I’ve been pointing out quite a bit as we move along through this countdown how I like to group similar shows together. I don’t want to go from The Smurfs to Beavis and Butt-Head if I can help it. Well, sometimes I can’t help it. Today is a little bit of a mix of adult shows and kid’s shows. I wouldn’t consider any of the children’s stuff to be particularly wholesome or anything, but could (or should) an 8 year old watch everything on today’s list? Probably not. It is a very Fox heavy lineup though of both Saturday morning and primetime stuff which is not by design, but kind of interesting to me. And these Christmas episodes are also interesting to me and most of them are pretty good. We also have some more tumblers from my very first list which is one of those things that’s going to happen again. A lot has changed since that first list ten years ago.
Rick and Morty seems like an odd fit for Christmas, which is why it was so surprising to see the show go to that well so early in its first season. One would definitely expect the show to have a cynical take on the holiday, but that’s not really the case. Christmas is just a framing device for this episode and excuse for Jerry’s parents to show up for a nice, family, get-together. They just happen to bring along their new playmate. Yup, Jerry’s parents are in what the kid’s call a “thrupple” these days where Jerry’s dad likes to watch from the closet (often wearing a Superman costume) while Jerry’s elderly mom makes love to a young, African American, gentlemen. And the rest of the family enjoys watching Jerry squirm. Meanwhile, Rick is busy building an amusement park inside the guts of a homeless man who just so happens to be dressed as Santa. Crazy science things happen and soon it’s raining blood over all of North America. Yeah, it’s a weird turn. This is a B-tier episode of the show. It finds humor in putting the characters in awkward positions, but it’s certainly different and a unique addition to the Christmas special database.
Bob’s Burgers loves to churn out holiday themed episodes year in and year out. The show’s meat and potatoes is Thanksgiving as the writers have kind of staked their claim to that holiday, but the show’s collection of Christmas episodes is strong as well. “The Bleakening” is a really interesting one as it’s a two-part episode with a mystery plot, not really the sort of thing the show is known for. The second part especially has a suspense/horror vibe to it as the family tries to figure out who stole a mini Christmas tree from their restaurant which definitely gives this one a unique vibe. It’s only weakness is the plot probably isn’t dense enough to sustain the double-episode run length. It’s not a slog or anything, but the ending is a bit anticlimactic and feels a little dragged out. Not the show’s best Christmas episode, but a worthwhile watch each year.
The Simpsons did a weird thing in 2020 when it decided to end Season 31 with a Christmas episode. If you know anything about network TV, then you know seasons typically end in May which is pretty far removed from the Christmas holiday season – which is pretty damn long as-is. Basically what happened is Carolyn Omine, longtime writer on the series, wanted to do an episode about the family dog, Santa’s Little Helper, and how do you separate a character with that name from Christmas? There was some talk of holding it over until the next season to air at Christmas, but that didn’t happen. Maybe COVID stuff made that a no-go or the network just said “Screw it” and aired the finished episode when it was ready. Either way, this is a solid examination of the pooch that answers some questions. Were they necessarily pressing questions? No, but it’s fine. There’s a B plot of sorts that doesn’t work for me, but the episode makes up for that in other ways. I just wish showrunner Al Jean stayed true to his word and let Santa’s Little Helper’s mom become a permanent member of the family (I don’t think she’s been seen or heard from since).
Cuphead and Mugman will risk life and limb for a tree.
For what I assume is The Cuphead Show‘s final season there was not one, but two, Christmas episodes. This is the one that came first and it’s a typical short subject episode where Cuphead and Mugman are entrusted for the first time to secure a Christmas tree. They basically screw it up by first trying to bargain too hard with the only tree guy in town and then by trying to cut down their own. The show is a throwback to old style shorts and the pacing and gags are very much in line with that. How many of those old Warner cartoons had characters nearly disemboweled in a saw mill? That’s practically what they’re for! It’s a great looking show and there’s some solid laughs and a good ending to be found. I like the longer special that follows more, but this one is pretty great too.
The first Christmas episode of Family Guy is still the show’s best. I liked it so much ten years ago that I ranked it all the way up at number 14 overall! That was clearly me overrating something I had watched a lot of in college, but I still think this is a good episode. It definitely has some of that old Family Guy DNA in it where it’s mostly a Simpsons knock-off, but with an even dumber father character and a liberal use of cutaway gags. In this one, Peter screws up and donates all of the Christmas presents to charity so the family has to brave the mall on Christmas Eve to rebuy everything. That’s one area where it does do things perhaps different from what The Simpsons would do as the family isn’t in financial ruin by losing all of those gifts, but they do end up taking Lois for granted and she goes berserk and runs amok in downtown Quahog. It is a relatable premise if you’re one of the adults who makes Christmas “go” each year. And especially so when your kids are at that age where they know how everything is supposed to go, but they don’t actually do anything to help out. It’s mostly funny and they even manage to shoehorn some Santa stuff in there via Stewie. This is the only Family Guy Christmas episode on my watch list each year, though “Road to the North Pole” is close. I just tend to fall asleep during that one since it’s a double length episode (which is why I never got around to covering it).
The other Animaniacs Christmas episode from 1993 is one I’m a little torn on. It’s hard to rank because it is pretty funny, the animation is superb, but it relies on some bad tropes of the Christmas special. I’m talking A Christmas Carol and too many fruit cake jokes. Fruit cake jokes are perhaps my personal pet peeve. Yeah, I think the holiday treat is pretty terrible, but I’m sick of hearing about it. No one gives that stuff out anymore. This episode puts the CEO of Warner Bros, the fictional Thaddeus Plotz, in the role of Scrooge. In the role of Bob Cratchit is Ralph, the dim-witted security guard whom Plotz fires at Christmas. Slappy Squirrel gets to play Marley while your trusty Warner siblings serve as the ghosts. The humor is your typical brand of Animaniacs humor which is a mix of topical, pop culture references, and old school gags. There’s no real twist which is perhaps the biggest criticism one could levy against this one. Well, if there is a twist it’s that Plotz is clearly acting out of kindness in the end because he fears damnation and figures he can go back to being a jerk on Boxing Day. The cartoon takes up nearly the entire length of the episode, but there is a “We Three Kings” cartoon short that follows for those who prefer a more secular celebration. It has some gag lines, but mostly plays it straight.
You may not realize it right now, Santa, but you’re actually in pretty good hands with Eek. Or should I say paws?
Eek the Cat received quite a bit of attention from Fox back in the day and was sort of like a mascot for the kid’s programming block Fox Kids. He hasn’t had much staying power over the years, but he did contribute a couple of Christmas specials to the scene and both are pretty solid with this first one being the better of the two. In it, Santa’s reindeer go on strike and the big guy needs help delivering presents. Meanwhile, Eek’s girlfriend’s dog, Sharky, who hates Eek and never misses a chance to maul him, is depressed and misses his family. Eek vows to help out Sharky because that’s what Eek does – he is an eternal optimist who always does the right thing even if it means tremendous pain for him. They hook up with a scab reindeer named Elmo and basically have to be the elves, reindeer, and Santa in order to deliver Christmas to the world and reunite Sharkey with his family. There’s a lot of physical humor and even some dark stuff (the special ends with Eek about to become Christmas dinner) while also just some strange things like a cameo by the Barbi Twins who were basically famous for being in Playboy. And for being twins. That was Fox though and it wasn’t for everyone, but it sure was unique.
Samurai Pizza Cats is a weird show. It’s sort of like Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers in that it was imported from Japan and then “Americanized.” Only with an animated show like this one, there was no room for new shots or anything so it was just given the weirdest dub imaginable. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had been popular so the new title the show was given was an obvious play on that and since the characters did work in a pizzeria it wasn’t entirely out of left field. The actual show is more like a goofy version of Ronin Warriors, but with cats. There’s not much plot here. The main villain, Big Cheese, impersonates Santa and causes some mischief so the heroes go out and take care of business. It’s very comedic and made even more so by the dub. I’ve never sought out an undubbed version of this show, but I assume it too was fairly comedic in nature as well. The animation is fun and it’s the sort of offbeat Christmas special that feels quite refreshing among more traditional options. If you’re into anime, then it’s definitely worth a look.
Not the Santa you want to see coming down your chimney.
What’s this? A live-action sitcom? Yes, I never set out to make my list exclusively animation, but it did mostly happen that way. There’s just way more Christmas cartoons out there and I tend to love cartoons. When it comes to live-action it’s mostly traditional sitcom stuff which, for me, never ages particularly well. There isn’t one sitcom I used to watch in the 80s or 90s with a Christmas episode I seek out each year. Well, with one exception, and it’s this one. Married…with Children was the first show I can remember my mom telling me she didn’t like me watching, and I can see why. She never stopped me from watching it, but she didn’t like it and hoped I just wouldn’t watch it on my own because of that. She was wrong. It is pretty sleezy and it was the type of show Fox was staking its reputation on. The Bundy family has little love for one another. The husband is miserable, the wife selfish and lazy, the daughter an airhead, and the boy basically spends all of his time lusting after women and jerking off. In this one, we see how shitty Christmas is for the Bundy family because they’re poor and because patriarch Al just doesn’t care to make an effort. Then a mall stunt goes wrong and a parachuting Santa lands in their backyard dead. It’s a plot that could only happen with this show. And even though Al Bundy is a pretty loathsome individual, he does at least try to assuage the kids in the neighborhood that Santa Claus is fine and the family has a Merry Christmas in the end when they discover the sack of mall gift certificates the now deceased Santa was supposed to give out. It’s pretty dark, but also pretty funny.
The Wrigley family yearns for Christmas every day.
Back to back live-action shows – this will not happen again in the countdown. I think this is actually the end of the live-action stuff, unless you include puppets in there. Nickelodeon had a ton of unique programming in the 90s and few shows sum up the vibe of the network like The Adventures of Pete & Pete. It’s just two brothers, both named Pete, and their day-to-day lives in an absurd world. It borders on cartoonish, but usually doesn’t quite go that far, especially in these later episodes where Artie is no longer around. In the Christmas episode, Young Pete refuses to give up on Christmas. Why does it have to go away when it’s so good? The interesting thing is, despite the fact that he’s a kid, he’s not hung up on the whole presents thing. He’s not looking to score a new gift every day, he just likes the overall feeling of the season. And standing in his way is the garbage man. He wants those trees, but Pete needs to rally the neighborhood to withhold them. Things get crazy as there’s a garbage strike and eventually people start to crack. Pete gives in since everyone else does, but then a final act of Christmas spirit thaws the garbageman’s heart and the magic of Christmas lives just a bit longer. It’s cute and fun and as someone who hates saying goodbye to Christmas every year I can totally empathize with Little Pete. If only we could feel that way the whole year round – wouldn’t we all be a bit nicer? Big Pete, via narration, claims the neighborhood was a nicer place after that even if they did eventually put Christmas away and that’s certainly a nice way to end the episode and today’s entry.
If you can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
We’ve taken a look at a lot of animated sitcoms this year and so far they’ve all been repeat visitors to The Christmas Spot. It feels like it’s time for something new, though it has a very familiar feel. The Cleveland Show is a 2009 spin-off of Family Guy created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel,…
It was just over a week ago that we took a look at the Christmas episode of The Looney Tunes Show. That show featured the cast of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies in an animated sitcom and it was…okay. It definitely didn’t feel like Warner stumbled onto something with that idea and the search for a worthwhile…
Yesterday, we talked about South Park and its very first holiday special from the late 90s and today we’re talking about the Trey Parker/Matt Stone of the 2010s – Justin Roiland. Roiland was able to hook-up with Dan Harmon in the mid-2000s which put him on the path to comedy writer and actor, usually of…
Mondo has had success with its sixth scale line of action figures based on X-Men and X-Men ’97 so it’s no surprise that the company has decided to dip its toe into another 90s animated Marvel series in Spider-Man. And when it comes to Spider-Man, I’m not sure what to call it. I always referred to the X-Men cartoon as simply X-Men, though in the ensuing decades there’s been an attempt to retcon it as X-Men: The Animated Series since that’s what happened with Batman. Only, Batman had “The Animated Series” tacked onto it from the very beginning even if it wasn’t technically the show’s name. With Spider-Man, I guess I always called it just Spider-Man, but over the years I’ve come to think of it as Spider-Man ’94. I don’t know why I feel the need to differentiate it in such a fashion, but I do sometimes refer to X-Men as X-Men ’92.
Whatever you want to call it, Spider-Man was a pretty entertaining show for an early teens kid in the 90s. I was introduced to the character of Spider-Man via public service announcements and that really cool CGi Spider-Man that dropped in as part of the Marvel logo at the end of Muppet Babies. I did catch a few stray episodes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, but for the most part I didn’t know a ton about Spider-Man going into the premiere of the ’94 cartoon. I knew the basics, had a few comics, read the back of many trading cards, but a lot of Spidey knowledge would come from the show. And I liked Spider-Man well enough going into the whole thing, but the character I really liked and wanted to see on television was Venom.
As is typical of Mondo, the packaging is pretty nice.
I’ve explained my love of Venom in other posts on the subject, but he was one of the big characters of the 90s. Sure, he debuted in the 80s, but I feel like he took off in the 90s leading to his solo outing in Lethal Protector. When the Toy Biz Marvel Super Heroes line emerged, I didn’t buy Spider-Man, I got Venom! When the video game Maximum Carnage hit, I played that thing and kept saying “Where’s Venom?” until finally getting to the stage where he was playable. He was just cool. This big, brutish, version of Spider-Man with a great concept for his costume and artists that took advantage of it. When the show hit, he was saved for last in the opening title for a reason and I would tune into that show week in and week out waiting for the big guy to finally show up. And when that episode finally hit and the alien slime dripped down onto Eddie Brock I could have jumped out of my skin with excitement. Unfortunately, that would be just one of three episodes that featured the character, but it was still cool to finally see him in animation.
That’s definitely Venom from the old Spider-Man cartoon.
I liked the show Spider-Man well enough, but it wasn’t as high on my list as X-Men. As a result, I don’t know how deep I’m going to go on a line of sixth scale toys that retail for over $200 a piece and require a lot of shelf space to display properly. However, when Mondo announced they were doing Spider-Man I knew I was at least in for Venom. Which doesn’t make the most sense, if I’m being honest. Venom, as a character created for animation, has a weaker design compared to his comic book counterpart. He couldn’t have the many rows of teeth, the giant tongue, complicated eyes, and so forth because it would be a nightmare to animate. He also couldn’t be shaded like he was in the books where most artists would start with a blue base and then layer on the blacks. He kept his basic shape, but the eyes and mouth were simplified. The show added its own touch by cutting out slits on the tops of the white eyes which give him the illusion of slit-like pupils as if owing to a snake. The tongue was there, but not monstrous and usually absent the green slime. Standing out most though was this blue outline the character would have on one side, plus a red one on the other. It’s not uncommon to see blue used to shade black in both comics and animation, but the red was certainly an interesting choice. It’s certainly a unique look for Venom, even if it isn’t my favorite, but there’s charm and certainly a great deal of nostalgia baked into this look.
Venom is pretty damn large even when compared with the biggest characters from the X-Men line.
Mondo’s Venom comes in a massive window box that is structurally the same as what we see from the X-Men line. Conceptually, it’s relying on new artwork and for this release that artwork is done by Kris Anka with Jordan Christianson receiving credit for the package design. There’s a big web on the front with Venom in the middle with a black, blue, and red Spider-Man logo across the top. There’s a Velcro flap with a side portrait of Venom on the inside. The window for viewing the figure has a comic book-like character portrait in the top left corner that also includes the dates April 1995 through November 1996 with both endpoints marking Venom’s debut and final appearance in the show.
Sorry Wolverine, since we don’t have a Spidey you’ll have to do.
Packaging is fun and all, but the real treat is what’s inside. Venom is a big, hulking, brute of an action figure. Mondo lists him as 13″ and my tape measure has him at just a tick over 13.25″. He’s big and right up there with Sabretooth and Omega Red from the X-Men line. This is another sculpt by Alex Brewer and on paint for Venom is Mara Ancheta and, let me tell you, these two did a bang-up job. That should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with what Mondo has been doing at this scale, but Venom looks like a maquette from the show. He is as faithful to the screen as you’re going to find. His upper body is massive with huge shoulders and bulging biceps. It tapers well at the abdomen and he has these tree trunk legs that just really add to the bulk on display.
I can hear Hank Azaria’s voice in my head.
All of the show specific details are captured beautifully in this figure. The portrait is perfect. He has this slight indent on the center of his head which he was often drawn with. It was like the meeting point between the blue and the red outline and it gave him a bit of a “butthead” look in some stills. Here it’s subtle so we don’t have a butthead Venom, but we have an accurate one. The eyes are perfect and he has those unique Spider-Man ’94 eye slits plus the blue and red lips around his lizard-like maw. The default head has an open mouth and the teeth are painted exceptionally well. On the chest and back is the classic white spider logo and the black lines in the legs are slightly sculpted in. The forearms feature those veins that kind of looked like webbing to me as a kid and they’re colored in blue and red as they were in his second appearance. The white patches are also present, a detail Mondo certainly wouldn’t overlook. And the paint is just fantastic. Crisp, clean, and in the right amount. Venom isn’t the sort of character that’s going to pop like a Cyclops or even a Spider-Man, but he has what he needs. There’s tons of blue and red highlights on the muscles and the logic on play is well applied as the figure creates an illusion of a light source. There’s also a hit of gray in the spider logo under the pectorals and in the abs which looks great and adds definition. If you inspect the figure in great depth you might find a white spot here and there or a softer edge to some of the paint, but in terms of paint slop it’s pretty much pristine.
Venom triumphant!
Now, where these Mondo figures usually don’t shine is with the articulation, and despite Venom doing some thing different, he’s still largely the same. All of the points of articulation you could want are here, they just don’t have the range to create a variety of poses. There’s the usual double-ball peg head, the ball-hinged shoulders, ball-jointed wrist, ball-jointed diaphragm, ball-jointed waist, ball-socket hips, thigh twists, double-jointed knees, ankle hinges, and ankle rockers. The sort of new, or less often seen, are the bicep swivels with double-jointed elbows. I think Mondo is going to be doing this more and more going forward as we did see it with Cyclops and it’s a change I like. In terms of what works and what doesn’t, it’s largely a case of tightness. The shoulders are very tight. Hitting a T pose might be impossible for this guy and just basic rotation is tough. You also have to be mindful of the arm rubbing on the pecs as you don’t want to mess up the paint. The elbows will bend a little past 90 degrees, but he’s so bulky that going any further really isn’t going to do much. The diaphragm joint feels very limited. I’m getting not much forward and back, rotation is oaky, but again it’s a painted surface and I don’t want to mess anything up. The waist is really hard to get much use out of and I can’t get the ankle hinges to budge. The rockers work so standing him has been easy, but this isn’t a Venom for deep crouches or those real spider-like poses.
Venom has these itty bitty webs.
There’s no sugar-coating it, articulation is a shortcoming with this figure and with this line. It’s just a question of as a consumer are you willing to accept that as a trade-off for the aesthetic? And aiding that aesthetic is the boatload of accessories Mondo included with this one. I have the limited version, which has some extra stuff that I’ll be sure to call attention to. As far as what’s included with all, we have a bunch of hands. By default, Venom comes equipped with open hands but he has sets of fists, gripping, and clawing hands that swap in and out pretty easily. He also has an extra right hand which is gripping a Spider-Man mask from the scene in his debut episode where he tries to expose Spider-Man to the general public. The mask is sculpted and fully painted and looks cool. It’s also kind of amusing to me because Mondo’s Spider-Man figure (I initially passed on that one, but then ordered it via a third party through a sale and I’m still waiting on it) came with a hand holding the mask of Green Goblin. Is that going to be a thing for this line where every character comes with a hand holding the mask of another character?
He also has some big web lines with different attachments for the end. This attachment is basically the traditional web line.
Naturally, Venom also has some effect parts. And namely, effect hands. He has two fists that are angled with long strands of web shooting out. The web lines are close to 9.5″ in length and are made of soft plastic or rubber with a wire running through it. I’m not sure how useful the wire will be, but I suppose it’s better than not having it. The line ends with a plug hole and you can insert one of two splatter ends or one of two included web ends. I like them, but the connection on my figure’s left hand is pretty weak. Weak enough that I think it might fall off soon which is something to be mindful of. The web line on the right hand seems secure. And if these web lines just seem like too much, there’s also a set of hands with short, 2.5″, web lines shooting out. These do not have a wire, because it’s not needed, but they certainly require less shelf space if you want Venom shooting webs on your shelf.
And if you prefer, we have a splat effect too.
Venom has always been an expressive character so he needs multiple portraits. And for the standard edition you get three. The default one features an open mouth and Venom’s typical sinister grin. The alt head has that tongue you all want snaking out. As it was in the cartoon, the tongue is pink and there isn’t any slime on it as was common in the comic books. Often in the show the tongue would end as if there was slime on it, but it was just colored pink. I always wondered if that was by design or if they just didn’t paint on the slime. Either way, this head doesn’t reflect that which is honestly probably for the best because it was pretty weird looking. Lastly, we have the unmasked Eddie Brock portrait. There’s not much to say about it other than the likeness is spot on. He has somewhat of an agitated expression when I think most may have preferred a sinister grin, but it’s fine. Paint across all of the heads is pretty damn immaculate. I don’t use that word often to describe the paint job on toys because there’s usually something wrong on everything, however minor. With these it’s pretty damn hard to find anything though.
