Today should be a day of 90s cartoons because we’re taking it all the way to 64 – Nintendo 64! The Christmas gods do not agree for not only does today not include any 90s properties, but it doesn’t even include a Nintendo one. It does include a video game turned cartoon and there are some 90’s adjacent stuff, but that’s as far as it goes. It’s also a bit of a mix in terms of demographic. There’s stuff here that’s definitely intended for kids and some stuff that most certainly is not. In fact, I would say this may be the darkest installment yet of the countdown and the lead-off special is doing quite a bit of the heavy lifting there as it just may be the darkest Christmas special I’ve ever taken in.
Moral Orel is a stop-motion animated show that aired on Adult Swim about a good-natured boy named Orel and his quest to live life in God’s image. It’s very much a subversive take on Davey and Goliath, just minus the talking dog. Orel, being a young kid, is completely oblivious to his surroundings in which all of the adults in his life are selfish and miserable and there basically isn’t one genuine person in his life. His father is an abusive alcoholic, his mother a bitter adulterer, and even his priest is a sexual deviant. “The Best Christmas Ever” was actually the show’s premiere, though it was never intended to be. If you caught it in the proper order, the episodes started off as a Davey and Goliath parody with Orel misunderstanding some church teaching and doing the wrong thing leading to a trip to his dad’s study to get taught a lesson. Physically. By the time the show reached this season finale, it just got depressing as his dad slipped further into the bottle and was forced to confront the fact that one of his children isn’t even his. And since Orel overhears the discussion between his parents, he gets the idea that his little brother was conceived immaculately and is actually the second coming of Jesus. In reality, the kid is terrible and his own parents regret not getting an abortion. It all ends with Orel and his brother smashing a nativity scene, because he thinks his Christ-brother is bringing about the Apocalypse, only for his mom to tell him that: He’s right that his dad isn’t his brother’s father, and they’re getting a divorce. Orel tracks his dad down at the local bar where his track coach is hitting on him and Orel comes to the conclusion that this is not the best Christmas ever. He notes there’s still two minutes left though and he has faith in the Lord to turn things around! And that’s how the episode ends which just feels even more bleak. This is definitely a very cynical look at the idyllic Protestant family and not the sort of special that’s for everyone. There’s a bit of an “edgelord” vibe to the humor, but the audacity of it all worked on me and it’s one of those specials I return to just to see if it’s as dark as I remember. And, yeah, it pretty much is. The only thing missing is a suicide joke.
This episode of American Dad! pairs rather well with Moral Orel as it’s another cynical take on Christmas with some sacrilegious displays of violence. It’s also far more lighter in tone due to the more slapstick nature of the show when compared with Moral Orel. In this one, Stan gets passed over as Jesus for his church’s play only for Roger to get the part. When Stan loses it and beats up Roger on camera over the alien’s disrespect towards his religion, he finds himself excommunicated from his church. Lucky for him though, his daughter and her husband just so happened to adopt the antichrist and if Stan can just kill his toddler grandson it will get him back into God’s good graces! It’s quite the farcical Christmas plot with numerous funny moments and some pretty strong animation from the show. It doesn’t advance the overarching Christmas plot the show has with the Smith family and Santa Claus, but it’s fun.
Smiling Friends is a much celebrated animated show in the circles I frequent mostly for its brand of humor and rough animation. It’s the latest in what appears to be cheaply produced animation for Adult Swim that turns into a hit. I confess it’s not as big of a hit with me as it is others. I don’t think it’s bad, but the show is just so damn ugly. I feel like I’ve hit my limit with ugly adult animation – why can’t we get stuff that looks nice? This is another Christmas episode from Adult Swim that’s not exactly packed with feels. Charlie dies while out looking for a Christmas tree with his friends and co-workers only to wander through Hell and find himself face-to-face with Satan. If he helps the guy out, he can go back, and since he’s one of the main characters I don’t think it’s a spoiler to acknowledge that the title of this one is a bald-faced lie. The humor is mostly dark, and even though I called this show ugly, there are some spots in Hell that are pretty inventive and surprised me. As I think about it, I probably should have switched this with Moral Orel, but it hardly matters when we’re talking two positions on a 200 episode countdown. This one fits in with a lot of the other subversive Adult Swim Christmas specials so if that’s something you like then you can easily make yourself a solid marathon of content.
Second Christmas looks pretty sweet, but of course Robin hates it. He’s no fun.
Here’s one that’s a bit more lighthearted. Our second installment of Teen Titans Go! just confronts what we all hate about the holiday – it’s end. To stave off those post Christmas blues, the Titans invent Second Christmas complete with its own Second Santa and customs. It’s basically just good-natured fun, though at the expense of Starfire who is ignorant of Christmas, and no one really learns a lesson or anything. Instead, they all fall victim to a horrible accident when Starfire is denied a Second Christmas miracle and they get to spend much of the following year in a coma which is actually a happy ending because they get to basically skip right to Christmas again! Take that, Arbor Day!
