Today our countdown enters the top 50 when it comes to Christmas specials. If it wasn’t apparent before, it should be now, that we’re well into the cream of the crop. The best of the best. And this collection of specials comes almost entirely from the world of kids or general audience television shows. There’s one outlier which gave me pause on just where to rank that one. If I were to bump it to the next big chunk then it would just be the same situation then as it is today. At any rate, it’s not a big issue as I don’t think it’s a particularly “adult” television show or one that’s raunchy or anything. And when it comes to Christmas episodes of this show it’s one of the most family friendly episodes anyway. We’ll get to that one as I’m actually going to place it at the end of this post, but first we’re going to start things off with a cartoon I tend to forget was part of the Disney Afternoon, but stars a character who is pretty damn popular these days.
This is the kind of chaos one expects out of Stitch.
Lilo & Stitch is a pretty fantastic movie and modern day classic. 2025 also brought with it a live-action remake that’s…fine, but it’s not nearly as good as the original. Stitch proved to be a popular character, and I’m sure kids like Lilo well enough too, so the movie was extended as both an animated series and via direct-to-DVD sequels. The format of the show was like an alien of the week via the many experiments the character Jumba created which have a tendency to get set loose on the world. In this one, Stitch gets introduced to the Christmas holiday, but things go awry when Stitch sees one of these experiments get placed in a Christmas present. This causes him to undertake a Grinch-like plot to round up all of the gifts in town in an effort to find the one with the experiment in it. Even though Stitch was revealed to be able to speak at the end of the movie, he’s not very adept at it in the series. The show also has to find ways to essentially silence him to work around this detail. Things do work out in the end, as they so often do, and the charm of this one comes largely from the characters. They’re just so well developed in the film and the series gives them a chance to go even further with some of the side ones and villains. Plus we get lots of Christmas attire for the regulars and I just found the whole thing pretty charming. It’s a show that came well after I lost interest in the Disney Afternoon and it’s one that makes me feel like I might have missed out on something.
This image of Angelica with a ninja turtle-like smile is the most enduring image from this episode for me.
Rugrats was a pretty big hit for Nickelodeon as one of the original three Nicktoons. Aside from SpongeBob, I would guess it’s been the most successful Nicktoon of all time leading to movies, spin-offs, and even a modern update (that has apparently been wiped from existence in one of those oh so popular tax write-off moves). Since it’s a show that centers around an adolescent cast, it’s no surprise that the subject of Christmas was tackled. And since the protagonists are all babies, it meant they could partake in the festivities while also being pretty ignorant of the whole thing. “The Santa Experience” sees the main cast of families all take a trip into the mountains for a holiday getaway. There, Tommy and Chuckie try to figure out a way to capture this Santa guy, Phil and Lil struggle to come up with a gift for each other, while noted brat Angelica finds herself on Santa’s Naughty List and needs to get off – pronto! There are some small plots in the adult world as well, though the most notable is Chaz and Drew both trying to inject some Santa into the festivities which is what the title refers to. I know I’ve been hard on episodes of children’s shows that play it pretty loose with the whole Santa thing, but with Rugrats I’m less bothered since there’s a clear distinction between the adult and the kid world in the show. And they do fix things with the ending, as so many cartoons often do.
A Nicktoon that came well after Rugrats is Invader Zim and the two could not be further from each other in terms of tone. Invader Zim centers on an alien, Zim, sent by his home world to conquer Earth, only he’s supremely incompetent. He is poorly disguised as a human child, but no one notices save for one boy by the name of Dib. It’s a very cynical show and the Christmas episode puts that on full display by having Zim disguise himself as Santa, poorly, and use his influence to get society to board prison ships where they’ll be sent off to be slaves or something. Only what undoes his scheme is, per usual, his own incompetence. Or I suppose in this instance, his hyper-competence? The Santa suit was built too well and it basically turns Zim into the real deal and Santa isn’t going to enslave all of humanity now is he? The best episodes of Invader Zim show Zim get close to achieving his goals only for things to blow up in his face which helps to make this Christmas installment not just an interesting and offbeat Christmas special, but also a pretty good encapsulation of the larger show.
The original prime time animated sitcom also delivered what is perhaps the origin of what I call The Santa Clause plot. This episode has Fred Flintstone take a part time job as a mall Santa in order to earn more money for the holidays, only he winds up being so good in the role that he attracts the attention of the real deal. Santa doesn’t fall off the roof and die in this one, but he is sick and needs a replacement. Fred is up to the task and together with a pair of elves helps to make sure that the people of the world have a merry Christmas even without Santa. Like a lot of episodes of The Flintstones, it’s a little slow and there’s a liberal use of the old laugh track, but I find the plot so enjoyable that I don’t mind. I was tempted to rank this ahead of the pseudo remake that would follow years later because this one is a bit more tidy, but it also lacks the bells and whistles that make A Flintstone Christmas feel a bit more special.
The rare episode that solves mysteries and rewrites history.
The 2017 edition of DuckTales delivered not one, but two Christmas episodes during its run. This one happens to be the second and sets out to explain why Scrooge McDuck has a vendetta against Santa Claus. He hates the big guy so much that he arms his mansion with numerous traps to keep him out which just confuses his nephews. His surrogate niece, Webby, on the other hand is all-in on the Santa hate. When Santa shows up injured at McDuck Manor it falls on Scrooge and Webby to help the big guy with his deliveries, even if they don’t want to. And during that night we’re treated to numerous flashbacks to show us just why Scrooge dislikes him so much and the revelation is not shocking because it makes perfect sense. Scrooge, a savvy business man who believes in the value of hard work, can’t wrap his head around a guy who just wants to give stuff away for free. Santa’s generosity blows up a business plan they concocted where Scrooge would utilize Santa’s transportation to deliver coal and thus make money. He agrees to help him in the present only because he intends to sabotage him. It’s a particularly villainous look at Scrooge, but things find a way to a happy resolution because a children’s show can’t have its protagonist be at odds with freakin’ Santa Claus. There is a bit of a “lore gone wild” element to this one, as in, did we really need this story told? It doesn’t work in my head, but every time I come back to it I walk away impressed. It’s not as good as “Last Christmas!,” but this is a damn fine entry into the pantheon of Christmas specials which is why it gets the honor of being just inside the top 50 on my list.
Every one is out to steal Christmas these days, though having Brain of Pinky and the Brain fame be involved is hardly much of a surprise. It’s actually not really one at all which is why I had a hard time ranking this one. This episode from the Hulu run of Animaniacs has Brain invent a toy based on Pinky that he intends to use to take over the world in a roundabout way only for the magic of the holiday to cause him to change his mind. It’s very entertaining on its own and there’s some great banter with Pinky, but it doesn’t exist all on its own. The main takeaway for me is this is way too much like the first Christmas special. Even that one involved the use of a Trojan Horse toy that was modeled after the Brain and the magic of Christmas caused him to basically abort his plan. It’s basically the exact same plot save for the toy Brain was a direct way to take over the world while this one was to ruin Christmas and thus make the world more susceptible to Brain’s efforts. The good news is that first Pinky and the Brain Christmas episode is fantastic which is why we haven’t encountered it yet on this countdown. If you’re going to rip yourself off then it makes sense to rip-off one of your best efforts. Sandwiched in the middle is a musical segment where the Warner siblings visit a roided-out Santa to encourage him to do his thing. It’s amusing and probably the best Christmas segment starring the trio going back to the original series, but the majority of this episode centers on Pinky and the Brain. If the original A Pinky and the Brain Christmas didn’t exist, I’d probably have this one ranked higher.
This brat needs to learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Hanna-Barbera has made many contributions to the world of Christmas, but one of the most overlooked is the 90s production The Town Santa Forgot. This one is about a spoiled, selfish, kid by the name of Jeremy Creek who sends Santa a list so long that he assumes the name Jeremy Creek belongs to a town and not some kid. Turns out, there is an actual town by that name that Santa has somehow overlooked all these years so he’s able to visit for the first time and deliver presents. Jeremy ends up with nothing which ticks him off, but when a news broadcast relays what happened he finally has a realization that maybe it is better to give than receive. The special has a fun way of telling the story that helps the rather simple message of the standalone special land a little harder. And it’s narrated by Dick Van Dyke who just turned 100 so happy birthday, Dick! The animation isn’t amazing, but there’s an energy to it that I enjoy. It feels like a precursor to the What a Cartoon era for Hanna-Barbera as it doesn’t really resemble any of their preceding cartoons. It arrived a little late to feel like a true Hanna-Barbera original, but if we’re considering it one then I do have it ranked higher than a lot of their other stuff and that feels appropriate.
The holidays sometime bring about a need to navigate awkward social situations.
We Bare Bears is a fairly lowkey cartoon about cultural assimilation. Driving the point home is we have a group of actual bears trying to fit in with society and the awkwardness that arrives from making social commitments. The bears basically spread themselves too thin at Christmas trying to make it to everyone’s Christmas party, only they prioritize attending the big, popular, one being thrown by someone they don’t even like while spending little time with the people that actually matter to them. Even though there’s an obvious message here and the bears are acting in a semi-selfish manner, it is relatable to find yourself with many social obligations all at the same time. How does one politely decline an invitation? It can happen where you make plans only for a better opportunity to surface later leading to a temptation to break those plans in favor of something else. I know it’s happened to me, though I can’t recall ever going through with breaking my original plans. I have been on the other side and even when the situation is understandable it still really sucks to have a friend basically tell you “I’d rather do something else than spend time with you.” Even though we’re dealing with bears, this one is extremely relatable and it’s also really sweet. The show handles these social settings really well so that even a kid understands what’s going on and it never makes its characters appear unlikable. That’s a hard trick to pull-off with this type of plot, but We Bare Bears manages it very well.
Sam & Max seemed like a bit of an odd fit for Saturday morning TV, but The Adventures of Sam & Max did a fine job of adapting this odd pair for television. Sure, they couldn’t have their guns, but that didn’t stop the cartoon from being able to make prison rape jokes! This is a pretty offbeat Christmas special where the titular duo infiltrate a prison to basically stop a prisoner revolt at Christmas. The Sam & Max brand of humor is on display and surprisingly intact with this show aimed at children. I probably didn’t laugh out loud when I watched this for the first time, but I think it was a chucklefest which took me by surprise. It’s a genuinely funny episode even if it’s meant for kids and if you’re someone who dismissed this version of Sam & Max because it was made for Fox Kids then maybe reconsider that stance.
Bob and his dad have some issues to sort out this Christmas.
Our lone entrant today from the world of adult animation comes courtesy of Bob’s Burgers. Unlike an episode like “Christmas in the Car,” there’s no worry about the Santa thing being spoiled for your kids if you choose to watch this one with them. This is a pretty simple tale about Bob being uncomfortable around his dad as he’s never felt much affection from the guy. Each Christmas brings a Christmas party thrown by Big Bob that Little Bob dreads, but he sucks it up and attends after getting wife Linda to agree on a short visit. Only that goes out the window when it’s apparent that Big Bob is shorthanded at his own restaurant which is where the party is being held forcing Bob into the kitchen with his dad – the last place he wants to be. There’s flashbacks in this one to show us just what happened between the two when Bob refused to be a partner with his dad at the restaurant because their ideas for how to run a restaurant just don’t work well together. All the while, the kids get into all kinds of stuff in the basement trying to find a present for their dad. It’s definitely more of a Christmas episode that just happens to take place at Christmas without necessarily needing it to be Christmas. Since Christmas does sometimes bring about awkward encounters with relatives though, it works. There’s also a really nice portrayal of gay culture in this one that I appreciate. The show didn’t have to include it, but I like that it did. This one is not as funny as other Bob’s Burgers Christmas episodes, but it’s a bit more introspective which makes it more satisfying than some of the other ones. Don’t sleep on it this Christmas.
That does it for today. The next installment of the countdown is coming your way on December 21st which means tomorrow is another traditional installment of an all new (to this website) Christmas special! And it’s one that I think has a lot of fans, and since I’m ranking it at number 43, obviously I think pretty highly of it as well. Just what is it? Well, you’ll have to come back tomorrow to find out!
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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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…
Today’s portion of the countdown is a little like yesterday’s. We have a few adult cartoons mixed in with mostly kid’s stuff. I liked the flow of yesterday’s list so I’m going to stick with that and front-load today’s list with the few adult cartoons I want to talk about before moving onto the general audience television specials. And if you’re curious, my arbitrary ranking for all of these pretty much coincides with that approach. I haven’t been including my scores for each special because they’re purely subjective and not part of my original review/write-up. They’re simply the product of my gut reaction to looking at the list of all of the specials I’ve covered and only used to help get me started when it came to organizing this thing. If you’re curious though, everything here has the purely arbitrary score of 6.5-6.75 on a 10 point scale. We’re firmly past mediocre and bad and into the “fine” portion. I know everyone’s reaction to 10 point scale scoring is either different or everyone thinks anything under 8 is bad, but for me it’s something like this:
0-1 – Abysmal
2-3 – Bad
3-5 – Time Waster
5-6 – Mediocre
6-7 – Fine
7-8 – Good
8-9 – Very Good
9-9.9 – Excellent
10 – Near Perfect
My approach may not be a 10 on my own scale, but it worked to get things in order and then I moved stuff around as I saw fit. In general, I don’t like numerical scales for deciding if something is simply good or not which is why I don’t use them. That’s just a little peek behind the curtain though, now let’s talk Christmas!
The Christmas Peter was visited by the ghost of Patrick Swayze.
Family Guy has probably never been celebrated for its creativity, even among its fans. It’s more about subversion and shock so when I found out the show did a parody of A Christmas Carol in 2017 I can’t say I was very surprised. The twist, if you want to call it one, is that instead of someone Peter actually knows serving as the ghosts of Christmas it’s Patrick Swayze (voiced by his brother Don) in the role of all 3. He takes Peter on a trip through time to examine how selfish he is and also to revisit the show’s Patrick Swayze jokes, of which there may be more than you think. It’s a bit self-indulgent and likely only works if you’re a long time fan of the show and enjoy callbacks. I think Family Guy relies on such tactics far too much and they rarely work on me. The jokes are mostly predictable and the episode ends exactly how you would it expect it to, but it’s also Family Guy where there’s a joke every 10 seconds so you’re almost guaranteed to laugh at something. How often is what will determine your overall enjoyment of it.
That doesn’t seem like the best way to win over a kid, Santa.
Yes, I’m ranking the Family Guy spin-off ahead of not one, but two Family Guy Christmas episodes. Considering this one is only one spot ahead, I wouldn’t read too much into it. I’m giving it the nod because it doesn’t rely on the A Christmas Carol trope and because the next entry on the list is going to be…well, you’ll see in a moment. The Cleveland Show was not something that worked for me. I didn’t stick with it for very long before dropping off which I suppose is unfair since many shows don’t truly find their footing until the second season or so, but also no show just deserves your attention until it gets good. My issue with it was it was just way too similar to Family Guy to the point where it felt redundant. The Cleveland character seemed to have to become mean like Peter and the family dynamics felt all too familiar. Nevertheless, the first Christmas episode is all right. Cleveland’s stepson Rallo hates him, but worships his biological father who’s a total deadbeat. Cleveland loses it while playing Santa and informs Rallo that his real dad is a piece of shit which sends the kid spiraling out of control. In the end, his real dad shows up for Christmas and invents a new lie for why he never has time for his kids: he’s the real Santa Claus! It was a clever way to return the show to the status quo, which most of these sitcoms aim to do. It’s just along the way there were many dud jokes of questionable taste, but some not so bad ones. If you’re a Family Guy fan who has exhausted that show’s Christmas offerings then you could do worse than turning to Cleveland.
Yup, a trio of Seth MacFarlane cartoons are leading off this section of the countdown. I honestly can’t really separate these three in terms of quality, they’re all very similar flavors. It’s like choosing between 7Up and Sprite. This one gets the nod over the other two because it actually has a little heart. This episode takes place in the brief period of time when Brian, the dog, is dead and replaced by a new dog named Vinny. Stewie ends up going on a time travel adventure to prevent Brian’s death, but the lead-up to that moment is pretty clever and doesn’t really occupy the whole episode. Instead, we have a Peter and Carter B-plot for that which includes bukkake jokes which I suppose is pretty unique for a Christmas plot. Nevertheless, this is Family Guy so the sweetness has to be undercut at every opportunity which lessens the payoff and makes the preceding 20 minutes feel like it may not have been worth it in the end. I did enjoy the resolution enough to slide it past the other two, but I don’t blame others if they find the other episodes funnier.
If I liked this series more I’d be calling for a Christmas Duckula action figure to be made.
Count Duckula is basically the unofficial first Nicktoon. It’s the first cartoon Nickelodeon produced for its network, though by the time the network got to the actual Nicktoons the process was changed up and they had a firmer grip on the legal component. Duckula is a spin-off of Danger Mouse and a superior one at that. I never cared for Danger Mouse, but Duckula was okay. I think I like the idea and character design more than the execution. This Christmas episode of the show is a bit odd as about half of it is devoted to Duckula reading an in-universe comic book and we get to see the story unfold on screen. It has basically nothing to do with Christmas. The plot of this one is that Duckula is your typical selfish protagonist eager for Christmas, though he’s more general kid selfish and not over-the-top Scrooge selfish. Santa is delivering presents, but gets lost in the maze that is Castle Duckula while the local vampire hunter is basically in the same predicament while trying to deliver a trap. It’s a very low stakes episode and no one learns anything in the end. Santa does escape while the vampire hunter’s Christmas trap literally blows up in his face. It has a bit of a British feel to the humor so if that’s your thing you may enjoy this one more. I enjoy it mostly for the animation and character designs as you don’t find too many of these spooky Christmas specials. It’s way better than Little Dracula.
Most people are probably familiar with the Disney feature Lilo & Stitch, especially now that it’s been given the live-action treatment. Fewer are probably aware of the animated series Lilo & Stitch and even fewer there are familiar with the anime, simply titled Stitch! This one was mostly for Japanese audiences, but it did receive an English dub and I do believe it aired on the Disney Channel at some point, but it has yet to make the leap to Disney+. There is no Lilo to be found in this one so maybe Disney thinks it wouldn’t play well with American audiences. It is animated just fine and supremely cute. The plot is pretty safe as well and similar to the other animated series as Hamsterviel is the main antagonist. He dresses up as Santa and lures in children with mind control cookies which Stitch easily counters with cookies made by Jumba. It’s just to kill time as the last act is reserved for Stitch helping Santa Claus out by playing him. It mostly just leads to a fun character design of Stitch as Santa and we get the customary sweet ending. It’s cuteness for the sake of cuteness. If you love Stitch then you’ll probably enjoy it.
Not to be confused with the comic of the same name, Ultimate Spider-Man is another perfectly cromulent Disney Channel vehicle for the webslinger. In this holiday episode, Spider-Man has to house sit for Doctor Strange and things get out of hand when Moon Knight crashes the party. The enigmatic hero mistakes Spidey for a villain and the two soon find themselves teaming up to stop the spawn of Mysterio who uses her mind-altering powers to conjure up a violent Christmas. If you ever wanted to see Spider-Man and Moon Knight battle against Christmas themed rogues then this is the special for you. The Spider-Man here is likable and full of his usual quips and it amounts to a mostly satisfying experience. It even manages to sneak in a little Christmas feels in the end with a redemption arc of sorts for Mysterio. Humanizing villains in superhero cartoons is always a pretty solid path to a successful Christmas episode.
Okay, here we have yet another adaptation of A Christmas Carol. As far as adaptations go, this one isn’t any better or worse than the usual lot. And the show it hails from is merely decent. I rank it this high though because Captain Hook is played by one Tim Curry and he’s fantastic. I absolutely adored this take on the pirate brought to life by Curry and some of that praise should definitely go towards the writing staff who do a tremendous job with Hook’s dialogue. He’s cultured, articulate, but also vicious, mean, and vile. It may be another version of A Christmas Carol, but in this one the protagonist (who is actually the antagonist) learns almost no lesson. He emerges from his visit with the ghosts of Christmas just as mean and vicious as before. If anything, he’s even more committed to his life of villainy! That’s a Captain Hook I can get behind. We just talked about a villain receiving redemption in the Spider-Man show and that’s all well and good, but sometimes villains need to just be that and no redemption is necessary or even wanted.