I think of this as the Lethal Protector head.
And now for the extra stuff. If you get the limited version, you get two extra portraits. The first is another tongue head with a more dramatic tongue covered in green slime. This feels like more of a comic head even though the actual head and face of the character is still undoubtedly Venom from the cartoon. I think of this head as the idealized version of the character, what we would have wanted to see all things being equal from the show, but animation budgets prevented it. It’s awesome though and I am guessing this will be the favorite of many. The other head is an Eddie Brock portrait in mid-transformation. The Venom “mask” is closing its mouth over Brock’s face as it would do in the show and it looks amazing. I can’t believe how well they managed to get the paint on this thing and it’s this Brock face that has that sinister grin I was looking for. To go with this is a big piece of Venom goo that clips around the waist of the figure to make it look like alien slime is shooting off his back. It plays up that mid-transformation thing, even though the figure is basically already in Venom form, but it’s neat. It’s soft plastic so it doesn’t feel like something that will scuff the figure or anything.
Poor Venom has no Spider-Man for his swing. Maybe one day…
The last accessory is what I affectionately refer to as Venom’s web sex swing. It’s from the debut episode of the character where he webs up Spider-Man in this web contraption, pulls off his mask, and dangles him over the edge of a building where the onlookers at street level try to get a picture or video of Spider-Man unmasked. It’s basically five parts: you have a Venom left hand which is how it attaches to Venom. Then you have the five web lines, two of which end in loops to go over the Spider-Man figure’s wrists and the other two weblines end on what’s basically a web belt. The plastic is fairly soft and pliable and, according to Mondo, this belt part is supposed to slide over Spider-Man’s legs and come to rest around his waist. I don’t have that figure, but I have my doubts that this thing will be easy to get onto Spider-Man. When/if I get Spider-Man maybe I’ll update this with a picture of it in action, or confirmation that I just couldn’t do it. There are promo shots of it, but who knows how Mondo pulled them off. I suppose you could separate the figure at the diaphragm, but I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to pull apart a 200 dollar action figure. I know I wouldn’t.
What a portrait!
Mondo’s take on Venom is pretty damn rad. If you don’t care for his animated look then that’s understandable, but if you’ve ever wanted a representation of Venom from the Spider-Man cartoon on your shelf then this is the one to get. Yes, it’s very expensive and I was even a little annoyed at the price this one came in at, but it’s Venom and I had to have it. The articulation won’t blow anyone away, but the presence this one has is pretty damn incredible. He has all he needs and the execution of the sculpt and the paint is as close to flawless as I think I’ve ever seen with an action figure in any scale. Yeah it costs a lot, but you’re getting a damn good product. If you want the limited edition, unfortunately it’s sold out and you’re going to have to try your luck on the aftermarket. My preferred head is in the limited version, but I don’t know that I’d pay more than the ten bucks Mondo charged for the extra stuff. The standard version should still be available in various places, just not through Mondo directly. If this looks like something you want in your collection, I think the expense is worth it. Just know what you’re getting: a big, kick ass looking Venom from the 90s Spider-Man cartoon.
We’ve got plenty more Venom and more from Mondo for you to check out:
On Tuesday, I posted a review for the NECA TMNT Adventures Cryin’ Houn’ action figure, a figure that debuted during this year’s edition of Walmart Collector Con. Today, we’re looking at a true exclusive from that event. Cryin’ Houn’, and a lot of other figures released that day, were basically a first to market agreement…
When I was a kid, my dad took me to some local convention or trade show. I have no idea why because my dad wasn’t the type who would go to such an event. He liked car shows, but from what I can remember this was more of a hobby show. It was early in…
After putting a real hurting on my wallet in 2023, Mondo decided to take it easy in 2024 with its line of sixth scale action figures based on the animated series X-Men which ran from 1992-1997 on Fox Kids. Two figures ended up getting released this year, Rogue and now the leader of the X-Men…
After putting a real hurting on my wallet in 2023, Mondo decided to take it easy in 2024 with its line of sixth scale action figures based on the animated series X-Men which ran from 1992-1997 on Fox Kids. Two figures ended up getting released this year, Rogue and now the leader of the X-Men Cyclops. With Cyclops though we get a slight change because easily the biggest thing to happen to the X-Men in 2024 was the release of X-Men ’97. Well, some would argue for a movie staring a foul-mouthed merc and an old man as being the biggest business in the X world, but I’m going with the Disney+ series. Since the show turned out to be quite the hit, and because it’s a continuation of the original X-Men series, Mondo decided its figures could use a little rebranding which is why Cyclops is the first release to be billed as hailing from the new show. What does this mean for the figure itself? Not a whole lot.
Yeah, I know, this isn’t a fair comparison.
Cyclops still comes in the same style of window box with artwork from storyboard artist Dan Veesenmeyer. The difference between his release and the others is that the character model definitely resembles the look from X-Men ’97 and not the original show. That’s not a huge change as the costume is the same, but Cyclops has a slightly slimmer profile and the detail work is a dead ringer for the same in the new show. For the figure, there’s really no change and Mondo via its YouTube channel has basically admitted that the figures are going to hew closer to the original series. It’s just now they will be able to toss-in items and accessories pulled directly from the new show where it makes sense.
“To me, my X-Men!”
And we pretty much know this to be true because concept art for Cyclops was shown well before X-Men ’97 debuted. Here we have another sculpt by the awesome Alex Brewer with paint by Tomasz Rozejowski that really harkens back to 1992 and that original Fox series. Cyclops stands a full 12″ and is clad in his yellow and blue Jim Lee outfit which he wore almost exclusively in that show. Like prior figures in this line, there were two editions of Cyclops made available and I opted for the limited version which came with extra stuff which we’ll get to.
You may want to separate these two on your shelf.
The sculpt for Cyclops may not be complex, but it gets the job done. He’s well-muscled and proportioned with a portrait that evokes the original series. The details one would expect are in place like the segmented straps on the belt or the pouches and straps. There’s even a little extra detail where the chest strap attaches to the lower belt that I don’t remember seeing in the show. The hair and the visor are all appropriate and the placement of the thigh straps appears spot-on as well (they’re also floating and slightly annoying as a result). That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for some nitpicks. Cyclops was nicknamed Slim early on, but by the 90s he was a pretty massive dude. This figure depicts him as a big guy, but maybe not quite as big as he could be. The legs look fine and so do the arms, but the chest and abdomen strike me as a bit undersized. It’s almost like Mondo aimed to fit this Cyclops figure in-between the 92 and 97 version. It could also be for a different reason which ties into the extra stuff. This version of Cyclops has removable arms and an optional flight jacket part like the Logan figure. If he were any bigger he might look huge with the jacket. If so, I disagree with the approach as the jacketed look should be a secondary concern, but the feature also seems to play a role with his shoulders being set apart from the body. These are all things mostly noticeable when the figure is just standing straight up and down, pose him and it’s less an issue, but it’s an expensive figure so we have to nitpick where it’s warranted.
He scales well enough with the bad guys too.
What really offers no room for disappointment is the paint. Mondo just slays when it comes to that part of the presentation and Cyclops is no different. The base blue is the perfect royal blue and the lighter blue used to shade it and the blacks all make him pop. The yellow is the right shade with just a hint of red of in it to lessen that lemony look the Hasbro figure of the same has. The different shades of gold used to apply the cel-shading for the yellow looks great and everything is rich and full. There’s an impressive lack of paint slop and issues as well. With such an ambitious paint job some of that is expected, but I’m finding it hard to notice with this one. There’s a visible brush stroke on the chest strap, but apart from that I’m at a loss. This is some really impressive execution so Mondo better hang onto whatever factory put this one together.
Mondo decided it was important Cyclops be able to do stuff like this.
Cyclops comes with new branding, but he also comes with new articulation. Mondo tends to keep things basic with its figures as they prioritize aesthetics over function. And at this scale, I think that’s the right approach. However, there’s no denying that certain characters need to be able to hit certain poses and for Cyclops it’s being able to place a hand on the side of his visor to activate his optic blasts (even though we also see him do so without pressing a button in the show, but lets just go with it). In order to achieve that function, Mondo opted to incorporate double-jointed elbows into this one. And they work great, no problem hitting that pose and he can pretty much put his hand to his X communicator on his chest as well. And the aesthetics trade-off is nil, as far as I’m concerned. We’re all toy collectors and we’re used to double-jointed elbows. They look fine, better than the swivel joint used on Wolverine and Sabretooth that has some miscolored plastic, so I hope they do this more going forward.
This is a team that loves a good, brown, jacket.
Aside from that, the articulation is pretty much the same as other figures. The head is on a double-ball peg and the range is pretty nice. It is a little more gappy than past figures, but I’m guessing they prioritized plus range at the head given his unique skillset. The shoulders are the usual ball-hinges with a bicep swivel past that. Wrists are ball-hinged and they can be tight, but I didn’t experience any issues. The torso is where things get less impressive. Cyclops has the usual ball-jointed diaphragm and waist, but he also has that unique belt that goes around his chest. It’s connected to the belt at his waist so it’s going to get in the way. It has some play and will float when you manipulate the chest, but the range is okay, at best. Hips are ball-sockets with thigh swivels built in, but the rubber trunks will hinder the figure’s ability to kick forward and back. I can get him into one knee poses, but it’s awkward and one must be mindful of paint rub. Knees are double-jointed and the ankles hinge forward and back with an ankle rocker. The ankles are pretty tight, but I didn’t need to heat them up to get them working. Shoulders are really tight too, but again, no heat needed as I just went easy.
Multi-blast!This is the big one.It sags a little.
Cyclops has a ton of extra stuff to go through so let’s not waste any time. We’ll do the standard version accessories first which include a stoic head and a yelling head. Both feature interchangeable visors and come with a standard one by default. Getting the visors off and on is pretty painless, and both heads can use all of the visors. The extras are a visor with a lens flare and one with a slot in it for blast effects. And for blast effects we get two by default. The first is a pretty standard Cyclops blast. It’s 4″ long or so with a splash effect at the end. The easiest way to put it on is to slot it through the visor first, then plug it into the head. It can only go in one way so if it doesn’t fit just spin it around. The other blast effect is an arc with four short blasts. It strikes me as a very Marvel vs Capcom effect and it looks pretty cool. Both are done on translucent red plastic which feels appropriate for a Cyclops effect. They’re rigid so hopefully none arrived warp. I love the look of the blast, and the lens flare part is also pretty cool, so settling on a display is actually quite challenging with this guy. You’ll want to swap some stuff from time to time.
“I was raised by a cup of coffee.”
Cyclops also has an assortment of hands to make use of. By default, he comes with a set of fists which are always useful. In addition to that he has two clenching hands, two “finger bang” hands, a set of two-finger hands for his optic blasts, and a single right gripping hand. The gripping hand is for his cup of coffee which is included. This was seen a few times in the first season, most memorably for me in “Deadly Reunions,” and it’s a pink cup with sculpted steam wafting off of it. Even though Mondo included a gripping hand for it, I find the clenching hands work just as well to hold it. Swapping heads and visors is painless with this guy, but the hands are tough. The pegs going into the arms are ribbed when they probably don’t really need to be. The ball hinge also plugs into the hand and each hand is on its own, which is how Mondo always does it. Initially, I felt like the fists were more likely to come off at the hand and not where they’re supposed to in the forearm, so I heated the forearms of my figure with warm water. It’s made easier by the fact that the arms are designed to pop off. I was then able to get the hands out, but it was dicey. I’m reluctant to really jam any of the hands into his forearms as a result, though I haven’t had the same level of difficulty with the other hands.
Sometimes it gets cold out there.
That’s all the stuff that comes with the standard, $220, version. The $240 limited edition has a few more things including the aforementioned jacket. Swapping the arms isn’t too bad and the jacket arms come with bare fists. The fists are actually the exact same as the standard fists just painted flesh colored. They are removable, though I haven’t bothered since they’re in there pretty good. He sometimes wore gloves with the jacket in the show so the other hands work with this look as well. The arms are also double-jointed at the elbows just like the standard ones so there’s no loss of articulation in swapping them. I think he looks great with the jacket and it’s a tough call on how to display him. Right now, I’ve gone without, but I’ll be changing it from time to time for sure. Oh, and I had to try because this look is so close to Morph, but the Morph heads don’t fit. The opening is way too small, which is probably good so that I’m not tempted to attempt a very expensive custom.
The big blast needs a little help.“Take that, hairball!”
Cyclops would wear the jacket in the field plenty, but sometimes also to look more casual. To that end he has an uncowled head. It looks great and his eyes are painted red, which makes sense. Maybe some would have preferred brown eyes for the few times he was depowered in the show, but many won’t display him like that because he also has his shades. They’re black with the red lenses that have some white shading on them which looks nice. They’re a little brittle feeling, but have held up fine so far. They slot into his temples and look great when in place. He also has yet another visor that’s been removed so he can either hold it or stick it around his neck or something. It’s a nice touch. I will say, this head is the most X-Men ’97 looking part of the package, which could be intentional. This version also comes with another effect part that is one, massive, blast that’s almost 8″ long. It has a large splash effect at the end and it looks cool, but it’s heavy. There’s some drooping with this one so I’m reluctant to leave it in place for long stretches of time. It probably works best in tandem with an enemy getting blasted so there’s some added support for it.
Probably not going to be the preferred look for most collectors.This head can make use of the blasts though.
Oh, but we’re not done! Mondo likes to toss in a goofy accessory with all of these special editions. We had the elf Jubilee portrait, Gambit as Mystique, and the Morph heads. With Cyclops, it’s a Sentinel head styled to resemble Cyclops. This is taken from the episode “Till Death Do Us Part – Part One” where Wolverine is battling Cyclops robots in the Danger Room. It looks the part and is pretty ridiculous when placed on the head of the figure, but it’s there if you want it. And Mondo went the extra mile and also included a swappable visor piece so he too can make use of the blast effects. It’s a little tighter a fit than the other visor, but it works. I’ll never use it, but it’s funny. Maybe it can be used as a head of a fallen Sentinel with Wolverine or something? Lastly, there’s also the usual Mondo stand. I don’t use them so I didn’t even take it out of the plastic. I wish they’d put an X emblem on it like the Logan one, but it’s fine.
“How do I turn these darn things off?!”
Ultimately, this is another home run by Mondo. Cyclops is a much needed addition to the roster of characters and he turned out pretty great. Did I have issues? Yeah, because nothing is perfect. I’d have liked to see a little more beef in the torso, but that is basically the end of my complaints. I do think the hands could have been made to swap easier and the hands are a longstanding issue with the line (though it’s been better, Magneto was rough). I get why things are tight though because these are big, solid, figures and loose joints would kill them. This figure poses reasonably well and the swappable effect parts and heads are all a ton of fun. This is probably the figure that is the most fun to pick a display, though Gambit and Jubilee are pretty great at that too.
It’s the Blast Squad!
Cyclops is definitely the last figure from this line to see release in 2024, but on-deck is another Wolverine. Alex Brewer has sculpted all of the figures in the line since the original Wolverine so Mondo wanted to get his take on the character and the looks we’ve had are promising. There’s also a retro Cyclops coming based on his look in the season finale of X-Men ’97. I have not gone for the variants in this line and I didn’t go in for that one either. We should also start seeing the first figures from the Spider-Man ’94 line very soon. I don’t plan on going all-in with that one, but expect at least a couple reviews of that line. Beyond that, we don’t know what’s next, but it sure seems like this line is going strong. If I had to guess, I’d say Storm will follow Wolverine, but I hope we get all of the core cast from the ’92 series. Even though it gets harder and harder to find room each time one arrives.
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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…
If you were a mid-tier comedian in the 90s looking to breakthrough into television then Fox was the network for you. Whether it was via sitcom or cartoon, Fox seemed to think this was a winning strategy which is apparently why comedian Louie Anderson got his own show called Life with Louie. Life with Louie was pretty unique when compared with the rest of the Fox Kids lineup in the mid 90s. Most of the shows were either superhero cartoons or some kind of wacky offering. Life with Louie was a more grounded show and was basically a slice of life animated sitcom. It was slightly autobiographical as it starred a kid version of Louie (voiced by himself) and just followed his day-to-day life dealing with typical kid problems. It was a show that was allowed to have more heart than the rest of the lineup which is perhaps why it managed to attract critical acclaim.
I don’t know if Life with Louie was popular in spite of its unique approach. I watched it, but I can’t recall ever having a conversation about the show with another kid. It also wasn’t appointment viewing for me, but I was a pretty loyal Fox Kids watcher on Saturday morning so I saw a lot of the show. It’s a show that probably would have felt more at home as part of the ABC One Saturday Morning lineup, but at least on Fox it got to stand out a bit. As I got older, Saturday morning stopped being appointment viewing for me. I probably slept through most of the programming including Life with Louie. As a result, I’m far more familiar with the first season as opposed to the later ones.
They know what they’re doing when it comes to Christmas.
The show basically followed in the footsteps of The Simpsons and premiered with a Christmas episode. We’ve already looked at that one, and it was an episode that was featured in primetime. Fox liked to pull that trick with its animated shows. The calendar in December was often where most shows took time off for reruns. Holiday specials worked their way into lineups because back then most people didn’t own physical copies of those shows so they were like appointment viewing. Miss it, and you had to wait a whole year to see it again. Life with Louie‘s second Christmas episode didn’t get the same treatment. By then, the show was in its third and final season and would only air three more episodes after it. It must not have been a big hit for Fox since the final episode count ended up being 39. In other words, it never got that full series order most animated shows strive for (usually 52 episodes, sometimes 65). Still, 39 episodes isn’t a bad run and the first Christmas special was pretty good so I’m feeling relatively confident going into this one which I have never seen.
Louie and Tommy are not thrilled to find out that Santa has a five dollar limit.
The episode begins with the typical song, but all of the clips used in the intro are Christmas or winter related. Since the show only had two Christmas episodes, they’re basically all taken from the first episode and the one we’re about to watch. The episode begins with a narration by Anderson, as all do. No live-action segment as we go straight to animation. It’s Louie, his brother Tommy (Miko Hughes), and his mother Ora (Edie McClurg) and dad Andy (Anderson) strolling through downtown Cedar Knoll. As the narration explains, winter in Wisconsin lasted a long time, but Christmas was like the relief from that long, cold, winter. Unfortunately for Louie, he’s one of 11 children to Ora and Andy so his dad informs him that there’s a five dollar limit on Christmas. Louie is pretty glum about this and responds with a healthy dose of sarcasm suggesting he and Tommy each ask for half of the alphabet and then maybe next year they’ll get a board they can spell out “Thank you” on. Anderson, as narrator, does explain that five bucks went a lot further when he was a kid than it did in the mid 90s, but not far enough to get something really cool. This is demonstrated when a shopkeeper changes the price on a window display of a remote-controlled Jeep from five bucks to seven.
I should also get it out of the way now, that despite Louie having so many siblings, Tommy is really the only one we see featured much. I guess the cast just would have been too massive otherwise so they’re usually offscreen and mentioned only in passing. I also find it funny that for kid Louie, Anderson does a deeper voice than his natural one, and for his dad he does a higher, nasally, one. Having never heard the real Andy Anderson speak I can only assume this is what he sounded like. Or Louie just decided this was way funnier.
This kid is most definitely an orphan or something.
We next find Louie at school getting lunch and discussing Christmas presents with his friends. He’s pretty mopey about this imposed five dollar limit (the subject of Santa is not discussed so I take it these kids are all non-believers, or Santa just fills stockings and parents get the good stuff) while most of his buddies are all expecting something more extravagant. Everyone that is, except Teako (Jer Adrianne Lelliott). I don’t think Teako is a regular character and is someone introduced for this episode, which means he’s definitely part of the plot. He’s not joining in with the other kids eating lunch and is instead shooting a basketball since the cafeteria doubles as a gymnasium. My schools all did the same, but we were never allowed to shoot hoops at lunch. Anyway, he indicates he doesn’t know what he’s asking his parents for Christmas and doesn’t really have much to say about the holiday in general. Instead, he seems like he wants to change the subject and asks if anyone wants to play HORSE. Toddler (Justin Jon Ross), offers to play with him and the subject is seemingly dropped. Teako is definitely either poor or an orphan or both – I’m calling it now.
Judging by his expression, I’m guessing playing Santa for Tommy’s class wasn’t Andy’s idea.