Spectacular Spider-Man was a short-lived animated series that really did an excellent job of condensing a lot of Spider-Man material into something new and fun. Unfortunately, the Marvel acquisition by Disney seemed to kill it as the House of Mouse wasn’t interested in boosting characters it didn’t have film rights to or that were animated on deals outside of their usual reach. Disney would make its own Spider-Man shows and none of them could hold a candle to Spectacular Spider-Man. In this one, Peter tries his luck at courting not one, not two, but three different women and kind of strikes out with all three (Pete, it’s never a good idea to let a woman feel like she’s not your first choice, pal). It ends up being the least of his worries as he’s soon set upon by the show’s version of the Sinister Six. It’s a lot for Peter to deal with, but he’s Spider-Man so you know he’ll figure it out. It’s basically an episode full of action and holiday puns from our hero and it’s pretty entertaining, just not really a self-contained Christmas special. You definitely won’t get as much out of it if you haven’t watched the episodes leading up to it, but even if you haven’t, it’s still the best Christmas episode any Spider-Man show has had up until now.
Chuckie and his dad do not see eye to eye when it comes to Christmas trees.
This Rugrats spin-off arrived when I stopped caring about the franchise. I wish it had come earlier as I think I would have enjoyed it in those early teen years where I was still kind of watching Nickelodeon, but not sure if I should still be. The show surprised me in the little bit of time I spent on it as it took Rugrats, a show about babies going on wacky adventures, and made it a teen drama. I wasn’t sure that could work, but what do you know? It kind of does. And the result isn’t a show as reliant on Tommy. He almost feels like an afterthought, but this is a Chuckie centric episode as he mistakenly steals a Christmas tree and feels horrible about it. There are some inconsequential B-plots as well, but the meat and potatoes is Chuckie trying to do the right thing and finding it difficult. It mostly works out in the end and Chuckie gets to learn a lesson about the importance of family or something and it will leave you feeling pretty good about things. It’s sweet and I was charmed by the conflict between Chuckie and his dad. I considered ranking this one ahead of the Rugrats Christmas episode, but nostalgia kind of won out there.
We already looked at the Christmas episode from the better, more popular X-Men animated series. Now, we’re looking at the better Christmas episode. That other X-Men special is a “so bad it’s good” kind of special while this one is mostly just plain good. It’s a more grounded episode even though it’s all about a guy with actual wings and dudes with laser eyes and such. It’s more teen drama with the orphaned Cyclops and Rogue being left behind by their peers at the X-Mansion for Christmas. While that does kind of suck, it forces them to bond a bit which is good for Rogue who has a crush on Summers that’s unlikely to go anywhere since he’s all about Jean. Since Wolverine was too old in this show to shoehorn into that love triangle I guess Rogue is a decent consolation. The two end up in the city investigating tales of an actual Angel, which is of course just another mutant. It turns into something of an arm’s race as Magneto wants to recruit him, but so do the X-Men, and the two battle over the reluctant mutant until finally he’s allowed to have a say of his own. It’s just a good-natured Christmas special with some nice action tossed in. It’s not as reliant as Spectacular Spider-Man on the audience being up to date on what is happening in the show and basically all you need to know is contained in this one. It also mostly avoids the slapstick elements of the show and plays it straight. There’s a nice little montage at the end showing how the others spend Christmas and there’s that nice touch of melancholy present in so many Christmas episodes and it’s just the right amount. If you thought the older X-Men Christmas episode was just too silly, this one will likely please you more.
It just wouldn’t be Xmas without a brutal rampage!
Enough of that sentimental bull crap, let’s cause some mayhem! Futurama is unique in that it turned Santa into a villain. Well, it was unique until American Dad! and Teen Titans Go! came along, but their murderous robot Santa is still his own brand. In the follow-up to the first Xmas special, the Planet Express crew is tasked with finally putting an end to Santa’s murderous rampage and they’re actually successful! A problem arises when they take it one step further and have Bender serve as a new Santa, one that will actually deliver presents to all the good girls and boys. After generations of growing up with an evil Santa, the people of Earth aren’t so willing to accept this reformed Santa and Bender is put through the ringer. He’s eventually jailed and sentenced to death for being Santa and the only way to save him is to free the real Robot Santa whom the crew trapped in the ice of Neptune. Do you believe in Xmas miracles? Well your faith is rewarded! Robot Santa is freed and saves Bender and the two are able to inflict carnage and mayhem on the world just as Jesus intended. Merry Xmas everyone!