Sometimes a Christmas special just hits right for me when, objectively speaking, it probably shouldn’t. That’s why I do this though because I like the corny aspect of Christmas specials. I like the feel good moments. If a special can penetrate my wall of cynicism then it usually wins me over. That was the case with ‘Tis the Season to be Smurfy. Where the other Smurfs special almost completely failed, this one succeeds. It’s somewhat a retelling of The Elves and the Shoemaker substituting in the Smurfs in place of elves, but it goes about things differently. It’s very much a “Christmas Magic” plot where we need a character, a woman named Elise, to have plot sickness and the only cure is Christmas. Sassy and Grandpa Smurf find out about the poor woman and take it upon themselves when no other Smurf will. A thief sees the error of his ways, some rich guy learns to not be a dick, and everyone has a merry Christmas in the end. Along the way you get the usual Smurfs antics with Brainy, Hefty, and all of your favorites. If you have no affection for this sort of thing then scroll on by. If you’re in the mood for a surprisingly well-animated Christmas special with a feel good ending then go for it.
One of the most surprising experiences for me in doing this countdown was this episode of RoboCop: Alpha Commando. Prior to discovering it, I had no idea this show even existed. It came out at a pretty odd time for a new RoboCop cartoon and that it seemed to be a continuation of the short-lived 80s cartoon was even more surprising. And it’s not bad! It does some silly, late 90s, “extreme” stuff like giving RoboCop Roller Blades, but the animation is competent. The voice performances are fine, but what surprised me the most was the humor. The villain, appropriately named Tannenbaum, has some pretty suggestive language in this one that kept making me laugh. Was some of it only funny because it was so unexpected? Probably, and it’s not the sort of humor that could sustain an entire series, but for someone like me just dropping in for Christmas then ducking out it connected. There’s also just enough cynicism and sarcasm owing back to the film to make this not feel too foreign as a RoboCop property. It doesn’t have much Christmas sentimentality, but that’s definitely not something I’d expect from a RoboCop cartoon.
It’s Christmas Eve and the dog is about to die – sounds like a great setup!
Like The Smurfs, this one just happened to hit me in the right way on the right day. I can still remember watching this one in my bedroom on my little 13″ tube TV. It almost certainly would have been airing on Cartoon Network and I was somewhere in my teens when this one did something I wasn’t expecting it to: it made me cry. I can’t recall if I was feeling especially susceptible at the moment, but Christmas has a way of doing that. At the time, it was a rarity, but now it’s almost a guarantee with anything uplifting. And what got me here was the damn dog. They kill Astro! It’s Christmas, so it all works out in the end, but that got to me. And as the title implies this is yet another adaptation of A Christmas Carol. This time, it’s George Jetson’s boss, Mr. Spacely, in the role of the Scrooge figure and the special plays it straight. Jetson gets a raise and Astro is saved, though I don’t think anything changes from a continuity aspect. I don’t think there are many more episodes to follow anyway. Plus, Spacely’s motivation to save Astro is because the Jetsons sued him following the dog’s death since it was caused by a toy made by Spacely’s company which bankrupts him. In other words, he’s just out to save himself and his money. In the grand scheme of things, A Christmas Carol adaptations are boring and overdone, but in the case of The Jetsons this is one of the more successful ones.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
It was a week ago that we took a look at the Seth MacFarlane produced American Dad! and I remarked it had been a minute since we did an American Dad! Christmas episode. Well, it’s been even longer for the MacFarlane original, Family Guy, the show that was famously unloved, cancelled, and then brought back…
Today, we return to my best Christmas specials of all-time list with television’s first family: The Simpsons. The Simpsons are the brainchild of series creator Matt Groening who allegedly came up with the idea as a spur of the moment one when he needed something to pitch to the Fox Network. He essentially based The…
Alvin and the Chipmunks is one of the oldest, family-owned, pieces of intellectual property left in the world. And it might not be for much longer as the franchise is reportedly up-for-sale and has been since last year, but as-of this writing nothing has been agreed upon. The Chipmunks date back to the 1958 novelty…
December 9th brings us perhaps the most eclectic part of the countdown yet. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I tried to group similar specials together when it came to tone and audience. I didn’t want to create too much whiplash going from Mickey Mouse to Eric Cartman. That doesn’t mean I’d stick to that approach at all costs because the rankings are what they are. I’m not going to elevate a bad Christmas episode of a show just to slot it into a friendlier place on the list or do the opposite to a good special. Sometimes, there’s just no way around it. Today is one of those days, but I’m going to frontload it with the adult comedy specials before transitioning to the more general audience stuff. And sure, maybe I’m more likely to watch one of these adult cartoons over one from The Flintstones on a given day, but they’re so close together that the rankings are purely subjective. I could say that for any entry, if you want to reorder these ten I wouldn’t fight you on it, but let’s get to it.
Family Guy is making its first appearance on this list, but it has a few to contribute and plenty more I never covered. This episode is one of the more recent ones and it’s also the most recent episode from the show I took a look at. It appealed to me because the plot, a frustrated Lois ditches her family for Christmas, felt very similar to the show’s first Christmas episode which remains my favorite one it’s done. The main difference is in that episode Lois goes to great lengths to be a beacon of positive energy who wants her family to have a great Christmas and then she eventually snaps because her family just isn’t willing to help her at all. This one, being many years later, is more typical of modern Family Guy where there’s a mean-spirited energy throughout. Lois experiences basically the same thing, but rather than have a nervous breakdown she just leaves and hopes to watch her family fall apart without her. When that doesn’t happen, she returns to steal Christmas in a very Grinchy segment which ends up being the highlight. It’s all right, but it all has a feeling of “Haven’t we done this before?” Doing a Grinch parody in this day and age also doesn’t help. We somehow managed to go decades as a society with doing The Grinch before the floodgates just suddenly opened in the 2000s.
During its Fox run, Futurama gave us two excellent Xmas episodes centered around a murderous robot Santa. This one from the Comedy Central era decided not to go all-out on Xmas and instead gave us an anthology style episode with a segment on Xmas, Hannukah, and Kwanzaa. It’s…okay. None of the segments are really long enough to feel substantial, but they’re also not good enough to feel like we were deprived anything. Some of the jokes are too reliant on callbacks, a frequent problem for the show when it came back, and the Xmas segment in particular is rather weak. Recently, Futurama added another Xmas special to its bank of episodes and it’s a lot better than this one. I considered doing an entry on it this year, but decided against it. Maybe some other time. This is the Futurama holiday episode I usually skip.
This Christmas, you’ll believe Charlie Manson can be reformed.
South Park‘s second season is somewhat maligned. It lacked the novelty the first season brought with it, but wasn’t quite the satirical force it would become in later seasons. “Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson” is pretty much emblematic of that. It’s not as shocking as the debut of Mr. Hankey in the first Christmas episode, and it’s not as brilliant as “A Very Crappy Christmas,” an episode I probably should have covered at some point. I only did this one because no one talks about it, but that is with good reason. Making Charlie Manson a central character in your Christmas special is certainly subversive and having the spirit of the holiday save him sounds like a decent South Park premise on paper, but they just don’t really pull it off. Maybe because it takes awhile to get Charlie into it? The payoff just isn’t all that funny and once the family of Cartmans runs its course the episode just limps to the finish line. If I’m throwing on the Christmas Time in South Park DVD I’m not skipping over this one, but I’m also not going out of my way to watch it annually.
Want to fall out of love with Stimpy? This episode will try and make it happen.
Ren and Stimpy feels like a good transition from the adult section of our countdown to the more family friendly stuff to come. I actually wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the show’s second holiday episode. I very much enjoy The Ren and Stimpy Show. For a long time it was my favorite Nicktoon, but I think now I’d rank Rocko’s Modern Life ahead of it. That’s still pretty good and the show is funny, but I don’t love their Christmas episodes. There are aspects of this one that I think work a little better than “Son of Stimpy,” and I considered ranking it ahead of that one, but ultimately settled on this spot. In this one, Stimpy really wants a scooter for Yaksmas and is not subtle about it. He always gets his buddy Ren thoughtful gifts, while Ren takes Stimpy for granted. That’s what happens here and it drives Stimpy crazy to the point where he basically steals the scooter and is on the run for a lot of the episode. It has its moments and it’s full of the Games era hallmarks of subversive jokes and misdirection, but it’s yet another episode that’s just brutal to Stimpy. He’s a sympathetic character and it’s just not fun to see him in so much distress and the jokes just aren’t frequent enough, or clever enough, to rescue this one.
Nope, not the movie about the kid and the BB gun, but the Hanna-Barbera stand-alone Christmas special about a mouse and dog trying to get a letter to Santa. This special is mostly interesting to me because it must not have made much of an impact. I don’t know if I ever saw it as a kid. I definitely didn’t remember it when I returned to it for the blog, but I’m sure Cartoon Network would have aired this thing in the 90s. I conclude it made little to no impact because most of the original songs were lifted and repurposed for A Flintstone Christmas a few years later. It’s like if The Little Mermaid bombed so they had Aladdin sing “Part of Your World.” As for the actual special, it’s animated and produced competently enough and the story is a bit syrupy sweet. Daws Butler voicing another mouse is cute and it’s kind of amusing to hear Paul Winchell lend his Tigger voice to a dog. And it’s an original story for a stand-alone Christmas special so I’m giving it some bonus points for that. It’s not great, and I may be overrating it, but for whatever reason I just don’t hate this one and I think it’s more deserving of your time than a lot of what I ranked behind it.
The character who put Dic on the map in the 1980s made a brief return in the early 90s for a proper Christmas finale. Inspector Gadget is the comically inept detective who is some sort of cyborg or something. He’s got lots of gadgets, as the name implies, and they’re built into his body. Are we sure he’s a cyborg and not just a robot? Anyway, he gets all the credit for thwarting Doctor Claw when in reality its his niece Penny and her super smart canine Brain getting the job done while also keeping Gadget out of harm’s way. In this one, Doctor Claw overtakes Santa’s workshop and Gadget is deployed to put a stop to it, but in the process assaults the real Santa Claus because he’s incredibly dumb. Dic was able to get the voice cast back for the most part and even spent a little money to make this thing look good. There’s some musical moments that don’t really work for me, but otherwise this is a pretty good episode of Inspector Gadget that also happens to be a Christmas episode. If you liked the show then you’ll probably enjoy this.
When Warner Bros. (R.I.P.) had a new network to stock with children’s shows they turned to some old stars: Tweety and Sylvester. Joining the adversaries is Granny and the dog, Hector, who I don’t think ever had a name in the golden era, but maybe I’m mistaken. The plot then required this group to become a detective agency of sorts because why not? It worked for Hanna-Barbera all those years so why not a pair of Looney Tunes? The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries is a pretty mid-tier animated series. It’s well put together, but not very inventive, the kind of show you leave on if you can’t find anything better to watch (or can’t find the remote). “Feather Christmas” is also a fairly benign episode of the show. It occupies one segment, so roughly 11 minutes or so, but it also lacks what the title promises: a mystery. In this one, a bratty girl has a pet bird her parents hate so they snatch it in the middle of the night. They have their butler or something (they’re rich) return the bird, but come to regret it. Since the help is on vacation for Christmas, they need Granny and her animals to find the store the bird was returned to. Meanwhile, Sylvester is trying to be extra good so he gets something better than a rubber mouse for Christmas. There’s some slapstick, pee jokes, and Sylvester ultimately makes the right choice and the bratty little girl has a Merry Christmas while Sylvester gets…another rubber mouse. The cat can’t win.
Future Worm! is a show I had never heard of until it popped up on Hulu one day as a recommend. I looked through the episodes, found a Christmas one, and then had to get acquainted with this interesting series. I’m not going to rehash the nonsensical plot and setup, but all most likely need to know about Future Worm! is that it’s Rick and Morty for babies. The look and tone is so similar to the more popular adult animated show that it kind of blew my mind. That had to have been the premise, right? As in, someone at Disney wondered if they could adapt a popular show like Rick and Morty for a more general audience. It’s the only explanation. And the crazy thing is it mostly works. This episode isn’t laugh out loud funny, but it’s clever. The main family gets lost in the mall, the patriarch (who is such a Gerry) falls in with some goths, and it turns out the villain is Mrs. Claus with a head made out of gingerbread. It’s weird, though maybe not as weird as it’s trying to be. If you ever wondered if Rick and Morty could work with a PG rating, then maybe give this show a look.
Fred is going to learn the true meaning of Christmas the hard way.
Yes, another 90s Flintstones holiday special. This one is much better than the franchise’s take on A Christmas Carol. This is a made-for-primetime television special so it has the production values and it’s also an original story. In this one, a juvenile delinquent comes into contact with the Flintstone family and it’s upon them to reform this Stony. He’s legitimately a bad seed at the start, but he’s also a product of neglect. The kid then tries to repay the Flintstones for their kindness, but he’s not equipped to do so and his bad decisions just create more problems for Fred and the family. It’s a very sitcom-type premise with the typical sitcom results. I confess that I’m still somewhat charmed by The Flintstones so this one probably works a little better for me than it would someone who doesn’t care about the show, but it’s a perfectly fine Christmas special.
I may have liked this as a kid, but I never liked how Santa looked.
The Ranken/Bass animated special closes out our ten for today. Is this one a classic? It was in my house so I guess that’s all that matters for this countdown. And it was a favorite of mine as a kid. I naturally gravitated more towards the hand drawn stuff over the puppets so that probably played some role and I’m a sucker for the “Will Santa Claus come?” plot and the payoff always hits me. I feel like I frequently cite the songs in a lot of these things as being bad, but this one has some bangers. I think the big song, “Christmas Chimes are Calling (Santa, Santa)” is great and it’s kind of a shame it never made the jump to radio or something. I like the animation, I like the voice work. The special gets a little long and the plot is kind of goofy. Is Santa really so thin-skinned? If he’s omnipresent, how does he not know one editorial in the newspaper was the result of some kids? You can really pick this one apart if that’s your aim, or you can just be along for the ride. My kids don’t really like it, but it still charms me.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
It was a few years ago that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly in which they picked their favorite and least favorite episodes of the long running show. I couldn’t find an active link for that interview, but it’s covered in various other places on the web…
Come 1996 the Nicktoons were an established brand. Launched in 1991, Nickelodeon had tremendous success with the likes of Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show and soon more shows followed. Nickelodeon seemed to be a bit stingy with their in-house shows when it came to renewals as when a network looks to renew a…
If the 70s were defined by Scooby Doo when it came to Hanna-Barbera, then the 80s belonged to The Smurfs. The little blue creations of Pierre Culliford, better known by his pen name Peyo, had an animated series that basically spanned the entirety of the 80s totaling an insane 258 episodes. And once the 80s…
I can feel it, folks – we’re getting closer! Closer to the Christmas specials that are almost universally worth watching! That’s not to say the specials that have appeared in the countdown thus far are not worth it, they just might require more nuance. These are the specials that are watched year in and year out chiefly due to nostalgia. They’re the ones you grew up with that you just have to watch each year or the holiday just wouldn’t feel complete – even if they’re objectively bad. And I do think we’re beyond the objectively bad, well past that even, and just into the splitting hairs category. Yeah, you could watch the specials spotlighted today, but each moment spent with one of these could also probably be spent watching something superior. Take our first Christmas special of the day…
Some redesigns are fine, while some are just “meh.”
Alvin and his chipmunk brothers Simon and Theodore are no strangers to Christmas. They had a stand-alone TV special in 1981 as well as a Christmas episode during their run in the 1980’s in a show with a very similar name. This particular Christmas episode comes from the most recent iteration of the franchise which aired on Nickelodeon in 2020. If you’re familiar with the 80s cartoon, then this one should feel very similar. It just looks different. Alvin and his brothers, while still not the size of actual chipmunks, are a great deal smaller than they have traditionally been depicted in cartoons, but also their features otherwise are a bit deemphasized. They look more like kids with weird noses. And it’s a CG-rendered show that while not as ugly as some of the CG shows from the early 2010s, is still far less pleasant than the 80’s cartoon. In this holiday episode, Theodore is feeling unwanted at home, and when he gets mistaken for an elf and brought to the North Pole, he thinks no one back home actually wants him. And Alvin kind of gave him to the North Pole because in most versions of this franchise Alvin is a selfish dick, but he learns his lesson, Theodore makes it home for Christmas, and everything is fine. It’s just why would you spend your time with this one when you could be watching the far superior A Chipmunk Christmas? I don’t blame you though for preferring this to the It’s a Wonderful Life parody that showed up in the 80s series.
By sheer coincidence, we have another CG program from the 2010’s that aired on Nickelodeon starring a character who was pretty popular in the 1980s: Garfield. And like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield has a much better Christmas special from the 80s you could be watching instead. Garfield and his pals made an okay jump to 3D. The models are a bit texture-less, but not unpleasant to look at. Frank Welker takes over for Lorenzo Music as the titular fat cat and does a solid job of capturing the same tone as Music. He’s low energy, almost bored, and rarely genuine. This episode, which is a tidy 12 minutes, features Garfield caroling because he sees it as a path to free food only no one he carols for seems to enjoy his antics. Meanwhile, Nermal and Odie are caroling together and dragging a wagon full of food behind them because they’re just so cute! There’s a few moments of genuine humor and since it’s so short it requires a much smaller sacrifice of time than most, but in the end it might still leave you wishing that you watched the more famous Christmas special featuring the orange cat.
I can think of something very wrong with that title. Yogi Bear’s All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper is pretty light on comedy, as most Hanna-Barbera things are. What it is not short on are cameos. That’s the “All-Star” part as you’re going to see most of the classic Hanna-Barbera characters in this one, even Fred and Barney! That’s actually the only part that did get a little laugh out of me as Snagglepuss points out the absurdity of the situation. Anyway, this one is about a lonely, mistreated, girl mistaking Yogi for Santa and him being unable to come clean about it because he doesn’t want her to feel worse. They need to help her greedy, selfish, father see the error of his ways. It’s not very good, and if I’m being objective about it then I probably should have ranked this one lower, but I do have some nostalgia goggles for it. It did get a genuine reaction out of me when I was younger which is hard to let go of. And I am a sucker for big ensembles, just not enough for me to make it through Yogi’s First Christmas. That damn thing is an hour and a half and I refuse to ever watch it again.
Space Goofs is a Fox Kids cartoon that started airing when I started tuning out on Saturday morning. Once X-Men and Spider-Man finished their respective runs I was all done. After watching this Christmas episode though, I do think I may have missed out. This is a bit of an ugly late 90s cartoon, the aesthetic for the era is not one that I look back on fondly, but it was pretty amusing. The premise of the show is a bunch of aliens are hiding out in a house and they’re oblivious to human culture, save for what they can get on their television. When Santa shows up on Christmas Eve, they think they’re being invaded. This Santa is incredibly stubborn though and insists on delivering presents so he keeps trying to sneak into the house which results in him getting caught by the various traps inside. He takes a beating, but he keeps on coming. It’s a bit like Smokey and the Bandit in that Santa keeps absorbing more and more punishment until he’s in a full body cast by the episode’s end. It’s an easy one to watch these days and if you like that 90s physical comedy that was present in many cartoons then you probably won’t need the benefit of nostalgia to find some enjoyment here.
If you didn’t like Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales then it makes sense why you’d give New Looney Tunes and its Christmas episode a try. Unfortunately, it’s not that great. It’s not terrible, and I am ranking it ahead of that first one, but it doesn’t take advantage of the holiday very well. This one has two segments. In the first, Bugs is Christmas shopping and after a hot item, but so is Yosemite Sam. This means the two go to war in a Walmart-type store for the last item available. There are some decent gags, but nothing particularly memorable (except maybe Porky having to mop up spilled ham). The second segment features Bugs’ friend, Squeaks, misdelivering his letter to Santa to a guy called The Barbarian on account of the fact that he kind of resembles Santa Claus. Bugs has to get the letter back so he can get it to the real Santa, but Barbarian is apparently not interested in giving it back. It’s kind of stupid. Again, it’s just Bugs inflicting pain on his opponent (with some pain returned) through comedic means none of which is particularly memorable. You’re unlikely to hate it, but it’s not the sort of Christmas special you’ll be inclined to watch again. And there are better Looney Tunes specials to come.
The Pink Panther is basically a silent cartoon star. The cartoons are not absent sound, but there’s no dialogue from anyone. The story is moved along through animation and the object is usually to convey pretty basic emotions that almost anyone can understand. Like most cartoon stars, The Pink Panther is accustomed to short subjects, but this television special had to fill a half hour and it really hurts the pacing. In this one, Pink Panther is basically homeless and just wants a hot meal. He goes through all kinds of hoops to land one which also lands him in trouble with numerous people along the way eventually leading to him getting arrested. It has funny moments, and there’s a nice ending to it as well, but it’s the sort of special that just wares me down. I don’t have any particular affection for the Pink Panther. I don’t think there’s anything especially sympathetic about him in any of his cartoons, but even so I get sick of him constantly losing throughout this one even knowing it’s going to work out in the end. Had this been a cartoon short, I think it would have worked better. It’s a bit too miserable in this form, but some may find that the constant misery leads to a better payoff I suppose.