In Tommy’s classroom, the teacher (possibly Samantha Dean) is eager to welcome Santa Claus to entertain the kids today. And playing Santa is none other than Mr. Anderson. He looks the part well enough and the kids seem pretty excited to have him there, but when the teacher suggest he sing some Christmas carols he balks. His schtick in this show is that he basically doesn’t want to do anything, but despite whatever protest he musters he basically goes along with it anyway which is exactly what happens here. Andy isn’t much of a singer though, so the kids aren’t exactly enjoying his rendition of “Deck the Halls.” He’s also changing the words as he goes to make it a song about kids driving their fathers nuts around Christmas. He may not be much of a singer, but he’s a pretty good ad-libber. Tommy started off enjoying seeing his father in some state of misery, but is now more embarrassed than anything. And the other kids staring at him would seem to indicate they all know who this Santa really is. When Andy is finished with his song, Tommy decides to, I guess, get even in a way by asking where all of the presents are? This sets off a stampede of kindergarteners who soon overwhelm Andy who acts like he’s under siege in a war situation.
Those kids are mongrels!
Andy and Tommy return home and his Santa suit is in tatters. Andy refers to the children as demented demons as he holds up what remains of his suit for his wife Ora, who downplays the abuse. He casually strips down into his long underwear and approaches his recliner, which Louie is presently occupying. I like how it’s basically understood that Louie is expected to vacate the chair for his old man and he does so. Andy collapses into the chair vowing to never play Santa again, but Ora has some bad news for him: she already signed him up to play Santa at the local orphanage (told you, Teako is definitely a resident) and Andy complains about it, but you know he’s going to go along with it. Louie, enjoying his father’s misery, asks him what happened to his heart and Andy replies “I gave it to the Tin Man.” Pretty good comeback, Anderson.
Teako is the kind of friend that allows Louie to feel good about himself. We all need friends like that.
The next day, we find Louie and his classmates engaged in a good old-fashioned game of dodgeball. The bully characters, lead by chief rival Glen Glenn (Justin Shenkarow), are all on one side while Louie and friends are on the other. They’re not doing so hot, but Teako is on their team and he’s pretty damn good. Louie, on the other hand, is trying his best to avoid getting nailed by a rubber ball including hiding behind Toddler, who as you may have guessed based on his nickname, is a pretty small kid on his own. Eventually, it’s down to just Teako and Louie versus Glen. When Glen misses, Teako asks Louie if he’s ready and hands him a ball. Louie is reluctant, but seems to trust Teako. Teako tosses his ball in a high arc, like he’s shooting hoops. Glen laughs at what he feels is a wimpy throw, but it’s just a diversion. Teako tells Louie “Now!” and he runs, trips, but still manages to get his shot off. He hits Glen right in the belly while Teako’s ball hits him in the head for added insult. As the kids rain praise down on Louie and Teako, Louie explains that “It’s all in the wrist.”
Please note, I am not fat-shaming when I say that is an unhealthy amount of cookies for one kid to consume. Andy, Ora, you gotta set some limits here.
We return to the Anderson residence where Andy is still grouchy about having to play Santa. He’s standing on an ottoman while Ora repairs the Santa suit as he wears it. He’s now irritated because he doesn’t think he’s fat enough to play Santa, and yet he always gets asked to do it. As he says it, he undermines his own argument by complaining that the suit is too tight. Ora then has more bad news for him: his mother and brother Eric are coming for Christmas dinner. He winces as she accidentally sticks him with the needle she’s using to sew up the costume, but when she apologizes for doing so he corrects her and says he was wincing from the pain of finding out his relatives were coming, not the needle in his side. Louie then enters from the kitchen with a glass of milk and a massive plate of cookies. His mom wants to know if he’s decided on what he wants for Christmas, but Louie just complains about the dollar limit once again. This just earns him a lecture from his dad, one of those “In my day,” talks where his dad says he was lucky to get a lump of coal which he then had to rely on for warmth all winter long. As Louie disappears upstairs to consume an unhealthy amount of cookies in his room, his mother remarks that Christmas isn’t just about getting presents. Andy agrees and notes it’s also the time when annoying relatives invade your house and ruin your holiday.
The fear of serious bodily harm just adds to the fun!
The next day, Louie and his friends are out sledding. They have one, large, toboggan style sled and they’re on a large hill overlooking the orphanage. Louie makes a somewhat callous remark how it must be great to be an orphan and not have a family, which Teako tries to brush off. Louie wants to sled down that side of the hill, but Teako suggests the other side which the other kids refer to as Concussion Corridor. Local lore says that only Glen Glenn has survived such an attempt and Louie points out how that must have worked out for him considering his present disposition. Teako likes a challenge and encourages Louie to try it insisting that his steering will see them through. The others just kind of go along with Teako, albeit apprehensively, and soon they’re off! Despite Teako’s confidence, Louie’s piloting skills appear to be lacking some polish as they crash into a rock. Everyone is sent flying and Toddler momentarily thinks his legs were separated from his body, but it was just the legs of Mike who landed headfirst in the snow. Despite the crash, everyone seems all right and, best of all, they had a blast! Louie insists they head to his house next where they’ll almost certainly be able to score some hot chocolate.
Louie is not very appreciative of what he has, which is pretty typical of all children.
The kids enter the Anderson home to find Louie’s mom setting up the Christmas tree and listening to Christmas music. The second they enter she asks if anyone wants hot chocolate and Louie points out that she’s a mind reader. As the kids settle on the floor to drink hot chocolate, Teako is in awe of all of Louie’s comic books. Mike (Justin Shenkarow) asks Louie if his electric football game is hanging around which draws more awe from Teako. And when Mike opens a closet to retrieve said game, he can hardly believe how much stuff is in there. Louie dismisses it as all junk completely oblivious to the trials of his new friend. Tommy then comes over because he’s seen Teako playing basketball at school and thinks he’s amazing. He even wants the kid to sign his ball, but Louie ushers him away. When he complains about how annoying little brothers are, Teako suggests that the kid seems fine to him. Louie’s mom then delivers a plate full of homemade Christmas cookies which draws more awe from Teako. As they settle in to play the electric football game, Louie laments having a large family and wishes he was an only child. Teako tries to tell him that being an only child isn’t so great and that he wishes he had a big family like Louie’s, but Mike just corrects him by saying he has yet to meet “Corporal Keister.”
I love Louie’s mom, she’s do damn cute. I hope he was nice to her during his teenage years.
Evening arrives and the kids all go their separate ways, but not without thanking Mrs. Anderson for a lovely time. She’s pretty impressed with Teako and Louie shares her sentiment pointing out that he’s handsome, popular, good at sports, and he’s an only child. Who wouldn’t want to be him? Ora doesn’t try to change her son’s opinion, just offers up some classic Mom talk by saying he must be a smart kid too since he’s chosen Louie as a friend. She’s so cute and earnest that this sweet stuff is working like a charm on me.
What can a kid get for five bucks? There must be something since when I was a kid I could at least get an action figure for that kind of money.
The next day, Louie, Teako, and Mike are roaming the streets of town since Louie has yet to figure out what to ask Santa for Christmas. Mike can’t believe that Louie can’t find something worthwhile for five bucks. Louie is still pretty sullen and as they look at the remote control Jeep from earlier he opines that five bucks probably couldn’t even get him the batteries that power the thing. Teako tries to be helpful and suggests a book, but Michael looks at him like he’s got two heads at the mere suggestion of such. He then pivots to a gumball machine as they’re in a store that has one for five bucks. Mike is quick to point out that it doesn’t come with gum. Louie then allows himself a moment of panic for if he can’t find something then he’s sure to get something terrible. Teako seems dubious of such, but Louie tells him that’s how he got a flywheel for his birthday.
Heh.
At the Anderson house, it’s time for the old man to get ready for his star turn as Santa Claus for the orphans. He’s about as happy as you would expect. Ora is very supportive and reminds him that all of the gifts will be labeled with each kids name. He just snaps back at her that he knows how to read, but asks where the gifts are? Speak of the devil as the doorbell rings and some delivery men show up with a trio of massive sacks of presents. Andy has no idea how he’s supposed to manage such a volume, but Louie and Tommy laughing at him gives him an idea. We then cut to Louie dressed as an elf and Tommy a reindeer. Andy is pretty proud of his solution and if I’m not mistaken I think he rather likes the fact that his boys get to share in his misery this evening. Ora, naturally, thinks they’re adorable resulting in Louie asking if he can be adorable in his regular clothes?
This is a terrible idea.
Louie’s concerns are dismissed as the boys set out with three sacks of gifts strapped to the roof of Andy’s station wagon, The Rambler. He backs into his neighbor’s garbage cans and serenades the boys with his own rendition of “Silent Night” as they head for the orphanage. In between each line he inserts his own comments, such as “Silent Night (not if you have 11 kids). Holy night (What? Did they see my boxers?).” At the orphanage, Ora is there passing out snacks and such when her boys show up. Andy is ready to haul the gifts inside, but Louie and Tommy see this as an opportunity to get back at their father for making them dress up. Louie insists that he can’t enter through the front door as Santa, he has to go down the chimney. This has “bad idea” written all over it and Andy knows, but in typical Andy fashion, he whines and complains, but ultimately does as suggested. I don’t know how they got to the roof, but they did and Louie and Tommy help stuff their father down the chimney. It’s a little more than a tight fit, but where there’s a will there’s a way! Andy lands hard on his rump and then mistakenly calls for the presents which follow close behind. As for Louie and Tommy, well, they’re not Santa so they waltz in through the front door!
You know, I think he actually likes this Santa thing.
The kids are pretty happy to see Santa and Ora makes the mistake of mentioning presents. Poor Andy gets assaulted just as he did in Tommy’s class and he points that out by crying, “Deja vu!” After things settle down, Santa Andy starts handing out gifts. As kids come up to retrieve them, Louie calls out the price on each item since they’re all well above five bucks. Andy actually seems like he’s enjoying himself, though probably not his son’s quips. He tells Louie to do him a favor and go brush the snow off his car, of course, catching himself in the moment and correcting it to “sleigh.”
Louie may be shocked, but I am not.
We then come to the last gift which is for a kid named Russell. Andy calls the name out a few times, and then, predictably, from the shadows emerges Teako. Louie gasps when he sees his friend, who just cheerfully says “Hi Louie,” as he walks by to receive his present. Louie asks why everyone calls him Teako when his name is Russell and, get ready for more sadness, he explains it’s because it’s short for “Antique.” Being the oldest kid in the orphanage, he acquired a nickname which has been shortened overtime to Teak or Teako. God damn, it’s getting dusty in here. Ora then suggests to Teako that he open his gift and so he does. To Louie’s surprise it’s an electric train set which he’s quick to call out to his dad costs $29.99! Teako ignores him and asks if he’d like to help him set it up and Louie agrees on account of the fact that he’ll never get one.
Look at that adorable little rascal!
With the train setup, Teako and Louie are able to play and have a little heart-to-heart. Louie asks him why he never mentioned he was an orphan and Teako confesses he’s a little embarrassed by it. He tells Louie that he’s lucky to have parents and siblings and for once Louie agrees with him, though not all that convinced by the sound of things. He also refers to his dad sarcastically as Dean Martin since he’s busy leading the kids in a horrible version of “Jingle Bells,” one that ends with him wishing he was on the frontlines of war instead of here. Andy then makes for the snack table and boasts to Ora that these kids are totally buying into him as Santa Claus. Then some kid calls him Mr. Anderson and he’s forced to concede that maybe his performance isn’t that impressive. Louie comes over and tells his parents he finally knows what he wants for Christmas: for Teako to be able to spend Christmas with the Andersons! Andy is predictably aghast and complains about having another mouth to feed, but he should probably shut his yap since I bet he’s coming out ahead on this one. Louie’s mom asks him if he’s sure he wouldn’t want a real present, but Louie just returns her sentiment that Christmas isn’t only about getting stuff which is music to a mom’s ears. As she turns her attention to Andy, Louie’s smiling, elf, face gets smushed between his parents in what is almost certainly going to be the featured image of this post.
By far, the most cartoony moment of this otherwise relatively grounded show.
Christmas comes, and as requested, Teako is there to spend it with Louie’s family. And so are Louie’s relatives who his father isn’t exactly thrilled to have over. Before they go in for dinner, Louie, Tommy, and Teako are shown playing tag outside and Louie takes a tumble. When he enters the house, he’s literally a snowball. His grandmother (Inga Swenson) is there and she has what sounds like a Swedish accent. I’m guessing Louie’s grandfather didn’t have the same since Anderson is about as vanilla a name as it gets. Andy can soon be heard asking his wife for his vice grips as he’s having some difficulty with a jar of something. This just invites a scolding from his mother who opens it without a fuss.
Let’s see how the old man handles this one.
Louie and Teako take a seat at one of the three tables setup in the Anderson living room. One of Louie’s seldom seen older siblings pops in and asks if Teako is some cousin he’s never met. When Louie tells him that Teako is his friend his brother laughs and suggests the kid must have lost a bet. Louie is ready for a comeback though as he tells Teako this is the brother who’s never had a date. Grandma Helga then suggests to her son that he should say the blessing before dinner. Andy does his best, and his best isn’t very good, “If you’re listening, big guy, thanks for the viddles. And thanks for bringing our family together,” followed by something unintelligible to my ear. His brother, Eric (Stephen Tobolowsky), tells Andy his blessing was very nice and Andy is quick to point out “I didn’t mean you!”
I think Teako is having a good time.
Ora then encourages everyone to dig in and a free for all ensues. Teako is aghast at how quickly the food is flying around, but he basically just sticks his plate out and it gets passed around and loaded up with all kinds of stuff. The same is true for Louie and the two share a smile as they dig in. We then cut to the kids watching TV. It’s the original version of Miracle on 34th Street and it’s the scene where the little, Dutch, orphan is introduced to Santa Claus. They use the actual footage, which is something they also did in the first Christmas special only then it was It’s a Wonderful Life. The movie is interrupted by Eric asking his brother if he’s still driving the same car. Andy happily declares he still is listing all of the stuff that’s basically wrong with it, but it has 750,000 miles on it (but is also on its fourth engine). Eric tells him he needs to upgrade to a luxury car, but Andy just sort of growls in response.
I guess he kind of had that one coming.
Eric takes the opportunity to flaunt his new camera in his brother’s face noting it cost him a pretty penny. Andy is unimpressed, but has nothing to throw back in his brother’s face, that is until his own flesh and blood approaches with a gift for their dear old dad. Louie and Tommy present a present to their father and he tries to rub it in his brother’s face how much his kids appreciate him. Then he opens it to find a lump of coal which gives everyone a good laugh. Andy is a little pissed at first, but then starts to suggest it can keep the family warm into February, then under his breath whispers “Or start a fire under Eric’s car.”
Such a lovely family.
Eric either doesn’t hear that part or takes it in stride and instead declares that they should take a family photo. Teako offers to take the picture, but of course Louie wants his friend to join in the picture. No problem, as Eric points out they can use the timer feature on this fancy, new, camera of his. He sets it on the television and everyone takes their place. Then they wait, and wait, and by the time the camera goes off they have all started doing something else.
He sure knows how to clear a room.
It’s time to pass out stockings and there’s even one for Teako. Or should I say Teco? The credits on IMDB list him as Teako, but the stocking says Teco. I’m not changing it now. Andy reaches under the tree, now back in his Santa threads, and mentions he has “a surprise for you, son.” Louie is indeed surprised when the gift is for Teako, and the moment is captured by Uncle Eric’s camera. The real Louie’s voice enters to wrap things up. As we see Louie and Teako playing checkers (I guess that was his gift?), Louie tells us sometimes the best gift you can get is spending time with the people you like the most. We see quick cuts of the pair making cookies and the family being lead in song by Andy. “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which no one seems to be enjoying except for Andy. It’s his own version which highlights his unfortunate existence. Everyone walks away, but the song ends on a rather sweet note with Andy concluding “And a wife who stands by me throughout it all!” He mumbles that he should have been a singer as we fade out.
As expected, “Family Portrait” was a sweet and earnest Christmas episode from Life with Louie. I could see the plot beats coming a mile away and I ate it all up. It was cute. Louie’s obliviousness to how good he has it, Teako’s genuine good heart, and even old man Anderson who despite the grumbling and protesting seems to always do the right thing. Louie Anderson turned his father into a comedic figure, but you can also tell the guy must really love and respect his old man. And his mom is portrayed in such a positive manner too that I just keep coming back to the fact that it’s all just sweet. Very, very, sweet.
If there is a touch of cynicism to this thing it wouldn’t work. It lets the characters and the moment get just touching and sappy enough and knows when to ease up. It would have probably been over-the-top if the Andersons announced they were adopting Teako. They have 11 kids already and seem to basically just get by, adding a twelfth would probably be unwise. And Teako, despite some embarrassment at being an orphan, seems to be a well-adjusted kid. He may not have a family of his own, but he has a pretty strong group of friends and a good support system. If the kid was ever in trouble or needed anything you know Louie’s mom wouldn’t hesitate to make it happen.
I hope Louie’s parents lived long enough to see this show because his affection for them shines pretty bright.
I’m left wishing that this wasn’t basically the end of Life with Louie. These characters are interesting to me and it would have been nice to see how everything turned out. I know the show is somewhat autobiographical, but I don’t think it is down to the plot. As in, I don’t think Louie Anderson ever had an orphan boy over for Christmas as his Christmas gift. I could be wrong, and I don’t know if it was ever asked of him. He’s unfortunately no longer with us, though I’m assuming some of his 10 siblings are so maybe they could recall?
It’s not important though. This is a perfectly fine Christmas special whether the events depicted happened or not. And it is indeed one I recommend along with the other Christmas episode of Life with Louie. They’re both feel good Christmas stories that manage to feel sentimental and heartfelt, but without crossing over into corny territory. I don’t know how they pulled it off and if I did I’d write a hundred Christmas specials of my own. It’s not an easy thing. Life with Louie sadly never got the full DVD or Blu Ray release Louie Anderson seemed to think was imminent making it a lot like some of the other Fox Kids originals. On the plus side, that means it’s readily available online streaming for free and since the show did air on digital cable at one time the transfers are pretty good. You just have to deal with the stupid JETIX logo that channel superimposed over everything. Their program director had no sense of taste.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
Whenever I approach another year of The Christmas Spot I usually have some kind of goal in mind. Maybe one could even think of it as a theme. The past few years I’ve made it a point to highlight some of the best Christmas specials I covered in the past, but felt I had short-changed…
I’m quite surprised to have made it all the way to December 19 without resorting to The Simpsons, American Dad!, Bob’s Burgers, or some other animated sitcom that has an annual, or near annual, Christmas episode. Not that I have been avoiding such shows, and I may turn to one again before this is all…
One of the most celebrated comic strips of all time is Krazy Kat by George Herriman. Krazy Kat debuted in the New York Evening Journal in 1913 and concluded its run in 1944. It contained a fairly simply premise where a cat named Krazy pined for a mouse named Ignatz, only the mouse hated the…
We’ve taken a look at a lot of animated sitcoms this year and so far they’ve all been repeat visitors to The Christmas Spot. It feels like it’s time for something new, though it has a very familiar feel. The Cleveland Show is a 2009 spin-off of Family Guy created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel, and Mike Henry. Spin-offs of animated shows are quite rare, but Fox must have been so pleased with Family Guy and American Dad! at the time that another MacFarlane animated show was needed. Never mind that The Simpsons helped build the Fox network and never got a spin-off. Simpsons creator Matt Groening had to practically beg them to let him do Futurama, which Fox treated even worse than it did Family Guy in its original run.
Taking the soft spoken and mild mannered character of Cleveland Brown (Mike Henry) and giving him his own show felt like an odd move at the time. The character did have a divorce angle in Family Guy which left him a single parent and perhaps made him too similar to Quagmire. Whatever the reason, the decision was made to take Cleveland and move him out of Quahog and down to his hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia. There he reconnects with an old friend from high school, Donna (Sanaa Lathan), sparks fly and they get married, and Cleveland inherits two step-children: the teenaged Roberta (Reagan Gomez-Preston) and preschooler Rallo (Henry). Also in tow is Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson) who was previously depicted as an elementary school-aged boy with a very hyperactive personality. Now, he’s 14, overweight, and speaks slowly and is, for all intents and purposes, a completely different character from what we saw on Family Guy.
I guess it’s better than The Quagmire Show.
That’s the premise of the show: a dad, a mom, and three kids consisting of two boys and a girl with the girl being the oldest. All that’s missing is a talking dog and you basically have the Griffin family, which is probably why Cleveland has a talking bear for a neighbor. The show is also referred to as a Black Sitcom because the family is quite obviously black. Only, the three co-creators of the show as well as the voice of Cleveland are all very much not black. The late 2000s was probably the last time a show could get away with this. Most of the writers appear to be non-black as well. The show did at least cast people of color to play most of the new roles, but even Henry was still handed Rallo. And no, having Kevin Michael Richardson voice white character Lester doesn’t make up for that.
The Cleveland Show has long since been cancelled and is mostly looked at now as a failure. That’s probably way too harsh a word to describe a show that ran for four years and totaled 88 episodes. It’s ratings were solid for the first two seasons, but if you’re not The Simpsons then Fox has a tendency to jerk you around when it comes to time slots. The Cleveland Show got kicked around the Sunday night lineup, probably being the chosen show to suffer most if baseball or football ran too long. Ratings slipped in the third season and basically continued to decline through the end of the fourth season. Fox initially seemed open to bringing it back for a fifth season, but the show was eventually cancelled and the Brown family packed their bags and moved to Rhode Island to rejoin the cast of Family Guy. Not a bad fallback plan, all things considered.
