. Really, like at all. This thing was lost media for a long time, but now it’s back. Sort of. I suspect it was really only back for that one magical moment in 2022 and now it’s rightfully forgotten again. The song might get stuck in your head though, so it has that going for it.
Okay, I have this thing way back in the rankings and yet I’m not sure if it’s far enough. That’s the thing with rankings, they’re pretty subjective unless there’s some sort of math behind it. And even then, you may just be using a subjective component to create an objective outcome. That’s probably way more thought already than Pillow People Save Christmas deserves. This thing is awful and it’s a garbage one-off special designed to sell dumb pillows. Watching it made me mad at my mom more than 30 years later for buying me one of those pillows. There is zero subtlety to this one as it’s just a big commercial complete with a tour of available products you can buy now. Well, now when it aired, today no one cares about Pillow People. If you still have a Pillow Person in your possession might I suggest burning it? It won’t take away the stink of this special, but it would make me feel a little better and it would probably do the same for you.
Pillow People is just plain bad, while Santabear commits a different sin: boredom. A lot of these backend specials are going to be placed here because they’re just so boring. The ones that are dull and combine it with bad music and visuals are the biggest offenders. Here we have Santabear, better known for his television spots in a Cinnamon Toast Crunch commercial. It probably would have been better if that’s all he was confined to because “high flying” this one is not. The cast is solid too, but everything is dialed down to a sleepy pace. I don’t want to hate you, Santabear, because you are cute, but I really hope to never watch your Christmas special again.
We end today’s entry with a cartoon that is not exactly sleepy and would prefer to announce its presence with a scream. Well, except for Santa who just kind of strolls in. This is a What a Cartoon original from Cartoon Network’s early days. An attempt to revive the duo of George and his gigantic son Junior. They’re a bit of a rip-off of the bears from the Warner Bros. shorts just minus the mama bear character. This one I actually liked as a kid, but now I can barely watch it. It’s so offensively ugly and the animation is so minimal. I can’t decide if that’s by design or by budget, but it’s bad. The gags are tired and lazy and about the only good thing I can say about it is that it’s brief. When I revisited this one way back in 2017 I wasn’t really expecting to like it, but I definitely didn’t think I’d hate it.
Well, that about covers the worst of the worst. Unfortunately, we still have some crap to get through before we can start talking about the actual good Christmas specials. At least now you know the ones to absolutely avoid. See you tomorrow!
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
It’s December 1st and you know what that means – time for Christmas specials! Not to “well, actually,” myself, but the Christmas special viewing season began before today in my house as it’s annually the day after Thanksgiving. What you may call Black Friday, I dub the start of the Christmas Special Season. And this…
We’re back with another year of The Christmas Spot! And to kick things off this year we’re taking a look at a bonafide Christmas Classic. Christmas Comes But Once A Year may not be the household name that Rudolph and Frosty are, but for Gen X and millennial kids it’s probably familiar because it was…
Welcome back to another year of The Christmas Spot! This year we’re kicking things off with a post I’ve been sitting on for a few years now. When I utter the title “The Christmas Tape,” I’m curious what comes to the minds of readers. It sounds both generic and specific and I suspect a few…
When Tim Burton created The Nightmare Before Christmas while working for Disney I don’t think the powers that be had any idea what kind of a gift he had just given them. Obviously they didn’t since they didn’t even believe enough in the film to release it as a Disney film instead opting to put it on the company’s Touchstone brand. In creating what is now a beloved film, Burton gifted Disney something it values more than art itself: merchandizing. In particular, a product that could be sold and tied into the two most commercialized holidays on the planet: Halloween and Christmas. It’s a film that stars Halloween characters creating their own Christmas special. Or, to perhaps put it simpler, it’s a Christmas movie with a Halloween aesthetic.
With the Halloween season upon us it felt like a good time to take a look at a figure that I’ve had in my possession for a little while now: NECA’s Ultimate Jack Skellington. NECA released action figures based on The Nightmare Before Christmas many years back, but in 2024 the company decided to return to the franchise with some all new sculpts. There isn’t much shortage for merch based on the film these days, but NECA felt like it had something to say where the characters are concerned. Those old toys were okay for their time, but could use an update. Super7, Diamond Select, Beast Kingdom, and more have all tried to put their stamp on the franchise as well in recent years to varying degrees of success and failure. NECA, always being more of a horror brand when not making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, must have felt like it could top them all and they may have done just that.
I feel like it only makes sense to compare him to a Halloween-type figure and a Christmas one.
Jack Skellington was one of four figures released by NECA at the end of 2024. Missing Halloween, but arriving in time for Christmas was Jack, Sally, the mayor, and a Santa variant of Jack. I had planned on reviewing at least some of those figures for Christmas last year, but I never had an opportunity to buy this particular figure during that window. And that’s fine, because as a standard Jack this is firmly in the Halloween part of the film and a better figure for this very moment.
There are so many expressions included.
Jack comes in the standard Ultimates style box with artwork on the front and photography on the sides and back. There’s no credit for the artwork so I assume it’s from Disney. It certainly looks nice if you’re an in-box collector, but I am not. Once Jack is removed from the box he’ll stand around 8.25″ to the top of his head. He’s composed entirely of plastic with no soft goods at all. The plastic is also fairly rigid including the tails on his coat and his bow tie. The proportions look spot-on to the source material with incredibly thin, long, limbs. The body looks like it’s all black plastic with white lines painted onto it for his tuxedo. There’s an intentional wiggle to those lines reflecting the look in the film and I almost wish I had two figures to compare each other to see if there’s a random element to the shape of the lines or if this is taken from the film. The application isn’t perfect. There’s some messy paint on the right thigh of my figure that I lament not noticing at the store when I picked this guy up as I had a few to choose from. The backside of the coat tails also aren’t painted, or if they are it’s a touch glossy and I wish it were matte. The white of the hands and the chest are clean as is the head.
And speaking of, that head is magnificent. They all are, actually. NECA really captured the look of Jack with each and every portrait in this box and it’s what sells the figure. By default, we have a smiling Jack portrait but there’s also a mischievous grin, an open mouthed smile, angry smile, a look of wonderment, an “Ooo” mouth, a scared portrait, and a howling one. That’s eight total portraits, if you weren’t counting, and you practically have enough to do your own stop-motion with this figure. There’s also four sets of hands to add to the expressive nature of the figure and they are relaxed, pointing, gripping, and I guess what I’d consider clawing. He doesn’t have a tight gripping hand, but aside from that I can’t think of anything that’s really missing. Some of the heads are better than others when it comes to paint, but mostly to how the head was extracted from the mold. My howling head has a blemish by the left eye and a couple of them have little divots in the top of the skull. They should hopefully be visible in the pictures.
He’s a good boy.For ambience.Something’s missing…
We have a few other accessories to talk about including the best, little, ghost dog around: Zero. He’s sculpted in this milky, translucent, plastic with a nicely painted jack-o-lantern nose. His head rotates, but that’s all for articulation. He does come with a transparent ball-socket stand that gets the top of his head about 3.5″ off the surface if you’re keeping him parallel with the ground. You can tilt and move him about on the stand and it’s a solid way to pull off Zero. I wish the plastic had more of a blueish hue to it instead of a yellowish one, but I’m happy we got a Zero with Jack. The other accessories include a pair of jack-o-lanterns, the jack-o-lantern jack-in-the-box (that’s a lot of hyphens), and the framed picture of Jack holding yet another jack-o-lantern (he is the Pumpkin King, after all). Lastly, there’s a clear, oval, stand for Jack that works only so well. It has two pegs on it, but I’ve found if I actually use both pegs that Jack will fall over eventually. The jack-o-lanterns help here because they have some weight to them so you can plop on the stand to help stabilize things. I think it works best to only use one foot peg on the stand and turn it so it’s pointing out from Jack for a little more coverage that way, though given the proportions and tiny feet in play here, this is a figure that’s never going to be 100% secure on your shelf. He really needs more of a doll stand to grab him at the waist. Just be mindful with where you leave this guy on a shelf.
Articulation for Jack is basic, but also pretty substantial given what’s here. He has a simple ball joint at the head and another at the base of the neck. Since there’s really nothing to get in the way, Jack can look up and down pretty well even with the neck joint having minimal range. From there, we get ball-hinge shoulders, hinged elbows, hinged wrists that swivel, ball-jointed diaphragm, ball-socket hips, hinged knees, hinged ankles, and ankle rockers. Even though the knees and elbows are single hinges, they bend well past 90 degrees because there’s just nothing to impede them. You can swivel at both points as well, but the pins are tiny and I can’t say I like the feel there. The diaphragm joint rotates pretty well, but doesn’t move forward and back much. The hips will let Jack do splits while the angle of the pelvis won’t let him kick out straight, but the leg will go off to the side and pretty high. He’ll pretty much do what you need him to do, but there’s no getting around that his limbs are all very thin and slender. There’s a fear element to working some of these joints out of the box. Bending the knees the first time was one of those moments where I just had to take a deep breath and see how it goes. Everything has been fine so I’m not saying there’s any issues with the durability or quality control, but the design of the character is going to lead to at least the perception that this is a fragile figure. And I don’t think there’s any getting around that, but from what I’ve experienced the figure is structurally sound.
This is a really satisfying figure to own.