Don’t be fooled by his cuteness, he just kicked the crap out of Santa.
Here’s one for the British readers. SuperTed is a living teddy bear that’s also a superhero. I really liked this guy as a kid and had pretty much forgot all about him until I stumbled upon this Christmas episode a few years back. In this one, the villainous Texas Pete is out to steal Christmas and it’s up to SuperTed to stop him. The amusing wrinkle in this one is that SuperTed thinks he gets the drop on ole Pete only to find out it’s the real Santa Claus, err, Father Christmas. He actually beats him up pretty well too in what is an almost shockingly funny little bit. Outside of that, it’s a perfectly fine little Christmas episode that probably works better if you have some affection for the character.
I swear it’s just a coincidence that SuperTed is followed by Super Dave.
Comedian Bob Einstein’s Super Dave alter ego actually had his own cartoon series in the early 90s. It was short-lived, but it’s one of those things that impresses me to this day. Super Dave, if you’re unaware, was a daredevil. Since this was a bit by a comedian, he was a terrible daredevil. None of his stunts go right and he often winds up in extreme pain. It makes sense to turn that type of guy into a cartoon since you can really do some damage to a cartoon character and he’ll always come back ready for more! In this Christmas episode, Santa is kidnapped and Dave has to rescue him. Why does a daredevil have to be the one to rescue him? Who knows? It has its moments, but mostly it ends up getting ranked this high because I remain tickled that this is a thing that exists. I also appreciate that it really has no moral. Sometimes we don’t need a preachy ending, we just need an ending.
Eek is the good-natured cat that roamed the Fox Kids Saturday morning lineup in the early 90s. He is an eternal optimist which makes him a great fit for a Christmas special. He can also scream like a bastard and take some serious punishment which makes him an ideal cartoon character. In this Christmas episode, Eek comes across a gift for Little Joey and takes it upon himself to make sure it reaches him. Along his journey, he’s going to get the snot kicked out of him. He’s also going to help people along the way which just in turn leads to more misery, but the cat comes through in the end and delivers the present to Little Joey. Who turns out to be a rat or something. It’s entertaining, it’s just not one of the better looking shows from the era. And since it doesn’t really invoke the “feels,” it comes up just a tad limp for me in the end. If Eek was your guy, or cat, when you were a kid then you’ll probably derive far more enjoyment out of coming back to this one than I ever could. I also think his other Christmas special is just a little bit better.
I apparently named this image “Dick Dexter.” I amuse myself sometimes.
Our final entrant for today is Dexter of Dexter’s Laboratory fame. He was one of the original Cartoon Cartoon stars for Cartoon Network and I have mostly positive memories of his show. In his Christmas segment, Dexter is confronted by his own ignorance for he gets into an argument with his sister about the existence of Santa Claus. Dee Dee insists that he’s real while Dexter insists that it’s merely their father in disguise. He seems to think his dad puts on an elaborate show to keep up the ruse indicating that while Dexter may be a boy genius, he’s also still a boy. Dexter then waits up all night and catches the real Santa in the act, only he still thinks it’s his dad and does horrible things to the big man in order to prove it. This just leads to injuries and destruction. Santa even loses his beard (coincidentally, the same thing happens to the Santa in Space Goofs)! Yeah, it’s kind of unsettling. What I love about this one is the continuity. This being a Hanna-Barbera Christmas episode that aired in 1998, it still made sure to have a Santa that looks exactly like the one from A Flintstone Christmas. That’s pretty neat, even if other versions of Santa have appeared over the years in other Hanna-Barbera productions. If you’re going to copy one though, that’s the one to copy. This Christmas episode is brief, but funny. A little dark, perhaps, but we need that from time to time out of our Christmas specials.
What’s not dark, is tomorrow’s Christmas special. Actually, it technically is dark, just not in tone or humor. You’ll see what I mean in short order, but tomorrow is a full write-up of a Christmas cartoon I never got around to. It’s one that has been on my “to do” list year after year and even pre-planned on at least one occasion, but I just never got around to it. That all changes tomorrow so come on back and see what ended up in slot number 147!
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
I told you we would probably take a look at the other Christmas episode from The Cuphead Show!, though maybe you expected a buffer. I considered it, but why not pair them up just like the creators and Netflix already did? This second Christmas episode comes right after the first. Titled “A Very Devil Christmas,”…
When two billion dollar organizations butt heads, it can be hard to know who to root for. Take Disney, somewhat of an “evil” overlord when it comes to content, which seemingly owns everything these days and likes to throw its weight around when it comes to copyright claims. And then there’s Fox, owned by the…
In 1964, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass unleashed a Christmas Classic upon the world in the form of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The special basically put the company on the map and put it on the path to holiday domination for decades to come. Despite that, few of the specials that followed Rudolph truly hit…
I don’t think there’s much debate that the most popular and enduring character churned out by the Hanna-Barbera factory during its hey-day is none other than Scooby Doo. About the only franchise that even competes with the big dog is The Flintstones, which hasn’t been relevant for ages. Scoob has basically had an omnipresence ever since he debuted on the small screen back in 1969. The franchise hasn’t always had a new show in production since then, but for a long time one of the shows it spawned could be found airing somewhere on television. I grew up watching Scooby and the gang solve mysteries featuring guest stars that predated my existence by quite a bit. I also had A Pup Named Scooby-Doo for something more modern, and eventually the franchise made the move to the big screen during the early 2000s.
It’s hard to say what has made Scooby-Doo such a lasting entity. I watched the show often enough as a kid, though I don’t recall ever liking it. Scooby-Doo seemingly existed during an era where kids (especially) would just watch whatever was on. No streaming, few houses with a VCR, and few options on VHS for those house that did have a VCR meant we were at the mercy of the broadcast overlords. It’s a thing my own children can’t even comprehend when I try to explain it which is usually brought on by me getting frustrated watching them endlessly cycle through their streaming options to try to decide what to watch. I feel like a lot of shows benefitted from that same phenomenon as I watched a bunch of crap I couldn’t have cared less about. Unlike a lot of that stuff though, Scooby has continued to live on. His shows may have sucked, but I do think the character of Scooby-Doo (and Shaggy) is pretty charismatic and likable. People want to enjoy the show, even if the actual program makes that task an impossible one.
It’s like past iterations of Scooby-Doo, only funny!
Because of my experience with the franchise growing up, it likely comes as no surprise that I have not paid much attention to it. I never watched the movies, and I definitely never sought out the many direct-to-video features the franchise has spawned over the years. I have heard some good things here and there, but they never were enough to get me to bite. It seems the franchise has had numerous stops and starts over the past decade and they almost all follow the same trajectory: premiere on Cartoon Network, air for a bit, move to Boomerang, see the remaining episodes unceremoniously burned off. Cartoon Network and parent company Warner seem like they don’t know what to do with the franchise, or they have unrealistic expectations for every new series they greenlight. They seem to give each one about two seasons, but no more. Right smack in the middle of this thing is the series Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! From an outsider’s perspective, it’s the most intriguing of the post 2000 Scooby-Doo productions because it features an art style most would deem “out there” for a Scooby-Doo cartoon. The characters have a much more “toon” vibe to them with unrealistic proportions and exaggerated features. I see a lot of different influences when I look at the characters ranging from American Dad!, Mission Hill, Powerpuff Girls, and The Ren & Stimpy Show. It also gives the series a throwback feel to the last version I paid attention to, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, which also had a far more toon aesthetic.
More importantly, this show features a Christmas episode. The stuff from the 70s and the aforementioned Pup did not tackle the subject which is both surprising and not. The approach of a lot of Hanna-Barbera productions was to produce content that television networks could air at basically anytime. Scooby always had a mild horror element at play due to the mystery format, and maybe that contributed in keeping the franchise away from Christmas. Most of the classic Hanna-Barbera series avoided the subject though, with The Flintstones basically being the exception. Come the 80s, they embraced it a bit more as we’ve looked at Christmas episodes from The Smurfs, The Jetsons, and even Don Coyote. It’s a touch surprising that A Pup Named Scooby-Doo didn’t get to do a Christmas mystery, but then again neither did The Flintstone Kids, Fantastic Max, and a host of others.
This kid waited until Christmas Eve to get a primer on how everything works.
The episode begins with a cold open. A soft, instrumental, rendition of “Deck the Halls” can be heard as we pan from the sky to a warmly lit home on Christmas Eve. Two boys are putting out the customary milk and cookies for Santa Claus. If I’m supposed to know who these kids are it’s lost on me for having never watched the show. There are two boys listed in the credits, Aiden (Todd Haberkorn) and Braiden (Debi Derryberry) and I assume these are them. The younger of the two is pretty concerned with this whole Santa thing and is pointing out the gaps in the logic that allow Santa to visit millions of homes in a single night. He’s either some sort of math whiz or he simply memorized the conditions needed for Santa to complete the task. It begins with more innocent questions, like how does he avoid getting burned, before the kid launches into the more complicated questions. When he’s done, the older one just says “He’s fireproof.”
I was hoping to see Santa too, but this is kind of bad ass, no?!
Before the boy can respond, a sound from the roof excites the two and they run to an upstairs window. They open it up and take a look out and spy a shadowy figure on-top of a nearby chimney. They both ask aloud “Santa?” with a sense of awe before the shadow turns and reveals its true identity: a pterodactyl! The two kids scream as the beast jumps into the night and they retreat into the safety of their house as the opening title comes storming in. I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty impressed with the sight of a pterodactyl on my roof, even if I was looking for Santa. The opening title features a pretty simple rock instrumental for its song. The characters dodge spooky creatures while Fred drives around in the Mystery Machine until eventually he collects the whole gang and Scoob ends it with his catchphrase, “Scooby-dooby-doo!” It’s a far cry from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Hell yeah, it’s Christmas, baby!
When the song ends we find the gang in Rockwellville which boasts a population of zero naughty individuals and all nice. I’m guessing that sign will be proven wrong before this one is over. Fred (Frank Welker, the only original cast member still at it) and Velma (Kate Micucci) are admiring the scenery while Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scoob (Welker) are doing exercises to keep their metabolism up as they’re in the prime eating season. Fred is very taken by how all-out the town goes for Christmas while Velma seems a bit overwhelmed by it. Fred decides to check on Daphne (Grey Griffen) and see how the decorations in the Mystery Machine are coming along, only when he opens the rear doors to the van, the group is greeted with a “Surprise!” and a face full of confetti. It would seem that Christmas also happens to be Daphne’s birthday and she says she’s always wanted to have a birthday all to herself and not have to share it with Christmas. Velma points out that this means she threw herself a surprise birthday party hoping the others will acknowledge how silly that sounds, but no one does. Fred isn’t really onboard with this decision from Daphne as he’s brought the gang to this festive town in search of the perfect Christmas mystery that will lead to them helping orphans or something. As he explains his reasoning, he’s bathed in a warm light from above which is literally coming from a street light that was just switched on by a fellow named George (Christian Lanz). Fred thanks him and gives him a tip hoping the fellow will return for any other epiphanies he may have.
Fred is so determined to make this a special Christmas episode that he’s even hired an epiphany guy.
Velma points out to Fred that he can’t just choose what kind of mystery falls into their lap, but Fred asks aloud what other mystery could possibly occur in a town as festive as this one? Cue some nearby carolers who sing about the town being terrorized by a giant pterodactyl. Velma seems ready to pounce on this one as she mentions they passed by an archeological site on their way into town, but Fred refuses to believe it. He suspects someone saw a giant reindeer and mistook it for a pterodactyl, but Velma just corrects him and states it was a pterodactyl, but in an excited tone. Fred continues to try and pushback, but Velma just gestures and repeatedly tells him it’s a pterodactyl!
He doesn’t look particularly holly or jolly.
And sure enough, the massive beast has landed on a decoration over the street and spreads its wings in a menacing fashion that sends the crowd scattering. The gang heads for the Mystery Machine, but as Fred tries to drive away, the van won’t budge. That’s because the pterodactyl has grabbed ahold of the roof rack with its massive claws and is now lifting the Mystery Machine high into the air! The beast flies above the city and inside the van the crew gets tossed around while Daphne struggles to save the birthday cake she bought/made for herself. Fred tells everyone to hold on and pulls a lever which releases the roof rack. Now free from the beast’s talons, the Mystery Machine races back towards the Earth, but Fred keeps his cool. That’s because this Mystery Machine really earns its name as Fred simply pushes a button in the shape of an airplane that converts the van into an actual plane. They land safely on a nearby road, but once they come to a complete stop Velma jumps right back into this mystery issue pointing out that Fred didn’t get the Christmas mystery he wanted. He simply narrows his eyes and says he knows exactly where they need to go next.
Get used to this shot.
The Big Sad Eyes Orphanage! The gang stands outside while a boy, with big, sad, eyes, presses his face on a window to look at them. Daphne is not happy with this development and what it means for her birthday celebration while Velma questions what they’re doing here when they could be exploring the archeological site that just so happens to be right next door. Fred rolls his eyes at her and points out they can’t help orphans at an archeological site which forces Velma to point out that he’s just trying to ignore the mystery they have in favor of finding a Christmas one. Fred sort of groans, but gives in and tells Velma they can go explore the site. As they approach the tunnel with flashlights in-hand Shaggy gets scared, per usual, and they take a look around. A light returns theirs from inside a dark tunnel and a shadowy figure comes rushing towards them!
You don’t have to get used to this guy though.
It’s just some guy named Dr. Mezmit (Jeff Bennett) who is apparently working at the dig site. He immediately mistakes the gang for some volunteers he’s been waiting on, and when Fred tries to tell him they’re not who he thinks they are, he just ignores them. He starts handing out equipment and Velma chimes in again that they’re not the volunteers and they’re actually investigating the pterodactyl sighting. The very cheerful Dr. Mezmit just remarks “Preposterous!” at the suggestion a real, live, pterodactyl is stalking the town and Fred agrees and tries to walk off in search of a new mystery. Then the doctor keeps on yapping and says someone found a perfectly preserved pterodactyl nest in the caves along with perfectly preserved eggs. They would undoubtedly be worth a fortune, but unfortunately a cave-in occurred trapping the nest inside and the mayor is trying to put a stop to their excavation. When Daphne again tells the doctor they’re not the volunteers he’s waiting on he just says “Splendid!” and that he needs all of the help he can get implying he expects them to help along with the volunteers, whenever they show.
I always do my mining in an elf costume.
The conversation is then interrupted by the arrival of one of Mezmit’s original volunteers, David. David (Haberkorn) is dressed as an elf and that’s because he was apparently trying to recruit volunteers at the Christmas festival where he works, but they all got scared away. He speaks like he’s frightened and the doctor is oblivious to this, just as he is oblivious to a lot of things, it would seem. The two grab pickaxes and start hacking away at some stones outside of the tunnel. Seems it would make more sense to break the rocks inside the tunnel, but I’m no archeologist. With the doctor seemingly distracted, the others drop the equipment that he had shoved into their arms and back away slowly. Velma wonders what they should do next, and Fred tells her he knows exactly where to go.
This is the worst looking cartoon silly string I’ve ever seen.
The Big Sad Eyes Orphanage! Yes, Fred is determined to find a Christmas mystery affiliated with this orphanage and the same kid with the big, sad, eyes is still staring at them from inside. Velma angrily tells Fred this isn’t where they should be and points out that the mayor’s office is their next, logical, destination. Fred doesn’t really want to entertain her and says they can do pterodactyl mysteries any day, but this is their one chance for a Christmas mystery! I like how he just dismisses something amazing like a possible real, live, pterodactyl, existing. He also goes into a generic speech about coming together at Christmas time, but is interrupted when he’s hit in the face with silly string. It continues to spray on him for what feels like a rather long time. This show is digitally animated, as is every show post 2000 or so, but for this one sequence it really looks like shit. The silly string looks like it’s being applied to Fred’s face via Microsoft Paint from 1996 as it has zero detail. The culprit spraying him is Daphne, who is still trying to have a birthday celebration here. Shaggy then reminds Fred that he and Scoob need to train for their Christmas feast, which forces Fred to cut a deal with them. He guarantees Daphne a birthday party and that he’ll help the other two train for their feast if they help him with a Christmas mystery. When Velma points out that he can’t just make that happen, he dismissively tells her that he’ll get her a book or something. Shaggy questions what Fred can do for them which prompts Fred to whip out some remote for the Mystery Machine which makes a bunch of training equipment sprout from its hull. It’s all surprisingly conventional gym equipment, but as Fred explains how the treadmill can power the van itself Shaggy reasons all of this equipment could help he and Scoob to eight helpings of Christmas dinner! Scoob doesn’t seem convinced as he finally says something, then smiles and declares they’ll get 9 helpings! With everyone seemingly onboard, Fred declares they’re off to the mayor’s office!
It’s the only way to travel.
I’m mildly confused that Fred wants to go to the mayor’s office since I thought he wanted to ignore the pterodactyl, but whatever. Shag and Scoob, via the treadmill affixed to the Mystery Machine, power the vehicle by running as the gang heads over. Inside the van, Daphne pelts Fred and Velma with balloon animals as she continues to try to force this birthday celebration while Velma ponders if these are the strangest circumstances she’s ever found herself in. Shaggy asks Scooby the same, if this is the strangest situation Velma has ever been in, but their seemingly simple ride over to the mayor’s office is interrupted by the reemergence of the giant pterodactyl! Shag and Scoob see it first and start running faster which makes the Mystery Machine go much faster. Fred tells them to slow down forcing Daphne to point out why they’re running in the first place. The van goes impossibly fast and the beast grabs an old-timey carriage to seemingly throw at them. It misses, but the now out of control Mystery Machine is heading right for a tour bus! We cut to a quick scene inside where the tour guide (Bennett) is pointing out a giant, novelty, candy cane to the patrons on the vehicle’s left and when he tells them to look to the right he’s immediately horrified to see the Mystery Machine baring down on them! He then yells at the people to return to looking left, as if that will save them, but Fred is able to cut hard to the left and avoid striking the bus. The pterodactyl is not so lucky as it clips the roof and crashes into the street. It then rises up and the gang find themselves looking directly at it. The dinosaur flies right at them, but rather than collide with the van it simply flies over it and off towards the full moon.
If it’s not Christmas, Fred’s not buying.
We next find the gang at the mayor’s office and Velma is questioning Mayor Riker (Christian Lanz) why he shut down the dig. He points out the obvious, that it caused a pterodactyl to start terrorizing the town, as justification for it being unsafe. He also adds that some of the money for the dig was then redirected to the orphanage since it was on their land. This gets Fred excited as he’s still in search of a mystery that will benefit the orphans and have a Christmas component. The mayor points out that he didn’t mention anything about helping orphans, per say, but does point out the town tree which they put a gift for everyone in town on. Fred just gets more excited and asks about rogue elves or Christmas ghosts and the mayor just points out they have a pterodactyl problem. Fred frowns as he’s clearly sick of hearing about this dinosaur problem and walks off much to the mayor’s confusion.
What are those leaves on Shag and Scoob supposed to be?!
Shaggy and Scooby spy some equipment nearby. It looks like an X-Ray machine, the kind you would find in airport security to check the contents of bags, but this machine has a different function. It’s a wrapping machine and it apparently runs on magic. When an item goes through it comes out on the other side fully wrapped. Shaggy even demonstrates its magic with a yo-yo as when the toy goes through it’s wrapped, but when it returns to him it’s unwrapped! Shaggy and Scooby seem entertained by this device, but when they peer in for a closer look they don’t notice the bicycle on the conveyor belt behind them. We then cut back to the mayor explaining more about the situation to Fred, Velma, and Daphne. As he starts to mention the development of the star for the town tree, Shaggy and Scooby ride by on the bicycle only they’re completely covered in wrapping paper. The others just look at them in confusion, but no one mentions what they all saw. Instead, the mayor explains that the man in charge of creating the star keeps taking it back for revisions. Fred declares this a mysterious act and is eager to investigate it as a Christmas mystery! Velma just snaps at him to knock it off as the mystery they have to solve is the pterodactyl which Fred has already conceded is not a Christmas mystery! Fred acknowledges this, but says it’s all pointing them in one direction.
What is it, boy?! Did you find a clue?!
The Big Sad Eyes Orphanage! We cut to the same scene of the gang standing outside of it only now Velma is insisting, “No! No! No!” As she and Fred resume their argument about the mystery they’re trying to solve, Scooby starts sniffing around the grounds of the orphanage. He raises his head to reveal a red bow is stuck to it and Fred pounces. This is the first Christmas related clue they’ve found, which just prompts Velma to point out their mystery has nothing to do with Christmas and therefore this is no clue! On the contrary, there are more ribbons just like the one that got stuck to Scooby’s nose and as the gang follows the trail it’s Shaggy who notices that the Mystery Machine isn’t where they parked it. They look around and suddenly the van drops from the sky in pieces! The pterodactyl then swoops in and grabs both Scoob and Daphne! As it flies away, Daphne can be heard yelling, “Worst birthday ever!”