Personally, I didn’t really care that much for The Cleveland Show. I gave it a shot when it first premiered, but honestly don’t recall how many episodes I actually watched. I didn’t think it was terrible, it just felt too similar to Family Guy. It does at least feature a cast that seems to like each other. Or at least, they want to like each other and, in turn, want to be liked. The Griffin family is basically self-admitted trash and kind of hate each other. Cleveland is at least trying to figure out how to be a good father to his new step kids while also being a good husband to Donna. There’s more heart here so from that angle I can definitely understand why someone might actually like The Cleveland Show a lot more than they do Family Guy, though in general, I think if you like one then you’ll probably like the other. Perhaps with Cleveland, we’re less likely to get a bunch of suicide jokes.
Even on Cleveland’s show, Meg still gets treated like shit.
One compliment I can levy at the show is that it has an earworm of a theme song. It’s reminiscent of an 80s children’s cartoon in that the song basically lays out the plot. It’s sung by Cleveland who just sounds really tickled by the idea that he has his own show. Unfortunately, this being a Christmas episode we don’t get to hear it. Instead, the show opts for a holiday title card set to Christmas music which is Cleveland singing “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Normally, this is something I very much endorse when it comes to Christmas specials, but I was kind of looking forward to hearing the song since I so rarely watch the show.
The tree lust is weird, but it’s kind of sweet that Cleveland and Donna seem to be really into each other.
When the intro is finished we open on a tree lot. Lester, his wife Kendra (Aseem Batra), and son Ernie (Glenn Howerton) are all trying to attract customers to what I suppose is their lot. Lester is a typically designed redneck type while Kendra is a morbidly obese woman on a motor scooter and they live next door to the Browns. Kendra tries luring in customers by urging them to get a tree so that their neighbors don’t mistake them for Muslims. We then find Cleveland and Donna looking over a tree. Cleveland is excited for their first Christmas together and wants to get a perfect tree. He’s eyeballing this one for it is full on top and has a big old bottom. When he turns to ask Donna for her approval she adds “Don’t forget bushy in the front!” This seems to excite Cleveland who starts grinding on the tree and mimes like he’s slapping a big ole booty while quoting Sir Mix-a-Lot with “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun!” Donna appears to be getting pretty excited too and warns her husband she may just jump in there to make it a “tree way.” These two really like trees.
Cleveland is right to dislike the tree, though his reasoning is beyond suspect.
Rallo interrupts the festivities by kicking his step dad in the shin. Apparently Rallo is used to being the one who picks out the tree and Donna confirms as much saying she let him do it after his dad, Robert (Corey Holcomb), bailed on the family. Cleveland begrudgingly accepts this, until Rallo shows him the tree he has selected. It’s an itty, bitty, little tree about the size of what Charlie Brown would select, though far less sickly. Cleveland is not impressed and he picks it up by the tip and remarks how it’s not full enough for him comparing it to an Asian or a little boy or a little Asian boy. That’s pretty gross. Cleveland then goes into his “My anaconda don’t want none,” routine with this tree, but stops in the middle declaring that he feels ridiculous. He should feel like a scumbag since he just compared this tree to a little Asian boy and then tried to slap its…”ass.” Cleveland declares they’re getting the tree he likes so Rallo goes low in return: by comparing him to his real dad. We also learn that Rallo thinks his dad works for the FBI and that’s why he’s too busy to come around and see him. Cleveland asks Donna if this is really the story she had fed Rallo about his daddy and she confirms it. When Cleveland starts to protest, she kicks him in the shin causing him to cry out, “Ow! Bitch!” I said this show had more heart than Family Guy, but I suppose I should stress that it’s no less crude.
Unlike American Dad!, The Cleveland Show is going to embrace the cut-away joke.
At the Brown house, Cleveland and Donna are getting some decorations out of the attic while the conversation from the tree lot continues. Cleveland can’t understand why Donna would lie to her son about his dad being an FBI agent unless FBI stands for “Freeloading Booze Idiot.” Cleveland laughs at himself for the joke he just made on the spot while Donna explains that it was better than the truth. Plus, her ex came up with the lie and she just went along with it. She says that she’ll tell the boy when he’s old enough to understand and, honestly, it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Cleveland concludes that sometimes a lie is better than the truth, then he sets up a classic Family Guy cutaway complete with “Like that one time…” And the joke is he encountered the star of Entourage, Adrian Grenier (though not voicing himself), on an airplane and, I guess, he was going to not point out how he doesn’t look like a movie star, but did anyway. It’s basically a stock joke at this point.
Why, it looks like one of Stewie’s sexy parties!
It’s time for a company Christmas party! Cleveland has taken the family to the home of his boss, Mr. Waterman (Bruce McGill), who owns the Waterman Cable company which proudly boasts that it’s a monopoly as its slogan. Mr. Waterman is also quite likely to be a homosexual as we see right away that the staff for his holiday party are a bunch of a shirtless muscle dudes in reindeer antlers. Rallo calls attention to these fellas and Cleveland tries to explain his boss’s orientation in a more roundabout way, but Rallo just asks “Oh, is he a gay?” Cleveland confirms as much and Rallo just points out that his boss knows how to celebrate Christmas better than Cleveland.
The Watermans make everything uncomfortable.
Cleveland growls and grabs a flute of champagne from one the serving trays and chugs it, then giggles because the bubbles tickle. The family is then approached by Mr. Waterman and his wife, Lydia (Stockard Channing), who looks a little tipsy already. Waterman sees the Brown family and announces to “hide the silver!” It’s a joke because they’re the only all black family in attendance. He says he’s just kidding then matter-of-factly states “It’s already hidden.” Lydia introduces herself as Lloyd Waterman’s wife and Cleveland laughs in response. He then says to Donna that this is already better than the last homosexual’s Christmas party he went to. It’s a setup for another cut-away, and if you’re a Family Guy regular, you already know who Cleveland is talking about. We’re taken a home where the old man, Herbert (Richardson), is singing “Silent Night” while dressed as Mary in front of a group of young boys and Cleveland. It’s very uncomfortable. When Cleveland tries to leave, Herbert angrily orders him to sit back down and continues the song because you know the writers need him to say the line about virgins. Which he does, and the uncomfortable scene soon ends. I do not like this joke, not because I’ve never laughed at a Herbert joke, but the setup is basically equating homosexuality with pedophilia which is bullshit.
If Fred Flintstone can do it, then so can you, Cleveland.
Back at the party, Waterman asks Cleveland for a favor. He then asks if he remembers a Fred Peterson. Cleveland confirms that he does and then Waterman informs him that he’s not here, but usually he plays Santa at this party. And why isn’t he there this Christmas? He killed himself – I should have known! Waterman then adds that Peterson also raped a bunch of people which shocks Cleveland. A suicide joke, plus a rape joke – they’re topping Family Guy at this point. Cleveland agrees and then Waterman quickly adds that Peterson raped old ladies so that Cleveland can be shocked again. He then takes him to try on the suit, but the beard has seemingly been misplaced. Waterman cries out, “Where’s my beard?” and his wife sidles up to say “Here I am.” Hah!
Waterman may be rich, but he ain’t eight reindeer rich.
We then find Donna and Roberta at a buffet and they run into Tim (the bear, voiced by MacFarlane) and his wife Arianna (also a bear, voiced by Arianna Huffington), and there’s clearly some hostility between she and Donna given how Donna greets her. That’s only amplified when Arianna says she could see her daughter’s cleavage from across the room, which is Tim’s cue to get the hell away from that conversation. Then one of the reindeer men gets everyone’s attention and throws open some doors to reveal Santa Cleveland arriving on a one reindeer open sleigh. Roberta is both shocked and a little impressed that there’s an actual reindeer and asks Lydia if her husband rented it. She confirms that, no, he actually owns it. When Roberta points out how crazy it is to have a living being you only parade around a bunch of people one day a year Lydia sarcastically remarks “I can’t imagine how that feels.”
I don’t it’s one of Santa’s reindeer.
Rallo, on the other hand, is very impressed that Waterman landed Santa for his party. He’s so eager to sit on the big man’s lap he even shoves a little girl down just to get to Santa. Cleveland seems to enjoy having his youngest step child seek his attention for a chance, until Rallo starts trashing him. Cleveland, as Santa, tries to assure Rallo that his step dad is just doing his best, but Rallo politely tells Santa that, no, Cleveland just sucks at Christmas causing Cleveland to call out to one of the reindeer men (“Hey, Prancer!”) to leave an entire tray of eggnogs by his chair. Meanwhile, Roberta is outside livestreaming herself preparing to set the reindeer free. She thinks it’s cruel to keep such a creature locked away 364 days out of the year, plus she wants to get the attention of Tyra Banks and views this as the gateway to her becoming the Gayle to Tyra’s Oprah. Then she adds, “Without the sexual obligations.” A bit of a dated joke even by 2009 standards. We then see Cleveland Jr. setting the reindeer free, and immediately upon doing so the reindeer just thrashes him a whole bunch and runs off.
This interaction is sure to end well.
Back inside, Cleveland has just about finished off all of the eggnogs while Rallo is still sitting on his lap trashing him. He imitates him in a humorous way, and since Mike Henry voices both characters Rallo’s impression is spot on, but Cleveland still angrily retorts “I bet that sounds nothing like him!” Rallo, not sensing Santa’s hostility in the least, then moves onto the subject of his real father. Cleveland can’t stand to hear this kid slander him (especially his moustache) while worshiping a deadbeat dad instead so he uses the opportunity to drop some truth on poor Rallo about his dad. Rallo immediately looks like he’s about to burst into tears while Cleveland gets a death stare from Donna. He turns to the camera and breaks the fourth wall to ask “How am I gonna get out of this one?” before telling us to come back after some loud and off-putting messages. And since I am watching this on Hulu with ads, I can confirm that everything about said messages was very off-putting since the Hulu app on Roku is a horrible piece of shit and the ads seem to break it all of the time. I refuse to give them more money to go ad free though, because that would be rewarding them for their shitty practices.
Rallo is a little asshole, but I do feel sympathy for him.
Following those off-putting messages, we find the Brown family back at home. Donna is trying to soothe her son as he lays in bed while Cleveland pounds water, clearly still feeling the effects of the eggnog. Donna has to come clean about Rallo’s dad and the lie apparently went pretty far with Donna even faking letters to Rallo. He can’t believe his mother would lie to him like that, but the two just leave him to go to sleep. We cut to a Christmas pageant and some kid is doing a performance of “Gloria.” It’s very…theatrical. Apparently, this is Wally (Will Forte) and the Fluffers. Anyway, we’re here because Rallo is supposed to read his letter to Santa Claus which goes, “Dear Santa, Fuck you and fuck Christmas!” Arianna, in the audience, turns to her husband and says “That’s what you get when you put a Jew in charge of a Christmas pageant.” Rallo had been introduced by a very Jewish woman (Alex Borstein) and I am to assume that she was the one who organized this. Arianna is a pretty awful bear.
Looks like the family will be counting on Cleveland to save Christmas. Who could have seen that coming?
Back at home, Donna is laying the blame for Rallo’s offensive letter at the feet of her husband. He counters by saying it’s her fault for lying to him while Roberta announces she’s just happy that the lie is over. She then reveals that it was her job to call Rallo and pretend she’s their dad. She does her impression of him and they dub her with the actual voice actor for Robert, Cory Holcomb, for comedic effect. Cleveland then takes responsibility anyway and vows to help Rallo rediscover the Christmas spirit. Roberta, still speaking as Robert, praises him for standing up for Rallo, but then also calls him dough boy. He can’t win.
Rallo is not emotionally mature enough to be angry with his father so he’s going to take it out on Santa.
Cleveland, in a bid to cheer up Rallo, takes him to the local mall. There’s a giant, toy, train display that he thinks might do the trick on account of it not being as depressing as the real railroad industry. Rallo just sees a stuffed Santa “driving” the train and wants blood. He grabs the doll and referring to Santa as “A waste of a life,” holds him down in the path of another oncoming train. It strikes the doll, which has a frightened expression upon seeing the train, causing a derailment. The doll and train crash through a pile of fake snow and collide with another train resulting in a fiery explosion. A bunch of toy first responders arrive quickly on the scene and it even goes into a full-on toy news broadcast. What the hell is going on?
Every animated sitcom needs a bar crew.
Following the odd tangent, we find Cleveland with his friends Lester, Timothy, and Holt (Jason Sudeikis) at The Broken Stool bar. Outside, we see the escaped reindeer from Waterman’s party chasing some random guy in the street. The boys apparently had a secret Santa thing and Lester has gifted Cleveland a bunch of plain, old, ordinary, pens. Lester saw him using a pen once and assumed he would like enjoy them. Cleveland takes it all in stride, despite the disappointment on his face. Cleveland had Holt and he gives him a can of some Red Bull private reserve which causes him to get very emotional. Holt takes off to enjoy his present while Cleveland turns to Timothy and Lester for help with Rallo. Timothy tells Cleveland the only thing that will help the child at this point is for his father to be there with him on Christmas. Cleveland agrees and feels the need to point out that the most human among them is a bear before gathering up his pens and leaving quietly, for some reason.
Cleveland and his boy need to go see a therapist.
Back at the Brown household, Cleveland is putting his biological son to bed. He tells him he’s lucky to have a dad and shares his plan to find Robert so Rallo can have a dad on Christmas too. They’re having a nice little conversation where Cleveland is showing genuine affection for his boy. Then he makes it weird by continually stroking his face and pointing out that his son went from being an eager and excited toddler to a fat kid who can’t play baseball worth a damn! He points out that Cleveland Jr. still writes letters to Santa Claus at 14 and is especially angry that he’s just laying back and taking this abuse from his own father. His mood then immediately brightens as he says, “Okay! Now I’m going to go find Rallo and Roberta’s dad!” Why? Why do we have to make Cleveland a horrible, emotionally abusive father like Peter? Why?
Do you think they’ll invite him in?
As Cleveland prepares to get in his car to go find Robert, Donna approaches to tell him that she doesn’t want him taking off to go find Robert on Christmas Eve. Cleveland challenges her to try and stop him so she hits him with a stun gun. Cleveland collapses to the ground and lets out a few farts as he passes out. We get a “30 Minutes Letter” title and Cleveland is shown stirring. Donna tells him to just buy Rallo’s love like a normal step dad, but Cleveland vows to get Rallo the only present that can restore his faith in Christmas: his father. Then his eyes widen and he says, “What the hell?” We pan to find the reindeer from earlier has climbed a ladder and is peeping on the neighbors. Inside, Timothy and Arianna are naked in bed getting intimate. Timothy doesn’t see the reindeer, but Arianna does. She locks eyes with the beast and licks her lips and growls softly at him clearly getting a charge out of this reindeer watching.
I guess this fella is just happy to have someone come hang out with him on Christmas Eve and make him laugh.
It’s time for a holiday montage! Cleveland needs to peruse the seedy underbelly of Stoolbend to find Robert while a crooner version of “Sleigh Ride” provides the soundtrack. It sounds like it’s Lou Rawls. His first stop is the morgue where a helpful fella dressed as an elf is happy to show him a corpse that might be Robert. Cleveland snaps a photo of it with his cell phone and sends it to Donna. We see her wake up and look at it while Cleveland uses the corpse like a marionette much to the amusement of the elf guy. When Donna apparently texts back that it’s not Robert, the mortuary worker angrily slams the corpse back into the…cooler?.. and Cleveland moves on.
They’re probably okay with having reindeers inside, this one probably just doesn’t have any money.
His next stop is a place called Spanxxx Gentlemen’s Club where the “Gentlemen” is ironic. Before Cleveland can enter, the door swings open and a bouncer appears tossing out the reindeer. He lands in the street, spits on the ground, and moves on with his night. Cleveland has mostly no reaction. Inside, Cleveland shows a picture of Robert to one of the strippers who points out Robert about to duck into a private room with another woman. Cleveland holds out a bill as thanks and the woman’s thighs begin to shiver and so too does the bill. It jumps into her thong with the power of stripper Force! Cleveland just smiles uneasily and backs away.
Cleveland is going to find out if it’s possible to appeal to a deadbeat’s sense of decency.
Cleveland then enters the room Robert ducked into with the other stripper. Robert is most certainly not happy to see Cleveland here interrupting his lap dance. Cleveland gets the stripper to leave by telling her the Atlanta Falcons just entered. Cleveland tells Robert he wants to bring him home for Christmas to cheer up Rallo, but Robert isn’t interested. He points out how it could be worse and shares a story about Brian Wilson’s dad making him take a crap in a box under the Christmas tree. Cleveland is horrified to hear this, but unmoved. He tells Robert that he’s going to dress as Santa and deliver him to Rallo for Christmas and if he won’t do it then he isn’t worth the box that Brian Wilson may have dropped a little deuce coupe in! Terrific wordplay, Cleveland. I would guess the writers thought up a poop joke from “Little Deuce Coupe” and wrote backwards, but Brian Wilson did claim his dad made him shit on a plate as a form of abuse so it’s hard to say what truly inspired this joke. At any rate, Robert isn’t impressed and leaves. Another stripper pops her head out from behind the wall to tell Cleveland she thought what he had to say was very beautiful. He thanks her, then adds a “Murray Christmas, whore,” which is perhaps his most Peter Griffin line of the episode.
This will definitely make everything right.
It’s Christmas morning at the Brown house and Rallo has just descended the stairs to find his siblings opening their stockings. Donna calls him over to open a present, but Rallo is clearly still depressed. He opens a gift to find the Slinky he asked Santa for, but he just remarks how it makes him think of the old Rallo who thought a new toy could cure anything. As Rallo hangs his head and walks away, Cleveland comes bursting through the door dressed as Santa! Cleveland Jr. runs up and gives him a hug crying out “Santa!” Cleveland just accepts the hug with a grimace while crying out “You’re 14 years old!” Santa then approaches Rallo to apologize for what he said. He pulls Rallo’s little tree out his sack and presents it to him, but that isn’t going to work on Rallo. He throws the tree into the fireplace where it burns in an instant!
Everyone knows a kid who thinks the world of their dad even if the rest of the world can see the man for what he really is.
Cleveland hangs his head in shame, but then another Santa shows up! Cleveland Jr. thinks a warlock has cursed Christmas, but it’s just Robert ripping off Cleveland. Rallo is confused at first, but then Robert removes his beard to reveal it’s him and Rallo runs to him with open arms. Robert scoops him up, calls him “Rollo” by mistake, and then tells him he received some good advice the night before about where he belonged today. Saying that he needs to “see his sperms on Christmas,” he turns to Roberta and asks, “What’s up, Rwanda?” She just says “Merry Christmas, dad,” but in an irritated manner and with her back turned towards him, but Robert doesn’t seem to care. He then tries to tell “Rocko” the truth, but because he’s a lying scumbag, he ends up telling Rallo he can’t come around and see him because he’s Santa Claus!
Time for the customary Christmas sing-a-long!
The rest of the family is shocked as Donna had even remarked that Cleveland appeared to get through to Robert, but clearly he did not. Rallo accepts this lie at face value. He then turns his attention to Cleveland as he hasn’t figured it out yet. He yanks off the beard and seems surprised to find Cleveland under there, but then not as he just adds, “Sorry ass wannabe trying to be as cool as my dad.” Cleveland Jr. sees his dad and asks him if he knew that Rallo and Roberta’s dad was the real Santa Claus? Cleveland looks like he’s about to get angry with his boy, but then his expression softens and he just strokes the kid’s cheek once more remarking “You’re a good boy.” Cleveland Jr. purrs like a cat in response.
Is this the first Christmas special to end on a rape joke?
Donna then confirms with Rallo if this all makes sense to him? He gives an enthusiastic, “Hell yeah! My dad is Santa Claus!” and the rest of the family can only just shrug. Cleveland then breaks into song with “Let It Snow.” The rest of the family joins in, and we soon leave the cozy confines of the Brown’s living room and head out into the front yard where the REAL Santa Claus (MacFarlane) is standing! He turns to the camera and says, “A black Santa Claus,” in a dismissive fashion. Seeming to take offense, the reindeer makes a final appearance to ram this racist Santa and knock him to the ground. Then he proceeds to rape him. Merry Christmas!
Wow, so I was not expecting that. I said as part of the intro that I viewed The Cleveland Show as being Family Guy with more heart. I was also expecting it to be a bit tamer, but this really wasn’t at all. We had suicide jokes, rape jokes, pedophilia, and Cleveland even seems to resent his own son in an unhealthy way. He may not be as bad a father as Peter Griffin, but I don’t think he’s a good one. He’s at least very invested in winning over his step son, Rallo, and making sure he has a good Christmas. He’s more than willing to play second fiddle to his real dad even if he looks down on the guy, though a moment of weakness at the party threatens to ruin Rallo’s Christmas. He’s definitely way more invested in Rallo than his own son or his step daughter. I’m guessing that’s fodder for later episodes. He’s not really a bumbling oaf with his heart in the right place. He’s actually pretty competent, and when he wants to be, that can make him intentionally abusive, so yeah, Cleveland: not a great guy.