If you have ever wanted an action figure of Jack Skellington then I think you’ll be very happy with this NECA figure. NECA captured the look and personality of the character to near perfection. If it can be helped, I just recommend finding him in store where you can cherry pick the best paint job available and mind those lines. I was caught up in making sure the heads looked as pristine as possible and didn’t even look at the legs, not that I should have to, but I wish I had. Otherwise, I love the look of this one and he looks like a puppet from the film. You could probably substitute this figure into a shot of the movie without anyone noticing. Getting Zero included is a great perk while the other accessories help for a festive, Halloween, display. And if you want to leave him up all the way through Christmas then you’re more than welcome to, though NECA also has a solution there as well.
If you liked reading about this Jack Skellington then here’s some more seasonal fare that may interest you:
Is it a Christmas movie? Is it a Halloween movie? Can a film be both? That seems to be the big question surrounding Tim Burton’s multi-holiday classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Released on Disney’s Touchstone label (because the company was too scared to be directly associated with the film at first) around Halloween 1993, The…
There’s a scourge taking over our local record stores, clothing outlets, and gaming boutiques. It comes in mass quantities dominating its chosen territory at the expense of other merch. It swears no allegiance to anyone and will even place mortal enemies side by side as it amasses an army of licensed property of yesterday and…
It’s a battle for the hearts of children around the world! What is the superior holiday: Halloween or Christmas? Today’s entrant is founded on the premise that Halloween is the only holiday to rival Christmas as far as what children look forward to most. This feels more or less on point as a kid…
Well folks, we did it! We made it to another Christmas! These things come faster and faster each year which makes something like an online advent calendar helpful as it attempts to keep the season from going by even faster. It’s cliché, but the years go by even faster the older you get and if you have kids it seems worse. It’s great to stop, breathe, and just try to take it all in for I know if I’m fortunate enough to live to be an old man I’ll probably look back on my life and think it went by in a flash.
That’s the sort of melancholy vibes Christmas brings about for me, but it’s important to remember this is a day of fun. Of revelry! I try to save a good one for each December 25th, or at least a weird one (I did go with Samurai Pizza Cats one year), and this year I felt like turning the day over to America’s real first family: The Simpsons.
Homer is going full Grinch in this one. Well, sort of.
The Simpsons has been featured here before. Many times too. The show has staked its claim to Halloween via the Treehouse of Horror anthology series, but it was Christmas that marked the show’s debut. For years the show avoided the topic as how could anyone hope to top the show’s debut episode? Eventually, that fear subsided and the show started cranking them out. Not quite annually, but there’s certainly plenty at this point. And today’s episode comes from the show’s fifteenth season and is appropriately titled “‘Tis the Fifteenth Season.” At the time, it felt like quite the achievement to be on the air so long that it was celebrated, or at least marked, in the very title of the episode. Now, it almost seems quaint. Fifteen seasons isn’t even half the show’s current total. Will The Simpsons ever end? When I was a mopey teen angry the show wasn’t as funny as I remembered it being I would have said it needs to die, but now I’m just curious to see how long it can go. There’s a comfort in knowing that every fall a new season of The Simpsons debuts. It probably won’t go on forever, but that doesn’t mean it can’t try.
In almost any other episode, I would have liked this couch gag, but this is not the holiday couch gag I’m looking for.
The first episode aired of The Simpsons, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” was pretty much a Homer (Dan Castellaneta) story. He was denied a Christmas bonus and Marge (Julie Kavner) spent all of the family’s extra money on getting a tattoo removed off of Bart (Nancy Cartwright). Rather than come clean, Homer takes a part time job as a mall Santa to earn extra money in hopes of providing his family with the kind of gifts he felt they deserved. Or rather, the type of gifts that would make him feel like a successful provider. Following that episode, Homer would take a back seat in future holiday outings. We had episodes centered around Bart, Lisa, and even Marge while Homer was like a sidecar. The kids need his help in the waning moments of “Grift of the Magi” to steal some toys, he and Flanders have a B plot in “Skinner’s Sense of Snow,” and that’s kind of it. In today’s episode, Homer is very much the focal point as he must learn the spirit of giving, then learn to reject materialism, then…become the Grinch? This one ends in a place one wouldn’t have predicted at the start, so let’s jump into it and see how we get there.
How is it that Itchy and Scratchy are able to exist in this space?
This holiday episode of The Simpsons begins with the standard, abbreviated, opening where we just jump right to Marge almost running Homer over in the driveway. The couch gag isn’t even holiday themed, it’s anime, which is a surprise. We’re not off to a good start here. The episode proper then begins not with Christmas, but Thanksgiving. The family is watching a Channel 6 holiday broadcast featuring Krusty (Castellaneta), Sideshow Mel (Castellaneta), Mr. Teeny, and a large woman dressed as a ballerina. Am I supposed to know who she is? Kent Brockman is appearing via cardboard cutout which Krusty informs us he’s contractually allowed to do because he’s in rehab. Again. Oh, and Itchy and Scratchy are present too which is really confusing. Are they someone in costume? Are they animation and we can’t tell because the whole show is animated? Anyway, Krusty informs the viewers for every dollar spent on Krusty merchandise he’ll be nice to a sick kid. And that hookers with a cold count as sick kids. Never change, Krusty.
Homer no like sweater.
It’s now time for Christmas decorating, and set to “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” we see Homer and the kids putting up the decorations. Bart and Lisa (Yeardley Smith) twirl some string lights like a lasso and fling them on the bushes outside. Homer tries to do the same with a tree and inadvertently kills two birds in the process which he slyly covers with snow and walks off. Inside, the stockings are being hung with care one by one until we get to Grandpa (Castellaneta) who hangs an IV bag instead. Marge is shown putting the family dog, Santa’s Little Helper, in a festive sweater which he predictably hates. We pan over to Snowball II who is already in a sweater and doing her best to get it off. The camera continues it’s pan to find Homer also in a sweater and also desperately trying to remove it with his teeth like an animal. Never change, Homer.
Looks like someone forgot Lenny’s present.
We now are taken to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant where it’s apparently already time to exchange Secret Santa gifts. Carl (Hank Azaria) is Homer’s Secret Santa and he has quite the present for the big guy: a new DVD player and the first season of Magnum P.I. Homer is quite happy with this extravagant offering (come on Carl, there had to have been a limit you blew by), but there’s a problem. No one has a present for Lenny (No, not Lenny!) and that’s because Homer is his Secret Santa. Realizing he forgot, Homer runs offscreen and we get to hear him battle with a vending machine. Lenny (Harry Shearer) can tell what’s going on and a scowl crosses his face before Homer returns with his gift: a roll of Certs. Homer seems pleased with himself, but Lenny doesn’t hold back and tells him that his gift flat-out stinks. Carl piles on too telling Homer he’s the most selfish man he knows (then why did you go all out on Homer’s gift, Carl?). Homer appears offended and tries to defend himself by saying Mr. Burns is the most selfish man around. He starts to bad mouth him, and Skinner, only for Burns to sidle up behind him without him knowing.
I’m surprised this hasn’t been utilized for a current plot.
Burns (Shearer) hears the insults, but laughs startling Homer. He declares that Homer’s very obvious description of him describes “Cathy in personnel” to a tee. Who is this mystery woman? No time for that, for Burns is here to hand out Christmas bonuses. This feels familiar. The bonus this year? A five dollar voucher to the plant cafeteria which no one is happy with. I guess it’s better than the series premiere when they got nothing? Burns has something special for Bart though, I guess because he knows Homer has a son? They’ve obviously crossed paths many a time, but I don’t get the sense that he’s giving Bart a gift because of any of that. The gift is, as Burns puts it, a confectioner’s card of a current baseball player. The way he phrases it he clearly doesn’t place any value on this card, but it’s a Joe DiMaggio card and a pretty famous one in card collecting circles at that. Not that Homer is aware. Burns refers to DiMaggio as a rookie for the New York Nine and when Homer says the name in disbelief (likely because he knows that Joe DiMaggio has long since passed his rookie days) Burns confirms it’s him and adds, “It seems they’re now letting ethnics into the big leagues.” He then turns away from Homer and is surprised to see Cathy (Tress MacNeille), from personnel! She looks exactly like Burns and he asks her how things in personnel are she has a one word response for him: Excellent.
Oh no! He must deftly lick it off!
Homer may not know how valuable the card is, but he knows it’s worth something so he takes it to the only place in town he’d logically go: The Android’s Dungeon. Homer finds Comic Book Guy (Azaria) eating some nachos from his usual perch atop his stool and asks if he can get any money for the card? Comic Book Guy takes one look at it and nearly has a heart attack as he turns up his cash register and empties its contents onto the counter. He greedily snatches the card from Homer, but then immediately begins to fret because he got nacho cheese on it. He reasons the only solution is to deftly lick it off, which he does. Homer just grabs his armful of cash and walks off remarking “Freak,” under his breath. We don’t know how much Homer just got, but probably not a substantial amount? Most stores only keep so much money on-hand, though I suppose a business that buys and sells might have more than usual. Either way, he probably didn’t get full value since that’s a card worth tens of thousands of dollars, but at least he’s happy.
Jesus was a prune? I guess I’ve learned something today.