All of those years sharing a network with Batman have finally paid off for Fred!
Fred instructs the others to get in what remains of the Mystery Machine. They speed off after the dinosaur and as they do we get to hear what sounds like an instrumental rendition of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” but with a Christmas vibe. It’s good chase music as Fred and the others speed after the death bird in what is now basically a convertible. They find the streets are too crowded to proceed though, so Fred snatches a sled from some kid and they commandeer a horse. Velma and Fred ride on the horse itself as it pulls the sled with Shaggy standing on it through the streets. Along the way, the pterodactyl knocks over a lighted Christmas display that features two novelty candy canes with a wreath between them. Fred grabs one of the candy canes and the wire affixed to it and uses it like a grappling hook to grab the pterodactyl’s neck. Bad move, as now Velma and Fred get pulled into the air and Shaggy nearly collides with a truck! He avoids it on his sleigh, but winds up going airborne and the whole gang ends up on a giant, inflatable, Santa which is from earlier in the episode. The pterodactyl collides with the big novelty decoration causing it to deflate. The gang, including Daphne and Scoob, safely descend back to ground level while the pterodactyl, once again, heads towards the moon.
There goes Christmas…
The gang, tired and bruised, are left sitting on the curb feeling like they blew it. Fred finally admits that his search for a Christmas miracle has done nothing but harm to their cause and declares it’s his fault Christmas is ruined. Daphne adds that he’s also ruined her birthday, in case he needed to feel worse. While they mope, a grumpy guy named Alistair Levinthal (Bennett) calls out from a shop just behind them asking what they did to his store? Velma tells him it was the pterodactyl, but the guy can’t be bothered as he needs to finish the star for the tree. This piece of information rekindles Fred’s holiday spirit as he stands up and declares he’s going to follow a star to solve this mystery. As he does, he’s once again bathed in light and accompanied by music thanks to George. The group heads inside the shop to question this Alistair fellow about his work. Turns out, he hates Christmas since it falls on him to design a lot of the town’s decorations. Velma points out he’s redesigned the star numerous times lately and he chalks it up to the mayor not sharing the dimensions of the tree accurately for him to design a star for. He adds that the mayor will be surprised once he gets a look at what he’s come up with this year which prompts Velma and Fred to share a knowing glance with each other. They leave the shop with some sense of renewed determination, though Shaggy, Scooby, and Daphne aren’t really sure what’s going on. Fred vows to save Christmas and as he does he stands in front of a painted tree on a storefront window. He takes on his epiphany pose, but George wasn’t ready and comes running over and upset with himself for missing his cue. Fred tells him not to worry, he improvised, and the others reassure George as well. How nice of them?
You bet we’re getting in that moon shot!
We then cut to the center of town and the giant Christmas tree which awaits its proper coronation. The massive star is bolted to the top and the mayor is given the okay to light it up. He does and the star is a truly magnificent sight, but immediately upon lighting it seems to draw the attention of an uninvited guest. The pterodactyl comes soaring in and grabs the star ripping the tree from the ground. As it takes off, the gang comes flying up behind it in the somehow still functioning Mystery Machine! As they chase after the pterodactyl, Fred’s focus is broken-up by Daphne slapping a red party hat on his head followed by a clown wig and red nose on Scooby. This is her last chance to celebrate, apparently. Fred refocuses on the pterodactyl and they’re able to speed in front of it. Daphne then proposes they stop the beast in its tracks with her preferred celebration: silly string! It looks just as cheap as before as the crew sprays the dinosaur in the face. It drops the tree, which manages to end up right where it belongs, but the Mystery Machine is damaged and finds itself in a dive bomb. Scooby reminds Fred about the treadmill, and as he turns to regard him his face smashes into Daphne’s cake giving him a Santa-like “beard” to go with his red, party, hat. Scooby and Shaggy jump onto the treadmill and start running which fires the engines back up allowing Fred to avert total catastrophe. As they level off, they pass in front of the full moon and I’m counting it. Moon shot! They come to a screeching halt on a nearby rooftop prompting a kid on the ground to ask “Santa?” The Mystery Machine slides off of the roof, but the whole crew pops up out of a snowbank triumphantly seemingly unhurt.
That’s right! Take those assholes to jail!
With the tree returned and all of the presents seemingly saved, all that’s left is to unmask the individuals behind this heinous crime against Christmas. The pterodactyl is all wrapped up and tangled in Christmas lights from crashing into them and is seemingly no longer a threat as the mayor, some cops, and the mystery gang gather round. The mayor thanks the kids for saving Christmas from a pterodactyl, but he’s told that’s no pterodactyl. A door on the beast pops open and inside is David! The assistant dressed as an elf from the dig site! Velma explains that it was David who discovered the preserved egg and tried to steal it for himself. He took it to city hall to disguise it as a Christmas present via the wrapping machine, but it ended up getting mixed up with the actual gifts for the tree, so he came up with a scheme to steal all of the presents to find it. And to do that, he needed help from someone mechanically inclined: Alistair Leventhal! Leventhal wanted out of town, so he agreed to help David for a cut of the proceeds once the egg was sold. This required him to redesign the star to David’s exact specifications so he could steal the tree.
You can just see the Christmas spirit radiating from this little orphan boy.
With the mystery solved, it’s now time to haul away the bad guys. David gets the honor of saying the “And we would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you,” but Levinthal cuts him off by saying, “Oh, be quiet! We didn’t!” Now the orphans can have their presents, but there’s one kid (Griffin) who can’t seem to find his. It’s the same kid who was looking at the gang from inside the orphanage earlier, and Fred walks up and hands the boy a gift. Their eyes meet, both welling with tears, and Shaggy and Scoob embrace each other as they watch. The kid opens the present to find a giant egg! His demeanor shifts as he announces his gift in a deadpan manner adding, “You really know kids.” Fred is completely unphased while Shaggy and Scooby sob with joy. Velma points out that’s the missing pterodactyl egg and the mayor comes over to declare that since it was found on orphanage land that it’s the orphanage that should benefit from its sale. He even declares that they saved the orphanage! Velma can only muster a “You gotta be kidding me,” while Fred looks rather proud of himself. Meanwhile, the kid still looks irritated by his crappy gift.
Fred helped save Christmas and Daphne gets a birthday song – mission accomplished!
Fred announces that he couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas gift than this. The mayor then adds that since they saved Christmas they get to be the guests of honor at the Christmas feast. We then pan to find Shaggy and Scooby already devouring a bunch of food. Scooby, with a mouthful, seems to say his catchphrase and the mayor indicates he has no idea what the dog just said. Shaggy translates for him by saying Scooby said, “We’re way ahead of you!” Fred then puts an arm around Daphne and announces that there’s only one thing left for them to do: Everybody joined together in song! Daphne looks unsure of this suggestion as the others return to frame and start singing. The song is “Happy Birthday to Daphne” sung to the tune of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” The song is literally just “Happy birthday, Daphne,” only they add a third syllable to her name making it “Daph-ah-nee.” The towns people also join together and they all sing the song and Daphne actually looks pleased by this development. When the song is over, Fred adds a final, “Happy birthday, Daphne.” She smiles and says, “Aww, thanks guys. And merry Christmas!” The camera pans up to the sky and this one is through.
I knew those crafty kids would solve the mystery and save Christmas, I just don’t know why it took them almost 50 years to do it! Actually, I think there’s been other Christmas specials featuring Scooby-Doo and the rest, but this is the first one I’ve seen. Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! isn’t the most visually impressive show, but it’s far from ugly. It’s bright, colorful, and there’s plenty of Christmas décor to find in this one. The personalities of the gang we know so well are largely intact, but I enjoyed Fred’s dedication to Christmas and the conflict this seemed to create between he and Velma. Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby, the supposed star of the show, were surprisingly understated throughout this one. Daphne just had her birthday bit to stick to and it’s pretty much all she does while Scooby and Shaggy feel like they’re just along for the ride. I was surprised there wasn’t a concerted effort to give the pair funny lines or some humorous physical comedy bits, but really all they got was the brief interaction with the wrapping machine. Scooby barely has any lines and contributes very little to the plot. I don’t know if that’s how most episodes are or if this is an outlier. It certainly caught me off-guard.
The Mystery Machine being able to convert into a jet was certainly not something I expected going in.
Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing for Scooby to have a reduced role in this episode. Fred was basically the star with Velma his sidekick, to a point. It worked as I found him funny enough and I enjoyed seeing Velma push back on him. I like that he wasn’t made to be some idiot oblivious to the real issue, he just rejected it. The repeating bit with George was okay, but the repeating gag with the group returning to the orphanage over and over was better. I also enjoyed the absurdity of a pterodactyl terrorizing a town at Christmas. I don’t know how the Scooby-Doo faithful received this show, but it was a lot better than any of the stuff I grew up with. The only thing I found weird or wasn’t convinced was a great idea was the high-tech approach to the Mystery Machine. Do we really need that? I guess it makes things different, but it makes the group feel like an Inspector Gadget clone.
I can see the mystery component of the show being something hardcore Scooby fans might not be impressed with. It certainly wasn’t impressive in this episode, but I also think this show is aiming to make you laugh, not necessarily make you think. Our only clue that David was involved was pretty circumstantial at best. He was connected to city hall and the dig site and the only such character with a connection to both and our only clue the two were even connected were the bows Scooby found outside. Unless you want to count Fred forcing the issue of bringing Christmas into the mystery. The show made sure to point out that those bows were for gift wrapping and we saw the wrapping machine at city hall itself. Leventhal being involved was certainly not a surprise as he was angry and an inventor and I think the show expected the viewers to know he was at least partly responsible. Some modern Scooby shows have been willing to turn to real, supernatural, beings, but I figured this pterodactyl wasn’t an example of such a thing meaning it had to be a robot of some kind. It’s fine, I guess. Mysteries are hard to write and I can’t imagine needing to do 26 of them for a season of television so I’m not going to harp on it any further, but I’m also not a hardcore Scooby fan.
As far as Christmas specials go, this one was fun enough.
Given my experience with the Scooby-Doo franchise up until now, I suppose I can consider this episode of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! a pleasant surprise considering I enjoyed my time with it. It’s not a classic, but it’s a worthy watch and it gives a venerable character like Scooby-Doo a legitimately good Christmas special, something more famous and better cartoon stars can’t say. If you would like to watch this one it was released on DVD some time ago. Despite probably being out of print, it’s not an expensive buy and you can get Season One Part One or Part Two for 10 bucks most places. There are digital versions available as well, and it is streaming on the Max platform and might be on Boomerang as well. Unfortunately, like most Warner owned specials, it doesn’t get shown on Cartoon Network much which should be able to provide a massive, Christmas, blow-out every year, but chooses not to. When will they learn?
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 the fifth of December so that means we are returning to one of the 25 Greatest Christmas Specials (as decided by me because it’s my blog) to take a deeper look than what was done some 8 years ago. When I re-evaluated my Top 25, one of the biggest fallers was A Flintstone Christmas. It dropped from number 9 all the way down to 25! I attribute that drop to some of the shine waring off. When I did that countdown in 2015, I had probably only had the DVD for A Flintstone Christmas a short while. Prior to that, it was a thing I felt like I had to get lucky to catch on TV as a kid. It was the sort of special I only saw once a year, if that, so it never had a chance to ware out its welcome. Now that I own it, I’ve easily more than doubled my viewings over the years from when I was a kid, and while I still enjoy it, I do see more of the flaws. And at approximately 48 minutes, it gets a bit long. Had I known I was going to revisit all of these specials in the future in more detail, maybe I would have dropped it all together? Doing these write-ups for a broadcast hour-long special is pretty tiresome. I could have saved myself a whole lot of time if I just kept Morel Orel, but that would also be cheating! I think this one still belongs, even if just barely, so lets get to it.
A Flintstone Christmas was released in 1977 by Hanna-Barbera as one of the first post The Flintstones television specials. For all of the comparisons that we used to see between The Flintstones and The Simpsons,The Flintstones never had nearly the kind of run The Simpsons is still having. That’s true of a lot of shows, but I can still recall when passing The Flintstones was an important milestone for The Simpsons so it’s always a bit surprising to be reminded that The Flintstones aired from 1960 to 1966. This special came out more than ten years after the show had ceased production. It obviously aired seemingly endlessly in re-runs and there were spin-offs, but the show proper had a somewhat short existence. This special was apparently pretty successful though and the franchise gained new life via a series of specials in the early 80s. These cave people refused to die, though now they’re mostly cereal and vitamin pitchmen.
During the show’s run, there was the episode “Christmas Flintstone.” We’ve already covered that one extensively here, but to summarize, Fred ends up taking on the role of Santa Claus to basically save Christmas. For A Flintstone Christmas, the same plot is recycled and expanded upon with some differences. Perhaps most notably, Barney is now along for the ride. And since this was a television special, the running time is doubled and we get some songs tossed in. Perhaps most notably these days, is the circumstances for Fred taking on the Santa role have been altered. In “Christmas Flintstone,” Santa has a cold and has his elves track down the guy he thinks is best at playing him which turns out to be Fred. In this special, Santa falls off of Fred’s roof and gets hurt so he needs Fred to take over. It’s a plot that’s pretty damn close to a certain movie starring Tim Allen. Of course, in The Santa Clause old Saint Nick actually kicks the bucket. That movie was more interested in showing how some jerk can basically turn into Santa Claus and assume that identity permanently. A Flintstone Christmas just wants to put Fred in a sled.
The Flintstones are probably a safer bet than this drugged-out dog and mouse.
Something I did not talk about when first covering A Flintstone Christmas was its relation to another Hanna-Barbera Christmas special: A Christmas Story. That special about a mouse and a dog trying to deliver a letter to Santa doesn’t share any plot details with this one. It doesn’t even feature any popular characters. The only thing it does share with this special is the music. Multiple songs from the 1972 special are recycled and repurposed for this one. It’s pretty odd, and I can’t find any account for why that took place, but I have some thoughts. A Christmas Story, not featuring any recognizable Hanna-Barbera characters, may have been viewed as a dud. It’s a lot easier to market Fred and Scooby-Doo than it is Goober and Gumdrop. That special was also written by Ken Spears and Jack Ruby, the former top duo at Hanna-Barbera who would leave to form Ruby-Spears animation. That duo is credited with creating Scooby-Doo and they left Hanna-Barbera in 1977. Ruby-Spears was created to compete directly with Hanna-Barbera, so maybe burying their Christmas special and using some of the assets to create this new one was a shot at them? Considering the timing, that seems unlikely, but it is more juicy to think of this one as born out of a grudge between the aging duo of Hanna and Barbera waging war with their former proteges.
I suppose it’s time we just dive into this one since this is going to be a rather lengthy write-up. For A Flintstone Christmas, most of the case of The Flintstones was able to return. One person who was not was Alan Reed, the original voice of Fred Flintstone. He passed away in 1977 opening the door for Henry Corden to assume the role. This was not Corden’s first time voicing Fred, but it was probably the most exposure his Fred voice had received as previously he was doing things like records and wrap-arounds on package shows as the character. He had also already been Fred’s singing voice in The Man Called Flintstone as singing was something Reed either couldn’t do or disliked doing. As for the rest of the cast, both Mel Blanc and Jean Vander Pyl were back as Barney and Wilma. Gay Hartwig voices Betty Rubble and she had been doing the character since 1970, though she had never voiced Betty on the actual series. Also returning is John Stephenson as Mr. Slate and Hal Smith as Santa Claus. Smith was basically the Hanna-Barbera Santa. Making her debut as Bamm-Bamm Rubble, is Lucille Bliss, a prolific voice actor who, to my surprise, didn’t voice Bamm-Bamm much. He and Pebbles (voiced by Vander Pyl) are basically kids in this one and I don’t think there is a ton of Flintstones productions where they are at this age so that might explain things.
Betty and Bamm-Bamm are just along for the ride, I guess.
The special begins with a snowy setting. Dinosaurs are peering around and some serene music fills the air. The song is “Sounds of Christmas Day,” our first piece of recycled music from A Christmas Story. After we’re shown the title, a sleigh comes into frame. It’s being driven by Wilma and she’s joined by her daughter Pebbles, friend Betty, and her son Bamm-Bamm. The sleigh is being pulled by a blue mastodon and they’ve just picked out their tree for Christmas. Curiously, only Wilma and Pebbles have selected a tree and it would seem the Rubbles are just along for the ride. They’re rather content with their selection though as they head towards Bedrock.
I’m a little jealous of Fred and Barney’s relationship. I wouldn’t mind having a buddy to do my Christmas shopping with.
In the snowy town below, Fred and Barney are roaming the streets. They’re dressed as they always are, but they’ve added a scarf to fight the cold. They still have not invented shoes, apparently, so they’re just walking through the snow in bare feet. Barney remarks how another Christmas is upon them which allows the two to reminisce a bit as they look at toys through a shop window. Already, the special has committed a sin against The Flintstones brand by depicting a toy train that’s just moving on its own without any explanation for how it could be powered. I’ll overlook the lighting in the street, but come on, at least have it being pulled by a mouse or something!
A lot of people get in on the Santa act this time of year, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen this many in one spot.
As the two walk through town, Barney keeps casually tossing coins into the collection buckets manned by bell-ringing Santas all about town. Fred makes a crack about Barney going Bro-bro-broke this holiday season if he keeps this up, but Barney confesses he has a weakness for Santa. And since there are so many, he has to keep donating just in case one of them happens to be the real Santa! This leads us into our first song break of the special, “Which One is the Real Santa Claus?” This is another of the recycled songs from A Christmas Story and it’s basically the same, only now Fred and Barney get to interject here and there as they look over these Santas. The premise of the song is just to show us a bunch of different people playing Santa, and Fred and Barney get to point out the inaccuracies like the one with his whiskers tied to his head or the one with a belly full of straw. The recording sounds like its exactly the same from A Christmas Story, and even Fred and Barney’s comments are the same as Gumdrop’s remarks. It’s amusing to me that they apparently didn’t bother to re-record it, but I guess they liked it as-is. I will say, the animation is more lively for A Flintstone Christmas and not as repetitive. And it’s a good observation for a Christmas special to base a song on.
When the song is finished, Fred and Barney resume this town crawl they’re on. I assume they’re Christmas shopping since Fred does have a gift under his arm. Their meandering leads them to a pet shop where the two look at a bunch of little dinosaurs that look in Dino. Fred thinks one looks like his boss, I guess because it’s small? Barney ponders the thought of getting Bamm-Bamm a pet for Christmas (I thought they had Hoppy?) and theorizes that one could double as a guard dog. When Fred laughs and points out how little the pup is, he gets bitten on the finger for underestimating the runt.
Since it’s the morning of Christmas Eve I guess they didn’t wait until the last minute.
The next morning, the Rubbles approach the Flintstone’s house. Barney is apparently giving Fred a ride to work while inside Fred is decorating the tree Wilma and Pebbles picked out the night before. It seems an odd time to decorate a tree, but maybe it’s an ancient cave man custom? Barney yanks the door bell, which is a monkey’s tail. He’s alerted to ding some bells which are colored red and green for the holidays. When done, he just goes back to sleep. What? No sarcastic remark?!
Fred must have one hell of a tree stand under that tree skirt.
Fred, who is on top of a ladder in a precarious position, seems excited that Barney is here to take him to work. Dino is excited too and his running by caused Fred to teeter. Eventually, the ladder will fall leaving Fred dangling from the tree like an oversized, grumpy, ornament. As the Rubbles enter and admire the tree, Betty quietly asks Wilma if she had a chance to ask Fred about something. She has, twice, and he’s said “No” to whatever this secret request is. Barney and Fred need to have a contest of ornament placement for some reason, with Barney selecting a spot for the final one (they all look like painted rocks) that Fred disagrees with just because they’re men and everything has to be a competition. He then places it in the spot he declares is perfect with predictable results. The tree falls on him pinning him to the floor, but good thing Barney is here to remind us that Bamm-Bamm is the strongest kid in the world and he effortlessly picks the tree up with one hand to free his Uncle Fred.
You know Wilma, he’d probably be willing to play Santa if you stuck up for him every once and awhile when someone calls him fat.