And that’s fine, the show can be whatever it wants to be, but it means this Christmas episode is devoid of charm. It’s a comedy and the only way to get Rallo to have a merry Christmas is for his deadbeat dad to show up, lie, and make his step dad look worse for it. And the real Santa needs to scoff at black people playing him. At least with that last bit, Santa gets what’s coming to him via the reindeer. He’s basically the only person who gets any comeuppance for being shitty in this episode. Most of the other characters are just there to be a sounding board or get a line in. The reindeer stuff is a decent gag, though the episode definitely felt like it suffered some pacing issues. The plot is pretty simple and basically the whole scene at the mall felt like padding.
Did I enjoy this holiday themed episode of The Cleveland Show? It had its moments. I liked most of the first act and the general setup. I was fine with the resolution too. Most of the stuff in the middle was of little interest to me and the jokes didn’t land as well either. I definitely don’t need to see anymore jokes with Herbert, that one is overplayed. Overall though it was fine. A perfectly cromulent holiday episode that I probably liked more than most of the Family Guy ones, at least, but it’s definitely not on American Dad!‘s level. If you would like to catch this episode, or any other Christmas episode of The Cleveland Show (it had one each season), then the easiest way to do so is via Hulu or Disney+. The show was still airing in syndication when I had cable as recently as 2022, but I don’t know if that is still the case. Either way, it shouldn’t be too hard to find if you’re really committed to watching it.
It was just over a week ago that we took a look at the Christmas episode of The Looney Tunes Show. That show featured the cast of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies in an animated sitcom and it was…okay. It definitely didn’t feel like Warner stumbled onto something with that idea and the search for a worthwhile…
Yesterday, we talked about South Park and its very first holiday special from the late 90s and today we’re talking about the Trey Parker/Matt Stone of the 2010s – Justin Roiland. Roiland was able to hook-up with Dan Harmon in the mid-2000s which put him on the path to comedy writer and actor, usually of…
In 1964, MGM released a film titled The Pink Panther. Such a title conjures up a certain image in one’s mind, but the titular pink panther in the film was not an animal, or even alive, but a pink diamond. Someone must have felt though that you can’t have a title like The Pink Panther…
We’re going to keep sticking with the animated sitcom Christmas special for another day and this time we turn to Bob. Bob’s Burgers has been a reliable staple for holiday viewing ever since getting a more robust endorsement from the Fox network for its third season. That was the first full season, by television standards, with 23 episodes that contained the show’s first Christmas episode. We’ve looked at a handful of Bob’s best Christmas outings already, but I skipped the very first one for some reason. Perhaps that was a mistake on my part? I guess we’ll soon find out.
Unlike Family Guy, American Dad!, and even The Simpsons, I feel pretty confident that we won’t get a bunch of suicide jokes with this one. Even though Bob Belcher (H. Jon Benjamin), as a struggling restaurant owner with a family to feed, should probably be the most susceptible to seasonal depression out of all of the main characters for these shows. Everything is riding on the success of Bob’s restaurant and that’s a lot of pressure. Unlike some other animated families though, the Belchers are pretty adept at rising above everything life throws at them. There isn’t much cynicism to be found here so I suppose in some way that makes them the best fit for a Christmas special.
This episode of Bob’s Burgers does not feature a special, seasonal, opening title. It does contain the usual sight gags though with the business next door and the utility vehicle that pulls up in front of the restaurant and this time we get Can You Dig It Candy Cane Outlet (No licky-loos!) and Silent Mice Exterminators. I like it!
Nothing says Christmas like festive ninja star window clings.
The episode begins with Linda (John Roberts) decorating the front window of the restaurant while the family looks on. She’s clearly placed snowflakes on the window, but Gene (Eugene Mirman) mistakes them for ninja stars while Tina (Dan Mintz) thinks they’re doilies. It is noted that we are seven days out from Christmas (kind of late with the decorating, Linda) so the children hand over their list of demands, as Louise (Kristen Schaal) describes it. It would seem the kids expect gifts from the parents and if anyone believes in Santa Claus it is not implied. Louise demands her own apartment (no studios), Tina would like a dry erase board to write down her thoughts and then erase them (Penis Fly Trap), while Gene wants the bobsled from the movie Cool Runnings. Bob tells the kids they can’t afford any of that stuff and when Tina asks “Even the dry erase board?” he angrily confirms even that. It’s been a tough year for the Belchers and Bob attributes it to the restaurant being mistakenly classified as a gas station in some local newsletter.
Remember to tip your mail carriers at Christmas, folks.
Sometime later, Mailman Mike (Tim Meadows) enters the restaurant and receives a very enthusiastic “Merry Christmas” from Linda that he responds to in his usual, deadpan manner. We can now see that the burger of the day is the One Horse Open Slaw Burger which comes with coleslaw. Not sure if it’s on the burger, or just a side, but it will set you back about six bucks. Mike hands over the mail and then stands there and awkwardly coughs. Bob picks up on the social cue here that Mike is looking for a holiday tip. Bob confesses to Mike that he never knows what to tip the mailman and Mike confirms that Bob does not. Bob then writes a number on a piece of paper and slides it over to Mike for his approval. He says it would be a good amount – if he delivered the mail once a week! Bob then hands over a wad of cash that is more than the number he wrote. Mike thanks him, then hands him some more mail which Bob has to sign for. When Bob asks if he was going to withhold his mail if he didn’t tip him, Mike assures him that he would have got the letter, just not today. He is a professional, after all.
A letter from a law firm can be good, but it can also be very bad.
Mike leaves and everyone decides to show interest in the letter Bob received. Tina even asks if it’s from Santa, so I guess there is a believer in our midst. The letter is from a law firm informing Bob that he’s been named in the will for dear, old, Uncle Ernie. Bob doesn’t seem to know him very well and the kids know nothing of him. Gene suggests that “Talking to Uncle Ernie,” would be a great metaphor for taking a poop, which Bob objects to. Linda snatches the note before Bob can read what his uncle left him as she wants to have a reading of the will. She says she’ll make punch which is apparently a thing she wants to do often (much to the chagrin of Louise) because she keeps getting samples in the mail. With everyone onboard, Gene announces he’s so excited that he needs to go talk to Uncle Ernie and races off to the bathroom.
Linda Belcher: Punch Enthusiast
In the Belcher living room, punch has been made and the family is ready for Linda to read the will. The children are clearly expecting a windfall here from their great uncle who owned a furniture store, but Bob tries to reset expectations. Linda does a dramatic reading (of sorts) only to find out they have been left whatever is in some storage unit. The family is slightly deflated, but they have to go check it out for themselves. We cut to the Just Stow It Storage facility where the family has resumed letting their imaginations run wild with optimism. Bob, being a bit of a downer here, reminds them they’ll have to pay taxes on whatever is in the storage unit if it’s any good. He lifts up the door to the unit and everyone gasps to find a dude just chilling inside in a tracksuit amongst a ton of boxes. He says “Oh, hi,” and Gene declares triumphantly “We won a cave man!”
Precisely what you don’t want to see when opening a storage unit.
After an act break, we discover that this man is named Chet (Zach Galifianakis) and he’s apparently been living here for some time. He had no idea Ernie died and upon hearing the news gives Bob a reassuring hug that he wants no part of. Gene tries to get in on some of that action, but is rebuked by his father. Chet reveals that he did window displays for Uncle Ernie’s store for 20 years until it closed. When he had no place else to go, Ernie let him stay here in the storage unit. Linda immediately feels bad for him and wants to invite him to live in their basement, but Bob doesn’t see the need to do so. That is, until the owner of the place asks Bob if he’ll be taking over the $150 per month lease on the unit.
Maybe Chet’s presence will at least keep the vermin away?
We smash cut to Chet and the Belchers checking out his new basement home. They’ve moved all of his stuff in and Chet is making himself feel right at home. He remarks that he can’t wait for the carpet to come in and asks if they’re married to the present color of the walls. Bob then has to remind Chet that he’s apparently only welcome to stay through Christmas and Chet has to doublecheck that he means this Christmas. When Bob confirms that he does, Chet doesn’t seem mad and actually says this is the nicest thing anyone has done for him since Sal gave him the tracksuit he’s wearing. He gestures to a nude mannequin indicating that’s Sal and Gene remarks that if Chet wants to do something nice for Sal that he could really use a penis. We may not have suicide jokes, but that’s our second penis joke so far!
It would appear that Chet has a hidden talent.
It is now six days before Christmas and Bob and Linda are woken up on this fine morning by their daughter Louise bursting into their room screaming “Fire!” She then tells them she’s just kidding, but she clearly wants them to come check out something. Downstairs in the restaurant, a festive window display has been erected. Gene remarks that he can’t find Chet and that his pee jar has gone cold, but he clearly made this display which everyone seems most impressed with. Bob remarks he’s glad Chet apparently took off and notes there was something “off” about him and that he smelled. One of the mannequins then turns and gives an awkward cough revealing that it’s Chet and Bob is forced to try and backpedal. Chet doesn’t bring attention to what Bob said and instead asks if the display is “Holi-doing it for ya?” Bob and Linda remark that it is indeed holi-doing it for them. Chet has dubbed his display Class Under Glass, but as Bob starts to ask more questions he just silently retakes his position in the display and says nothing causing Bob to remark that “he’s being weird again.”
Something we don’t get to see too often: Bob happy at Christmas.
The window display seems to be a big hit with the town as lots of people are shown stopping to look at it. An old couple enters the restaurant basically desperate to spend money there. When they find out that Bob doesn’t have any merch he offers to write out a gift certificate on a napkin. When the restaurant closes for the day, Bob is shown to be rather upbeat as he credits the display with really driving a lot of foot traffic. Chet hops down out of his display and informs the family he intends to create a new one each day until Christmas. The kids like the sound of this and indicate that they would like to be a part of them while Bob suggests hanging a big curtain to have an unveiling of the new display each day. Chet remarks that’s a very theatrical idea then asks Bob if he’s gay. Louise answers for him with a “We wish.”
Looks like Chet did find a carpet for the floor.
That night, Chet and the kids are going through all of his stuff in the basement in a bid to come up with an idea for tomorrow’s display. Gene proposes they utilize a toy train he’s found while Louise remarks that the lamp she’s found will look nice in her new apartment. She confesses the request was a joke at first, but indicates that all of this newfound success has her convinced it’s happening. The kids then discover that window displays was something Chet used to do with his ex-wife, Nadine. He seems a little blue, but tries to cheer himself up by suggesting they don’t want to hear about his past relationships and Gene enthusiastically agrees.
I would have saved this display for Christmas Eve, but that’s just me.
A musical montage follows set to “Father Christmas” by The Kinks, an easy top ten Christmas song in my house. This is a way to blast through the various displays that Chet and the kids come up with on the road to Christmas. The first one is set at Santa’s workshop with Chet dressed as the jolly, old, elf and the kids portraying elves. The kids aren’t great at this human mannequin thing as Gene tumbles backwards taking out a wall and Louise turns to hang up a “0 days without a workplace accident” sign. The next display as a Hannukah themed one followed by Chet as a Christmas tree with Louise riding a train around him and Gene and Tina dressed as presents. Louise slaps the faces of her siblings as she rides in circles while we keep getting cuts to the cash register filling with money and a very satisfied Bob.
I wonder what they do when someone has to go talk to Uncle Ernie?
The montage fades out with a local news broadcast drawing attention to the changing displays. In the window, Chet is now a gingerbread man, Tina a sugar plum (or ornament), and Gene a candy cane. Louise is apparently sitting this one out, or she’s in the giant gingerbread house. Mort (Andy Kindler) and Teddy (Larry Murphy) are at the counter and Teddy is very impressed by the fact that he’s on television right now as he waves to the camera. Bob has to tell Gene to stop licking himself since he’s on TV, but Gene just shouts back “Where I belong!” Teddy is eager to find out what tomorrow’s big, Christmas Eve display will be, but can’t make up his mind if he wants to know now or be surprised. Chet doesn’t respond to his pestering anyway since he’s very committed to his craft. Mort is so pumped for it that his mother is coming into town just to see it. He tells Bob to make it big since she has cataracts.
Not everyone is set to have a merry Christmas.
That night, the good vibes continue as Bob and Linda are doing the dishes. Linda is already convinced that this will be the best Christmas ever and Bob, surprisingly, doesn’t disagree. He even thinks they should have enough money to get the kids something nice and suggests that Linda cover for him tomorrow so he can sneak out to do some shopping. She assures him that she’ll tell the kids he needed to go buy something for his mistress. Bob is not amused. In the living room, Gene is wrapping a gift for his dad. It’s the television remote since his dad seems to love it so much. Louise thinks this is a great idea and decides to wrap Linda’s glasses up as a present for her. All the while Chet is there staring longingly out the window at the lightly falling snow.
What could possibly be on that picture?
Bob and Linda enter the room and Linda asks what Chet is doing. He informs her that he’s just zoning out as the song playing was Nadine’s favorite Christmas song. It’s at this point I notice “Silent Night” is playing and as Linda tries to ask who Nadine is Chet starts singing the song. The kids fill her in and then Chet produces a photograph. We can only see the back of it as Linda reacts by saying she’s gorgeous, then gets confused. The rest of the family looks at it in confusion as well and they try to all ask the same question, but in a polite way, for it would appear that Nadine is actually a mannequin. Bob just comes out says it and Chet informs the family that he used to be a mannequin too, complete with overly dramatic musical stings! The kids seem impressed, while Bob is quite uneasy with this revelation. Chet tries to smooth things over by assuring Bob he’s not one of those “murder mannequins,” he’s just a simple store mannequin that came to life. No big deal. Bob can only muster a “So…happy…you’re staying with us…in our basement.” Chet then resumes singing “Silent Night” which has a different aura now that we know “the truth.” Bob tells his family that they need to leave.
Oh…
Following an act break, we resume the living room conversation with Bob asking Linda if she thinks Chet will murder them before or after Christmas. Linda doesn’t seem concerned and points that he said he’s not a murder mannequin. Chet remarks, in a callback to a shared conversation at the storage unit, that the two still need to work on their whispering. Louise decides to test the mannequin theory by kicking Chet in the shin. She has deduced that a mannequin would not feel pain, but Chet made it clear that he was a mannequin and isn’t anymore. Tina can relate as she points out that one day Chet just suddenly became anatomically correct which is something she just went through.
Back when “life” was perfect for Chet and Nadine.
It’s now time to hear Chet’s origin story. He was a mannequin in a sports store and Nadine was too. She didn’t have any nipples and she didn’t need them, per Chet. As the seasons (and fashion) changed from summer to fall casual their relationship became anything but. Chet remarks that one day he took Nadine skiing and we’re shown that they were just covered in skiing attire. An accident happened, a clerk knocked Nadine over smashing her right hand. She was taken away for repairs and when she came back she had two left hands. Chet then tells the family he had to make an important decision. Gene thinks he means what hand to replace with a hook, but Chet corrects him by saying he had to decide which hand to put a ring on. The two are shown in a wedding display apparently getting married. Gene shares this opinion on the resolution with a “Boo!”
Did the pain of loss bring Chet to life or are these just the ravings of a mad man? How can one ever know?
With the flashback over, we return to the living room where Bob is shocked to find his wife in tears. She can’t help it, weddings always get to her. Chet tells the family that everything was perfect, until the mall came. The store closed and during the liquidation sale the two were separated. It’s at this point that Gene wants to go back to earlier in the story by asking Chet why Nadine didn’t require nipples. He ignores the child and continues his story. We see Chet being locked away in the storage unit where Chet theorizes that the pain of his loss caused a transformation to take place. Tina concludes that this is the greatest love story ever told.
Bob’s not winning this one.
Bob remains unconvinced and tells Chet that he was never a mannequin. Chet isn’t hearing it and wants to be reunited with his love. Tina is onboard with finding her as the two theorize she may be in Paris or Milan. Bob tells the kids that they are not going on a mannequin hunt with Chet and suggests she’s probably in a landfill somewhere. Chet can’t take the abuse and runs away in tears. An angry Linda orders the kids to go to bed since she needs to have a word with Bob, but he’s apparently frightened by his wife and orders the kids to stay. This goes into a routine where each parent keeps ordering their kids to do the opposite of the other until finally the kids obey their mom and leave, since they’re taking her side. With the kids gone, Linda scolds Bob for making Chet cry. Bob points out that the man is unstable and suspects many things make him cry. Linda ends the argument by stomping off to bed telling Bob not to bring the mistletoe with him, but do bring her a snack. Chocolate!
Well that’s sure to surprise the onlookers.
The next morning, Gene and Tina come barging into their parents’ bedroom telling them to get up and come see the display. We also see that Bob slept on the floor. They head downstairs to find a rather grisly display: a decapitated reindeer with ground beef in the neck hole, an elf swinging by a noose, and a headless snowman with two bottles of ketchup placed where the head should be squirting “blood.” This obviously won’t be good for business, and unfortunately for the Belchers Chet is nowhere to be found. Oh, wait, he’s actually sitting right there in a booth. The display is a window to his soul, as Chet puts it, which has been severely wounded by Bob’s words the night prior. Louise likes it, but no one else does. Bob insists that Chet replace it with something happy, but Chet’s happiness has been discarded in a dump somewhere. He zings Bob by asking him if his face can catch because he’s throwing his own words back at him! Chet runs off to the basement and the kids decide it’s all up to them to save Christmas with a traditional, mannequin, hunt.
This group is very invested in these window displays.
Our second montage of the episode is now upon us. It’s set to an instrumental I don’t recognize, but sounds jolly enough. The kids are shown handing out fliers with Nadine on them to various side characters from the show. It’s a brief montage which ends at the restaurant where a small crowd has gathered demanding to see the Christmas Eve display. The kids slink back into the store with an important announcement: they’ve found Nadine! Bob scolds them for disobeying his mandate to not go on a hunt for her…it, but Gene seems to not take his father seriously for we get a cutaway of him surprising his dad while he’s in the middle or urinating as an example of other boundaries he ignores. Linda is excited though while threats from outside seem to suggest they need to produce a display and quickly. She informs “Old Saint Dick,” that he’s going to go get this mannequin from the store the kids found her at, but haven’t elaborated on yet. Bob is forced to agree since getting the mannequin is the quickest way to getting Chet to do a kinder display. As Bob moves, we can see that the Christmas Eve burger of the day is The Fifth Day of Christmas Burger which comes with five, golden, onion rings.
Well, I guess it’s a better location to find Nadine than a landfill?
With the family leaving out the back, Linda tries to stall for time by heading outside to deliver a poem she wrote. Or rather, one she’s clearly making up on the spot since the poem is basically just “Christmas, oh Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas…” Meanwhile, Bob and the kids are at the store where Nadine presently resides in the window display: Spanks A Lot. It’s an erotic store and Nadine is in some light bondage gear and handcuffs. They can tell it’s her though by the presence of two left hands. Bob orders the kids to wait outside as he heads in and speaks to the clerk (Fred Stoller, who must have been identified early for the role because the character even resembles him) where he confirms that Nadine was indeed discarded in a landfill. The clerk has no desire to loan the mannequin out and says this is the biggest sex shopping day of the year. When Bob points that there’s no one in the store, the clerk gestures to the back to confirm where all of the customers are.
As far as diversions go that’s a pretty good one.
The kids, meanwhile, have snuck in because of course they did. Gene is surprised to find limbless finger puppets, which are most certainly not finger puppets. Louise can tell that her dad is getting nowhere with the clerk so she instructs her siblings to create a diversion with the…personal massagers. They turn the sex toys on and toss them on the floor where they vibrate and slither about. The clerk sees them and shouts at them to get out since they’re minors while Bob bolts and grabs Nadine. The kids lay down some lube by the door which the clerk slips and falls on as he tries to chase after them. Bob shouts back that he’ll return her after midnight while the clerk shouts out “Sickos!” A voice from the back thinks he was referring to them, but he calls back, “No, not you guys,” in a defeated tone.
We’re kind of setup to dislike the clerk, but I can’t blame a sex store owner for not wanting to loan out his BDSM mannequin for a few hours on Christmas Eve.
We return to the restaurant to find Linda has switched tactics and is now singing “The Carol of the Bells,” only she doesn’t know any of the words so she just keeps singing “La la-la bells!” Gene lets her know she can come in because they have Nadine and the family races to the basement. Chet has apparently locked himself in the room down there, which I don’t think had a door before, but who cares? He’s apprehensive about seeing Nadine again since the tracksuit is twelve seasons old and he’s got a gut. Louise assures him that Nadine has changed too and Bob pleads with him to come out. He’s forced to apologize to Chet, though he won’t allow himself to go so far as to say he believes him. He tells Chet that what matters now is he’s a man in love with a mannequin and the mannequin that he’s currently holding should be in Chet’s arms, not his. Chet is clearly moved by Bob’s words and agrees to finally open the door.
The reunion we’ve all been waiting for?
Uplifting music plays as Chet gazes upon Nadine for the first time in…seasons. He remarks, “Tough times, huh baby?” upon seeing her new look but assures her that he won’t judge her for what she had to do to get by. They proceed to have a one-sided conversation as Chet mostly makes noises like he’s agreeing with whatever she has to say. Linda remarks that Chet is a good listener and women like that. Bob has to interject that she’s a mannequin with Gene adding, “one that won’t shut up, apparently.” Bob then tries to steer Chet back to the display as he’s pretty concerned about it. Chet confers with Nadine, who apparently had something funny to say. Bob is very concerned about what she had to say, but Chet assures him he wouldn’t get it and agrees to do a new display.