We return to 742 Evergreen Terrace to find the rest of the family seated in front of the TV. A common past time for the Simpson family. They’re watching the 1986 “classic” Christmas with the California Prunes. Obviously, this is a parody of the 1987 sorta classic A Claymation Christmas which featured the California Raisins, a special I probably should have covered by now, but just have not. This could almost barely be considered a parody as we get to see some of this special which features claymation characters that look almost exactly like the California Raisins. There’s a soulful rendition of “Oh Holy Night” being played (and possibly sung by Karl Wiedergott since he’s listed in the credits, but not assigned a role), but with words adjusted to better fit prunes like “We are the fruit that your grandmother eats.” It’s also a nativity scene so if you ever wanted to see what Jesus would look like as a prune, well now you have. I think this is actually really close to the actual segment it’s parodying so if this seems ridiculous, there’s a more sincere version out there. Lisa declares it offensive to Christians and prunes. You know what it’s not offensive to? Animation fans, because this segment looks way too good to just be a quick gag on an episode of The Simpsons.
Comic Book Guy sure keeps a lot of cash in his register.
Homer then comes bursting into the room with his hands and pockets overflowing with cash. He declares they’re going shopping at the Springfield Heights Promenade. Marge jumps up with excitement declaring “That’s the rich people’s mall! Let’s shop till we droop!” Lisa corrects her to say it’s drop, but Marge just scolds her with “That’s a very violent image, Lisa.” Burl Ives then whisks us into Springfield Heights with his version of “Silver and Gold.” The tagline for this place is “Our prices discriminate because we can’t.” It’s basically a fancy outdoor marketplace. I’m not sure if it’s based on anything specific, but it has a similar vibe to Boston’s Quincy Market and there’s a hint a little ways in that might give that away. For a sight gag, we get an Abercrombie and Rich store and there’s a cart that will put your image on a Rembrandt. Moe is clearly pictured on such a painting. Seems almost too tacky for this place, but if it is anything like Quincy Market then it’s also a tourist trap and tourists buy all kinds of stupid stuff.
Cameos of Christmases Past.
Homer is handing out wads of cash to everyone in the family to go buy Christmas presents with. And when they’re done, he also promises to get a glorious Christmas tree for the home. In fact, he declares it will be so large that its absence from the forest will cause mudslides and flooding. Everyone cheers this except Lisa. That’s some nice attention to detail. We cut to Bart and Lisa shopping together and Lisa has stumbled upon a toy store called The Prodigy Barn. Very quickly there’s a cameo of the rich happiest kid in the world and his mom from “Marge Be Not Proud,” though his hair is now blond instead of brown. Inside, Bart is playing a video game console clearly modeled after the original PlayStation as he’s blasting state capitols on a map of the United States. He soon realizes that this game is trying to teach him stuff and reacts angrily tossing the controller at the screen and declaring “That’ll teach you to teach me!”
This may be more of a gift for Marge.
We jump to Marge shopping at Victor’s Secret, an obvious pun on Victoria’s Secret, where she’s looking to buy a present for her beloved Homie. She’s picked out some very large underwear that’s sort of tiger striped, but she needs the clerk to help her figure out if it’s the right size for Homer. Make that two clerks as they both easily fit into the underwear and Marge is delighted that it’s the right size. They (Castellaneta) then offer to gift wrap it for her and in order to do so they have to fold it like a flag. They stuff it into a tiny box and hand it over to Marge warning her to stand back when she opens it.
This episode is from before everything had Wi-Fi capabilities. I bet that astrolabe was obsolete in less than five years.
Outside of a store called Things Unnecessary, Homer is rummaging through his bag of goods with a contented look on his face. We then find out he’s bought the family all key rings. Cheap, stupid, key rings. He drops his gifts though when he catches a window display for a talking astrolabe. He immediately goes inside where a clerk with a British accent shows it to him. He wants to make it a gift for himself and notes how it is so unnecessary. The clerk (Shearer) laughs and remarks that he has excellent taste then lists the features which include a pad of paper and pen for writing upside down. Homer is pretty much sold, but then he looks at the price tag: 500 bucks. If he buys this he won’t have anything left for a tree. The astrolabe (I think it’s Azaria, but it’s not listed in the credits on IMDB) then announces that today is the birthday of comedian Margaret Cho, which makes this December 5th. We can also see the current coordinates for the location of this device which online sleuths discovered long ago point to Boston, hence my Quincy Market theory. “That’s the birthday I’m always forgetting, I must have it!” And with that, Homer has bought an extremely unnecessary and extremely expensive gift for himself.
What is it with sitcoms and their Christmas suicide jokes? I feel like I should apologize for how many there have been this year.
We cut to the car and the family is on the road. Bart asks if they can get their big tree now and Homer laughs nervously and confirms that they can as he also inspects the cash he has left which totals 2 bucks. He still insists that they’ll get a tree from the finest lot in town as he proceeds to lead the family to a rather unsavory part of town. Lisa is the first one to remark that she doesn’t like this neighborhood, but Homer just tells her to lock her door and avoid eye contact while he turns on the radio. It’s a version of the song “Convoy,” which was part of the plot of “Radio Bart” way back when, only now it’s “Christmas Convoy.” It’s our soundtrack to the sights which includes Gil preparing to hang himself with Christmas lights, some hobos roasting pigeons over a flaming drum, and a bloody snowman with an axe in its head.
Well, sufficient is certainly one way to describe it.
Homer pulls into a pretty sad looking tree lot and buys the best tree 2 bucks will get you, which is pretty brown and lacking in fullness. Homer presents it to the family as a great tree, but Marge points out that it looks a little dry. Homer tries to insist it just needs a little love, but when he rubs it the tree bursts into flames. I’m betting Homer thinks the tree will magically transform when decorated into a glorious one, like it did for Charlie Brown. We cut to the house and the partially burned tree is up. Homer remarks, “Isn’t it sufficient?” and pats it again once again causing the tree to go up in flames. He’s ready with a fire extinguisher and quickly puts it out, but Bart is left to wonder why they couldn’t afford a good tree? Marge asks Homer if there’s something he’s not telling them and right on cue we hear the astrolabe announce that it’s 6:31 PM in Montreal.
A man sobs alone with his astrolabe at Christmas time. Is there a sadder sight?
Marge rightly asks where that voice came from, but Homer tries to play it off as Maggie finally talking. She finds the astrolabe all wrapped up with a tag on it that says “To: Me, From: Santa.” Marge exchanges the gift for Maggie, who Homer was holding, and confronts him on the fact that he wasted their money on an extravagant gift for himself. Homer tries to reason with her that there’s a trickle down theory at play here: If he’s happy then he’s less abusive to the rest of the family. I should try that the next time I buy an expensive action figure. Lisa is the one to inform him that this time he was just plain selfish as sad music plays and the family leaves Homer with his toy. The astrolabe then announces “I am not returnable,” causing Homer to start sobbing. It then announces it will begin testing its smoke alarm for the next three hours which causes Homer to sob louder and announce, “This is sadder than Tuesdays with Morrie.”
Marge has opted for pettiness and I for one support her.
Where do Homer and Marge often settle their disputes? In bed, of course, as we find Homer trying to defend his selfish act. He tries to suggest that she is in fact selfish too for choosing to get her haircut at Supercuts instead of Regular Cuts, the joke being Supercuts is a pretty cheap place to get a haircut. And whoever does Marge’s hair deserves a lot. Marge is obviously not taking the bait and just points out to Homer that Christmas is the time to think of others, but he only cares about himself. He denies this accusation pointing out that he cared what they thought when they found out. She informs him that he can sleep on the couch tonight, but Homer just wants her to yell at him now and get it over with. Marge refuses instead opting to parcel out her anger over the next few days and weeks so she can jab at him when he seems most content. Homer can only groan as he grabs his pillow and flees.
This doesn’t seem like much of a punishment for Homer.
Homer has decided to stay up late watching Christmas specials with his selfish purchase. He’s also opted to unwrap it early as well and even declares that he doesn’t need Marge since he has the astrolabe. It responds to him by telling him that Columbia’s chief export is coffee. On television is The Year Santa Got Lost starring Jimmy Stewart (Castellaneta) as the voice of the mailman. It looks like another claymation piece and the characters all resemble toys from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, except for the mailman who just looks like a mailman. I guess he’s a nod to Special Delivery from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. It’s a very boring story that Jimmy is telling and Homer taps out insisting that Jimmy Stewart as a puppet is just wrong. On the next channel is Mr. Mcgrew’s Christmas Carol, a parody of Mr. Magoo. It’s sort of like the California Prunes from earlier in that this parody is so similar to the thing it’s parodying that it’s almost indistinguishable. Upon stumbling on this, Homer declares he loves that blind, senile, old man! He’s then interrupted by his father knocking on a window in his bathrobe claiming he can’t find his way back to the nursing home. Homer shouts at him, “I heard you the first five times!” then throws his shoe at the window. A bunch of snow falls off the roof and poor Grandpa is buried.
Oh that Magoo McGrew, that’s not a woman, you silly, old man!
We get to see some of McGrew (Castellaneta) which looks a lot like the actual Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, the very first animated Christmas special made for television. I’ve never covered it because it’s, well, terribly boring. We get to watch McGrew mistake a potbelly stove for a pregnant woman which somehow leads to him sticking his head into a roaring fire. Homer laughs for, once again, old McGrew has mistaken something for something. As the special moves along, Homer comes to realize that McGrew is just like him. Well, except for the rich part. When it gets to the climactic scene at the cemetary, Homer is on the floor in front of the TV begging the ghost to spare McGrew and to take Tiny Tim instead! The ghost gestures to the headstone which reads Ebenezer McGrew. Homer then sees it as reading” Homer Simpson – Unloved by All. He cries out “Unloved by Al? No!” then the ghost gestures again and he reads it correctly and yells even louder.