Wilma thanks the lad for his assistance then tells Pebbles to take Bamm-Bamm to go listen to some records because she needs to talk to her father. When the kids are gone, Wilma and Betty try to bring up the topic again. It seems that a local women’s group is hosting a gathering tonight, on Christmas Eve, for the town kids and they want Fred to play Santa. Fred refuses on account of the guys at work will poke fun at him and right on cue Barney wonders where they could find a suit big enough to fit Fred. Fred uses that as proof of what he’s talking about and refuses to discuss it further. Barney kisses his wife goodbye while Fred storms off. He then pops back into frame to give Wilma a kiss as well (on the cheek, these guys are still prudes) which softens her demeanor. They don’t seem too discouraged by Fred’s refusal, likely because they have an ace up their sleeves. Or they would if they wore sleeves.
You have to be close friends to be willing to ride in that together.
We next find Barney dropping Fred off for work. Barney’s car appears to be a hollowed out log on wheels. We only see it from the side, but it sure doesn’t look like a two-seater. That must have been a very uncomfortable ride (or perhaps extremely comfortable, depending on how they feel about each other). Fred heads into work and is immediately told by the foreman, Ed (Don Messick), that Mr. Slate wants to see him. This immediately unnerves Fred, but Ed doesn’t care and cheerfully tells him that he’ll help Fred look for a new job. Nice guy.
The dinosaur being named Otis is a smart touch.
Fred heads inside to the elevator and pulls the lever to take it down. As he does so, he’s just muttering to himself trying to reason why Mr. Slate would want to see him. It’s a reassuring exercise as he’s trying to convince himself there’s no way he should be fired. Once the elevator is engaged, we see it’s operated by a brontosaurus like dinosaur. He’s green and he operates the elevator via a rope in his mouth. When Fred pulls the lever, the guy on his back (voiced by Hal Smith) gives the command to start moving which lets the elevator go down. He then complains the dinosaur is moving too slow and that this is supposed to be an express elevator (it’s only one, maybe two stories at most). The dinosaur just looks at the guy and says “Huh?” and as he does he lets go of the rope causing the elevator to plummet to the bottom. Fred is in such a daze though that he doesn’t even notice and continues walking like nothing happened.
I probably don’t need to tell you what he’s saying. You know.
Outside Mr. Slate’s office, Fred tells the secretary he’s here. She speaks into an intercom telling Mr. Slate that Flintstone has arrived and a little purple bird makes a stereotypical parrot sound and flies off. It lands in another intercom box in Mr. Slate’s office and repeats what the secretary said. Mr. Slate calls for Fred to enter, and the bird flies off and relays the message. After doing so, he mugs for the camera and remarks, “Eh, it’s a living.” I feel like anytime someone makes a joke about The Flintstones in such a way that’s the line they always parrot, pun intended. Family Guy has definitely done this, right? I wonder how many times that line has been delivered by a creature on the show in a similar manner?
Oh Fred, have some dignity.
Fred enters the office and asks Mr. Slate what he wanted to see him about. Mr. Slate starts talking about a new job for Fred which immediately causes him to start groveling. He dives under Mr. Slate’s desk so he can grab his ankles and beg which just annoys the guy. He requests Fred to grovel standing up and Fred does as he’s told. This is so pathetic, Fred. Mr. Slate then tells him that the Women’s Auxiliary Club is hosting an event for underprivileged children and that Mrs. Slate wants Fred to play Santa Claus. This is the exact same gig Wilma and Betty were trying to get him to take, but since it’s now coming from his boss, Fred is more than happy to accept. He shakes Mr. Slate’s hand so hard that it won’t stop shaking. Fred happily scoops up the box containing the Santa suit and assures Mr. Slate he won’t regret this. As he heads out, he exits through a door that is clearly not the one he entered through. He closes it behind him, but then reemerges to wish Mr. Slate a “Merry Christmas!” Slate then orders Fred to get out of his closet and he sheepishly pokes his head out and apologizes referring to him as “Boss” in the process. Pathetic.
Always a popular move to have your main character build a snowman.
With that settled, Fred can now merrily exit the office. He punches in, and we see a tired, worn out, little bird has to chisel the time cards each time someone punches in and out. He’s too tired to offer a quip of any kind. There’s then a time skip and Fred is leaving work much happier than he entered. He tosses a coin to the first Santa he sees before going into his solo song – “It’s My Favorite Time of the Year.” This is Fred just galivanting about town telling us how Christmas is his favorite time of the year. Similar to “Which One is the Real Santa Claus?” Fred will sing a part then interject a comment of some kind like “Every house wears a blanket of snow!” This breaks up the melody, which is a bit jarring and an odd choice. We also get another shot of a toy train, different from before, and for some reason Fred indicates it will soon be his? I may have missed a detail in the song. It ends with him putting his turtle shell helmet on a snowman some kids made before stepping on a sleigh that sends him hurtling towards the neighborhood.
I can’t decide if Dino is being sweet or weird. This goes on for minutes.
When Fred arrives, his helmet has returned to his head and he eagerly heads into the house calling for Wilma. Dino (Blanc) has other plans as the dinosaur practically mauls his beloved master and Wilma has to get him off. She points out that Dino just loves him, and as Fred stands and tells Wilma the now good news Dino has a hand on his shoulder like a supportive lover. It’s both adorable and a little weird. Fred then tells Wilma how Mrs. Slate wants him to play Santa Claus at the party tonight. When Wilma asks what changed his mind, Fred starts to go over the events from earlier, but he retells them in a very different manner. In his version, Mr. Slate called him into the office and started buttering him up and told him he was selected for his fantastic acting ability (Fred already asked Mr. Slate if that was the reason, and the bird from the office confirmed it was because he’s fat). He’s excited now though and Wilma, who likely sees through her husband’s ruse, just lets him have this small victory.
You would think Mr. Slate could afford a better suit.
With Pebbles across the street at the Rubbles’ house, Fred is free to try on the suit Mr. Slate gave him. He’s a bit dismayed to see it’s pretty rugged looking. Wilma assures him he’ll look better with the hat on which seems to work to cheer him up once he places it upon his head. Strangely, there’s no beard with this suit which seems like a pretty serious omission. Barney then arrives and he’s able to get in a bunch of fat jokes at Fred’s expense. Seriously, is Fred really that big? He looks pretty normal for a character on this show. Anyway, Fred even tries to just go along with him this time claiming he’s dedicated to the role, but Barney just keeps going and Fred has to basically threaten him with violence, in a subtle manner, to get him to stop. Fred’s actually a decent guy for not going low with return insults. Barney is both short and also struggled with infertility, those are some easy targets. Wilma then announces she’s leaving to help set up for the party. She blows her husband a kiss and heaps a ton of praise on him for doing what he’s doing. It’s actually really sweet.
Maybe the presence of footwear on Santa indicates that he exists outside of time?
As Fred and Barney muse about what a great “gal” Wilma is, they hear a crashing sound coming from the roof. They race outside and see what should be two unfamiliar objects poking out of a snow bank. They’re boots, and apparently they do know what boots are despite never wearing any. Fred and Barney both give a tug which just causes the boots to come off. When they wonder who they belong to, a voice from offscreen says “They’re mine!” It’s Santa, and he has completely emerged from the snow bank with not a flake upon him. He’s been redesigned since “Christmas Flintstone” and looks far less ragged. Fred is wondering what this guy is doing so far from his street corner while Barney immediately recognizes the guy for who he is. He then complains to Fred about his roof and describes it as an obstacle course up there. The guy’s hurt too, so Fred decides they better bring him inside.
Not many mall Santas have one of those.
Once in the house, Santa requests the use of Fred’s telephone. Fred says okay, but tells him no long distance calls! Santa then flops on the surely comfortable stone couch and asks the operator to connect him with The North Pole. Hey, he said no long distance! Fred hears this and surprisingly doesn’t get mad, instead he tells Barney to go alert the asylum that one of their boys got out. Barney reluctantly does as he’s told, but once outside he hears something which directs his gaze to the roof. Sure enough, upon that roof sits Santa’s sleigh and eight reindeer. Surprisingly, we’re playing it straight with the reindeer and not going with some sort of dinosaur hybrid. Barney shouts out for Fred to come and see this and initially Fred tries to silence him so as not to alarm the neighbors. Fred then finally looks at the roof and sees what Barney sees. Finally, he’s convinced this is the real Santa which excites the crap out of him! He jumps up and does his running in place gag and yanks Barney backs inside the house.
Now they’re starting to look the part.
Now that Fred has been made a believer, the three of them can get down to the matter at hand. Not only is Santa injured, he’s also caught a cold. Fred points out the obvious that Santa is in no condition to deliver presents tonight and Santa is forced to admit that sad truth. He can’t take a day off though, not on Christmas Eve! He then wonders how he could possibly find someone jolly enough, and fat enough, to replace him. Barney is happy to point out that his chubby friend is the perfect fill-in and even volunteers to be Fred’s elf helper. Santa thinks this is a great idea and uses some Christmas magic to outfit Barney with a green tunic with orange stockings and a hat. Fred, in his rather sad excuse for a Santa suit, can’t be seen in public like that so Santa uses his magic to bestow his suit on Fred instead complete with a big, white, beard. Fred is pretty smitten with his new threads, and after Santa thoroughly confuses him with instructions for piloting the sleigh, Fred vows to not let Santa down! He then immediately trips over Santa’s legs and falls flat on his face. Santa seems less than confident about what’s about to take place, but I say cut the guy some slack. This is likely his first time ever wearing boots!
There aren’t a lot of effects shots in this one, but the glittering sleigh is at least a nice touch.
Up on the roof, Fred tries to remember how to start the sleigh. Barney reminds him that he has to call out the reindeer by name and we soon find out that Fred has no idea what their names are. As he embarrasses himself, Barney is left to chuckle and then correct him. He calls out the reindeer’s names and as he does we pan to each one like the animators are showing off that they did indeed draw eight of them. The sleigh rockets into the sky and Fred congratulates himself for remembering. The animation of the flying sleigh isn’t super ambitious, but it is nice looking as there’s a lot of sparkle effects added like it’s running atop a glittering road.
This is going about as well as expected.
Fred and Barney arrive at the first house and Fred dives into the chimney with his customary “Yabba dabba do!” and has a fairly harsh landing. At least the fireplace wasn’t lit. Barney calls down to see if he’s okay and Fred sarcastically tells him he loves falling down chimneys. He then calls for the presents and Barney just dumps them down the chimney burying his friend below. Some helper. We then cut quickly to the party that Fred is supposed to show up at. Mr. Slate is wondering where Fred is while Wilma is there to assure him that Fred will be along soon. We’ll be checking in on this situation a lot tonight. Back at the house, Barney asks Fred if he’s done yet only for Fred to reply that he’s been done for awhile, he just can’t get back up the chimney. Barney suggests the front door and Fred agrees that’s a sensible solution to his problem. He quietly exits the house, but as he does he fails to notice the “Beware of Dog” sign. A little triceratops style dinosaur sneaks up on Fred and bites his foot. He howls, but the pain caused him to jump up onto the roof so I’d say mission accomplished!
Apparently, things have to get worse before they can get better.
At the next house, Fred has decided that it’s Barney who should go down the chimney instead. He has Barney standing on the chimney with a rope around his waist that Fred is holding onto at ground level. He’s wrapped it around the mailbox for added security. Barney has to ask why it’s he who is going down the chimney now and I assume he just wants to hear Fred admit that he’s too fat. With a chuckle, Barney jumps down the chimney, but he does so before Fred can yell “Go!” His descent catches Fred by surprise pulling him up onto the roof and into the chimney as well where he gets stuck with his feet sticking out. I wonder how many more fat jokes we have to endure?
It’s now time for a montage! Clearly, if we were to follow Fred and Barney to every house this thing would last way longer than 48 minutes so instead we just see them fly past obvious, global, landmarks while presents rain down from the sky. It’s set to the main theme of the special in an instrumental fashion, but soon some lyrics come in. “Sounds of Christmas Day” is performed as we see kids receive their presents which fall from the sky. They celebrate Christmas by ice skating, sledding, and doing what kids love to do most on Christmas Day – open presents!
And things were starting to turn around too.
When the song is over we check in with Fred and Barney. They’re feeling mighty good about the job they’ve done and Fred informs us they’re halfway through. Unfortunately, we have about 20 minutes left in this thing still to go so we need some conflict. Enter: The Storm! Turbulence causes things to get pretty bumpy in the sleigh. Fred tries to fly over it, but it’s no good. We see the pair bounce around and then cut to a close-up shot of the sleigh to see that there are no presents in the sleigh! This is a true Christmas emergency, but we back out for a longer shot and see the presents are returned. Phew, it was just an animation error. Wait a minute! They’re bouncing around again, and now the presents have bounced out! Oh, woe be to Christmas, presents for half of the kids in the world just fell out of the sleigh to land who knows where. This is a problem.
Falling off the roof probably wasn’t fun, but this is still a pretty sweet gig for Santa.
Barney soon takes note of a CB radio in the sleigh. He suggests they see if they can contact Santa via that device and Fred jumps onto it calling out for Santa. Barney tells him he can’t talk like that on a CB radio, you have to use CB talk! Barney takes over and calls out “Sky Sled to Big Red, do you have a copy?” which allows Fred to ask “A copy of what?” I’ve definitely never heard that one before. Eventually, Santa does answer and we see him back at Fred’s house where he just pulls the radio out of…lets not speculate. He doesn’t even let Barney explain and tells him he knows that they blew it. Fred then jumps on and tells Santa about the storm and, to Santa’s credit, he sounds concerned for their well-being upon hearing that detail. Fred tells him what happened, and Santa declares there’s only one thing they can do: head back to the work shop for more toys.
If I were William Hanna or Joseph Barbera I would have this background hanging on my wall. I’d also be dead, so maybe it’s not so bad that I’m not one of them.
This is the point of the special where things start to feel a little long. This is clearly a detour that exists to just pad this one out, but it is what it is. Santa phones ahead to alert the shop to expect the two and we soon see Fred and Barney arrive. The exterior of Santa’s place is lovingly painted with the northern lights hovering in the sky overhead. The two head inside and are greeted by Mrs. Claus (Virginia Gregg) who tells the two the work shop is already working hard to fill the order. Barney and Fred take some time to admire the toys and when Mrs. Claus remarks they have the biggest Christmas list in the world, Fred gives her a “Yeah” that sounds so unimpressed, but I think it’s unintentional.
Maybe this sequence exists because someone felt we had to see the work shop?
The two offer to assist in the work shop and Mrs. Claus, either humoring them or admitting they need all the help they can get, leads the pair in. They have to take a tram of sorts to get there and in no time at all Fred and Barney find themselves accidentally on the assembly line. Fred gets painted blue and the two get stuffed in a box by an automatic wrapper. They poke their heads out to take in the sights and see the elves hard at work. At this point, another song has kicked in and it’s called “A Brand New Kind of Christmas Song,” which sounds like the type of song one would write when padding out a Christmas special. It’s fairly unremarkable, but also not offensive or anything, and it has this horn gimmick it returns to frequently. Fred and Barney, predictably, are of no help as they act like kids might if they happened upon a magic toy shop. About the most help they provide is singing the final verse of the song.
Thank goodness these kids aren’t armed.
When the song is over the pair thank the elves and Mrs. Claus and say their goodbyes. Fred tries to recall the names of the reindeer, but can’t get past Dasher without the aid of Barney. He only calls out four names, but the reindeer get the idea and take off anyway. As the two remark what a great lady Mrs. Claus is, we cut back to the Bedrock Hall where Fred is supposed to make an appearance as Santa Claus. At this point the kids are all loudly demanding that Santa show his face and the adults don’t know what to do. Mr. Slate is more than a little irritated and threats of someone getting fired have begun. Wilma wonders where they could be and checks her watch. It’s digital, but it displays time in Roman numerals so…eh? Betty tries to reassure her that they’re probably planning a dramatic entrance, but Wilma is unconvinced and walks off wondering if Fred will lose his job. This leaves Betty to break the fourth wall by telling us that will be a great Christmas present – a pink slip. It’s a common style of delivery for jokes on The Flintstones, but it feels weird without a laugh track.
When the realization hits that you’ve ruined Christmas by saving Christmas.
We then rejoin Fred and Barney as they deliver toys. They’ve solved their chimney problem by having Fred just drop presents from the sleigh down the chimney -that’s convenient! Barney remarks this is like having a party which causes Fred to remember the actual party. He immediately gets knocked off his game since he is sure that Mr. Slate will fire him for being a no-show tonight. With no other thing they can do, they call Santa once again. This time we’re not privy to the conversation and instead we jump forward in time so Fred can tell us that Santa told them to push the super speed button in the sleigh. Now that we’ve deus ex machina’d this little problem it’s time to return to Bedrock Hall.
There’s going to be a lot of stale cookies in the morning out there.
And at the hall, the kids have not let up and Mr. Slate is implying there will be violence the next time he sees Fred. If you thought that meant he and Barney were about to show up then you’d be wrong. The special instead feels it’s important that we jump back to Fred and Barney just to see them make the last delivery. The super speed button is the biggest cheat code in any Christmas special as it allows them to zoom over a village and the presents just fall from the sky like homing missiles. They know where to go apparently, and so does Fred as he commands the reindeer to head for Bedrock!
Pebbles’ idyllic Christmas.
In Bedrock Hall, Mr. Slate is now apparently hiding from this agitated mob of children behind a curtain. He tells Wilma that if Fred doesn’t show up in one minute he need not show up at all – here or at work! Wilma looks rather concerned, understandably, but has to put on a happy face as Pebbles approaches and declares that Santa isn’t coming. Wilma tells her she needs to have hope, which is when another recycled song from A Christmas Story enters – “Hope.” It’s a melancholy little song and it’s really not bad if you’re into that sort of thing. As it’s played, we see images of Pebbles waking up on Christmas morning and heading for the tree. We see Fred and Wilma looking on and exchanging gifts as well. I like the closing line of “Hope believes in Santa Claus,” and it’s a sequence I really want to love, but at this point in the special it’s arriving when we’re firmly in “Get to the fireworks!” mode.
Welcome, Santa!
And we are finally there as we cut to Fred and Barney flying over Bedrock. They basically crash land on the roof of the hall which throws them from the sleigh and down the chimney. They land on their butts, but the kids don’t care about style points tonight as they immediately start cheering for Santa! Mr. Slate looks rather bewildered at the entrance, maybe he’s a bit shocked to see how well the ratty old suit he gave Fred earlier looks on him, and he soon approaches the pair. Betty and Wilma embrace in relief that the two arrived while Mr. Slate angrily gets in Fred’s face. “Ten seconds more and you would have been fired Flintstone!” His face then immediately switches to a smile as he adds, “But not after an entrance like that! Welcome Santa Claus, welcome to Bedrock!”
If Santa can just magic-up presents when he needs them then why did they have to go back to the work shop after losing all of the presents? Why have a work shop at all?!
Unfortunately for Fred, he doesn’t have time to bask in the praise he just received from his boss because these kids are demanding presents. Fred reaches into his sack to retrieve them, only to find it empty. It’s at this point he realizes they got rid of all the presents in the sleigh and have none left. The kids are practically frothing at the mouth as Barney encourages Fred to try and see if he has any of that Christmas magic in him. He concedes that he can try, while Mr. Slate is thoroughly confused at what they’re talking about and demands they produce presents! Fred points his mittens at the bag and it explodes with presents! They land on the floor around them and the kids stampede on over. In yet another sign that we’re stalling for time, the animation cycles twice of the kids running so we see Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, along with the other random kids, run past the camera twice despite said camera remaining in a fixed spot.
He makes it look so easy.
Fred and Barney bask in the glow of a job well done, but only for a moment as they soon realize they left Santa back at the house. They run out of there and race back to Fred’s house where the jolly old elf has apparently made a full recovery. He thanks the boys for a job well done and even offers that, should he ever find himself in another pinch, he’ll be calling. Santa then takes back his suit and he needs to get out of there because Wilma, Betty, and the kids are approaching. The women are also pretty salty at Fred and Barney for not staying to help clean up so they will have some explaining to do. Before Santa can leave though, Fred has to ask him one thing: how to get back up the chimney? Santa gives a chuckle and apologizes for not telling him how. He then demonstrates by placing a finger beside his nose, and then up the chimney he goes in a cloud of sparkles.
Time for the boys to come clean.
The gang then enters and Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are still excited from their visit from Santa Claus and his elf. Fred and Barney give a little chuckle as Wilma and Betty storm over and demand to know what happened with them tonight. There’s no sense in hiding it, so they tell the truth: Santa fell off the roof and they had to pitch in and help with the presents. Wilma and Betty laugh and when Fred suggests they don’t believe them Wilma adds “Of course I don’t!” However, they’re still pretty smitten as well following that grand entrance and just can’t stay mad at their boys.