Simple. Traditional. Tasteful. I award this final display an A-.
We cut to upstairs and we’re apparently going with a nativity scene. Chet is Joseph, Nadine is Mary, Tina, Linda, and Louise are kings and Gene is baby Jesus. Chet gives a brief pep talk concluding with “Aaaand no action!” Hah, mannequin humor. Bob heads outside to present the display which goes over well. Mort’s mom is present and remarks it was worth the wait. Teddy offers to take a picture of Mort and his mother and tells Mort to fix the wig. Mort thinks he was referring to the rug on his head, but Teddy informs him he was referring to Mort’s mother who has a weird, pointy, thing going on.
Louise is enjoying this.
The good feelings are short-lived though as almost immediately the sex store clerk shows up demanding the return of his mannequin. He barges into the restaurant and goes for Nadine while Chet informs him “She’s with me now.” The two grapple over the wooden woman while the display gets knocked over and poor baby Jesus finds himself in manger danger. The clerk seems to gain control of the doll and tells everyone they’re lucky he doesn’t call the cops on them and mistakes them for perverts. Well, Chet might be, but Tina asks if they can simply buy Nadine off of him. He tells them she’s not for sale, but Gene correctly points out that every sex shop owner has their price. The clerk counters with five grand and Bob quickly refuses. Louise retrieves a wad of cash from the cash register and counts out $263 bucks. Bob protests and tells her that was the money they were going to use to buy them presents, but Louise laughs since it’s no where near the amount needed for an apartment. Tina tells her father that he can spend her allotted money on Nadine and the others agree with Louise adding she better get one hell of a President’s Day present. The clerk relents and takes their money in exchange for Nadine.
Well now, things have certainly taken an awkward turn.
With Nadine returned to Chet where she belongs, the family is overwhelmed with positive vibes. Chet is beyond happy and Bob is even feeling the warmth as he tells Chet, though somewhat reluctantly, that he can stay through New Years. Everyone is happy, and Chet remarks how he and Bob are so lucky to each have a special lady in their life. Bob just sort of politely agrees, but Chet pushes the sentiment further by suggesting the four of them take a vacation. Linda is onboard, but Bob clearly wants this conversation to end. Tina bails him out by saying they’ve waited long enough and urges Chet to kiss Nadine. Bad move, Tina, as Chet just starts making out with a mannequin in a restaurant window display while dressed as biblical figures. Nadine’s head even falls off, but Chet just picks it up and resumes making out with it. Then he makes the head kiss his neck while moaning. The crowd outside stares with rapt attention while Teddy indicates to Mort’s mom that this is making him hot. Is Teddy making a play for Mort’s mother?
I believe Edith is sincere when she tells the Belchers to go to Hell.
The kiss continues and Tina points out that “It’s happening.” The kiss is turning Nadine into a woman! No, it’s turning Chet back into a mannequin! No, it’s actually doing nothing and Tina seems let down. Mike the Mailman, who is in the crowd, determines they took things too far with this final display and everyone else seems to agree as the crowd disperses. Edith (Murphy), the always grumpy old lady, even tells the Belchers to burn in Hell as she departs.
So…happy ending?
Christmas Day arrives and we’re in the Belcher living room where Linda is declaring that Uncle Ernie’s storage unit had a few treasures in it. Gene opens his gift and thanks Santa for an exit sign. Tina is happy with her shoe sizer while Louise seems thrilled to have a device that removes security tags from merchandise. I can see her getting into some trouble with that as she declares “Next Christmas is on me!” Chet is seated in a lounge chair with Nadine draped across his lap in a sexy Santa outfit. Bob asks what he’s going to do after the new year and Chet just casually remarks he plans to go back to Manhattan. Apparently he owns a loft there which has been in the process of getting renovated. We hear an exasperated Bob shout “WHAT?!” before heading to the credits.
That’s one hell of an ending! We may not have had suicide jokes, but we did get another story of apparent mental illness of a man who misses his ex. Only the ex isn’t really an ex in the traditional sense. Not because she’s a mannequin, but because they never broke up or anything. They were just forcefully separated, if you believe Chet’s story. I would categorize him as an unreliable narrator, at best.
This one has lots of twists and turns. Down on their luck family seems posed to have a Christmas miracle befall them in the form of an unexpected inheritance, only it occurs in the first act so we kind of know that’s probably not where we’re going. Then it turns into a case of a family that has almost nothing taking in a guy who literally has nothing who turns out to be a blessing in disguise. The fact that all of Chet’s exposure he got the restaurant only amounted to $263 really drives home how unsuccessful the business really is. And from there, things get turned on their head when we find out that Chet is a very troubled man who is in love with a mannequin. Bob doesn’t believe him, and yet he and his family do what I guess is the right thing in reuniting Chet with his “wife,” only to have it dropped on us that Chet is apparently a pretty well-off guy with a loft in New York. Or maybe that’s a delusion as well, who can say? All I know is we went on one hell of a ride. It’s a bit unorthodox for Christmas, but the very first Christmas special for Bob’s Burgers never loses sight of the holiday. It’s basically a typical, atypical, holiday special in that the Belchers do something that’s mostly selfless in the spirit of the holiday without any real reward, in the end.
Poor, little, Tina, denied her dry erase board.
As a viewer, we do root for the Belchers so this one can be a bit frustrating to see them throw away what is probably some much-needed money on a mannequin. Especially if Chet is some rich guy. The ending might rattle some nerves since there’s obviously more to the story, but I like how it lands and nothing that follows could be funnier or more satisfying. We don’t need to see Bob angrily throw Chet out or see him have the opposite reaction of depressed acceptance. Chet probably didn’t reward the family any further than his displays did and it would work against the whole selfless act resolution. So many selfless acts in Christmas specials are essentially undone with the protagonist getting rewarded anyway so I like that we just end it right where it did.
This is a very entertaining episode of Bob’s Burgers, Christmas or otherwise. I may like some other Christmas episodes more, but this is one of those episodes that does make me rethink my Bob’s Burgers Christmas hierarchy. If you would like to take this one then you need only turn to Hulu or Disney+. I’ve said that a lot so far this year and I’ll probably say it some more! The episode is also available to purchase in the usual spots and it’s probably airing in syndication if you have cable.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
Yesterday, we took a look at a Cartoon Network original aimed at a pretty broad audience. Today, it’s an Adult Swim original very much aimed at an adult audience. Or at least one older than eight. Smiling Friends is the creation of Michael Cusack and Zach Hadel and it’s an animated sitcom about a couple…
The Ren & Stimpy Show burst onto the scene as part of the original trio of Nicktoons in 1991. The other two, Doug and Rugrats, were fairly gentle cartoons. Rugrats could sometimes get a little blue since the main characters were all babies, but the occasional poop joke was hardly something to get offended by.…
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The 2024 edition of The Christmas Spot has been a year in which we return to a show we haven’t talked about in a little while. Today’s subject is certainly one such show as we’re heading back to Arlen, TX for a Christmas episode of King of the Hill. Up to now, the only episode of the long-running Fox sitcom included on this countdown was covered back in 2020. This episode has been on my list ever since, if not longer, and is one of my favorite episodes from King of the Hill. It does take place at Christmas, though it’s perhaps not as full of the holiday as some other King of the Hill holiday episodes. What it lacks in Christmas cheer it certainly makes up for with a heaping helping of one Bill Dauterive (Stephen Root).
Bill is one of my favorite characters from the show even if he is one of the saddest. He’s a very depressed man and it all stems back to his divorce which took place before the events of the show. It took several episodes to figure out just how pathetic Bill is, but this episode is going to capture it well. When I think of Bill and the word “pathetic,” I think of him eating spaghetti off of his counter and taking a swig of sauce right from the jar to wash it down. Remember the show Step by Step and the Cody character who would pour milk in his mouth, squirt the chocolate syrup in after, then shake his head all about before swallowing? That was ridiculous and just stupid funny (to an eight year old, anyway), something TGIF featured a lot of. Bill’s spaghetti meal is similar in construction, but almost believably pathetic. I’m pretty sure I imitated the Cody milk trick as a kid, but it would never occur to me to do the same with Bill’s spaghetti.
Nothing sums up how pathetic a man Bill is than this right here.
“Pretty, Pretty Dresses” puts Bill’s mental health at the forefront. I suppose this one comes with a bit of a trigger warning as Bill is suicidal and it is played for laughs. It’s similar to how Moe would be portrayed on The Simpsons, only with Moe there was really no one caring about him to talk him down. Bill does have people who care about him. They don’t really take his suicidal actions with 100% seriousness as some of the actions by Bill are pretty, well, pathetic. That’s the word of the day, apparently. He probably lacks the conviction needed to go through it and it’s the classic “cry for help” we sometimes hear about. I’m also no psychologist and while I’ve had my share of bad days I’ve never gone to a place even remotely close to what one would call suicidal. In other words, this isn’t the sort of stuff that is likely to bother me, but it might bother you. It’s also just dawning on me that I have quite a few animated sitcoms in the countdown this year and just about all of them have a suicide joke. That’s admittedly a bit weird, but maybe not that surprising considering the darker side of Christmas. The most famous Christmas movie of all time even dabbles in suicide so maybe we should be blaming Frank Capra?
Bill is sad, and no one in his life is well-equipped to respond to that fact.
The episode begins with the usual suspects standing in the alley drinking a beer. Hank, Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer look as they do so often in the show, and then Bill just starts sobbing. As he cries, a very jolly, instrumental, rendition of “Sleigh Ride” comes in as Bill continues to sob and his friends continue to ignore him by just staring blankly straight-ahead. This smashes to the intro and when that ends we go right back to the alley. Bill gets ahold of himself and very plainly remarks, “I love Christmas.” Then he continues with the sobbing and we find out that it was at Christmas time his wife, Lenore, left him. He tries to convince himself it was the best thing that ever happened to him, but he just goes back to sobbing. Bill heads home leaving the others behind. Hank (Mike Judge), being the better friend of the three, remarks out loud that he’d like a cookie and can always count on Bill to have cookies in his house. This is his cover to go check on Bill because these men could never admit to one another that they care about each other.
One gets the impression that if Lenore was dead instead of just gone this would get even uglier.
Hank enters the house to a sad scene. There’s a very dead tree in the corner with Lenore’s stocking on it and a bunch of wrapped gifts with her name on them beneath it. Some must be old from when she left, but there also appears to be new ones as Bill was apparently in the middle of wrapping his toaster. Bill enters the room and is surprised to see Hank and starts hiding gifts and shoving the very dead tree in a closet. Hank awkwardly asks if these are all gifts for Lenore and Bill proudly admits that they are and he suspects that she’ll appreciate his saving them when she comes back. Hank then tries to level with his old friend, but he can barely get a word out before Bill starts to whimper. Hank can’t bring himself to do it and just remarks that stranger things have happened. Bill cheers up and thanks him before confirming with Hank that he’ll be attending dinner at their house through the holidays. This is apparently a thing the Hills do each year so that Bill isn’t alone.
Maybe having Bill over dinner every night won’t be so bad?
We are then treated to one of those dinners. Peggy (Kathy Najimy) is excited about a Christmas party they’re hosting and Bill decides to awkwardly steer that subject into a conversation about break-ups. He reminds Luanne (Brittany Murphy) about her dead boyfriend and how it can be hard to find someone else as he reckons there was only one person meant for her. This disarms Luanne and Peggy immediately tries to steer the conversation back to the party and asks Luanne to help out hosting it, but she’s still reeling from Bill. Bobby (Pamela Adlon) is happy to volunteer to host the party, so Bill brings up the girl who dumped him a few episodes prior and he too looks defeated. He then brings up a high school boyfriend of Peggy’s, Cecil, but she insists she didn’t even like him. Bill just reminds her matter-of-factly that she did, but he didn’t like her.
Oh Hank, this should be the least of your concerns when it comes to Bobby.
The next morning, Bobby is serving breakfast which Hank seems to be uncomfortable with (“Shouldn’t you be doing this, Peggy?”), but like a lot of things with his son, Hank is just going to have to roll with it. Peggy is just happy to have an appetite following last night’s dinner and makes a comment that suggests Bill is like that at every dinner. Bobby remarks that he could live without him, which Hank objects to. He takes the time to remind the two that he set Arlen High School’s single season rushing record in football and Bill was his lead blocker. A running back who forgets his frontline is the person Hank could live without, not Bill, and leaves the table without touching his bacon and eggs saying “Shame on you two.”
The addition of a pet has only made things worse. Of course, it’s not helping that the pet is an iguana.
We cut to another dinner scene and Bill is playfully feeding someone off camera that the Hills seem to find…disturbing. When the camera centers on Bill we see that he’s brought an iguana to dinner which he has named Lenore, naturally. Hank carefully asks Bill if the store was all out of puppies, but Bill insists that iguanas are the new trendy pet. He’s trying to get the thing to eat what looks like a carrot and insists that he’s just shy (and it does sound like this is a male iguana that he’s named Lenore) and is probably nervous with all of the new faces. He looks to his right and stares at Luanne as he says this and she picks up on his social cue to ask if she should leave to which Bill responds simply, “Thank you.” He then opens up what looks like a pill bottle and dumps a cricket onto the table. The rest of the family is shocked, but Bill says “Don’t worry, it’s dead.” It then wriggles a bit and everyone gasps as Lenore jumps on the table and scarfs it down.
Dear God, someone might see Hank in his boxer shorts!
That night as Hank and Peggy get ready for bed, Peggy lets Hank know that this thing with Bill has gone far enough. She doesn’t want him at another meal of theirs, but Hank insists that he thinks Bill seemed happier so maybe things are getting better? Peggy just refers to the iguana (which she mispronounces) as a cry for help, but before their argument can go any further they’re interrupted by the door opening. Hank immediately cries out to Luanne to knock first, but it’s Bill. He apparently had a nightmare where Lenore returned and kidnapped Lenore and drove off with him while he chased after the car until his teeth fell out. He informs Peggy that she was there too then requests to sleep on their couch. I was ready for him to ask about sleeping at the foot of their bed. Hank just says “Yes, Bill,” and once the door is closed Peggy delivers an ultimatum, “I’m giving you twenty-four hours to get me out of that man’s dreams!”
Very normal behavior.
The next day, Hank and Bill are pounding beers in the alley with Lenore. Bill chucks an empty into his cooler, pats his belly, then turns to Hank and says “Shall we?” Hank awkwardly delivers the news that he’s not welcome at dinner tonight. Bill takes the news rather well, even adds that he prefers to eat alone, though he’s not exactly convincing anyone of that. The Hills have a nice dinner without Bill, while Bill eats his pathetic spaghetti meal off the counter I talked about earlier. He really chugs that meat sauce. We cut back to the Hills and Hank is apparently pitching a movie to his family about propane that would involve Clint Eastwood. He does a bad Eastwood impression then turns to the family for approval. Bobby, his ever reliably enthusiastic son, tells him it’s a great idea. They all laugh and we see Bill is watching sadly from the street.
Does this count as an attempt?
Bill takes a ladder out of Hank’s open garage, and as he walks off, it gets caught on some string lights and he inadvertently pulls them down. Or he always intended to leave a mark since this gets Hank’s attention from inside. He’s irritated to find his ten foot ladder missing and immediately accuses Dale, then Bill, then Dale again. He then takes his longer ladder (I guess a 12 footer) and heads up to the roof to fix the lights. From there, he sees Bill across the way on his own roof. He asks him what he’s doing and Bill just casually tells him he’s up there to kill himself. He then goes to jump, but instead awkwardly rolls off the side of the house grasping the gutter. He dangles a moment, then the gutter breaks and he falls to the ground below. It’s important to note that Bill’s house is a ranch. Even if he jumped, he’d be at almost zero risk of killing himself. Hank still cries out in horror when Bill falls though as he’s a good friend.
Nancy looks concerned, but it’s probably for show. Hank seems to be the only one who gives a damn about Bill.
The neighborhood is now gathered in front of Bill’s house to discuss what to do with him. In the background, we can see Bill on his own stoop with his arm in a sling so he apparently got hurt a little bit in his fall. Peggy acts like she’s going to say something mildly profound when she says “You know who I feel sorry for the most in all of this? Bill.” Yeah, no kidding, Peggy. She suggests he see a psychiatrist, but Hank snaps “He’s suicidal, Peggy, not crazy.” Hank seems to think they just need to keep a constant surveillance of Bill until he snaps out of it while Dale (Johnny Hardwick) thinks he’s too far gone and they should sit back and watch the bloodbath. Hank is not about to let that happen and lays out the Bill Suicide Watch schedule for all to hear and adhere to. And since it’s nighttime, Hank is up first.
It’s electric, Bill.
Hank leads Bill back into the house and suggests that Bill get to bed. Bill remarks that all he does is sleep and suggests that maybe he’s preparing himself for The Big Sleep. Hank shudders and goes into the kitchen for a beer. Bill declines one on account of beer being a depressant which causes Hank to angrily snap at him, “Don’t go blaming the beer!” As he goes into the fridge to get himself one, Bill comes in and sticks his head in the oven. Hank ignores him as he heads back into the living room then calls over his shoulder to remind Bill it’s an electric stove. When he says that it’s still pretty hot, Hank relents and yanks his head out of the oven and deposits him on his bed face first. Hank is trying to get him some pajamas and is surprised to find silk ones in Bill’s drawer. Bill refuses to go along with this so Hank is basically forced to dress him, then brush his teeth for him, and then he has to sit beside the bed while Bill sleeps. Only Bill isn’t sleeping! He’s just waiting for the right moment to resume his suicide attempts and when Hank nods off he does just that…by trying to slam his own head in the drawer of his nightstand. Hank wakes up with a “Damnit, Bill,” and is forced to take the drawers away while Bill tumbles out of bed.
Bill has lost all ability to function within society.
It’s the next day and we see Bill is on his couch. He goes to get up, but he’s soon ordered back down. It’s Dale’s watch, and he isn’t taking any chances as he sits in front of Bill with a shotgun. Bill just asks to go “tinkle,” but Dale informs him “Not on my watch.” The humor here is Dale is threatening a suicidal person with death so I suppose if the audience wasn’t convinced that Bill’s suicide attempts were lacking conviction they should be now. We then cut to Bill at a bar called Uglys because it’s now apparently Boomhauer’s (Judge) turn. He’s slow dancing with a woman while Bill looks on from the bar looking sad. He remarks to the bartender that he and Lenore used to come here and watch other couples dance indicating that they were never very much in love. He gets up real close on one couple who is making out at the bar, whimpers, then runs out crying. He runs straight into the road intending to have a tractor trailer truck be his end. It’s just careful editing though and when the camera zooms out we see the truck make a harmless left turn as it was more than a full block away from Bill. Boomhauer then appears to just angrily grab Bill by the arm and drag him back inside.
Dale isn’t about to wait and see what Bill left him in his will.
We next see Bill seated on his couch with his head down from a distance. The camera is in the kitchen and it pans to reveal that Hank, Dale, and Boomhauer are having a little conference about their friend. Dale insists he can’t keep doing this because it’s not in his nature to care about others while Boomhauer remarks it’s all “Work. Bill. Work. Bill,” and suggests that it’s making him want to put a bullet in his own head. Hank doesn’t really put forth any argument to try to keep them onboard with Operation Keep Bill Alive and instead says that he’ll take over all shifts, if he can clear it with his boss. He then calls out Dale for wearing Bill’s silk pajama top under his shirt, but Dale sees no harm in doing so since Bill’s as good as dead anyway.
If it’s any consolation, Hank, it’s the end of the year and Bud Strickland doesn’t seem like the sort of boss who lets his workers rollover vacation time year-to-year.
Now, we head to Strickland Propane, Hank’s place of employment, to see how his time off request goes. We find him in the office of his boss, Bud Strickland (Root), as he starts into his request. Bud thinks Hank is requesting time off to get ready for the party he’s hosting, and since he invited their whole client list, he seems to think it’s a good idea. Poor Hank can’t lie to his boss though, and clarifies it’s for a friend and even categorizes it as a matter of life and death. Strickland doesn’t care, and just tells Hank to have the secretary zero-out his vacation days which elicits another, “Damnit, Bill,” from Hank. We then cut to Hank and Peggy at their kitchen table where Hank is bemoaning his current state. He tells her that Bill tried to drown himself in the toilet earlier and then asks her if she can find him a date? Peggy starts into trying to make an excuse for why she can’t since she’d have to invite a woman over and not tell her anything about Bill and Hank just thinks this is Peggy outlining a plan. He thanks her and walks away in what is basically a repeat of the dinner scene between Bill and Luanne. It’s still funny though so I’ll allow it.
Pay no mind to the iguana piss on his uniform, ma’am.