Marge wanted to see more of this Star Trek Christmas Carol and I think I’m with her.
The next morning, Homer is still in the midst of a fretful sleep moaning on the couch “I’ll be good.” Lisa wakes him up with some concern in her voice and Homer just asks her what day is it? She tells him it’s Saturday, December 6h and Homer jumps up saying “Good! There’s still four more days till Christmas!” No one bothers to correct him. We next find the family at breakfast where Homer is talking about the amazing cartoon he watched the night before. He describes it and Lisa has to point out that what he watched was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and that it’s been around for 160 years. Bart points out that television has been mining that thing for decades and he is certainly not wrong. What’s sort of implausible here is that someone who watches as much TV as Homer would be unfamiliar with it. Bart gets to prove his point by turning on the TV (there sure has been a lot of the family watching TV so far in this one) to reveal an Urkel parody and a Star Trek one. Marge thinks the Star Trek one looks pretty good. Homer then announces that TV and nightmares have joined forces to convince him to be a less selfish man. He vows to become the least selfish man in town and Marge reminds him that he’s made this promise before. Homer points out that this time he’s sober…ish. That’s a bit alarming since it’s only breakfast.
It really is the perfect gift for someone always getting stuff in his eye.
Time to see Homer put his words to action. We find Flanders (Shearer) and his two boys, Rod (Pamela Hayden) and Todd (Cartwright), taking some boxes of old clothes and lima beans to an area frequented by the homeless, only Homer beat them to the punch. He gave them his old clothes and we get to see a whole bunch of unhoused men dressed like Homer. One comes over to remark that these new pants smell worse than his old ones, but Homer just says “You’re welcome.” To the Nuclear Power Plant where Homer owes Lenny a present. A real present. Homer presents Lenny with a photo cube that’s full of pictures of them (and Carl) which Lenny seems to appreciate. And there’s another surprise, Homer filed down all of the corners so it won’t hurt if it comes into contact with Lenny’s frequently injured eye. He demonstrates by jabbing Lenny in the eye and he smiles uncomfortably and announces it only stings a little.
Marge has been waiting fifteen seasons for this.
Back at the house, the family is finishing up dinner when Homer goes to eat the last porkchop, catches himself, and then walks the platter over to Marge. He offers her the last porkchop and Marge is so overcome with emotion she doesn’t know what to do. Homer has never offered her the last porkchop and she happily accepts. She is super emotional about it as she’s basically sobbing while she eats it remarking that his thoughtfulness tastes so good and that tears are the sweetest sauce. She’s not even bothering to use utensils, just her hands, and all the rest of the family can do is stare at her. Homer also adds that she’s starting to creep him out.
I feel like we’ve been here before.
We then cut to the family at church where Ned and Homer are in charge of the collection plates, though they’re really more like baskets on poles. Homer gets to Burns who just deposits a coin into the basket so Homer jabs at him. He drops another coin in, but Homer is still not satisfied so he keeps jabbing him in the face. Burns finally relents by emptying his entire wallet into the basket, including his credit cards and eventually the wallet itself. He then angrily suggests that Homer take his blood too and pricks his finger, but only dust comes out which Burns acknowledges by saying “Yes, I’m old.” Ned happily empties his basket into a sack held by the Reverend Lovejoy (Shearer) who is only too happy to inform Ned that this week he came in a distant second to Homer who has a rather impressive haul. Homer announces he’s not looking for glory, he’s just trying to buy that stairway to Heaven Jesus sang about. When Ned corrects him that it was actually Led Zeppelin who sang that song, he just scoffs and tells him to get back to his bong, hippy! He and the reverend then smugly walk off leaving Ned to stew in anger. His kids come over and Todd asks him if he’s jealous of Homer with some shock in his voice. Ned confesses that he is a little jealous. To try and cheer him up, Rod confesses he’s jealous of girls because they get to wear dresses and Ned angrily responds with “One problem at a time, boy.” This was the era where Ned Flanders became a more bigoted Christian. I know some people don’t like this turn for Ned, but when a show is on for as long as The Simpsons characters are going to change with the times.
Homer: a man of many talents. Or maybe just this one?
We return, yet again, to the Simpson master bedroom only now things are far less frosty. Marge is delighted in Homer’s transformation and he has come to view being unselfish as a natural high like hiking or paint thinner. And he’s not done! Homer then unveils to Marge his latest gift to the town: an ice skating rink in the Simpson backyard. How he built that without Marge’s knowledge is not specified. Similarly, how could he, the man who couldn’t afford a Christmas tree, manage to buy all of the materials needed for a rink? I should stop asking questions. It’s a hit though as numerous people are skating on it. Comic Book Guy demonstrates he’s pretty nimble for a man of his generous waist even though his leap results in a fall. A fall that splits his pants. With a declaration of “Activate cloaking device,” he ties his coat around his waist, only for that to rip too. Overcome with depression, he chooses to engage candy bar sadly.
Nelson is showing off and giving Flanders the business here. What a guy.
Ned is shown making his way to the Springfield Men’s Mission singing “Here comes sandwiches,” to the tune of “Here Comes Santa Claus.” He has a plate of cheese on bread for the homeless who dwell here, but because this is Season 15 Ned we have to get a little peak in his head as he refers to this as Boozy Bum Lane. In other words, this is the Ned who partakes in charity not because it’s right or just a nice thing to do, but because he just wants to get into Heaven. He’s shocked to find the place empty, so shocked he even spells out the H word (no, not that one). And he soon realizes that everyone is at Homer’s where they can rent skates for free (how did he come into possession of all these skates? Shut up, Joe, just go with it) no matter how gross and black their feet may be. Ned is frustrated and dismayed to hear Gil (Castellaneta) refer to Homer as the nicest guy in town. Nelson (Cartwright) is also there to deliver his customary “Ha! Ha!” and add a dash of “Your position has been usurped!” He also makes a couple more passes to rub it in even laughing “You’re sad at Christmas!” While he does he demonstrates some really fine tandem skating with Sherri or Terri. Sometimes a guy surprises you.
Great sight gag, I approve!
After an act break, we return to the TV! Man, this episode has a lot of old Simpsons tropes between the bedroom scenes and the plot-advancing television spots. It’s the nightly news with Kent Brockman (Shearer) delivering a breaking news report on the nicest guy in town: Homer Simpson. He has to deliver it in his Brockman way though by first shocking and horrifying the viewer with the announcement that Santa Claus is dead! This gets a scream out of Bart and Lisa who are, strangely, the only ones watching the news in the house. Bart didn’t seem to believe in Santa way back in the first episode, but I guess he’s had a change of heart? Or maybe it’s just a part of him he can’t let go? This was all a clever setup by Brockman to declare that Santa might as well be dead, because Homer Simpson has stolen his spotlight. They then show a photo of Homer strangling Bart in front of Marge and Lisa, but it’s been digitally altered to replace Bart with an image of a bouquet of flowers.
Ned, you’re starting to freak me out a little bit.
Next door, Ned is practically steaming watching this report. He starts tugging on his moustache and assuring himself “Pain is the cleanser,” in an attempt to banish his jealous thoughts. Mel Gibson would approve. A ring of the doorbell gets him off the couch and it’s a pregnant woman (Hayden) who needs help with her car. An overzealous Ned offers to jump the car, rotate the tires, and even fold the map she’s holding. This just turns her off and, calling Ned a creep, the woman says she was looking for Homer Simpson. That is apparently the last straw as Ned vows to show the whole town that he’s nicer than Homer. That he can be the nicest man who ever lived! He then looks at a picture of Jesus on the wall and tells him he said nicest man, not man-god, and to keep his pants on. I don’t think Jesus wore pants, Ned. Hah!
Skinner and his mother asking the important questions here.
To make good on his boast, Ned has decided to go door-to-door dressed as Santa Claus handing out presents to everyone in town. His first stop is the Skinner residence where Seymour (Shearer) is flabbergasted by Ned’s mission. Agnes (MacNeille) barks at him, “What’s your angle, pervert?” and Ned is actually honest by answering “Giving in this world, living in the next!” In other words, he just wants to get into Heaven. When Skinner asks how he can possibly afford this on a widower’s salary, Ned informs him he rented out his house to a fraternity. We cut back to Ned’s home and there are Greek letters (Sigma, Chi, Sigma? I’m not up on frat business) above the door and a keg goes flying through the front window. We hear an agitated Rod also shouting “Stay out of our medicine cabinet!”
That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there, Homer.
Homer takes note of Flanders’ good deeds and scoffs at them. We see he’s already been to the Simpson house and gifted Bart a Krusty-branded version of Operation. We hear the toy groan when Bart “tweezes my wang.” I feel like they’re usually more subtle than that? Homer, apparently taking Ned’s bait, wants to outdo him and thinks the best way is to buy everyone a car. Lisa, ever the voice of reason, is there to tell her father that he doesn’t need to outdo Mr. Flanders and to remind him to remember the theme of the season. Homer seems to think it’s despair and Lisa goes on to share her feelings on the matter of gifts as a Buddhist. She thinks people would be better off without presents, which gets Homer thinking. We see a car, a Christmas sweater, and then an image of Budai (smiling fat dude often mistaken for Buddha), and they all combine into an image of Budai (Azaria) driving. He offers Homer some sage advice, “[…]attachment to material goods kills the soul.” Then, for some reason, Budai gets pulled over by the cops in Homer’s imagination and vows to never return to jail. Homer is satisfied now and decides he needs to take away everyone’s presents! He then thanks, Buddha which brings back his brain cloud to show Budai getting arrested and threatening the cops that they’re in trouble if he ever gets out.