Fred getting bailed out by Christmas Magic yet again!
It’s then proposed that they exchange presents. Betty starts off by giving Barney his and he, in turn, pulls a present out from behind his back. Just where was he hiding that thing? Wilma hands Fred his and Fred reaches into his pocket to find…a hole. It’s implied he forgot, but lucky for him a certain magic man in a red suit owes him a favor. A wrapped present comes floating out of the fireplace and lands in Wilma’s hands. She laughs and remarks what a thoughtful way to deliver her gift completely ignoring the implausible nature of it all. She then does exactly what parents tell their children not to do -she openly speculates that it’s the present she wants most as she opens it. Seriously Wilma? That’s a real dick move! Fred can only cross his fingers that Santa got her the earrings she apparently wanted, but since this is Santa we’re talking about, Fred has nothing to fear. The gaudy sabretooth earrings are indeed in the box and both Betty and Wilma admire them. We don’t get to see what anyone else got.
Safe to say that these two will never lose the Christmas Spirit.
Wilma thanks Fred, and he apparently learned something tonight to not take credit for other people’s work (like he did with Barney all night) and tells Wilma she should really be thanking Santa. The kids then start calling out that they see Santa flying in the sky from the window. Wilma and Betty have a giggle at the imaginations of children while Fred and Barney race over to the window and start waving bye themselves. The women seem stunned a moment, but then laugh again. Wilma remarks that they certainly have the Christmas Spirit and Fred and Barney confirm to her that they sure do. We cut to the sky and are treated to a moon shot as Santa flies by. It’s he who gets the customary last line as he calls out “Merry Christmas to all!” and we close on a shot of Bedrock from sky level.
They sure know how to end a Christmas special.
That is definitely a long one, but a charming one. I wasn’t shy about sharing my thoughts on when things started to feel like they were overstaying their welcome, but I enjoy the final pay-off at Bedrock Hall. Mr. Slate essentially does a Scrooge routine where he acts like he’s about to make life miserable for the protagonist, only to turn the tables on him. It’s effective and I love it here. The overall plot is also a good one. It’s easy to lose sight of that since it is so similar to “Christmas Flintstone,” but having your main characters take over for Santa on Christmas Eve is a good premise. Certainly far better than a parody, which The Flintstones will resort to in the future.
This being Hanna-Barbera, the animation isn’t anything to write home about. It’s better than a typical TV show and at least we get new character models with Fred and Barney in their Santa and elf costumes. They did do all eight reindeer, so I’ll give credit there since so many shows skimp on that detail, and the shots from the sleigh look rather nice. There’s just little to no attempt at special effect shots. Dino tackles Fred offscreen, Santa emerges from the snowbank offscreen, shortcuts like that permeate this one. There’s also a liberal use of recycled animation throughout. The train set from the beginning of the special is the same train set we see at Santa’s work shop, for example. It adds to the padded nature of this one. It definitely didn’t need to be 48 minutes, though I do think having a little extra than a typical episode of The Flintstones helps. A recut would certainly benefit the special. Or, if instead of making it shorter we just got to see more Fred and Barney delivering presents hijinks instead of the North Pole that might have been better. We basically see them deliver gifts at just two houses.
The train set so great we had to see it twice.
The music is rather pleasant throughout. “Sounds of Christmas Day” is essentially the theme of the special and it’s lovely as an instrumental. The special didn’t rely on public domain music, though it did recycle songs from that other Christmas special. It’s kind of funny that they did because those songs weren’t remarkable by any means, but again, it’s probably better than hearing “Jingle Bells” once again. The only song I could have done without is the one from the work shop, but that whole sequence could be dropped, as far as I’m concerned. And even though I said it was weird for Betty’s joke to lack a laugh track, that doesn’t mean I miss one. It’s actually really refreshing to watch The Flintstones and not have to hear one every 10 seconds.
I’m happy with where I have this ranked, but it could have been higher without this needless detour.
Is A Flintstone Christmas one of the top 25 Christmas Specials of all time? For me it is. I’m not really a fan of The Flintstones, but I did watch the show a fair amount growing up. I’ve always liked the premise more than the execution when it comes to the show. I can’t really remember any specific episodes in great detail from my youth as it was one of those shows that was just on. As such, I don’t think nostalgia is playing a huge role in my enjoyment here. I suppose it is in the sense that I did get a little excited when I would come across this special as a kid just because it was something I didn’t see a lot. As someone who watched the same specials over and over year in and year out you can probably see how anything that felt “new” to me could be appealing. And yet, aside from the over reliance on fat jokes, this one charms the hell out of me. If it was just a little tidier it would be better, but as is, I still enjoy it quite a bit and I think you will too.
If you would like to make A Flintstone Christmas part of your Christmas viewing this year, it’s both easy and a little difficult. The DVD is one of those burn-on-demand releases and can still be found for fairly cheap and it comes with A Flintstone Family Christmas, a decent 90s addition to The Flintstone world. The special is available to rent on Prime video and Vudu, but is not presently on a streaming service. It is available for free on The Internet Archive and in great quality at that. It’s also available in other corners of the internet for free, but maybe at a lesser quality and likely with a Cartoon Network or Boomerang logo in the corner.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
This year, I’m bringing back a feature from last year where I take another look at, what I consider to be, the greatest Christmas specials ever made. I explained my reasoning for doing this in prior posts, but in short, the first time I looked at some of these specials I did just a short…
Today we’re doing the second look-back to one of the best Christmas specials ever conceived, as chosen by yours truly, and it’s one of my all-time favorites: Pluto’s Christmas Tree. Despite being titled Pluto’s Christmas Tree, this Jack Hannah-directed cartoon short from 1952 is actually considered a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Mickey apparently had it written…
Did you ever wonder where those speech balloons in comic books came from? Maybe you just assumed they were always there, but they actually originate from a comic strip titled The Katzenjammer Kids. The strip was created by cartoonist Rudolph Dirks and it debuted in newspapers in December of 1897. It was incredibly popular for…
If the 70s were defined by Scooby Doo when it came to Hanna-Barbera, then the 80s belonged to The Smurfs. The little blue creations of Pierre Culliford, better known by his pen name Peyo, had an animated series that basically spanned the entirety of the 80s totaling an insane 258 episodes. And once the 80s ended, it wasn’t like The Smurfs suddenly disappeared. The show would air in syndication for much of the 90s before the franchise finally seemed ready to retire, but like all things from the 80s, it came back.
Relatively early in the show’s run was The Smurfs Christmas Special. The grammatically confusing title at least did not confuse would-be viewers: it was The Smurfs and it’s Christmas. The special aired in 1982 and would see re-runs for years to come, maybe not primetime network re-runs, but they can’t all be Charlie Brown. We actually looked at a later Smurfs Christmas special a few years ago and it was…Smurfy? The Smurfs was one of those shows I watched because it was on. I saw so many episodes of this thing, but I can’t recall any real plot details. I just remember the archetypes and some of the characters and voices, but that’s mostly it. Most of the episodes probably just involved Gargamel trying to capture the Smurfs so I can see how it would just all blend together into the brain of an adolescent. It was never my favorite show though and I don’t recall owning much merch. I think I might have had a little Papa Smurf plush and there was always a little Smurfette spoon at my grandma’s house for some reason.
It looks like a big tree, until you remind yourself the houses are mushrooms.
Let’s check this one out, shall we? I know I’ve seen this before, but like the regular series, the various Smurfs holiday specials sort of blend together in my brain so this might feel almost new to me. Since we are talking Smurfs and Christmas though, I feel like I have to mention that Smurfs creator Peyo actually died on Christmas Eve in 1992. Ok, now that we’re all sad it’s Christmas time and the Smurfs are getting ready! There’s snow on the mushroom houses, we get a little title, and the usual Smurfs theme has some bells added to it to give it a jingle quality. The Smurfs are decorating a massive tree and we get some cuts of Gargamel’s snow-covered house and a horse-drawn sleigh is seen going across the land. We’ll see this again as this is just fluff for the credits.
This one is all about Harmony and his quest to write the perfect Christmas solo. Actually, no it’s not he’s barely in it.
When we get into it, Harmony (Hamilton Camp) Smurf is practicing a trumpet solo and he’s eager to share it with the others, but no one is interested. Smurfette (Lucille Bliss) seems to react in pain when Harmony tries playing for her while Grouchy (Michael Bell) is, well, grouchy and basically tells him to piss off. A whole group of Smurfs then pass by as they’re bringing a giant pot of pudding or something to the town square. I don’t know why it needs to be prepared there, but I suppose that cauldron isn’t fitting in any of those tiny houses. None of them have any interest in what Harmony is up to while Brainy (Danny Goldman) tries to lecture him on the importance of pudding preparation. These Smurfs have some odd priorities.
Someone should probably get him out of there.
A dejected Harmony tries to find a friendly ear in Lazy who’s sleeping on the ground, in the snow. He plays his trumpet, rather poorly, and it causes some snow to fall off of a nearby house and bury every part of Lazy except his nose. He continues with his nap. Harmony then comes across Jokey (June Foray) who is loading up a sleigh with presents. If you know Jokey, then you know those presents are all explosives. He’s giddy about Christmas since he has a gift for everyone in the village. Harmony informs him that he’s written a solo for Christmas and asks Jokey if he wants to hear it? Jokey tries to refuse, but Harmony plays on. As Jokey tries to stop him the sound of the solo causes the gift in his hands to blow up leaving him all charred and blackened. Declaring it not funny, he basically tells Harmony to beat it.
Hah, looks like the joke’s on you, Jokey!
Greedy Smurf (Camp) is then shown stirring the massive cauldron of pudding. He promises it will be his best pudding yet which just prompts Brainy to start talking about how much he contributed. Greedy and the other Smurfs apparently do not like hearing Brainy take all of the credit, as he soon goes soaring through the air and lands in the snow beside Harmony, who is still working on that solo. You just know that solo is going to come back before the episode’s end and perform some Christmas miracle or something.
The Smurfs have apparently unlocked the secret of turning acorns into a light source.
We then cut to the Smurfs decorating the tree, it’s the same animation from the intro only we see a bit more. Papa Smurf (Don Messick) finally makes an appearance just to tell us that this might be their best holiday celebration yet. Aren’t we lucky to be witnessing this one?! The best one ever! You just can’t have a Christmas special in the 80s without someone speculating it will be the best one yet, which will then follow with it seeming like the worst one yet, before it then becomes the best one ever again. These things write themselves.
Unlike Harmony, these characters are actually important to the plot. Well, two of them are.
The scene shifts to the sleigh from the intro and we now get to see who is in it. It’s some old guy and two kids, one boy and one girl, and he’s giving them a lesson on Santa Claus. The old man (uncredited) is the grandfather of the two children, Gwenevere (Alexandra Stoddert) and William (David Mendenhall), and they’re heading home for Christmas. The kids are pretty excited about this Santa Claus guy, and who wouldn’t be? The scene then shifts to the home of the evil Gargamel (Paul Winchell). He hates Christmas and lets us know in no uncertain terms. He’s seated at a table with books all around him, and he slams one of them shut. Unfortunately, his cat Azrael (Messick) was taking a snooze on the table and the book slams shut on her tail. She yells and jumps into the rafters causing a bunch of books to scatter all over Gargamel. He’s pretty angry with the cat, because all villains blame their animal companions for their own mistakes, but soon he brightens up. In his lap is a book that apparently details a spell for making things miserable. He’s positively giddy now as he’s found a weapon that will ruin the Smurfs’ Christmas – muahahahahaha!
The chef isn’t even allowed to sample the pudding? Harsh.
There’s a quick cut back to the old man and his grandkids merrily sleighing through the snow, but some creepy guy and a pack of wolves are watching. It then jumps back to Smurf Village where Papa Smurf is reprimanding Greedy for tasting the pudding. He literally took a finger to this massive pot that these Smurfs have no chance of consuming in its entirety. And if they do, well then they’re probably getting diabetes for Christmas. Brainy Smurf tries to add to Papa Smurf’s scolding which causes the old Smurf to roll his eyes initially. He then interrupts Brainy repeatedly until the annoying one finally shuts up. This allows Papa Smurf to then explain to Greedy, but mostly to us, that the pudding isn’t complete until they add the last walnut. Greedy responds in question by asking if it’s the last, ripe, delicious, walnut and Papa Smurf soon realizes that Greedy ate it. A single tear falls from Greedy’s eye, so at least he seems remorseful, but his name is Greedy for a reason. He apologizes to Papa Smurf who just says it’s all right and that he’ll get another walnut from Squirrel. Yeah, seems like this is not a big deal at all. I’m glad we got to spend time here.
Gargamel! Get your ass off of the ceiling!
The old man and the kids are once again shown singing “Jingle Bells” while the stranger with evil intentions looks on. I’m guessing something is finally about to happen. And it does! A wolf attacks, though the scene is edited clumsily. We just see it charge, the horse rear up, and hear the sound of wood crunching. The scary guy watches with approval. We then jump back to see what Gargamel is doing. He’s preparing his spell that will ruin Christmas, but he’s actually a pretty terrible alchemist and the concoction he’s working on explodes leaving him clinging to a chandelier, which soon falls. He then sobs, because he can’t ruin someone else’s Christmas. Poor guy.
Well that can’t be good.
On the outskirts of Smurf Village, Papa Smurf is borrowing another nut from Squirrel who is, as you probably guessed, just some random squirrel. The nut is dropped from the tree and hits Papa Smurf in the head. Funny. We then get to see the wreckage of the sleigh from earlier. The horse is just running free while the overturned sleigh has a hand sticking out from under it which is actually rather upsetting. The children are then shown approaching what they hope is a friendly home, but it’s Gargamel’s so that’s a big “No.” Gargamel answers the door and the young girl explains the situation as “Our sleigh overturned and our grandfather won’t open his eyes.” Sure sounds like he’s dead. Gargamel asks if they have any money and when they say “No,” he slams the door in their face. I remembered Gargamel as an asshole, but I didn’t know it went this far.
Here’s some important guy.
The scene shifts to a castle and it’s here we find out these kids are sort of royalty. Some guy in charge says his niece and nephew should have arrived hours ago and regrets letting them journey to him with their grandfather. He orders some soldier guy to organize a search party right away. We then are taken to the Smurfs who are singing their annoying “La La” song as they presumably march back to the village from Squirrel’s tree. We then get some quick cuts. First it’s to see Gwenevere’s doll in the snow, which she had just been carrying to Gargamel’s, but I guess got sick of doing so. Then to both kids as they lament their current state and reinforce the notion that they just need to find someone who will help them. Then it’s back to the doll and a wolf is sniffing it. That’s probably not good for the kids.
This guys is definitely evil, but just how evil?
Back at Gargamel’s, the old fool is trying to come up with a new potion, or spell, or whatever that will ruin the Smurfs’ Christmas, but doesn’t appear to be having much luck. Then his door suddenly swings open and it’s the creepy guy in the purple cape. He’s credited as Stranger (Rene Auberjonois) and immediately informs Gargamel that he can help him with his Smurf problem. In exchange, he just wants those kids. Gargamel, surprisingly, asks why he wants those kids and the Stranger goes on to say it’s for revenge. He has a bone to pick with their uncle who apparently thwarts his evilness with good deeds or something. He can’t abduct the children himself and explains that the only way for “goodness” to come his way is through treachery. I feel like there’s a far more interesting story here than what the Smurfs do at Christmas. Is this guy Satan? And if so, what’s that make the uncle of those kids?
That’s his scheming face.
At any rate, Gargamel is game as he wants the Smurfs and this guy has some scroll that will not only lead him to their village, but also provide instructions for what to do when he gets there. I personally think knocking over their tree and stomping on their tiny homes needs no instructions, but whatever. Gargamel sets out to find the kids, but instead he runs into their uncle. He’s with two others and informs Gargamel that they’re looking for the kids. It’s through his explanation we also learn that the grandfather survived and is apparently fine. Gargamel lies and says he hasn’t seen them, but when the uncle mentions he’s offering a reward of 10 gold coins for their safe return, the old alchemist gets a little gleam in his eye. When they wander off Gargamel explains to Azrael how they can get the Smurfs and the gold. That stranger did mention treachery, so this should follow suit, no?
Puppies!
Gargamel resumes his search while we’re shown what the kids are up to. They’re huddled together by a tree and the colors in the sky would seem to indicate it’s sundown. Gwenevere assures her brother they’ll be okay, but the sound of howling wolves would suggest otherwise. The two start singing “Silent Night” together and it’s overheard by Papa Smurf and the others. Brainy goes into an explanation of what they’re hearing while everyone just ditches him. These Smurfs are smarter than I thought. We then cut back to the kids and they’re surrounded by wolves. Seemingly every time we cut away and then back, another wolf is added and no one had to animate anything, which is quite the trick. Papa Smurf then barges in and sticks his finger right in a wolf’s face. The Smurfs is a show with very little actual, physical, conflict and I’m reminded of that as Papa Smurf tells the wolves to go away and they obey. The kids mistake him for Santa Claus, I guess their grandfather never mentioned his height, and quickly explain their situation to Papa Smurf. He orders the male Smurfs with him to go check on the grandfather while Smurfette is sent back to the village to get more help. When they depart, the kids ask him if he’s Santa Claus and he kind of laughs sheepishly, but doesn’t seem eager to correct them.
Is Brainy the only Smurf that can read?
Hefty (Frank Welker), Clumsy (Bill Callaway), and Brainy come upon the wrecked sleigh, but no one is there. Brainy notes that there’s a lot of foot traffic around the wreckage, while Clumsy is the one to find a note. He asks what it says, and Brainy goes into some bogus explanation about how it doesn’t matter what it says, but what it means, which just pisses off Hefty who tells him to just read it. Brainy does as he’s told and we find out it’s a note from Uncle Edgar instructing William and Gwenevere to remain with the sleigh and he will come for them. Hefty and Clumsy then take off for Smurf Village while Brainy pontificates on this meaning of them discovering this message not intended for them until he realizes he’s been left alone. A standard “Wait for me!” is uttered and Brainy runs out of frame.
Even with help from these kids I’m still not convinced they’re putting much of a dent in that pudding.
Gargamel is shown cresting a small hill with Azrael as he outlines to the cat how he’ll find the children, get the scroll, double-cross the stranger, and get the gold. He calls it a plan crafted in Heaven! The children are then shown seated by the massive cauldron of pudding in Smurf Village. The kids are eating pudding and discussing how they can’t wait to tell their grandfather they met Santa and his helpers. Meanwhile, Greedy is just disappointed to see someone other than him eating pudding. He is swiftly reprimanded by Smurfette and the whole village has apparently gathered with gifts in hand. Papa Smurf then presents the children with a gift since they’re far from home on Christmas. To do so, he stands on the platform that Greedy had been using to tend to the pudding. It seems very formal. The children are thankful, and whatever the girl received she declares is beautiful. William got a tiny trumpet he toots on. I’m not sure what use Smurf-sized gifts will be for these kids in the long run, but I guess it’s the thought that counts.
Oh boy…a song…
The trio of Hefty, Clumsy, and Brainy then return and tell Papa Smurf about the note. The kids are delighted to hear that their grandfather is all right, but in true kid fashion, ask if they can open all of their presents first before returning to the sleigh. Papa Smurf is fine with this arrangement, while Grouchy Smurf is not. Papa Smurf then decides to conduct some music for the kids while they open their gifts. A bunch of generic looking Smurfs then sing “Goodness Makes the Badness Go Away.” It’s a terrible little song that will obviously have some importance later. More importantly, it soaks up about 30 seconds.
These kids aren’t trying hard enough – he’s an old guy in rags! He’s probably malnourished – fight back!
With the song done, the Smurfs lead the children back to the wreckage of the sleigh. They tow a small sleigh of their own loaded with gifts so this is turning out to be a nice little haul for them. Papa Smurf orders the others to build a fire since darkness is falling at this point, but soon Gargamel strikes! The Smurfs run around like useless, frightened, idiots while Gargamel just marches off with one kid under each arm. Some Smurfs apparently muster up the courage to fling some snowballs at him, but snowballs aren’t exactly effective at deterring bad guys and Smurf-sized snowballs even less so. Brainy asks Papa Smurf what they can do and he replies there’s only one thing they can do: follow them!
It’s always satisfying seeing a deal come together.
Gargamel takes the kids back to his house and they ask him what he plans on doing with them. Gargamel has no interest in revealing those plans, and soon the Stranger arrives! Gargamel turns the children over to him, as promised, while the Smurfs look on and watch the man hand over the scroll announcing it as the means to destroy Smurf Village. Gargamel is positively giddy and tells the kids the nice man probably has a Christmas present for them, even though they’re now tied up and being lead by a rope. As they leave he even calls out a “Merry Christmas!” to them before running off to Smurf Village. Vanity Smurf (Alan Oppenheimer) worries about the village, but Papa Smurf tells him they can’t afford to worry about that while the children are in danger. This is going exactly as expected.