And who did Peggy find to join them for dinner that night? Why that would be Mrs. Tobbis (Janet Waldo), perhaps the stuffiest looking woman character one could draw. She is visibly angry to be at dinner under false pretenses. To Bill’s credit, he put on his old military uniform and looks nicer than usual, but he still brought Lenore who is nestled on his shoulder. He informs Mrs. Tobbis that he isn’t allowed to have a knife at the table because he’s in the middle of killing himself. Tobbis doesn’t even comment on that and instead accuses Peggy of setting her up with this man against her will. Peggy tries to reason with her by saying Bill is a collector of exotic reptilia and she collects throw pillows – they’re practically the same! Tobbis admits to having a few pillows, but justifiably doesn’t see what that has to do with her being there. Bill then asks her if she likes iguanas and she informs him, in no uncertain terms, that she does not calling the thing filthy. Bill takes the criticism lightly and suggests they all could use a bath which is Lenore’s cue to pee all over his shoulder. Bill just dabs at it with a napkin and says “When it’s your own.”
The only thing Bill had left just ran out the window on him.
Mrs. Tobbis informs Bill that he is a gross man so Bill does the expected and proposes to her! Tobbis is rightfully aghast at the suggestion while Luanne shrieks with glee like she’s witnessing something truly romantic going on. Bill starts clinging to her and she demands someone get her coat – for the love of God! Ladybird then enters, the Hill family’s dog, and once Lenore and her lock eyes the iguana goes into flight mode. It scampers down the table and out an open window prompting Bill to cry, “Lenore! Don’t leave me!” As he goes out the window to chase down his pet, Peggy decides now is the right time to tell Mrs. Tobbis that she’s already given Bill her phone number. That poor, poor, woman.
This is the point where Hank runs out of patience with his old friend. Honestly, it took him longer than I would have expected.
Hank goes outside and observes Bill searching through his bushes and even his mailbox for the iguana. He then goes inside, I guess because he thinks the reptile might have went home, and once inside we see Dale emerge from behind the house carrying Bill’s television. Hank yells at him, but Dale insists that Bill would have wanted him to have it. When Hank points that Bill is still alive, Dale just returns with a “Nitpicking ain’t gonna bring him back.” We head inside the house to find Bill searching under couch cushions as Hank enters. Bill grabs onto his legs begging his friend to help him search for Lenore, but Hank has had enough. He gives Bill the dose of reality he declined to give him earlier in the episode. He tells him that it’s his fixation with Lenore that is his problem and she isn’t coming back. To emphasize this he also throws the presents at the wall and stomps on them. Thankfully, he didn’t find the toaster and they were all clothes so it’s not much of a mess. Bill cries out at first, but then just looks shell-shocked. Hank sees this change as an improvement and even thinks Bill is fine. His demeanor shifts and he’s quite happy as he tells Bill he was worried for a bit since he was acting so crazy. Bill can only say “Yes,” in a monotone fashion when asked if he’s all right as Hank leaves. Once out, Bill slumps against the wall and slides to the floor defeated.
Something isn’t right here…
The next morning, Hank is getting what looks like a leftover pork chop out of the fridge while proudly telling Peggy how tough he had to be with Bill. Peggy actually seems worried about Bill, but Hank is not since he asked him twice if he was okay. He then sees Lenore just hanging out on top of the fridge and, rather calmly, just notes it. He brings Lenore over to Bill’s house and lets himself in. As he walks into the kitchen he puts Lenore down for he spies a woman hanging clothes in Bill’s backyard. He angrily goes out the slider and demands to know what she’s doing in Bill’s backyard, but a very, bad, female voice returns “Why Hank? Don’t you recognize me? I’m Lenore!” She turns around and we see that it’s Bill in a long dress and woman’s hat. She (he?) adds that she’s just washing her dress for Hank’s big party which causes Hank to gasp, yet again.
If Hank was at the end of his rope with Bill the night before he is now well past it.
After an act break, we find Hank demanding Bill knock it off. Bill insists that he’s Lenore, though he has trouble keeping his voice high enough to produce his “Lenore” voice. “Lenore” insists that she’s returned because she loves Bill “sooo much!” Hank can’t wrap his head around this one and brings it back around to football. He points out how Bill blocked for him when he set the single season rushing record, but that he also had to help himself by hitting find the running lanes. He says he’s blocking for Bill now, but Bill isn’t even playing the same game. Feeling he needs a sport to complete the metaphor, he just suggests Bill is playing some sort of crazy tennis. As he storms off, “Lenore” just thanks him for coming by and says “See you at the party!” Hank spins around to tell Bill that no, he is not allowed at his party, before walking off. Lenore-Bill isn’t dismayed though and just smiles to herself and notes she was already invited. Technically, Bill was already invited, but not Lenore, though Bill isn’t really in a state where he can be reasoned with right now.
It’s a nice dress, and Bill did coordinate the shoes rather well.
Hank, Dale, and Boomhauer are drinking in their favorite alley, once again, when “Lenore” comes strolling in. She’s ditched the hat, but has a very nice yellow dress instead. Lenore asks if any of these gentlemen can spare a beer for a lady and you just know that Dale cannot go along with this. When Bill insists he’s Lenore, Dale challenges him to produce Bill. “Lenore” says that Bill is in the house and offers to go get him to which Dale responds, “I’m skeptical that you could, but yet intrigued that you may.” Lenore leaves to get Bill and Dale just turns to Hank to remark that Bill has been acting weird as if he thinks no one else has noticed. Hank doesn’t even dignify this observation with a response. Lenore then returns with a sweater and a beer and says that Bill was busy wrapping presents. Then she takes a sip of her beer and does the usual “Yep,” but in the high, Lenore voice. Hank can’t do this and walks off.
Now Hank, don’t go taking out your frustrations on the potatoes.
Hank is shown massacring a potato that he’s supposed to be peeling. Peggy remarks that he’s peeling in anger and Hank confirms as much. He’s pretty sore about blowing his vacation days on Bill and in the process reveals that he had to actually help bathe the guy. Peggy is sympathetic to Bill’s plight remarking that the only way he could get over Lenore was to become her, then adds it must be a psychological thing – a classic Peggy-ism. Luanne admits she isn’t qualified for such a determination, but suggests that what Bill needs is closure adding that’s what her dead boyfriend’s angel told her. No one seems willing to touch that, but Peggy loves the suggestion and decides to invite the real Lenore to the party! Hank seems skeptical while Luanne is just worried that the two might show up in the same dress which would just be a disaster.
This is sure to go over well.
It’s now the evening of the Christmas party we’ve been hearing so much about. The Hill house is hopping and Hank is ladling out punch to his boss. Bud informs Hank that all of their clients have showed up tonight describing them as big fish and little fish and tells Hank it’s his job to pull him out of any conversations with the little fish. Hank tells his boss they should treat all of their clients like big fish and Bud just tells him that’s a good thing to say to the little fish before walking off. Then Bill, as Lenore, enters and everything seems to stop. Bill is wearing a purple, shoulder-less, dress and hat and upon entering Bud demands to know “what that is.” Hank just says he ordered a Santa and that there must be some mistake as he goes over to order Bill to leave. Bill just does what he’s been doing lately and insists he’s Lenore, will not be leaving, and is here to mingle. She then goes over to a table and pours herself a glass of wine while her inner Bill causes her to pick up a beer as well.
If you were hoping to catch a glimpse of the real Lenore sadly this is as close as the episode gets.
Peggy answers the phone in the kitchen and it’s the real Lenore on the other end. She shouts to Bill that Lenore is on the phone and he looks shocked. We don’t hear anything Lenore says, just Peggy’s reaction to whatever it is she is telling her, and it becomes clear that Lenore isn’t coming. Desperate, Peggy asks Lenore if she could just speak to Bill and send her love, but that’s clearly a nonstarter. Lenore hangs up, and Bill hangs his head in sorrow. With tears streaming down his face and his hands trembling, Bill tries to top off his wine glass while the other party goers look on with actual venom in their eyes. Bill turns to face them with his tear-stained face and is told to go back to Hollywood and that this isn’t the Democratic National Convention.
Why Hank Hill, aren’t you just full of surprises?
Hank has left the room at this point seeming to abandon his old friend. When it looks like things are about to get real ugly, Hank reemerges. He’s wearing what I assume is one of Peggy’s dresses and tells everyone enthusiastically, “Yeah, it’s one of those kind of parties!” Dale is both hurt and confused because this wasn’t on his invitation and he asks Hank if he gave Bill a special invitation? Bill just screeches in as high a voice as he can probably go for everyone to stop it before storming out. Hank gives chase while Peggy tries to smooth things over by asking who is up for Boggle, but no one seems interested.
This is Bill having a breakthrough. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.
Hank catches up with Bill out in the alley and tries to play by his rules. He tells Bill that he’s Lenore and he doesn’t love him. Bill still tries to insist that it is he who is Lenore, but Hank just keeps laying into him. He tells him that he’s lazy and no good. Then he adds how they fight all day and all night and that even the neighbors can hear giving us some more insight into how terrible a marriage they had. Bill has not dropped his Lenore persona and is trying to reason with Hank, bargaining, really. Obviously it’s not working, so Bill instead gets angry. He’s pretty upset that he never even got a “Dear John” letter and turns things around by yelling at “Lenore” and insisting he’s worth more than that. He tells her to leave and Hank responds by removing the dress signifying that Lenore is gone.
Merry Christmas, Bill.
Bill says nothing, just removes the dress and shoes he’s been wearing. He must have been practicing to be able to walk so well in those heals. Standing in his shorts, Bill remarks to Hank that he hit rock-bottom there. Hank just confirms that he did and Bill responds that there’s no where else to go but up. Hank agrees and wishes his friend a “Merry Christmas” as the two turn to look at the stars. The camera repositions in front of the two who are just smiling as they look at the neighborhood all covered in Christmas lights. In the background, we see Dale emerge from his house in a purple dress. He sees that Hank and Bill have ditched their own and quickly turns around before the two spot him.
I think Bill looked better in a dress than Dale.
And so ends a Christmas special unlike any I can think of. It’s a pretty complex plot as we go from the uncomfortable reality that is supporting Bill around the holidays, to suicidal Bill, to Bill as Lenore, and ultimately a resolution. I said upfront that it wasn’t the most festive Christmas episode out there, but it never lets the holiday become irrelevant to the plot. It’s always there in the background and we even get to see some festive attire on the main cast during the party scene. I find it amusing that the first Christmas episode of King of Hill involved Hank losing his sight due to mental trauma and here in the second it’s Bill losing his sense of self and becoming his ex. That is, if you believe him. I think the show is pretty clear that Bill knows what he’s doing the whole time. He’s probably more in control than he lets on, but at the same time, he’s also out of answers and willing to try something drastic in order to cling to the memory of his wife.
Oh Bill, we love to watch your pain.
Bill is a very sad man, but one played for laughs. The show is very careful with his portrayal here so that I think we can feel bad for him while also laughing at him. He needs help, but as Hank observed, he also needs to help himself and he’s basically unwilling to do that. Maybe turning to a pet was actually a start, though naming the pet after his ex-wife undermined that. A huge amount of credit needs to go to Stephen Root who is so wonderful as Bill. It’s one of those voice performances where uninformed people are surprised to see who the actor is behind the role. He must be appreciated by Mike Judge given the role he played in Office Space, and like a lot of this cast, it would be hard to imagine anyone else playing Bill as well or as convincing as Root.
I think we witnessed Bill come real close to getting murdered.
What it comes down to with this episode of King of the Hill is are you able to find humor in suicide and depression? If you can’t that is understandable and you will want to avoid this episode of King of the Hill. I think it arguably gets a little darker during the party when it looks like Bill is about to get lynched for presenting as a woman. Transgender rights weren’t as forefront in 1998 as they are now, but this episode did air just over two months after the murder of Matthew Shepard. King of the Hill rarely shows the ugly side of Texas when it comes to such things. Usually, the show delights in playing against expectations, but in that scene they presented a gathering of people who almost all seemed united in wanting to inflict harm on a biological male who dared to identify as a woman. It reads a lot heavier than maybe the show intended.
Even so, I think this is a very funny episode of King of the Hill. I find Bill’s halfhearted attempts at ending his life harmless and the reactions of those around him are also pretty damn amusing. It’s not a typical holly, jolly, Christmas episode, but it does have a happy ending and no one is irreparably harmed. Well, maybe Mrs. Tobbis. It was a real dick move on the part of Peggy to offer up her phone number to Bill. If you want to catch this episode, it’s currently streaming on Hulu with the rest of the series or on Disney+ depending on your location or subscription. If physical media is more your thing then it’s also available with the rest of Season Three on DVD.
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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When I first started doing this Christmas countdown, I had the very first Family Guy Christmas episode in my top 25. It has since been removed, though not because I dislike the episode now, I just feel there are specials out there that are better. I don’t always make it a point to check out what Family Guy is doing around Christmas, but this 2020 episode was one that I did view in its initial run and it remained in my memory because of how similar it is to the very first Family Guy Christmas episode. Any show that has been on for hundreds of episodes is bound to repeat itself, but it’s especially amusing when the subject matter is the same. In the very first Family Guy Christmas episode, Lois (Alex Borstein) does her best to make sure the family has a great Christmas only to be undermined at every turn by her useless, selfish, family. She snaps and goes on a rampage until the family can restore her Christmas spirit. In this episode, Lois is going to basically do the same thing, but the snap comes in the first act. Then we get to see the rest of the family try to have a merry Christmas without her.
A joke so good we’re going to do it twice!
The episode begins in standard fashion. No overlays of snow on the song and dance number, no dressing-up of the title. The episode begins with an exterior shot of the Griffin household sparsely covered in snow. Inside, the family is watching The Today Show which features an announcer pointing out that former host Matt Lauer is watching from outside their Times Square studio. The two hosts are shown reading off benign holiday stories while Lauer lightly bangs on the glass from outside and asks if they’re still mad at him. He was fired by the show for being a sex creep.
If they really wanted to torture Lois they would have shown her trying to get this box out of the attic. The hard part is already done.
Lois then comes down the stairs dragging a very heavy box of Christmas decorations. She’s clearly struggling with it as she swears between each movement. What she is saying is a mystery since it’s bleeped, even though I’m watching on Hulu (I guess since it’s not TV-MA they have to bleep it?). When she finally gets to the bottom of the stairs, Peter plainly remarks “That looks heavy,” but Lois just cheerfully announces that the sound of her dragging a really heavy box of Christmas decorations down the stairs can only mean one thing – Christmas! Peter corrects her and says he knew it was Christmas because the “O” in Pornhub changed into a wreath recently and son Chris (Seth Green) responds, “Same” and they share a fist-bump. Father and son bonding over their shared interest in pornography really puts one in the Christmas spirit. I feel the need to point out that Peter made a very similar observation in another Christmas episode, only it was with Instagram Porn Stars in Santa hats instead of Pornhub.
Oh man, Christmas chores? No way!
Lois then makes the announcement that she wants the family to help out with Christmas this year. Peter informs her that won’t be happening because they split everything 0 – 100, he being the zero contributor and she 100, like most couples (Peter’s words, not mine). Lois ignores him and continues to say she also wants a real Christmas present this year and not some clearance, misprint, shirt from Marshall’s. Peter then holds up a t-shirt and says, “But you love the Roling Stons,” and he has the defective merch to prove it. We’re doing a bit here. Lois again ignores him and instead hands out a list of chores for each member of the family. Peter’s rebuttal this time is he can’t do any chores because his trick elbow is acting up. He then turns to Chris and pushes a playing card out from between his forearm and bicep and asks, “Is this your card?” When Chris says it is not Peter quips “Oh no it’s worse than I thought!” Lois just keeps setting him up and Peter keeps…knocking them down?
A character getting their identity stolen from a fraudulent ATM could be the plot of a Christmas episode for some shows, but on Family Guy it can be a quick joke.
We cut to downtown Quahog which is tastefully decorated for the upcoming holiday. Peter and the kids pull into a strip mall to do their shopping. Brian (MacFarlane) asks why they’re doing their shopping here and Peter informs him it’s because the gas ran out here. Chris tells him he needs to get that gas gauge fixed, but Peter rhetorically asks him “Do you want the gas gauge fixed or a year of Quibi?” Chris, wisely, chooses the gas gauge. Remember Quibi? Crazy how dated an episode from 2020 can already feel. Meg (Mila Kunis) assures the family they can find everything on their mother’s list here, while Stewie decides this is the right moment for him to get a line in by saying this place better have Baby Yoda toys or else…he’ll probably just get something with Spider-Man on it. Peter then leads the group to a freestanding ATM and points out how dangerous and terrible an idea it is to use such things. It eats his card and he gets a phone call to which he answers “Peter Griffin. Oh, not anymore?”
One of those stock jokes that could appear in any episode. The only requirement is that Peter needs to at least mention H&R Block.
Peter leads the family into a greeting card store and announces that this is a place to look at cards while releasing tiny farts. The family does this, until Meg unleashes a more pronounced fart that the clerk (Chris Parnell” objects to announcing that this store is for tiny farts only and directs her to Lids for her big, juicy, farts. Peter then heads to an H&R Block to get what I suppose is a very early start on his taxes. He addresses the clerk (Mark Hentemann) and asks how much the H charges, then how much R charges, then inquires if R knows that H has a side thing going on with M? He then mentions the store H&M suggesting he is not entirely confident in his joke being understood. The clerk seems concerned and suggests he has no idea what Peter is talking about. Then a giant, letter, R (Rachael MacFarlane) with lipstick comes out of an office and asks if H is back yet? Then H (Ralph Garman) enters wearing a designer shirt purchased at a fraction of the price with lipstick on the collar. R accuses H of cheating on her and H suggests he wanted to get caught and we suddenly have a suicide joke as R blows her brains out. H drops to his knees wailing “Why? Why?” A letter Y then emerges from the bathroom and asks, “What’s up? I was just taking a pee” Then a letter P pops in and says, “Someone called?” Peter then looks at the camera and informs the audience that sometimes the writers let him write his own skits. It’s an attempt to save this half-cooked idea of a joke, but doesn’t exactly redeem it.
Never count out Peter Griffin!
We then return to the Griffin house and Lois is watching CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose lurking outside. It’s the exact same joke as the Lauer one, only now it’s Charlie Rose. The family enters the house noticeably empty-handed. Lois is pissed and starts listing off all of the stuff they were supposed to either purchase or put out. Peter assures her he has everything under control and then takes off. Time passes and it’s night time. The Griffin house is now covered in snow and the family is inside enjoying a quiet moment by a roaring fire. Peter then enters dramatically with a big tree at his side. Lois runs over and gives him a hug. As she tells him she loves him, the word “Peter” just keeps repeating. We dissolve to find it’s Lois calling his name while beating on the window of the family station wagon while Peter sleeps in the driver’s seat.
A chance to get some more characters some face-time.
Lois demands to know what’s going on as Peter wakes up. He explains he fell asleep after rubbing one out to Madonna’s “Santa Baby.” He then announces that tonight’s “Date Night” has been cancelled due to lack of interest. Lois storms back into the house irate that no one is stepping up and helping her out with Christmas like she wanted. She directs her anger at Brian claiming he’s supposed to be the smart one and punctuates it with a “Bad dog!” He whimpers on the floor like an actual dog – I do always find it amusing when Brian behaves like a dog would. Lois then demands to know who got candy cane all over the couch and Peter begins to mimic Brian by whimpering on the floor. Lois declares she’s had it and will be leaving the family for Christmas to spend it in Cabo with her cousins. Quagmire (MacFarlane) then cartoonishly just pops in thinking she’s leaving Peter, but she corrects him. Then Mort (Johnny Brennan) shows up in a manner identical to Quagmire thinking that Lois plans to ruin Christmas by covering over the town’s decorations. This excites him on account of him being Jewish. When Lois corrects him, a deaf woman (Marlee Matlin) pops in to inquire if she’s doing deaf jokes. Lois says no to the deaf jokes and the woman has to break the news to the classic character Greased-Up Deaf Guy (Mike Henry), who also just pops into the house unannounced. Peter then corrects them and says “I think we are doing deaf jokes, at this point.”
There’s a lot of anger in that boy.
We next find the Griffins seated on the couch in front of the TV without their matriarch. Lois has seemingly followed through on her threat to spend Christmas in Cabo with family so Peter decides that to get revenge they’ll delete all of her favorite programs from the DVR. Chris announces that he would like to be the one who gets to delete The Crown, claiming his mother never watched it and was just stockpiling all the episodes on the DVR preventing him from watching Modern Family. Again, crazy how dated something from just a couple of years ago can feel. When Chris tries to delete The Crown he’s just confronted with a never-ending assortment of prompts confirming that he actually wants to delete the very prestigious show. This eventually leads to a prompt that tells Chris that he actually can’t delete the program so he rips out the cable box and smashes it on the floor in a fit of rage. We then hear the television impossibly announce “We now return to The Crown,” even though television stopped doing that 30 years ago, if not more. Some unintelligible British voices filter out of the TV and Chris is forced to confess he kind of likes it. Peter says the same and adds “It’s because I’m trash and I love how fancy it is.”
Thank goodness the dog is here to prevent Peter from murdering his children.