Look at Santa’s Little Helper! He’s cuter than Bradford II!
And now it’s time for an extended Grinch parody! Homer, with assistance from Santa’s Little Helper, is going to go house to house stealing all the presents under the tree in town on Christmas Eve. And as he does so, he’s going to sing about to the tune of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” which goes something like this: You’re a hero, Homer Jay. You’re as crafty as a skunk. They’ll thank you in the morning for stealing Flanders’ junk, Homer Jay! You’re a double-bacon genius burger, and just a little drunk!” As he does, we see clips of him walking like the Grinch, slithering like the Grinch, cutting down stockings like the drink, and chloroforming a toddler like the Grinch. Wait! That’s all Homer and not a good look for the big guy.
This sort of thing didn’t work out all that well for the Grinch, but maybe it will for Homer.
At dawn, Homer is seen driving the family station wagon into the center of town with a massive sack of stuff tied to the roof. He hops out of the car and douses the bag in gasoline before hopping onto the ground to put a hand to his ear. There he waits to listen to the thanks coming from the folks of Springfield. It’s a rather clever inverse of the Grinch. He wanted to hear sadness and anger over his stealing Christmas, but heard singing instead. Homer wants to hear the singing, but he just hears anger. First from Lenny, then Dolph (MacNeille), and then we start to jump around. Snake (Azaria) is shown shocked and saddened by the fact that he’s been robbed at Christmas and reflects, “Man, so this is how it feels.” In a season of Simpsons repeating Family Guy gags, I feel like I have to point out that Family Guy did a very similar joke where an inmate stabs himself to see how it feels. We then jump to a rather sad scene at Nelson’s house. He wonders if his dad came back in the night to steal their presents while his mom (MacNeille) just gruffly says “I wouldn’t put it past him.” She references the night he left and Nelson gets defensive insisting he just went to the store and when he gets back he’s going to wave those Pop Tarts right in her face! Poor, delusional, Nelson.
Definitely not a gracious mob.
Homer then pulls back a little disappointment in hearing anger, but he points out happily that a mob is approaching shaking its fists in anger! The show decides to let Cookie Kwan (MacNeille) and Drederick Tatum (Azaria) get some lines in before the mob begins pummeling a confused Homer with snowballs. Even the Simpson family joins in on the beating. And who comes to Homer’s aid? Why, it’s Ned Flanders, of course. He stands protectively between Homer and the mob to tell them what Homer did was wrong, but that maybe he was also wrong to give everyone those gifts? Ned gets bombarded with snowballs for suggesting such and knocked to the ground.
Well, I hope this hurts less than a football to the groin, Hans.
Now, it’s Homer’s turn to rise to Ned’s defense. He shouts out for everyone to wait and look to the sky for there is the Christmas they need. And in the sky high above Springfield is a brilliant, shining, star. Everyone is transfixed with Selma (Kavner) even declaring it a miracle. We cut abruptly to find out that it isn’t a star, but a flare fired by Hans Moleman (Castellaneta) who appears to have gone off the road and is stuck chest-deep in the snow. It’s his last flare too, but don’t worry, for rescue dogs have come to his aid! Oh, actually those are wolves and the McGrew-like Moleman is blind and confused and sure to die.
Homer’s big speech is a thing of beauty. Bravo to writer, Michael Price, who penned this one.
Back in the center of town, Ned is finishing up reading from the Bible, the same passage old Linus referenced in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Before he can finish though, Mayor Quimby (Castellaneta) buts in to say that Ned can’t pray on city property. Homer takes it from there, “Let’s just say that on this day, a million years ago, a dude was born who most of us think was magic, but others don’t, and that’s cool. But we’re probably right. Amen.” The crowd returns with an “Amen” as well, and I just love that summation by Homer. It sums up that Christian smugness so prevalent in American society since that’s the majority opinion.
He’s such a good boy!
Homer then decides, with Ned’s help, to return all the gifts! As the two toss gifts to the mob, we get the expected animation of Santa’s Little Helper doing his Max impression as well. To sneak in an extra joke, we also get to see Professor Frink (Azaria) open his present and find it’s a brassiere (his choice of words), but in the spirit of Christmas, decides to make pretend that he has boobs. Bart is shown sharing his sentiments that this is a great Christmas and that not even Moe’s (Azaria) annual suicide attempt can bring him down. We then cut to Moe on top of City Hall threatening to jump and no one taking him seriously. Moe vows to jump and that they’ll all be sorry, but then laughs and confesses he’s not going to do it, but slips and falls anyway.
And as for Moe…who did NOT die!
No one was paying attention to old Moe for they were busy launching into a rendition of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” because we need to tie this back to Peanuts one more time. Moe actually gets to deliver the “Peace on Earth and mercy mild,” line so we see he’s not dead, just really, really, hurt. As the crowd sings, we cut back to the wrapped astrolabe on the roof of Homer’s car. We hear it say that today is the birth of Jesus, and also the birthday for singer Barbara Mandrell. Snake then steals it for good measure, a nice way to bring the whole story back around to the beginning. We fade out on the crowd singing. Merry Christmas!
I like that they got the astrolabe into the end somehow.
As far as Simpsons Christmas episode go, that is one of the most joke-heavy ones they’ve done. There are tons of one-liners and just silly moments for the sake of comedy. Yeah, there are plenty of holes one can go poking through it, especially if past episodes are brought up. I’m always a little surprised when this turns into a “Homer Loves Flanders” redux in the second half thus leading into the Grinch parody. It’s quite a ride considering where we started. There’s really no B plot as the plot of the episode just moves from one stage to the next. I like that about it and it is reminiscent of “Grift of the Magi,” another Christmas episode that just moved from one situation to the next. The difference there is that one morphed into a Christmas episode where as this one was pretty much committed the whole way through.
The stop-motion segments are great and really help to give the episode a “special” sort of feel.
As I mentioned during the write-up, there are a ton of moments where TV is used to advance the plot. I’m pretty much okay with it though as there was some great comedy to be found there. The Christmas special parodies were all well done, even if some played it mostly straight. The extra surprise of stop-motion utilized was pretty damn cool too and shout out to Chiodo Brothers Productions, Inc. for producing those segments. Some of the jokes could be described as easy or layups, but I found they worked. And try to keep in perspective that some of this stuff was still pretty novel back in 2003. Now, a Grinch parody feels a bit more played-out, though I’m struggling to think of many Magoo parodies so The Simpsons was and is still ahead of the curve there.
“‘Tis the Fifteenth Season” may honestly be the funniest Christmas episode of The Simpsons. That doesn’t mean it’s the best, but there’s a solid amount of laughs to be found. Some don’t like the portrayal of “Jerk Ass” Homer like we see in the first act and I also know folks who don’t like what Flanders morphed into in the 2000s. Such opinions are valid, but for me, it works. This is funny television. It’s not trying to make much of a statement, just lampoon Christmas specials. There isn’t really a cynical message either so if you don’t care for those types of Christmas specials then I don’t think this one qualifies. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened at Christmas.
Merry Christmas from me and the Simpsons.
And that’s it for the 2024 edition of The Christmas Spot! If it’s the last time I do this 25 specials in 25 days thing then I feel like I went out with a pretty solid selection of Christmas episodes. There was some good, even some great, and some stinkers, but those are fun to read and write about. It was a lot though as I finish writing this one on December 23rd, possibly the latest I’ve taken to finish one of these. That’s partly why I feel like I need to take a step back because it’s become harder and harder to find the time (and material) to keep this up. Whether you read one or 25 of these things this year, thank you, and I hope you had some fun. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, joyous Wednesday, and good luck in the new year!
That’s a wrap on Christmas 2024, but if you must have more here’s what we had to say on this day last Christmas and beyond:
We have reached another Christmas Day! It’s a great time to celebrate and enjoy the moment for tomorrow we mourn the passing of the season. It’s the great come-down every year. For this holiday, I am once again returning to my list of the best of the best when it comes to Christmas specials. This…
Welcome to Christmas Day 2022! We made it another year and another long year is ahead of us until we make it back, but right now, it’s time to celebrate! And in keeping with the theme of this year’s countdown, we are once again looking at another much beloved Christmas special on this day. Before…
We made it! Another year in the books, and another Christmas has come. Indulge in it. Bask in it, for it only comes once a year, and not to get too dramatic, but you never know how many you’re going to get. And we’re ending this year’s edition of The Christmas Spot with another throwback…
When Pixar released Toy Story in 1995 it proved to the world that audiences would accept films created entirely within a computer. Prior to that, 3D animation was thought of as a gimmick, something for commercials and video games, but not something that could carry an entire feature length film. It’s similar to the prejudices traditional animation faced in the early days and in hindsight it was a pretty silly thought. Sure, when the medium was young and crude it wasn’t ready, but it needed to mature. It needed refinement and now it’s practically all we have when it comes to animated movies.