Merry Christmas, Smurfs…
Gargamel then arrives at an empty Smurf Village all decorated for Christmas. He’s initially dismayed when no Smurfs are there for him to torment, but he cheers up knowing he has a spell to destroy them. He opens the scroll and reads it and it’s pretty awful as the spell ends with “…let no one survive this year!” All the homes basically rot and the Christmas tree drops all of its needles and the whole place is basically in ruins. Gargamel laughs and just walks away for he still has 10 pieces of gold to collect.
I must confess I did not see that coming.
Gargamel quickly finds the search party and informs them that a stranger took the kids. He comes up with a story about nearly losing his life to the man and tells them where he can be found. Edgar thanks him for the intel and as they run off Gargamel asks about his reward. Edgar tells him he’ll have it when they find the children which Gargamel starts to fret over. He is soon surprised when the Stranger appears with the children right behind him. Angry over Gargamel’s betrayal, he tells him that he’ll be coming with him as well. Gargamel tries to back away, but the Stranger uses some magic to turn the husk of a nearby tree into a pile of bad looking snakes. Gargamel basically begs for his life and the Stranger makes the snakes go away and orders him to come along.
Meanwhile, the Smurfs have been tracking the Stranger and note that the footprints have added another human. They recognize Gargamel and Azrael’s tracks among them and we get this stupid routine of a Smurf saying “Poor William,” “Poor Gwenevere,” with Papa Smurf adding “And perhaps, poor Gargamel,” so the rest can then respond in unison “Poor Gargamel?!”
Yeah, this guy is totally Satan.
The Stranger and the kids are shown and the kids are seated at the ground. They claim they can’t walk any further and the Stranger is surprisingly fine with this. Gargamel tries to slink off, but the Stranger won’t let him. He informs them that they’re all going “home” with him and when Gargamel takes off running he conjures up a ring of fire to keep them together. He then goes into some spell while Gargamel and the kids beg him to stop. The Smurfs are watching from the hillside unsure of what to do. When Smurfette asks Papa Smurf what they can do to combat this evil power, he informs them there’s a greater power: love! I can’t believe they actually went there. Or maybe I can? Anyway, remember the song from before that literally spells out “Goodness makes the badness go away,” as its lyrics? Yeah, that’s our solution. The Smurfs sing it, soon the kids start singing it, and as a final insult Gargamel is forced to sing it as well. How he knew the words is not explained.
Sing, my Smurfs! Sing like you’ve never sung before!
The Smurfs and friends (and foe) literally shout at the devil and it makes him go away. With him gone so too is the fire, and old Uncle Edgar arrives at just the right time to find the kids. Gargamel foolishly still tries to claim a reward, but the kids let their uncle know that he is not a man deserving of a reward. Edgar looks ready to pound some alchemist, but Gwenevere stops him and reminds everyone that it’s Christmas and even a scoundrel like Gargamel deserves forgiveness. Gargamel, for once, smartly takes advantage of the situation and runs off looking very much like Professor Hinkle from Frosty the Snowman as he passes over a series of hills complaining to his cat the whole way. The kids then tell their uncle all about meeting Santa Claus, who laughs it off. As the sleigh takes off, the kids wave to the Smurfs and wish them a “Merry Christmas.”
Those kids they helped get to go to a nice warm castle for Christmas.
The Smurfs then return to find their village in ruins. Papa Smurf gives them a rundown of how shitty their situation is as they all huddle in blankets under a tree and imparts the classic Christmas lesson of “We still have each other.” The rest seem to agree and even Grouchy isn’t mad about the situation. Harmony (remember him?) then asks if everyone wants to hear his solo now? They do, and wouldn’t ya know, Harmony’s solo magically restores the village! Clumsy tries asking Papa Smurf for an explanation, but even the bearded one can’t explain this. The Smurfs are then shown holding hands around the tree as the camera pans up the tree. You think it’s going to rest on the star at the top, but it keeps on going until we see a twinkling star off in space. See? Jesus did it.
Oh wait, never mind, it all worked out.
And that’s the end of The Smurfs Christmas Special. For a special that features a team-up between Gargamel and Satan forcing the Smurfs into action to save some kids, it was rather boring and by the numbers. That is quite the concept and they even managed to keep Santa out of it. Was it the real Santa that made the miracle occur at the end? I suppose your guess is as good as mine. It’s Christmas magic, which needs no explanation. The Smurfs basically do Smurf stuff and help some kids, while Gargamel gets nothing in the end. He gets to have a momentary victory, which might have landed differently for regular viewers, but there was no way the Smurfs would end up having a bad Christmas.
Things start off swell, then some stuff happens, Christmas is ruined, and then it’s not. Pretty standard stuff, well, except for the presence of the devil.
I suppose this one could have been interesting if the solution to everything wasn’t just “Christmas magic.” To combat the devil, Papa Smurf just knows you have to sing at him. Wonderful. It’s just too simple and convenient, but the production values for this thing look no better than a standard episode so I guess it didn’t have the budget for a big action set piece. No, I wouldn’t expect the Smurfs to take on Lucifer, but the other humans could have battled by proxy, I suppose. And hey, maybe they whip up some cool traps or something? Anything would have been better than this. Even the grandfather being left for dead is just brushed aside with a “He’s fine.” The plot does not earn any of the resolutions presented.
All right, you’ve had your fun, now get out of here you little, blue, freaks!
Did that matter to kids in 1982? I honestly cannot say. I always found this one to be rather boring even as a child. It was nominated for an Emmy, but lost to Ziggy. What little memory I have of future Christmas specials from The Smurfs are that they’re better than this, but I need to revisit more of them to be certain. Good thing I’m always in need of Christmas specials! If you want to watch this against my recommendation it’s on YouTube as part of the official Smurfs channel. It is a pan and scan thing though so it looks pretty awful. If you dig deeper, you can find one in its native resolution that is slightly more enjoyable. Or you can purchase it on DVD, but I don’t have any of the DVDs so I can’t say how it’s presented there.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
Yesterday, I sung the praises of American Dad! for its ability to give me fresh, Christmas, content seemingly on an annual basis. I should also apply the same to Robot Chicken, for even though it goes about making people laugh in a completely different manner from a more traditional animated show, it does have a…
Come the late 90s I was definitely losing track of what was airing on Fox Kids. X-Men came to an end, as did Spider-Man and The Tick. They were replaced with Silver Surfer and a new Spider-Man cartoon that was pretty awful. There was also that live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show called The Next…
The 1980s sometimes feel like they belonged to the Ghostbusters. That’s because, for me, the Ghostbusters were always around. The film came out when I was but a wee baby, but by the time I had a real interest in television The Real Ghostbusters (not to be confused with the Filmation series) was airing…
After doing write-ups for the two cartoons inspired by Jim Carrey films from 1994, you must have figured I’d do the third today! Just as Carrey stormed the cinematic gates with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber in ’94, the television world followed suit in ’95 with an animated series based on each of those three films. While the first two were made for CBS to air on Saturday morning, Dumb and Dumber went a different route. Still proving that anything relating to Carrey was worth investing in, Dumb and Dumber found itself on another broadcast network, in this case ABC. Thematically and visually, it didn’t really fit-in with the whole One Saturday Morning vibe the network was rolling with, so it’s probably no surprise to find out it wound up on Cartoon Network.
And that’s where the show probably belonged as this is a Hanna-Barbera produced toon. In the mid-90s, ABC was under the Disney banner so it was odd to have a non-Disney developed cartoon on ABC, where as Cartoon Network was owned by Turner which owned Hanna-Barbera. This ended up being the final Hanna-Barbera cartoon produced to air on a broadcast network for a Saturday morning block, an interesting little factoid since Hanna-Barbera was once the king of Saturday morning cartoons.
Because this series went a different direction, it has no affiliation with the other two cartoons we looked at so if you were hoping Harry and Lloyd would meet Ace, I regret to inform you it never happened. Dumb and Dumber probably wouldn’t have survived long enough to pull off that trick any way, since only 13 episodes were produced. Once ABC had seen enough, Cartoon Network was willing to take the re-runs, but not commission more episodes, so it’s safe to say this one was a flop.
The cartoon basically picks-up where the movie left off. Harry (Bill Fagerbakke) and Lloyd (Matt Frewer) are back home after their adventures in Aspen along with their dog-shaped van. Joining them is a new pet, a beaver they think is a cat, and each episode is split into two segments where Harry and Lloyd wind-up in some odd misadventure owing to the fact that they’re a pair of men with very limited intelligence and observational skills. As a mid-90s Hanna-Barbera production, it has a familiar art style to those who were watching the various cartoons premiering under the What a Cartoon banner. The character designs here remind me a lot of Dexter’s Laboratory, only with a touch more ugliness. Even though Harry and Lloyd had pretty similar builds in the film, for the cartoon it was decided to make Lloyd tall and lanky and Harry short and stocky. They’re both rather ugly, with Harry a walking mess and Lloyd a collection of sharp angles and teeth. While one can certainly argue this wasn’t a show that should look like The Mask or Recess, it’s still understandable to not be particularly taken with the visuals here.
The eighth episode of the series is the one to feature a Christmas plot. The first segment is dedicated to the holiday via “Santa Klutz.” The episode begins with Harry and Lloyd out and about with Kitty in their van. They’re both confused to see Kitty cutting down a Christmas tree and slapping it on top of their van, even though they refer to it as a “Christmas tree” and not as an evergreen or pine tree. Harry panics and wonders if Christmas is in December again, and quickly confirms that they’re only three days away from Christmas! Both men need to get a present for the other, but both are also faced with the problem of not having any money to get that present. Neither wants to admit this fact to the other, so Lloyd casually suggests they head to The Big City and look for a part-time job just because.
Lloyd likes to dream big.
The two arrive at Big Department Store and head in seeking employment. Along the way, Lloyd fantasizes about buying Harry a space shuttle for Christmas, proving he has no idea how much a part-time job around the holidays pays, or that he has no concept of how much a space shuttle would cost, or maybe both? Lloyd ends up with a 2 dollar-an-hour job handing out perfume samples, while Harry stumbles upon the store’s Santa who is fed up with the job. He hands over his costume to Harry and he immediately gets sent into the fray.
I hope he gets paid per kid.
Harry is seated in front of an impossibly long line of customers barely looking the part. The costume comes without a beard, it would seem, and Harry has trouble remembering the line “Ho Ho Ho.” His first child turns out to be homicidal, while the second is a degenerate gambler. Meanwhile, Lloyd finds out women don’t like being sprayed with perfume at random. The men don’t either, and when Lloyd angers a large male customer the two grapple over a perfume bottle until the top pops off. It is apparently now a grenade, and as it bounces away Lloyd does the noble thing of falling on top of it. Though since it’s perfume, it explodes rather tamely leaving Lloyd with a pleasant taste in his mouth.
Pictured: not a nice old lady.
As kids cry on Harry’s lap or sneeze on him, Lloyd attempts to sell some perfume to an old woman (Ed Asner per the credits, though it sounds nothing like him). She immediately takes offense to anything he says, even though it’s all innocent. When she informs the manager (Harvey Korman) that Lloyd accused her of smelling of cheap perfume, he asks if she’d like the man fired and she does. Lloyd them imagines a Christmas in which his space shuttle gift is repossessed by an army general (Ed Asner) leaving him despondent.
Lloyd’s Didi cosplay is on point.
Lloyd takes a walk over to the Santa area and spies Harry seated on the throne. Upon seeing his friend dressed as Santa, he comes to the totally reasonable conclusion that Harry IS Santa! And he has been this whole time! He then tries to go have a chat, but finds out from security that Santa is reserved for children. After a couple of failed attempts to sneak up, Lloyd dawns a disguise. I already said this show visually reminded me of Dexter’s Laboratory, but seeing Lloyd in his costume really drives that home as he’s basically in the same outfit as Dexter’s sister, Didi.
Upon reaching Harry Claus, Lloyd tells him he wants Santa to bring him a bunch of money so he can buy his best friend Harry a gift. Harry sees through the disguise which leads to a confrontation as Lloyd is angry with Harry for holding out on him. The two get into a fight and the store manager shows up. He reminds Lloyd that he already banned him, and fires Harry for good measure. Despondent outside the store, the two men hang their heads in shame. Only Lloyd hasn’t given-up on Harry as Santa, so Harry does the only reasonable thing he can to convince Lloyd he’s not who he thinks he is – they take a ride to the North Pole.
I think this is where they live.
The two arrive at Santa’s Work Shop on Christmas Eve. The only problem is Santa isn’t there since it’s, duh, Christmas Eve! They have that confirmed to them by an elf (Scott Menville), and Lloyd sees this as proof that he’s right. The two then head back to wherever they’re from to have a little camp out. Harry is hopeful they’ll be able to catch the real deal in action. Sure enough, he does indeed show up, but Lloyd still isn’t convinced. In fact, he had the foresight to assume Harry would try something like this so he called ahead for Officer Doohickey (Harvey Korman) who shows up and arrests Santa on the spot.
How to get on the naughty list.
Santa (Asner) is pretty surprised that anyone would mistake Harry for him, so Lloyd asks him to prove he’s really Santa. He uses some magic to get out of the police cuffs, which magically appear on Doohickey who remarks “This happens more often than you think.” Still not convinced, Santa whips out his portable PC to check his naughty list. He looks up Doohickey and finds him on the naughty list for lying to his wife about his doughnut habit. Doohickey declares he’s the real deal and scrams leaving Santa alone with the morons. He then asks the two what they want for Christmas and both gleefully whisper into one of his ears.
The next day, Kitty is opening his present from his car seat while Lloyd tells Harry he asked Santa for a gift for Harry. Harry confesses he did the same for Lloyd and the two trade identical boxes. Inside are identical gifts: best friend in the world trophies! Kitty also got a log with a plaque that reads “Best Kitty in the World.” Lloyd then declares there can be only one best friend in the world, and it’s Harry, as he tries to hand over his trophy. Harry does the same, and we zoom out on the two arguing over who is the better friend.
Everything worked out in the end, and all it took was a little divine intervention.
“Santa Klutz” is short and sweet. While I think very little of the art style, I can’t say I hate this. Maybe it was the fact that it’s only around 10 minutes, but I think I’d rather watch that again than either of the specials from the past two days. The humor is not as slapstick as I expected as it’s mostly derived from the two not correctly reading a situation or just getting into arguments stemming from the fact that they’re both stupid. Lloyd mistaking Harry as the real Santa is a bit clever as most shows aiming for such an error would have Lloyd tricked by the costume. Instead, he just thinks his best friend has been lying to him this whole time. It goes for a happy ending when I actually expected it to be a bit darker. If this were a true Farrelly brothers production, Santa probably gets victimized in some way instead of just mildly inconvenienced.
Even though I didn’t hate this, it’s not at all surprising to see a show about two grown men of limited intelligence failed as a cartoon. It’s basically 2 Stupid Dogs, but with humans instead, and how is that any more fun? I don’t think anyone walked out of a viewing of Dumb and Dumber wanting an animated series, but that didn’t stop folks from trying! If you want to check this out, it’s mostly been discarded by Hanna-Barbera. You won’t find it on Boomerang and it also isn’t on HBO Max with some of the other Cartoon Network shows. Instead, you can purchase it through Amazon and Apple if you want to stream it. Warner Bros. did make it available in a manufacture-on-demand release back in 2015 on DVD. Because of that format, it’s never really come down in price, though there also isn’t enough demand to cause it to go up. Even so, I doubt very much anyone would stumble upon this and decide they needed to spend 25 bucks on this cartoon, but in the event one person did, at least you have that option.
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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“The Town Santa Forgot” originally aired on December 3, 1993 on NBC, I just liked this Cartoon Network ad more.
Come the 1990s, the cartoon juggernaut known as Hanna-Barbera was fading. It’s said the company once had control of approximately 80% of the children’s programming on television and even come 1990 it was still around 20%. The studio’s last big hit had been The Smurfs which set all kinds of Saturday morning records despite few animation buffs finding cause to celebrate. There were several spin-offs and specials, some stuck and some which did not, but the name was still fairly prominent on both broadcast and cable.
In 1991, Turner Broadcasting acquired Hanna-Barbera marking a major turning point for the studio. Less legacy properties would be developed as David Kirschner took over. This was the era that brought in more action cartoons like The Pirates of Dark Water and eventually SWAT Kats. Turner would launch Cartoon Network which in its early days was basically a dumping ground for Hanna-Barbera content, both old and new. A swath of new creative directors would be hired like Pat Ventura, Genndy Tartakovsky, and even Seth MacFarlane. Those individuals, along with several others, were the creative minds around the What a Cartoon! series of shorts that would come to define Cartoon Network in the late 90s and beyond.
The original broadcast had its own bumpers, an old staple I wish would return.
Even though Turner was working on creating a cartoon channel to rival Nickelodeon, Hanna-Barbera still had its hands in broadcast animation. We talked about one of the 90s broadcast Christmas specials last year with A Flintstone Family Christmas, and in 1993 Hanna-Barbera produced The Town Santa Forgot. The animated special starred Dick Van Dyke and aired in prime time on NBC that year. Following 93, it would become a holiday staple on Cartoon Network for a few years before being retired to Boomerang with pretty much all of the other Hanna-Barbera properties.
The Town Santa Forgot is based on a poem called Jeremy Creek written by Charmaine Severson. Severson wrote several rhyming poems that were carried by numerous print outlets in the 70s and 80s. Jeremy Creek appears to have first seen publication in 1985 and it tells the tale of a greedy little kid who accidentally brings happiness to a neglected town at Christmas. It was a major hit for Severson and she would follow it up with an annual Christmas rhyme each year into the 90s, though none have risen to the level of popularity enjoyed by Jeremy Creek.
The special was produced by Hanna-Barbera with animation by Wang Film Productions. Wang Film had done work for Hanna-Barbera in the past, most notably with The Jetsons Movie, but it wasn’t handed many Hanna-Barbera originals. As a result, The Town Santa Forgot doesn’t really look like a Hanna-Barbera production. I’d argue it looks better than a lot of the content the company was responsible for at that time. The character designs have a vague hint of Rankin/Bass too, which could be just me or it could be intentional since that company is basically synonymous with Christmas specials. While Hanna-Barbera doesn’t have the greatest reputation, at least this special is an original story with a unique look so I’m already more excited for it than I was with A Christmas Story from a few days ago.
This old grandpa is our story-teller who has to teach his spoiled little grandkids a lesson.
The special begins with a grandfather and his two grandchildren. Dick Van Dyke provides the voice of the grandfather who will serve as narrator. The kids aren’t named, but one is a boy (Troy Davidson) and one a girl (Ashley Johnson). It’s the grandfather who is giving me the Rankin/Bass vibes as he looks like he could fit in with one of the animated Frosty the Snowman specials. The kids are a bit more generic with black, soulless, eyes.
The kids are both talking about all of the stuff they want for Christmas, which prompts Grandpa to sit ’em down and tell them a story about the greediest kid who ever lived: Jeremy Creek.
This is Jeremy. Don’t be fooled by that smile, he’s a little asshole.
Jeremy Creek (Miko Hughes) is a little red-headed child with enough toys for over 400 boys. He has toys of all variety, and he doesn’t like to share. Worse, he always wants more. He can’t possibly have enough toys and when he sees something he wants, he lets his parents know. And if his parents say “No,” then he screams and wails until they give-in. We see Jeremy spy a cowboy doll outside a store and go purple with rage until his parents buy it for him. When he’s home later that night watching television, he sees a commercial for a better version of the same doll and goes into a rage. For once, his parents put their foot down, but that just incites the neighbors who complain about the noise. Eventually, dad (Philip Proctor) lays down the law and tells Jeremy he wants to hear nothing further from the boy and he retreats to his room.
This is a pretty great shot.
Once in his room, we get to see Jeremy survey his toys while perched like a vulture on his bedpost. He then starts playing with all that he has as the narrator goes into detail on the sheer volume of what’s in there. There’s army men, baseballs, vampire costumes, and more. He even has toys for boys much older than he, like remote-controlled airplanes, which he uses to harass the neighborhood. While it’s clear to see this kid is spoiled rotten, it’s at least admirable to see him actually playing with and enjoying the toys as opposed to acting like a dragon and simply hoarding them, which is what my kids seem to do.
They didn’t have any computer paper back then. Hell, they don’t have it now!