Meg is the one who points out that none of this will help them save Christmas. The kids turn to their father for advice, but his only suggestion is for everyone to go kneel in front of the holes he dug for them suggesting a murder-suicide is on the table. Brian emerges removing a baseball bat from Peter’s hands and tries to convince everyone they can handle this. Peter just announces his Plan B, which is to take opiates and listen to records. We cut to him drooling in his lounge chair listening to some bad jazz or something. The camera zooms out to reveal Stewie and Brian standing next to him with Stewie announcing, “It’s been four days.”
Lois didn’t really go to Mexico, she just wants to punish her family with her absence and watch them unravel from a cheap motel. Fiendishly clever!
We next head to the outskirts of town to check-in on Lois. She is not in Cabo as she threatened, but actually at a cheap motel that’s high enough in elevation that she can view her family through the window with binoculars. After remarking just how good her binoculars are, she spies Peter bringing in a very dead tree into the house and the family looking excited by it. She suspects that she’ll get a phone call any minute now from them begging her to come back and save Christmas. While she waits, she decides to relax on the bed and turns on the TV. A voiceover (John Viener, I think) coming from the TV welcomes her to the hotel and announces their stationary is the best in the industry for recording suicide notes. More suicide jokes – hooray! Lois announces her plan will work perfectly and intends to “Wait like a cobra.” This is the spot for a traditional Family Guy cutaway gag of a Cobra (Alec Sulkin) waiting for his table at the bar. A waitress (Rachael MacFarlane) asks if he would like her to bring his drink to his table for him and he replies that he would and points out his lack of hands. This might be the worst cut-away gag I’ve ever seen on this show.
Poor Peter. It’s so hard being a white man in 2020 New England.
Back at the house, everyone is outside putting up the decorations. Peter announces it’s time to put out the 2020 version of their decorations and then begins listing off the figurines he’s placing in a manger scene: ethnically accurate baby Jesus, Father Mary, Mother Josephine, the three genderless wise people on their scooters, Tig Notaro (for some reason), and the Little Drummer Them. He then adds, “Because, God forbid, we call a boy a boy.” Chris tries to confront his dad on his apparent transphobia and he erupts shouting “I don’t like what the world is! I’m white! When’s it going to be our turn?!” This does feel pretty authentic for the Peter character. Brian tries to calm him down, but Peter doesn’t see how that’s possible without “the woman who normally takes care of all of this.” He either doesn’t appreciate Lois to the point where he can’t remember her name, or he’s so mad at her that he doesn’t even want to address her by her name. Both seem plausible. Brian asks if he means Lois and he just refers to her as the redhead with the voice. He then starts tossing decorations over his shoulder as he goes through them remarking how she would put them up until one of the kids points out that he did it.
Now this is a true Christmas miracle!
The family turns to look at the house and the decorations are shown to have miraculously landed precisely where they were supposed to. Peter declares it perfect as the whole family basks in the festive glow of the holiday display. His cell phone then goes off and it’s Quagmire. He requests Peter dim the lights because he’s presently in bed “with a three and light isn’t doing her any favors.” We then cut to Lois in shock as she views the family’s accomplishment. She is then interrupted as the letter H from earlier mistakenly enters her room with his side piece, M. He sees Lois and then apologizes adding, “We’re excited because my wife just killed herself.” Why are we returning to this joke?
Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean the show is going lay off Meg.
It’s time for a holiday montage! Set to an instrumental version of “Deck the Halls” that’s heavy on saxophone, we find the Griffin family in their living room as Peter holds up a holiday movie: Christmas with the Kranks. He inserts it into the DVD player and we then see the family relaxing with the glow of a fire cast on them. We zoom out to see that Peter actually set the movie on fire. As someone who has seen the film, I approve. We then check out Peter hanging the stockings. The kids nod in approval before Peter hangs up the last one which is for “Dad’s gym friend Emilio who he goes to Greece with every summer.” Apparently, Peter is a closet homosexual who cheats on his wife – I suppose that explains his disinterest in her. We pan out and Emilio (presumably) is revealed to be standing behind Peter in just his boxer shorts. He gestures to Peter who playfully waves him off to the shock of his children. It’s now time for Christmas dinner and Peter is preparing to cut the ham. As the camera moves across the table it’s revealed that there is a live pig in one of the chairs. Peter reacts with surprise and runs to the oven only to find he mistakenly cooked Meg instead of the pig. Whoops!
The only thing Lois has accomplished is showing the family that it can thrive at Christmas without her.
Time to check-in on Lois once again. She is aghast to find the family having a snowball fight in the front yard. Tom Tucker (MacFarlane) and a news van are even onsite to document this. Lois then observes the family standing hand-in-hand while Peter says “I love you,” to his kids, but in slow-motion. Lois suggests the kids better not return the sentiment in slow-motion as well to emphasize her horror so of course they do. “That’s it,” she shouts as the camera zooms in on her rage with a rack focus technique so that she can inform us that she must stop Christmas! She’s interrupted by the sound of a fart from the room next to hers. She pounds on the wall and shouts “What do you think this is? A Lids?!” The logo for the store is superimposed over the screen while the announcer voice chimes in with “Lids: come get a camouflaged Knicks hat and let one rip!” The clerk from earlier told Meg to go fart in Lids. Did someone have a particularly bad experience in a Lids? I don’t get it. I don’t think I’m supposed to.
You just can’t take the “Mom” out of Lois, even when she’s trying to be bad.
Well, there is only one place for this story to go. Lois shows up at the house decked out in Grinch attire. Before she can get down to business, her cab driver (Viener) has to bid her farewell while sharing his unprompted racial stereotypes about people from Turkey. She enters through the chimney intent on ruining Christmas, but then spies all of the dirty dishes left out. Lois does the dishes and then tells herself she won’t even think about the grocery situation, but then of course she open the fridge to find it nearly empty. We cut to her coming through the back door with two bags of groceries, but now she’s dragged in mud so she has to mop the floor. Once finished with that she seems ready to resume (well, start) ruining Christmas, but then she tells herself not to think about checking the washer to see if they left the wet clothes in it without transferring to the dryer. Of course she checks and finds what she expected and remedies that situation like she did the others.
They’ll both never speak of this again, it would seem.
With the clothes properly sorted, we can finally go into the “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” parody segment we all expected. It’s an instrumental version of the song and as it plays Lois creeps around miming the Grinch from the far more famous television special. There aren’t really any jokes as she just does exactly what the Grinch does, though she does pause to do a hideous version of the Grinch smile so there’s your joke. As she stuffs up the tree, she’s interrupted by a little girl asking “Santa Claus?” Well, actually, it’s Stewie and he’s dressed like little Cindy Lou Who from the special. He asks why Santa is taking the tree, but Lois just responds by asking why he’s in pigtails and a little girl’s nightgown. Stewie, realizing he’s in over his head, just suggests they both forget what they saw tonight and heads back up the stairs.
You know, this whole time I’ve definitely been asking myself, “What’s Quagmire doing at Christmas?”
We now head outside and the house looks to be in disarray now that Lois has effectively stolen Christmas. We see her creeping down the sidewalk with all of the Christmas stuff as the show decides that now is the right moment to check-in on Quagmire. He’s all alone in his house and remarks how he dislikes being alone on Christmas so he whips out his phone and calls someone named Joan. He asks if he has a payment due on his Discover card. Based on what follows, we can assume that Joan asked if he’s alone on Christmas and Quagmire denies it. He says he’s with his very large family, but she asks him for names. We don’t actually hear anything from Joan, just Quagmire’s responses, but he basically repeats all of her questions so we don’t have to guess. He lists off obvious fake names (Bloofus and Klunt) for his kids and when she doesn’t believe him he starts smashing stuff around his house and blaming the kids. She doesn’t buy it and Quagmire is forced to hastily retreat from the conversation and hang up. I’m guessing the episode came in a little short and Quagmire was called on to fill some time.
Is this the part where they join hands and sing?
The next morning, the family rises to find that Christmas has been stolen. They’re pretty shocked, but Peter has a solution: everyone kneel in front of daddy’s pre-dug hole. That’s his solution for everything! Brian then tells Peter this is all his fault for getting rid of the Ring camera. We jump back via cut-away to Lois entering the house wondering who crapped in front of their door. She pulls out her cell phone to check the Ring camera, but Peter slaps the phone out of her hand and smashes it. He tells her that whoever it was probably had no choice because their family was using all of the bathrooms.
Lois may have failed to inflict misery upon her family, but at least she taught them to appreciate her.
Lois is shown arriving via cab, and before she enters the house she puts on a sombrero and poncho to play up the ruse she was on vacation. The family is watching a Tony Bennett (RIP) Christmas special and we see Tony badly singing “Jingle Bells” and falling asleep mid song. The bit continues with an announcer saying to stay-tuned for a duet with Willie Nelson. We then cut to the two of them asleep. They wake up and start performing different songs. They’re both very old. Lois enters the home and Peter welcomes her back by pointing out he cleaned and bought groceries, but unfortunately Christmas was stolen. Lois has to feign shock, but then is really surprised when she finds out that not everything was stolen. It turns out, they got her a present, but since they didn’t think she’d be home for Christmas it was kept upstairs. The kids retrieve it and Lois is forced to read the card out loud. It’s played straight and thoughtful, but the gag is that it’s going to just go on and on. She has to read the inner card, the back, and even some stuff hidden by a black light while sad music from This is Us plays. I’ve never watched the show so I don’t know if the sad music is authentic, but whatever.
I bet you saw this coming.
Lois is moved to tears and finally opens the gift to find a misshapen bowl. Meg tells her they all took a pottery class and made it for her. Despite the bowl looking terrible, it affects Lois. This is the part where the narrator comes in to inform us that Lois’ heart grew three sizes that day complete with overlay as seen in The Grinch. We then smash cut to Lois unconscious in a hospital bed because your heart tripling in size is actually a bad thing. The doctor (MacFarlane) is there to tell us she’s lucky to be alive, and then soon leaves the scene allowing the family to all hug Lois while Peter declares it the best Christmas ever! The narrator returns to inform us that Lois is happy this medical emergency covered up her crimes. We’re told Lois never came clean and instead their Muslim neighbor was arrested for the crime and deported back to Turkey. Another voice chimes in, “See? What did I tell you? Always Turkey!” It’s the voice of Lois’ cab driver from earlier who shared his views on race unprompted with her.
This episode basically had to end with another double-up on a past joke. It’s clearly something the writers are fond of.
We’re not done yet! We return to the Griffin house and everyone is seated in the living room by a replaced Christmas tree. Peter says he’s glad to have Lois back so he doesn’t have to keep doing dishes and buying groceries, much to her annoyance since it was Lois who did those things. The family then challenges her on her alibi and asks her to come up with names for the cousins she was supposedly visiting the whole time. Predictably, she hastily comes up with the same names Quagmire did earlier: Bloofus and Klunt. She even says she thinks she hears them upstairs. She runs upstairs and we stay with the rest of the family as they listen in on Lois narrating the carnage being spread by Bloofus and Klunt. She smashes a diorama Meg made which was due the next day and also Stewie’s aquarium containing the fish you have to feed so damn much and they die anyway. Stewie is apparently buying this charade as he remarks, “Fricken’ Klunt, man.” She then gets to Peter and his discreet box of pills. He races upstairs, but can’t beat “Bloofus” to the toilet who flushes them away.
Lois just wanted some help around the holidays and is basically punished throughout the episode for that.
And that’s how Lois stole Christmas and got away with it! Well, she did get hospitalized as a result of her scheme and I bet the resulting medical debt was crippling to a family like the Griffins, but she still technically got away with it. I like this one as a companion to “A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas” as it’s a 2020 take on that 2001 episode. The show and the depiction of the family has changed so much since then. They’re basically all worse people, though really only Peter and Lois are on display in this episode. The kids are mostly window dressing and Brian is still in his role of arbiter and moral compass. It’s still a familiar premise of underappreciated mother figure getting the shaft at Christmas. Only Lois tries to combat this with subterfuge and is basically punished for it. Just not all the way punished since her family is basically none the wiser. Though they do border on accusatory in that final scene, but then appear to accept Bloofus and Klunt.
There are some good jokes here and some not so good ones. Family Guy is a show that tries to overload its running time with as many jokes as possible. It’s quantity over quality. If I’m being honest, the strategy doesn’t work too well here as there’s a lot of groan-inducing jokes. And this particular episode apparently either didn’t know which ones were going to land, or felt that a bad joke could be improved by repetition. We return to the stupid joke with the personified letters as well as the discarded television show hosts. The observational humor the show tries for with the ATM machine is just okay, while Peter’s insecurity via the nativity scene was decent. The suicide jokes were numerous and even American Dad! loves those in their Christmas episodes so I guess it’s a MacFarlane thing? I liked the repeated gag of Peter’s suicide solution, but not so much the rest.
If they wanted to make an image creepier than the original then mission accomplished!
If you are a fan of Family Guy then I think this episode lands as “just okay.” The show has better Christmas episodes like its inaugural one and “The Road to the North Pole.” Those are the only two I watch each year and if it weren’t for “The Road…” being an hour long I’d have covered it in this space by now. Instead, I did the one that parodies The Grinch because I am a sucker for that. In terms of Grinch parodies though, this one isn’t that great because it just doesn’t use the opportunity to make a new joke. We just get a visual gag of Lois trying to smile like the Grinch and Stewie being confronted by his choice of evening wear. The Quagmire bit that followed was pure throw-away too, but I guess we needed it to setup the final scene.
If you would like to watch “The First No L” then the easiest way to do so is via Hulu or Disney+ depending on where you reside or subscription plan. Family Guy still airs in syndication as well for you cable subscribers and this episode is likely being shown somewhere this December. If you, however, only have room in your schedule for one Christmas episode with the Griffins, then you can probably do better than this one.
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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It’s a bit odd seeing Burns just standing there all alone with no Smithers at his side.
We wrap-up our look at Wave 3 of Super7’s Ultimates! line of action figures based on The Simpsons today with the main villain of the series: Charles Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns has been around since the beginning and, like Ralph, is a worthy inclusion in the line at this stage and it’s only odd that he’s arriving before the likes of Marge and Lisa. Burns is a Springfield regular as owner of the town’s nuclear power plant and boss to Homer Simpson. He starts off as just a mostly horrible boss type, but soon morphs into an almost cartoonishly evil character. He’s also a joke machine for old world references owing to the fact that he’s 109 years old. He’s a horrible man, but a powerful one, and all his power rests with his bank account. Take that away and he’s a pathetically weak old man who couldn’t even wrestle a lollipop from a baby.
He’s taller than a child, but not as tall as the show’s more classically trained super villain.
Burns has the usual Ultimates! packaging with slipcover which is soon to be the old style as you’ll see when we get to Wave 4. One thing I have not mentioned yet with this third wave is how terrible the plastic bubble that holds the figures in place has been. I don’t know what happened, but this is usually something Super7 does well and I should sing the praises of it more since they tend to package their figures in plastic bubbles with few tie-downs. I enjoy buying NECA figures, but I hate unboxing them because of those damn things. With this wave, some of the figures have been a real bastard to get out. It’s too tight, especially around the extra heads. I had to cut both Ralph and Burns’ heads out of the thing because I could not get them out. It sucks because I like to keep these boxes and store the accessories in them so I’d rather not mangle them, but oh well.
Look! He’s crowning!
Burns stands at approximately 6.75″ to the top of his head. He is famously of poor posture and if he was capable of standing fully upright he’d be a little taller. He’s sporting a dark green business suit with white undershirt and black tie. Right away, we have a problem. Modern Simpsons reference art places Burns in a green suit, but it’s very much a blue green while this figure has more of a forest green to his suit. Much of the classic era of the show would put Burns in a blue suit and I’m not sure how Super7 settled on this particular shade of green. The solicitation images have a more blue-green tone to the suit so I think this is just a case of the factory not producing the proper color. Did Super7 approve it? Probably.
At least they got the posture right.
“You there! How dare you make me look bad with that painted, yellow, head of yours!”
Continuing with the trend of the third wave, Burns does not feature much paint. He’s matte, but the head isn’t painted yellow like the figures that came before it. The body is pretty much all green and the white and black parts are painted over. The left side of my figure’s shirt is painted horribly with a ton of green showing through. The exposed portions of his white socks are also painted, but the ankle hinges are cast in a pale white. The paint will flake off when moving them, but that comes with the territory of painted hinges. What stinks is there’s a lot of transfer from the green plastic to these hinges and the paint that flakes off around the hinge will expose green plastic as well. For a $55 figure with what should be a simple paint application it doesn’t look great.
Burns has a right to be pissed given the shoddy nature of this paint job.
Aside from that, the overall sculpt is acceptable. His shoes have a funny shape to them, but it’s not necessarily wrong, just more noticeable in 3D. The portrait looks good which features the standard Burns look with exaggerated overbite, though I would have preferred a hint of an evil smile. The spots near his left temple are sculpted on, but not outlined so they look a bit weird. The nose appears to be a separate piece that had to be glued on which created an unnatural seam line. It’s not awful, but a little surprising that it was deemed necessary. The figure looks okay, but plain and the lack of paint on his head gives off a cheap appearance. He almost more resembles his character model from a PlayStation 2 era Simpsons game because of this lack of detail.
I guess it’s good he comes with this accessory since I do feel like he owes me money. Maybe not a trillion, but something.
The articulation on Mr. Burns is pretty limited and in some ways downright poor. He has good range at the neck, but that’s pretty much it. The shoulders are pretty standard and the elbows lack the ability to hit a 90 degree bend. This is more problematic with Burns as his default posture in the show features his elbows bent at 90 degrees and hands hanging like a T-Rex or something. He can’t quite do this, but does get probably close enough for most. His waist is ball jointed which is situated deep inside the torso because of his long coat. It’s basically just a pivot point as the coat is hard plastic. He can’t kick forward really at all, but it’s actually not because of the coat, the joint is just terrible as I pulled him apart to check it out. Knee range is terrible while the ankle hinges work fine. He has an ankle rocker, but it too is pretty limited.
Bobo is along for the ride, but should look way grosser.
There’s a lot of character packed into this evil laughing head, but I can’t see myself every displaying it.
This line is definitely not striving for articulation and instead prioritizing the sculpt and accessories to bring these characters to life. While Burns fares better than Ralph Wiggum from last week, he’s still not as well-thought out as he could be. Burns has his “hooked” hands by default, but he also has a set of relaxed hands, “Excellent” hands, and a set of gripping hands where his right hand is much wider than the left. He also has the more usual two alternate portraits: an evil laugh with side-eye, and an eyes closed contented face. The evil laugh, which also doubles as an angry yell, is pretty self-explanatory and capable of adding a dash dynamism to your display while the contented expression is pretty much only useful for when he’s holding his teddy bear Bobo. Bobo is displayed as he was post being frozen, though not with the same level of detail as he was in the show. This is rather perplexing since it’s far harder to capture detail in animation than it is on a 3D model, but it’s true of Bobo. He has one dangling eye and stuffing popping out, but there’s no texture. Bobo looks so gross and sponge-like in places in the show so this depiction feels very underwhelming. Burns can at least clutch him to his bosom fairly easily.
Good old Blinky.
Did anybody want this?
Burns also comes with a serving tray featuring Blinky, the famous three-eyed fish who debuted in Season Two and resurfaces on occasion. Like Bobo, there’s not much texture to the fish and the paint on his fins where the body meets the lettuce he’s being served on is not applied very well. It’s also a missed opportunity that the lid to the serving tray Kodos comes with doesn’t also fit over Blinky. Burns also has an issue of Burns Weekly. It’s a soft piece of red plastic with an image of Burns printed on it. It’s very flimsy and there’s no attempt at sculpting on the edges to make it resemble an actual magazine. Very lazy, and also not really welcomed. I’d much prefer a copy of Burns’ autobiography Will There Ever Be a Rainbow? Lastly, we also get Burns’ trillion dollar bill which is on another piece of soft plastic with printing on both side. It looks fine, but it’s unnaturally thick for a bill. I guess it’s fine though since it makes it easier for the figure to hold and more durable. He basically only has one hand that can hold it, the left “Excellent” hand has the thumb positioned under the palm so the bill (or magazine) can be slotted in between effectively enough.
Well, at least Mr. Burns got what he wanted.
Burns is only slightly better than Ralph and it comes on the strength of more accessories and overall a better sculpt, but in comparison to the first two waves of the line he’s pretty underwhelming. I’m assuming the paint on the front of mine is unique to my copy and not a reflection of every Burns figure Super7 puts out, but the paint apps have been spotty in general so who can say how uncommon it is? It definitely doesn’t look and feel like a premium collectible so it’s impossible to recommend at $55. Plus, without a Smithers to pair him with the figure feels almost incomplete, because what is Burns without his sycophantic righthand man? Only get this if you absolutely have to have a Mr. Burns figure in this scale, and even then you should probably wait for the eventual discounted price that is almost sure to come before the year is through. Next up is wave four of this line and if you thought wave 3 was a little disappointing, then you haven’t seen nothing yet.
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Last week, we talked about two out of left field choices by Super7 for its line of action figures based on The Simpsons. This week, we’re discussing a fan favorite character that belongs and his inclusion is only perplexing given that there is no member of the Simpson family in the wave. Ralph Wiggum was…
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The Nostalgia Spot 