After the success of Toy Story, other companies broke through. Everyone remembers the great ant war of 1998 when Pixar’s A Bug’s Life went toe-to-toe with Dreamworks’ Antz, but not too long after came Ice Age. From Blue Sky Studios, Ice Age would be a commercial hit for 20th Century Fox in the 2000s beginning with the 2002. A franchise was born that technically isn’t yet concluded, but after the release of the third film in 2009, but right before the fourth in 2012, came a Christmas special. It’s not all that dissimilar from what contemporary Shrek did. These movies are expensive and time-consuming so studios found that it was more efficient to create television specials basically alongside film production since the same assets could be utilized. It’s not like hand drawn animation where most of the frames are different, it’s more like virtual stop-motion. These character models and environments already exist on a computer and before they get too outdated they can be put to more use.
After three movies, this was the core group (left to right): Diego, Manny, Ellie, Eddie, Crash, Peaches, Sid.
Ice Age, if you didn’t already figure it out, takes place at the dawn of man and stars a bunch of animals who have human intelligence. There’s a mammoth, saber-toothed cat, sloth, squirrel, and so on and they have their own misadventures which are often comedic in nature. John Leguizamo stars as the dimwitted sloth, Sid. Despite being a sloth, Sid isn’t physically slow, but is mentally, making him a good-natured idiot. By contrast, we have Ray Romano’s Manny the woolly mammoth. He’s a bit irritable and finds himself constantly annoyed by Sid, but he has a big heart so he can’t just find it in himself to ditch the sloth. Denis Leary plays Diego, the saber-toothed cat who starts off as a foe, but is soon turned friend. In the second film, Manny finds a lover in Ellie (Queen Latifah) and in the third film they welcome their daughter, Peaches (Ciara Bavo). Lurking throughout the series is Scrat (Chris Wedge), a squirrel forever chasing an acorn, but never quite getting it. He doesn’t interact with the gang a whole lot and is more like a side story, but he seems to be the most popular character in the franchise with many in the audience just wanting to see him get that nut. It’s sort of like wanting the Trix rabbit to just get some damn cereal once for all.
When it comes to Ice Age I’m pretty sure I saw the first three. I don’t know if I saw anymore than that. I also remember very little about the plots and events that take place in the films. I was older, I didn’t have kids or siblings to bring to the movies, so these were things I caught much later and mostly because I married someone five years younger than me. She had experienced the movies and liked them and wanted to share them with me. They’re kind of just fine. They always looked pretty good and Blue Sky Studios was plenty capable of animating in this style, I just never found myself drawn to the characters. Sid and Scrat work well as comedic relief, but like most comedic relief types there is a limit to how much is too much, more so with Sid than Scrat. Manny is very similar to Ray Romano’s sitcom character so he’s not exactly lovable and Diego is lacking in charisma. There was just nothing in this movies that clicked for me, but I’m willing to set that aside and take in a Christmas special. Maybe these characters will work much better over a 24 minute duration as opposed to a 100 minute one. And since it’s one of those Christmas specials that takes place before the birth of that Christ guy, it’s already interesting just to see where the story goes (or rather, begins).
And who could forget that lovable scamp, Scrat.
This one begins without any big song, or title, or anything like that. It just jumps right into the latest from Scrat, the squirrel who is always on the hunt for acorns. Set to the tune of “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” (a little too obvious a selection, if you ask me), we see Scrat sneaking about and swiping acorns. He first takes one from a setting which includes a few yellow and orange gourds making me think this is Thanksgiving. He then moves onto a snowman which has three acorns set in it like buttons. It’s at least a cute visual as Scrat jumps inside the snowman and his face replaces the snowman’s face before he hops off essentially bisecting the snowman in the process. Then this thieving sequence goes full Grinch as Scrat finds acorns…hung on a clothesline? Just go with it. After swiping those he’s left with a giant sleigh of sorts full of the damn things. He tries to give it a pull, but he’s no Max. The sleigh, which is basically just a slab of bark, falls apart and all of his acorns go rolling away. You got greedy, Scrat.
Manny’s family heirloom is a big, round, rock. Things were simpler back then.
The proper story then begins as we find Manny rolling into frame a giant, round, rock and the actual title hits. Manny calls for his wife Ellie as he wants to surprise Peaches with the Christmas Rock. He says he just pulled it out of storage so I guess they have a cave for living in and maybe another cave for storage? Peaches, on cue, comes sliding down a hillside and collides with her parents knocking them over. She apologizes, but she’s also in the middle of a snowball fight with the possums Eddie (Josh Peck) and Crash (Seann William Scott) and can’t exactly stop running. They miss with their attempts at a volley and Peaches fires back using her snout encasing the two in snow. Upon realizing why her dad was trying to get her attention, Peaches excitedly races over to the Christmas Rock. Before Manny can get out a word of warning though, she decides to kiss it and her mammoth lips adhere to the stone. Rocks don’t really work like that, but it is a cartoon.
Peaches love rock.
Manny frees his daughter from the stone and then explains how this thing is a family heirloom. Ellie fills us in that the object of the rock is to catch Santa’s eye when he goes by on his sleigh. It lets him know that a kid lives there who is deserving of presents. I guess we’re just jumping right into Christmas here. It’s Santa’s show, nothing more. Don’t question it! Manny is so excited that he starts singing “Oh Christmas Rock,” which sounds like the song you think it does. Clearly, this rock is the custom of the ice age and the whole tree thing has yet to be invented. Until now!
Sid has a radical idea: how about a Christmas tree?
Well, first we have to hear from Diego. He questions why Manny is singing to a rock, but he just explains “Duh! It’s Christmas!” He asks Diego if sabers have any Christmas traditions and he explains how his dad used to bring home a gazelle and he and his family would devour it. He demonstrates by fashioning a gazelle out of snow, but once he starts digging in he realizes that he’s terrifying Peaches so he changes the story’s ending to playing with the gazelle and having a wonderful Christmas time. Now, Sid gets to wander over and take a look at this so called Christmas Rock. He wants to touch it, but Manny won’t let him and says he’ll break it. The others think this is preposterous, but Diego seems to agree with the mammoth. Sid then determines that a rock is a poor way to get someone’s attention. He suggests a tree instead which Manny scoffs at the suggestion of a Christmas Tree. Sid then settles on a nearby evergreen and gives it a sprucing up with earthworms, dead fish, a hedgehog for an ornament, and spider webs for garland.
It was so apparent that Sid would find a way to break the rock that there was no way to make it funny.
When Sid’s tree is finished even Diego has to admit it is pretty eye-catching. Sid thinks it could use something else, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. As he sizes up his tree, he’s backing up until he bumps into a tree and his ass gets stuck. When he frees himself from the tree, he finds he has a piece of ice in the shape of a star stuck to his butt. Feeling that’s the thing that will really scream “Sid” when added to the tree, the sloth climbs up it and jams the top of the tree through the center of the star in brutish fashion. Now, he’s satisfied, but the tree bends over all the way to the ground due to his weight. When Sid lets go, the tree snaps back into place sending the “star” whirling through the air like a shuriken. It nearly takes off Manny’s hair in the process and shatters against the Christmas Rock which elicits a gasp from all of the onlookers. Sid sort of laughs off the gasps as he goes to lean on the rock and asks them all what they did they expect? Then the rock cracks and crumbles as was foretold.
Now you’ve gone and made the mammoth mad, you dumb sloth.
All Manny can do is inspect the remains of his family heirloom. Sid has gone into full apology mode, but the angry, shaking, mammoth doesn’t want to hear it. For as angry as he looks, his voice doesn’t really match. Sure, he’s not happy, but I’m not sensing any rage here. He just gestures at Sid and tells him he shouldn’t be worried about how mad he’s made him, but how mad this will make Santa. It’s obvious that Manny is searching for words here as he devises a punishment for Sid: The Naughty List! This is apparently something Manny has just made up, but Sid wails with suffering at the thought of being left out of Christmas. As Manny leaves him to his misery, Ellie questions him about this solution he came up with. Manny dismisses any concern reasoning that Sid will get over it since only kids believe in this Santa stuff. Peaches overhears him though and immediately challenges him on his belief in Santa. Manny tries to take it back, but Peaches fires back that most hurtful of accusations: “The only one who deserves to be on The Naughty List is you, dad!” That sings even more than “I learned it by watching you!”
I think he may even be faster than Frosty, though he isn’t on his belly so it doesn’t count.
Peaches takes off leaving her parents alone. Manny tries to brush it off and says this Santa stuff won’t be hurtful to an adult like Sid. We smash cut to Sid to still wailing, still in tremendous emotional pain about being placed on The Naughty List. Crash and Eddie are there to console him as they tell him to stop crying. When Sid questions why they point out that his tears are freezing to the ground. He looks at his feet to find them encased in ice, then returns to his whimpering which is pretty much unintelligible. His frozen feet start to slide though and soon Sid is off sliding down the hillside leaving Eddie and Crash to look at each other with an uncharacteristic amount of worry in their eyes. At least, I think it’s uncharacteristic. They don’t seem to be the sort that usually cares much about feelings and such. Plus they were basically just shown delighting in being naughty.
Just a squirrel having a romantic dance with his nut.
That’s our act break, and when we return we find Scrat up to his usual antics again. There’s an acorn stuck frozen in a pond. Set to “Dance of Flowers” (I guess I should give them credit for not going with the Ice Skater’s Waltz), Scrat first has some difficulty in reaching the acorn due to his tendency to slip and fall. Eventually he gets a tongue on it and is able to wrap himself around the acorn and pluck it from the ice. So begins an ice skating routine between a squirrel and his nut. He treats the acorn like a dance partner as he skates about carving the image of an acorn in the ice as he goes along. At some point he slides through a hollow log on the surface of the ice and emerges with a big flourish of a finish. At the end of which he realizes he lost his acorn and what he’s holding instead is a giant spider which isn’t too happy to see him. We cut to black as the spider attacks. That certainly killed some time.