Eventually, Jeremy gets the idea that if his parents won’t buy him what he wants then he’ll have to turn to Santa. The problem is it’s currently June, but that doesn’t stop Jeremy from drafting a list. He has to tape sheets of paper together to accommodate his vast array of wants and the list stretches for miles. After he has listed every possible toy under the sun, he signs the list with a simple Jeremy Creek – no thanks or nothing. He bundles it up like a roll of wall insulation and drops it onto a mailman’s back to send it to Santa way up at the North Pole.
A conventional, yet unique, depiction of Santa.
Santa Claus (Hal Smith) is then shown flying his sleigh (with 8 reindeer!) up north and comes to land in the garage of his workshop. This Santa has a plump appearance, basically being shaped like a bell, and he enters his workshop where some elves are hard at work. They’re small and a bit conventional looking with pointed ears and hats. Santa is excited to show them that the first Christmas letters have started to come in, and one of them is particularly massive. The list dominates the room and Santa and his elves can scarcely believe someone wrote this thing. When Santa sees the name at the bottom, Jeremy Creek, it never crosses his mind this could be the list of one person and assumes it refers to an actual place.
The elves of this special also manage to look conventional, yet different, much like Santa.
Santa and his elves get out the map and look all over for a place called Jeremy Creek. Sure enough, they find one only to discover it’s not on their usual route. It’s a town with approximately 4,000 kids which matches up with the number of gifts requested and Santa assumes this is a letter from the town alerting him to their plight. Santa, realizing he’s passed this town over for years, decides he needs to make up for it by fulfilling this request.
Young Jeremy has some evil intentions this evening.
Back at his own home, we see Jeremy counting down the days until Christmas while Santa and the elves get busy at the North Pole. The elves sing a simple little song accompanied by a montage of Jeremy pulling down calendar pages. Eventually, the day arrives and Jeremy is eager to receive all of the gifts on his monstrous list. He climbs out onto his roof armed with a net and some binoculars. It seems as the months have gone by, Jeremy has decided he doesn’t just want what was on his list, but everything Santa has in his sleigh! Santa soon appears and Jeremy watches as Santa goes from house to house slipping inside through various ways. His body is like gelatin as he slides down chimneys and exhaust pipes, beating The Santa Clause to that idea, before climbing back into his sleigh and taking off. Oddly, the narration refers to his sleigh as a “green, glowing, sleigh” but it’s colored red. There’s a slight hue with a greenish tint to it, but it reads like the sleigh itself should have been green. Santa completely bypasses Jeremy’s house which confuses and enrages the young boy. He returns to his bedroom and assaults his pillow before despair starts to sink in.
Suck it, Jeremy!
The next morning, Jeremy arises to see all of the neighborhood kids playing happily with their new toys. He allows himself to be hopeful for a moment and reasons that maybe Santa entered through the window or something and he missed it. He races downstairs and, sure enough, the underside of the tree is just floor. His mom (Melinda Peterson) enters the room and remarks “That’s too bad,” when she sees the empty tree. She then explains that Santa must have noticed that Jeremy couldn’t possibly have more room for toys and passed him over.
Elsewhere in the world, some deserving kids are having a good Christmas for the very first time.
Jeremy storms off to the livingroom where his dad is watching television in his new Christmas socks. The program is detailing the story of an impoverished swamp town that woke up to a wonderful surprise. A pile of toys was left in the center of town for the girls and boys after years of receiving nothing at all. It’s soon revealed this was the work of Santa Claus and the town is none other than Jeremy Creek. Jeremy’s parents are shocked to see a town with the same name as their son, who soon puts two and two together and realizes his massive list of presents was given to the kids of Jeremy Creek.
Jeremy isn’t having any of this.
Jeremy is initially angry that his presents went to these kids. Then the news woman reads a letter from Santa which states someone brought this town to his attention, but chose to remain anonymous. Jeremy finally starts to feel something as his mom explains that people who do a kindness like that don’t need the adulation that comes with it. Jeremy is moved to tears, but he doesn’t want his parents to see, so he races back into the den and retreats to the underside of the Christmas tree.
If he can fit down a chimney, he can fit in a tree.
There Jeremy smiles as he looks up at the brightly decorated tree. He’s finally happy, but much to his surprise he spies a small Santa inside the tree. Only it isn’t an ornament, but Santa himself! Santa explains he figured out what happened, and that the kids of Jeremy Creek want the person who wrote them the letter to be properly thanked. Santa makes a sack appear and asks Jeremy what he would like for Christmas. Jeremy tells Santa that he wouldn’t know what to ask for and that he’s finally figured out that giving is better than receiving. Santa is overjoyed to hear this and tells Jeremy that from now on he will be his gift-giving assistant.
An older, wiser, Jeremy bids Santa farewell.
Jeremy, feeling inspired, changes from then on. He gives away all of the toys he couldn’t possibly find time for which is a callback to some of the scenes we saw earlier of him being mean to other kids in the neighborhood. And come Christmas every year, Jeremy helps Santa deliver presents. He climbs out onto his roof on Christmas Eve with a pair of binoculars and waits for Santa. When Santa arrives, he hops in his sleigh and helps deliver all of the toys. As the years go by we see Jeremy get older until eventually he’s too tall to fit in the sleigh. Santa sadly informs him that his time as his assistant must now come to an end. Jeremy is visibly sad, but he gives Santa a warm hug and hands over his binoculars for Santa to give to the next lucky boy or girl.
And now the kids get to have their own change of heart.
Back in the present, the story is done and the little boy and girl are feeling less selfish. They remark they don’t care what Santa brings them, even if he brings nothing at all! They both also aspire to be the next boy or girl that Santa makes his assistant. The grandfather says it could be either one, or both, and he also breaks the fourth wall to tell the viewer it could be them too. The special ends with an external shot of the house with the mailbox covered in snow. The snow soon slides off revealing the name J. Creek.
That sneaky, son-of-a…
The Town Santa Forgot is a charming little Christmas special. It has a conventional message in that giving is better than receiving, but it’s a message that surprisingly isn’t often relied upon to anchor a Christmas special. Young Jeremy is easy to dislike, as who hasn’t encountered a spoiled little brat in their life and actually enjoyed that kid? The poem origin of the special is retained, though maybe not word for word, as Dick Van Dyke narrates it. He is well cast in this role as he’s not asked to do any embellishment and to just use his natural speaking voice.
I’m a bit embarrassed to say I didn’t see the twist ending coming. Not that I was surprised by it, I just gave it no thought. It wasn’t until then it became obvious that the story the grandfather was telling took place before the present. The toys are a bit older and the television in Jeremy’s house is in black and white. It’s a fun little reveal though to find out Jeremy had been telling us his story the whole time. It’s also a fun twist on the Santa myth for him to select a selfless girl or boy to help him each year. I suppose it’s not a popular addition though since kids would certainly become suspicious when they couldn’t find a single person who received that honor. In that though it makes the act of selflessness become something that is perhaps unattainable, but still worth aspiring to.
This one has a lot less music when compared with other Hanna-Barbera Christmas specials. That’s not a complaint.
As I mentioned in the lead-in, the look of this cartoon is actually quite nice. Early 90s Hanna-Barbera productions should probably get more love than they do as I remember enjoying the look of several of the cartoons from that era. The animation is smooth and distinct and the character designs have some personality, which is harder than you think when it comes to Christmas. There aren’t any animation gaffes I noticed, nor is a bunch of animation recycled as often would happen with older Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The music is pleasant, and there’s only one song of sorts when the elves are shown getting the gifts ready for Christmas. I went into this one with the aim of just finishing off the big Hanna-Barbera Christmas specials, but I may have stumbled upon the best one from the venerable production company.
It’s small and through binoculars, but we do get a “Santa passing in front of the moon” shot.
The Town Santa Forgot is no longer shown on broadcast or cable television, which is too bad because it’s a lot better than some of the specials that still show up on broadcast networks today. My understanding is it’s available on Boomerang, but I’m not a Boomerang subscriber so I can’t confirm that. It is available on DVD for a very reasonable price. It’s included on the same release that features A Christmas Story and Casper’s First Christmas. If you’re like me and you still cling to physical media and like to stockpile Christmas specials, it’s a DVD worth owning for The Town Santa Forgot alone. Consider the other two as bonus features.
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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For today’s Christmas post, we’re going to take a look at A Christmas Story. No, not that Christmas Story, the first one. Way before Ralphie started obsessing over a BB gun, the duo of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera brought us a story about a mouse and a dog trying to get a last-minute letter to Santa Claus. Not familiar with this one? That’s not surprising as it didn’t have much staying power. Sure, it was still shown on television from time to time as late as the 1990s, but it feels like even Hanna-Barbera wrote this one off as a bunch of the original music created for it would be repurposed just fives years later for the more popular Christmas special A Flintstone Christmas.
Hanna-Barbera produced numerous Christmas specials over the years. The company is often a punching bag in the animation community because of the low quality that became representative of television animation, which is unfortunate as the duo from which the company gets its name were hugely important contributors to animation in general. It just so happens their greatest contribution to the world of animation occurred before the founding of their company when the team created Tom and Jerry. For television, yeah, it’s true the output wasn’t great. Some stuff is better than others, but little is truly celebrated.
The most memorable aspect of this special is going to be the original music written for it. It was apparently so good, most of the songs would be reused in more popular Christmas specials to come.
I do give the company credit though for being big on Christmas. I need a lot of material to do this year in and year out and I can usually count on Hanna-Barbera to fill a day or two each year. A Christmas Story might be our deepest pull yet though when it comes to the company. It was directed by the duo of Hanna and Barbera and was written by the pair Ken Spears and Joe Ruby, who would follow in their boss’ footsteps and found their own studio, Ruby-Spears, in 1977. They were big contributors at Hanna-Barbera for creating Scooby Doo and their company would handle the likes of Thundarr the Barbarian as well as Alvin and the Chipmunks. The company was eventually acquired by Hanna-Barbera through its parent company, Taft Entertainment, and was part of the sale to Turner Broadcasting in 1991 so both Ruby and Spears weren’t really away from Hanna-Barbera for very long.
This special is so basic it even features a “little Timmy.”
A Christmas Story is about as simple as its title implies. We’re going to be introduced to little Timmy (Walter Tetley) and his family at the start. It’s an idyllic Christmas setting as mom (Janet Waldo) decorates the tree while dad (Don Messick) sits on his ass reading a newspaper. It’s hard to say what time period this story is set in, possibly the 30s or maybe even 40s, but certainly not present day for 1972. Timmy needs to get to bed, but he reminds his father that he owes him a Christmas story so he breaks out A Visit from St. Nicholas and even refers to it by the correct title, though he does botch the end by saying “Merry Christmas,” as opposed to “Happy Christmas.”
Your stars for this one: Goober and Gumdrop. They won’t be memorable.
Once Timmy is in bed, we’re properly introduced to the real stars of the short, a basset hound named Goober (Paul Winchell basically doing his Tigger voice) and a mouse named Gumdrop (Daws Butler, basically doing his Elroy Jetson voice, which he used on many characters). Goober and Gumdrop obey the standard animation rule that animals can converse with one another, but not humans. Goober helps Gumdrop hang his stocking beside the stockings for the rest of the family before retiring for the evening. As he heads to his mouse hole, he notices something under a table: Timmy’s letter to Santa. Gumdrop panics and informs Goober it’s up to them to save Christmas for Timmy by making sure Santa gets his letter.
Oh no! Someone forgot to mail Timmy’s letter to Santa!
How do a mouse and dog get a letter to Santa on Christmas Eve? Well, they simply head outside and start looking. At first, Goober (who is sporting a cute, little, green, hat) has some trouble with a slippery walk and does the Charlie Brown-sliding-into-a-tree gag complete with snow falling from the tree to cover him. It’s not particularly well animated, which is true for the special as a whole. Get ready to see a lot of repeating images as Goober and Gumdrop journey through the night.
Dumb mouse looking for Santa in a mailbox.
As the search for Santa begins, the first of three musical montages begin. The song for this one, “Where Do You Look for Santa?” is unique in that it won’t be repurposed down the road for a new Hanna-Barbera Christmas special. The song is utilitarian in nature, and strongly resembles a song we’ll hear later. As it plays, Goober and Gumdrop look all over town, ride a sleigh, and try to be cute as animation is recycled quite liberally throughout.
If you want to put a mouse in peril, simply add cats.
As the two search for Santa, Gumdrop runs afoul of a gang of cats. They’re apparently lead by a cat named Sleezer (Winchell) who is accompanied by the likes of Polecat (John Stephenson) and Fatcat (Hal Smith), among others. Cats obviously don’t take too kindly to mice out on their own and they give him some trouble. It’s basically the show’s only section of comedic violence as Gumdrop avoids catastrophe while the cats do not. The only worthwhile gag is Fatcat deploying a claw like a switchblade before getting it caught in a fence panel.
Clumsy, but effective.
Eventually, Gumdrop wisens up and simply hollars for Goober to come save him (I’m not really sure what he was doing this whole time). Goober, being a dog, basically just has to run into the alley where this is all going down to scare the cats away. He’s a bit of an oaf though as he falls over and takes on the form of a snowball and crashes into some garbage cans, along with the cat gang which soon scatters. As Gumdrop asks him if he’s all right, he replies he’s fine save for the bells ringing in his ears. Gumdrop can hear the bells too, and the two turn their gaze towards the heavens where Santa (Hal Smith again who was apparently charged with only voicing fat characters) can be seen flying overhead with a mere six reindeer. He even starts to call them out by name, but stops after listing only four so as to avoid shouting the names of two reindeer clearly not present.
Pictured: Santa. Not pictured: Donner and Blitzen.
Gumdrop and Goober then basically chase after Santa hoping to catch him as he enters a house. There, they hope to simply give him Timmy’s letter. How he will provide toys without the aid of his workshop is not something this special appears concerned with. As the two run from house to house they have little luck, as they keep missing him.
Well, there’s something you don’t see every day.
Gumdrop decides they’re going about this all wrong and need to think like Santa, whatever that means. They decide to go to a house with a bunch of kids and settle on the home of the Andersons. When they arrive, they see Santa has yet to visit and there’s a ladder conveniently left out in the snow. Gumdrop and Goober head up to the roof, with Goober demonstrating a fear of heights. When he goes to hand Gumdrop Timmy’s letter, it gets blown away. As Goober reaches for it, the ladder splits forcing him to use the remaining pieces like stilts as he chases after the letter eventually securing it in his jaws, before falling into the snow.
This guy has a shitty job.
It’s there a postman, who for some reason is out delivering mail on Christmas Eve, finds Goober. Not seeing this as a solution to their problem (who better to deliver Santa a letter than a mail carrier), the postman actually becomes a hindrance when he assumes Goober got locked out of his house. He puts the dog in his old timey mail truck and locks the doors before heading off to deliver more mail.
That mail man’s job just got a whole lot worse.
Gumdrop sees Goober’s plight and hops onto the truck. He instructs Goober how to open the door, but the dog accidentally knocks the car into gear and they start rolling along. Gumdrop tries to direct the dog, but in a surprising bit of realism Goober has no idea which way is left or right. The two eventually crash into a tree which frees Goober from the truck and the two have improbably escaped the crash injury-free.
The concussion dreams of a dog high on Christmas.
It’s at this point Goober starts to have doubts, but Gumdrop reminds him to have hope, which ushers in a musical number of the same name. If you’ve seen A Flintstone Christmas, then you’ve heard this song as it’s the same one used after Wilma tells Pebbles to do the same. It’s actually a sweet little number capped off with the line “Hope believes in Santa Claus.” I don’t know who sings it though as it’s absent from the credits. Hoyt Curtin handled the musical direction of the program and presumably wrote the song. Susie McCune and Judi Richards are both credited as part of the voice cast without a corresponding character so I’m left to assume one of them sang on this one.
This special is starting to feel like one, long, musical montage.
The montage, which features a goofy visual of Gumdrop riding atop Goober as he flies through the air via flapping his ears, ends with Goober now feeling full of hope. Unfortunately though, their little ride in the car took them away from Santa so now they need to find him. Gumdrop urges Goober to use the animal relay, which is basically the same as The Twilight Bark from One-Hundred and One Dalmatians. Goober barks out that they’re looking for Santa, and some other dogs (two males sharing a dog house, animation’s first gay canines?) pick up on it and spring into action. Surprisingly, this sequence isn’t utilized to bring in some more famous Hanna-Barbera canines for a cameo, but we do see a dog bossing the gang of cats from earlier around.
Surely, this will work!
This then ushers in another familiar musical montage, “Which One is the Real Santa Claus?” The sequence will be remade for A Flintstone Christmas as Gumdrop and Goober look for the real Santa amongst a sea of fake ones. It’s a cute song, but at this point feels like padding (which it is). It also doesn’t help that it sounds an awful lot like “Where Do You Look for Santa?” They eventually spot the real Santa as he’s heading into another house. Gumdrop then folds Timmy’s letter into a paper airplane and fires away. As the two prematurely celebrate, the paper airplane misses the mark and comes to rest in the cold snow. Santa is leaving, our heroes have failed, and Timmy is surely doomed.
Never trust a dog and mouse to save Christmas.
Gumdrop and Goober mope their way back home upset they couldn’t get the letter to Santa. As they head inside, Gumdrop reasons that maybe there’s still a chance and they can give Santa the letter when he visits their house. Goober though immediately falls asleep despite Gumdrop’s urging against doing such a thing, and he too falls asleep. As they sleep together by the fire, a hand reaches down to snatch Timmy’s letter!
Great, so you mean this whole time they’ve been trying to make sure Timmy gets his stupid, racist, presents?
The next morning, the two are woken up by the cries of Timmy. They are not sad cries though, for Timmy finds the underside of the family tree full of toys and presents. The little racist even got the Native American headdress he wanted! Goober and Gumdrop are shocked to see that Timmy got what he wanted, and Gumdrop then notices Timmy’s letter on the floor. It’s been opened, and the only explanation is that Santa did come and found the letter. They then take note of their own stockings, which Gumdrop’s has grown in size considerably, which are overflowing with goodies.
Well, at least he didn’t go straight for the headdress.
Timmy takes time out from his revelry to ask his parents if they got what they asked for. Timmy’s mom then informs him they asked for peace on Earth (so they get extra presents). Timmy then runs to the window and tells his parents that’s what Santa wants too! As the family looks out the window, Santa has written “Peace on Earth” in pixie dust or whatever in the sky. His “ho ho ho” signals that this is the end for A Christmas Story.
I guess they’re cool with sharing their house with a mouse?
A Christmas Story is a pretty safe, conventional, little tale. The animal protagonists give it a cutesy quality as the two just want to make a little boy’s Christmas wish come true. There are no real stakes though, had they failed Timmy just doesn’t get any presents. He’s not ill or anything, just a kid who wants some toys. Goober and Gumdrop are just good-hearted characters with no real personality to speak of. Goober, I suppose, is a bit clumsy, but that’s basically it as far as character traits go. The cat gang was also full of very generic characters all basically characterized by their appearance. There must have been some desire by the studio to keep its usual cast away from this one, but it’s fair to wonder if it would have been better suited to just use Augie Doggy or make it a Mr. Jinks cartoon with the mouse duo of Pixie and Dixie.
This one actually doesn’t feature the image of Santa passing in front of a full moon, despite being a super basic Christmas special.
Easily the best part of this special is the music. “Sounds of Christmas Day” opens the cartoon and it’s a nice little tune. It’s perfectly cast as a song created for a Christmas special; it’s nice to hear in the short, but probably not a song one would request on the radio. I do think “Hope” is a bit better, though it’s definitely more melancholly. It’s sweet though, and the other songs are fine as well. I think a special should be commended for not simply relying on public domain songs. There is a bit of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” but it’s being sung by carolers so that makes perfect sense given the use. Considering these original songs are the most memorable aspect of the short, it’s no surprise it fell into obscurity since they were all recycled for A Flintstone Christmas. If you’re a network executive choosing between two Hanna-Barbera Christmas specials to air, you’re going to side with The Flintstones nine times out ten given the choice. And that special, despite featuring an unnecessary amount of padding as well, is superior to this one and one I unironically enjoy.
Considering it’s hard to find even The Flintstones in this day and age on television, the chances of any network airing A Christmas Story in 2020 are nil. The special was released on VHS in 1989 and reissued in the 90s after the Turner acquisition. It’s currently available as part of the Warner Home Video burn-on-demand service under the title Hanna-Barbera Christmas Classics. Buying it there also gets you the specials The Town Santa Forgot and Casper’s First Christmas. And since seemingly no one gives a shit about it, it’s also pretty easy to find streaming online for free. Watch it if you’re sick of A Flintstone Christmas or just plain never liked that one, but enjoyed the songs.
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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