It would seem only the kid knows which way is north.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. Sid is still aghast about being put on The Naughty List. When he asks Diego how he got onto Santa’s bad side he quips “Because he doesn’t have a loser’s list.” As Diego walks off, Sid thanks him for trying to cheer him up completely oblivious to the insult. Peaches then comes over with a solution. She suggests they take their concerns to the source, the big man himself, Santa! To do so, they need to head to the pole (“The north one?”) and the two possums want to join them since they don’t want to be on that list either. As for Peaches, she wants to help out her Uncle Sid, but also prove to her dad that Santa Claus is real. Sid is convinced, but doesn’t think Peaches should go since the North Pole is a desolate, frozen, wasteland. We pull out for dramatic effect to reveal that everything is a frozen, desolate, place though one of the possums (I have no idea who is who) needs to remark that this place isn’t exactly Miami. A pointless joke since the visual did the trick already. Sid relents, then he and the possums quickly demonstrate that they have no idea which way the North Pole is as they all start walking in different directions. It’s the kid, Peaches, who has to point them north. They’re all gonna die.
Quite literally the blind leading the blind.
We next catch up with our clan marching to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as sung by Sid. Great. They all join in with their own version of the song: Nine fleas a biting, eight pounds of earwax, seven frosty fingers, six frosty fingers (one snapped off), five…and they don’t get it out. It sounded like they may go with frosty fingers again, but they find themselves in white out conditions. One of the possums thinks they walked off the edge of the Earth, but Sid assures them it’s just your every day white-out and that they’ll be fine if they stick together, so of course they’re all separated. They all start walking around and calling out each other’s names. There’s a decent gag where one of the possums is looking for the other one, Eddie, and then remembers that he in fact is Eddie so even they can’t tell each other apart. They’re all reunited when the possums get squished between the butts of the two larger mammals.
It’s Prancer the rescue reindeer!
Sid, with a good idea for once, instructs them all to hold onto each other as he leads them through the snow since he has a self-assessed good sense of direction. Which means he’s going to march them off a cliff. This thing writes itself. Before Sid does do just that, we get a fake out where he stops to sneeze, but then marches them off the cliff to their certain doom. Only they get deus ex machina’d by a flying reindeer! It’s time to meet Prancer (T.J. Miller), a very modest, flying, reindeer. He celebrates himself and demonstrates his powers, but once he reveals his name the two possums laugh. I don’t get it. He’s annoyed. Sid thanks him for his help and wishes him a merry Christmas as he starts to wander off. Prancer seems shocked that Sid doesn’t want his help, but he assures the reindeer that they can take it from here. Then he walks off the cliff again. This time it’s Peaches who is there to save him ensnaring his neck with his snout as she declares that the reindeer is coming with them. Good idea.
Well, I bet Santa will definitely do a double-take when he sees that monstrosity.
It’s time to check in on the mammoth parents. Manny has reassembled his rock using mud and it looks pretty terrible. When he asks Diego what he thinks he asks him if he wants the Christmas answer or the real answer? It matters little for the thing falls apart soon after. Ellie then comes along in a panic because she can’t find Peaches and Sid and the possums are missing too. Diego informs the parents the last time he saw them they were trying to figure out how to get Sid off Santa’s Naughty List. Manny gets defensive at just hearing that before anyone can even look at him. He asks Diego if he can pick up Sid’s scent. The cat informs him that he can, but it makes his eyes burn. The mammoths insist that he does anyway and sure enough, he’s repulsed. He finds it and starts to follow it, but the effect of Sid’s musk is making him visibly woozy.
It’s so funny that Sid knows what a barf bag is even though it won’t be invented for thousands of years. Hardy har har.
Sid and the gang have resumed their journey along with Prancer. Sid inquires with the reindeer how long it will take them to get to the North Pole and this is apparently the first time the subject has been raised. Prancer is surprised to hear where this is leading and tells the group you can’t walk there, you have to fly. And it just so happens that they’re in the presence of a flying reindeer willing to give them a lift. We cut to them in the air with Sid on his back, the possums wrapped around his legs, and Peaches seated in his antlers. He basically just makes a bunch of standard airline references as he struggles with the weight of the mammoth on his antlers. Peaches asks him if she’s too heavy, but he insists she’s not while whispering under his breath that she very much is. Sid isn’t doing too well either as he asks Prancer if he comes equipped with barf bags. Pretty wild how they know all of this stuff before it’s been invented.
What Christmas miracle number is this? Two? The rock breaking was kind of a miracle too.
Before Sid can blow chunks all over Prancer, we cut back to Manny and Ellie marching through a blizzard in search of their daughter. The fact that they’re now flying is going to make it pretty hard to catch up with them, let alone track via Diego’s nose. And that’s also going to be impossible if Diego is covered in snow, as Manny soon discovers when looking for the cat. He pokes at what appears to be Diego’s head, but when the snow falls away we see it’s actually his butt. Diego’s head pops out the other end and he asks his friend if he’s glad he didn’t kiss him? That’s an odd thing to say. Diego then tries to resume tracking the group, but his sense of direction has been thrown off by the blizzard and he’s apparently lost the scent. He then spies some tracks, but they’re his own and we pull back to see the trio have been walking in circles. Manny is hopeless, but Ellie tells him that he needs to have faith that Peaches will be all right. I think she’s going to stick up for Sid here, even though he’s not the brightest sloth he can look after a kid, but no. She tells Manny to just believe in the magic of Christmas. Manny finds this suggestion absurd, as he should, but she begs him to go along with it. He half-heartedly says that he believes in the magic of Christmas. Then the blizzard stops, the skies open, and the northern lights are visible. Manny insists it was just coincidence while Ellie insists she doesn’t care how it happened, but she’ll take it. This is stupid.
Things are starting to look a bit more Christmassy.
Now, to resume the journey north with the other crew. Prancer lands in an area that doesn’t look like all of the rest. It’s still covered in snow, but there’s also bushes with large, purple, berries and birch trees that have red stripes on them instead of black. Peaches quickly confirms that the berries are sugar plums while the possums declare the bark to be peppermint bark. Sid is excited to find some yellow snow which he goes to consume, but Prancer stops him with a deadpan “No. Just no.” We don’t actually see the yellow snow, but just Sid’s reaction to it. I should have expected a yellow snow joke at some point, but after three movies I had just assumed it had been done before. Possibly more than once.
Look at that cute little guy! I know he’s threatening the mains with a stabbing, but he’s still cute!
Their foraging is soon interrupted by another sloth. He’s much smaller than Sid and blue with a big spear. He (Judah Friedlander) introduces himself as part of the “Santarouge,” that’s a portmanteau of Santa and entourage, if you’re trying to figure out how to pronounce it. He’s also pretty hostile. His purpose, and that of the others in his group, is to keep away those who would disturb Santa from his important work. Peaches doesn’t seem to mind the hostility and is delighted to have the existence of Santa confirmed and practically begs the little guy to let them meet with him. He refuses and points his spear in their direction. Sid, being the bigger mammal, tries to challenge him with the overused line of “You and what army?” The little blue guy snaps his fingers in a sassy way and countless more mini sloths appear each one armed with a spear and shield. He then gives the command to, “Raise heck.” We can joke about eating piss snow and kissing asses, but we draw the line at saying the word hell.
I guess we needed an avalanche.
As the mini sloths move in and surround the crew, Prancer decides he’s seen enough. Announcing that they’re no match for the power of flight, he takes off and…gets his head stuck in the ice. Okay, so somehow the group was backed into a corner of sorts where the environment curled over their heads. It’s pretty preposterous, but it’s one way to account for Prancer basically being able to just fly away. Seeing their new friend stuck, Peaches tells the others to grab a leg and pull. They do, which looks really painful for Prancer, but also causes a bunch of cracks to open in the snow and ice around them. We see a little ball of snow go bouncing away. It rolls and bounces off the side of a cliff and comes to smack Manny in the shoulder. How did they get all the way up there so fast without flying? Shut up! All you need to know is that little snowball was the start of an avalanche that consumes all of our main characters and the other sloths. All dead. The end.
Santa fashion hasn’t changed much since the ice age.
I’m not that lucky. We’re actually somehow only halfway through this snoozefest of a Christmas special. Which means it’s time to finally meet Santa Claus (Billy Gardell)! He has a cozy little cottage located somewhere nearby. He’s outside smacking some wood into the shape of toys while singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” He basically looks like any old Santa. Not really much going on to make him look different. He tosses whatever he made into a giant sack which is seated on a crude looking sleigh. It’s one he needs to pull on his own so I guess there’s the crudeness I was looking for. You might think that him singing such a song would be a conflict with our plot since it makes mention of a list and checking it to see who is naughty and who is nice. He sings the line about the list, but then hums the rest. Oh, you clever writers! He then looks up from his work to see the incoming avalanche and accepts his certain demise with an utterance of “Nutmeg.”
Oh, look. They survived. Great…
After Santa gets taken out, we’re left to survey the carnage. It’s basically just a bunch of snow with trees sticking out. Oh, and bodies. Lots and lots of bodies. Everyone seems to be in one piece though, and once Manny and the others realize they’ve finally caught up to Sid and company, everyone starts looking for Peaches. Don’t worry though, she’s fine, but while mother Ellie is relieved, father Manny is pissed. He announces that there’s a grounding a coming, but when Peaches apologizes we realize he wasn’t talking to her, but Sid. That’s when Santa makes his entrance. Sid recognizes him as Santa immediately while Manny cautions him not to mistake every fat guy he sees for Santa. Santa takes exception to the fat crack and insists it’s the suit. Sid remarks he’s just as old and decrepit as he expected, which is a dumb thing to say of a healthy looking, well-fed, guy who just happens to have a white beard.
Behold! The Naughty List!
Santa is rather alarmed at what’s happened and notes that everything was destroyed. Sid is just concerned about the whole Naughty List thing, but when Manny interjects to tell him there’s no such thing Santa corrects him by saying, “There is now, Manfred!” He then unfurls a long scroll with a bunch of names on it and Manny’s gets added to it. It’s at this point that Manny realizes that this guy is the real deal. He tries to act astonished and even a tad giddy, but it’s just not in Ray Romano’s range. Diego is confused about seeing all of their names on this newly christened Naughty List and Sid just gestures to their surroundings as reason why. Santa is pretty upset since it’s Christmas Eve and he can’t possibly remake all of the toys and such for the good girls and boys and everyone looks sad.
Manny claims there’s 800 of these little buggers. Anyone want to count?
All except Manny. Now with the magic of Christmas coursing through his veins, the mammoth is unable to concede defeat. He insists there’s still time, but Peaches is there to point out that there’s only eight of them. Manny then draws her attention to the 800 or so other sloths. They’re surprised to see him refer to them and Manny remarks how it’s pretty bad that they never thought to give Santa a hand. Peaches is still skeptical, but Manny tells her to believe in him, just like he believed in her. Or something. That’s all the convincing she needs though as she sidles up to a little sloth with a drum around his neck. She tells him to “Hit it!” and he smacks her on the ass. Dude, she’s a minor! How inappropriate. She angrily instructs him to play the drum and he does as he’s told.
I guess up until now this one had gone rather light on the singing.
This is where Sid takes over because this is his story, I guess. He’s going to provide emotional support by leading everyone in “Deck the Halls.” Fantastic. The lyrics in use are not the traditional ones and there’s a bunch of puns. The possums point out that they don’t know what a hall is, or a season, but Sid insists they just go with it. As he leads the song, others make toys and point out how odd they’re acting. There’s a moment where Sid is picking up objects and declaring what is and isn’t a toy. When he comes to a boomerang-shaped rock he declared it’s not a toy, then throws it, and it boomerangs on him and strikes him in the skull. Little, toy, effigies of Manny, Sid, and Diego are made while one of the blue sloths discards a ball of twin since no one will want that. Except for the cat, Diego, who freakin’ loves the thing.
Are we done now? Please?
Manny is shown holding mistletoe in his trunk and he asks his wife what to do with it. She places it on a structure they have seemingly constructed out of the peppermint birch trees and you think they’re going to kiss, but no, it’s Sid who jumps up and kisses Manny remarking that “There’s just something about mistletoe.” Santa decides it’s his time to join in as we can see it’s getting dark. More visuals of animals putting together toys as the song nears its climax with Sid crediting all of the sloths with making this Christmas magic happen. Diego questions him, and he corrects himself to say it was all because of every one instead. Big finish, pose for an image, please make it stop.
This new sleigh is an improvement, I’ll them that. All of that purple fur trim leads me to believe there are some naked sloths lurking about.
Santa saunters over to show his appreciation for all that everyone has done and to marvel at his new sleigh. It looks pretty good, I guess, and it’s loaded with a massive sack of toys. Sid tells Santa that the mini sloths can help him build toys every year. The head mini sloth is taken aback by this suggestion, but thinks it over for a second and declares that they’re going to need hats. Cute hats. Sid also informs Santa that he probably has enough toys for all the kids in the world. Santa is impressed, but he can’t possibly deliver to the entire world in a single night.
Check out Prancer: the big failure!
That’s when Prancer steps in. He declares he’s going to give Santa the best Christmas present ever: himself. Sid gleefully hooks Prancer up to the sleigh and gives the order to take off, only he can’t. Oh, he tries, but it would seem this load is far too large for one reindeer. So much for that. Prancer is left to ponder failure, his first experience of it, but Manny isn’t ready to settle. He starts headbutting the back of the sleigh in an effort to get it moving. He offers words of encouragement, but it’s not those words Prancer hears. Instead, Manny sarcastically adds “Unless you know ten other reindeer,” and it’s that which catches the reindeer’s ear. He acknowledges he can’t do this by himself and takes off leaving the others stunned. As they watch him go, Santa lets out a grunt of resignation. Sid tries to cheer him up, but it isn’t working. He asks if he’s still on The Naughty List and Santa confirms that he is. Damn. Tough grader.
Oh, hooray! More reindeer!
We cut to Sid with the reigns in his mouth as he tries to pull the sleigh. We pull back to see the others are all hooked up as well, but they’re not moving very far. Sid pauses to inform us that they’ve moved about 30 feet and guesses that they should be able to make it around the world in about 8,000 years. I’m not doing the math to fact check the sloth. Santa lets out a bah humbug, but it’s a short lived feeling of resignation for up in the sky appears Prancer! You knew he was coming back. We all knew, and he brought his family! Do I need to list them off? No, I don’t think I do. For some reason the possums find the name Blitzen funny, funnier than Prancer. He doesn’t have a sense of humor though and flies the pair high into the sky where they’re forced to concede it’s actually a very fine name.
It’s not a moon shot, but a norther lights shot is still pretty good.
The reindeer are all hooked up to the sleigh and all that’s left is to see if they can get this thing off the ground. Well, first Manny and Prancer need to have a brief conversation so we can learn that the moral of this story is that you can’t do everything on your own. That’s it? They’re kind of jamming that in at the end, but okay. With all of the reindeer in place, getting Santa off the ground is no problem. As he takes to the sky, he calls back down to “Manfred” and chucks his list at him. Manny unfurls it to find the Naughty has changed to Nice. We also learn there are 989,000 or so mini sloths, if this list can be trusted. Sid is delighted to see his name on the Nice List as Santa deposits some presents.
Merry Christmas, Scrat. Enjoy the concussion.
Up in the sleigh, we find that little squirrel, Scrat, one more time. He finds his gift from Santa, a massive acorn. When he goes to eat it, the top pops off to reveal a smaller acorn inside. It’s basically an acorn nesting doll and eventually Scrat gets to the end of it to find a rather ordinary sized acorn. Hey, it’s better than nothing. When he goes to eat it he somehow loses his grip on it. It flies off the back of the sleigh and Scrat lunges for it, but he’s caught on a rope of some kind. He swings from the back of the sleigh and under it all the way to the front where he gets kicked in the head by a reindeer. He goes back and forth, this night of misery unlikely to end for him anytime soon.
And that’s it. Through a sloth, some mammoths, and other creatures, we learn the surprising origins of Santa and how he came to have reindeer and elves. I guess. They’re not really elves though, they’re sloths. Or maybe Santa had sloths until he found the elves and then told the sloths to take a hike. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the magic of Christmas lead a father to his child through a blizzard and an avalanche and helped save Christmas. This one tries to make the joke that “Isn’t it funny how corny Christmas specials are?” while also trying to be sincere at the same time. It fails at both. None of the attempts at obvious humor work and the examples of Christmas magic do not resonate at all. I can’t decide if this one is too cynical or not cynical enough? It doesn’t go far enough to be subversive and instead just treads water in this awkward middle ground.
I will say, I expected to hate Sid way more than I did. He was mostly tolerable.
It doesn’t help that I don’t care about any of these characters. The performances are so flat and wooden and the only ones that feel like they’re really trying are John Leguizamo and Ciara Bravo. Denis Leary sounds like he’d rather be anywhere else while Romano is just going through the motions. I just don’t think he’s a very good voice actor. His delivery works in live action where he can use his facial expressions to his advantage, but not here since his face is that of a hairy elephant. There’s not much the character can do except frown a bit. The Ellie character is such a nothing character, only there to offer support or worry about her kid. I felt bad for Queen Latifah since she had nothing to work with.
This is the sort of special that tries to make its viewer laugh and laugh often so there’s at least a few jokes that work here and there, but most lack impact. The story is slow and thank God we had the Scrat stuff to pad it out. That’s honestly the best part. That and the head mini sloth, but he has nothing to do after his initial introduction. Prancer is okay, but there’s obviously no drama since we know how he’s going to get that sleigh off the ground. And again, there’s nothing done to find humor here. They just let it play out so it lands like a wet fart.
Most people who watch this are probably going to have very little to take away. It’s just a thing that exists and there’s a pretty good reason why it’s not a special that has to air on network TV every year. Oh, it had a run, but probably because of the brand. For someone like me who has seen a lot of Christmas specials, I’m a harsher critic. I’m almost offended when a Christmas special so thoroughly wastes my time like this one. The animation is at least good, I’ll give it that, but I’m out on positive things to say. If you would like to waste your time with the characters of Ice Age, then you can find this streaming on Disney+. Hopefully, your Christmas Eve is a lot more fun and exciting than sitting in front of a TV and watching this thing.
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