Who could forget such classic characters as these?
If you’re a show that likes to do an annual Christmas episode and you’re on for many seasons, chances are you’ll eventually wind up doing a musical. I wouldn’t call this episode of American Dad! a full blown musical, but it has multiple musical numbers most of which are pretty damn fun (Haley’s is not though, that one sucks). In this episode, we get to further the plot of Santa and the Smiths by having Stan accidentally free the demon of Christmas, Krampus, whom his father had trapped in a copper pot many years ago. Krampus immediately kidnaps Stan’s bratty son, Steve, and demands he send his father to save him. Stan’s dad is a jerk though and ditches him so Stan has to seek the aid of Santa himself. The two form an unlikely alliance and go after Steve who is basically in a parody of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast where he gradually warms up to Krampus and becomes a better kid. There’s a wild battle to end things and a new part of the lore is established in the process. It’s a rewarding episode in that respect for longtime viewers of American Dad!, but for anyone else it’s just an absurd Christmas story that will probably elicit some laughter.
Is it possible for the Devil himself to get on Santa’s Nice List?
This second Christmas episode of The Cuphead Show! dares to ask the question “What does Satan want for Christmas?” Turns out it’s a choo choo as this show’s version of the Devil tries to get onto Santa’s Nice List in order to get what he wants, but the only way for him to do so is to make a deal with the big man and take his place! The Devil as Santa? That’s a worthwhile spin on what is essentially a take on The Santa Clause and the end result is pretty funny. It barely features the titular character of Cuphead, but that’s okay because the Devil is a great character on his own. It’s also really well animated and just looks fantastic for a modern piece of animation. It’s also much longer than a typical episode of The Cuphead Show!, but it doesn’t feel bloated. I was really entertained by it and it’s snuck onto my annual viewing list as a result.
If you can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
If you watched a lot of cartoons in the 80s and 90s then you probably remember Nelvana. Their cartoons, like many others, would end with their own production logo which was a polar bear, I think. It was all one color and white and since Nelvana is Canadian it would certainly make a lot of…
This year, I’ve taken some time out to watch Christmas episodes of shows I’m pretty unfamiliar with. This is yet another one of those posts, only with this show I did make an attempt to get into it. A mild one. We Bare Bears is a show created by Daniel Chong that aired on Cartoon…
Hugh Harman was one of the early stars in the field of animation. In fact, we talked about one of his shorts already this year, but perhaps his most famous and most celebrated is the 1939 anti-war film Peace on Earth. According to Harman, the short subject was nominated for The Nobel Peace Prize, but…
Today’s review has been a long time coming. It was on December 26th, 2024 that I received in the mail a NECA Ultimate Santa Jack action figure based on The Nightmare Before Christmas. Christmas had come and gone so it didn’t make much sense to post a review, so I waited. Nearly a year, in fact, but I’m finally going to take a look at this figure. When NECA returned to The Nightmare Before Christmas in 2024 it went the predictable route by doing two Jack figures and pairing him with Sally. They also did the Mayor, so I guess that part wasn’t typical, and based on how many of those figures I see hanging around store shelves I would assume most were content to just get Jack and Sally. For toy companies, doing two versions of Jack makes a lot of sense. He spends considerable time in the movie with both looks, but also they can conceivably use a lot of the same tools to create both figures. Only, NECA actually opted not to do that from what I can tell.
Santa Jack is actually a little bigger than standard Jack.
The sculpt for this one is credited to the trio of Kyle Windrix, Marty Henley, and Andrew Lawson which is the same trio that brought us the standard Jack. This one comes in the same style of packaging that’s just credited to Chris Longo. Usually NECA credits the artist who made the actual drawings that factor into the packaging, but since one isn’t present that either means Longo did it all or Disney supplied the artwork and declined to include the artist’s name. Regardless, it fits thematically with the other figures we already looked at and will make for a fine coffin for the figure eleven months out of the year.
The prior Jack came with a bunch of expressions while with this one we have to settle for three.
Santa Jack stands approximately 8 3/8″ to the top of his head which is actually a little taller than the standard Jack. Why is this? I’m not sure, but it would appear that most of this figure is new tooling. I was expecting a new upper torso that conforms to the Santa suit and maybe new forearms and shins, but I also thought NECA might add the trimmings of the suit in another fashion. The texture of the red, which is a nice, vibrant, shade, is a little bumpy and almost chalky. I wasn’t sure if this was achieved via paint or by sculpt, but considering the different size I’d guess it’s just all new. The only parts this figure appears to share with the regular Jack are the hands as even the included expressions are different. This one necessitates holes in the sides of each portrait for the beard as well as a port for the hat, but I thought they might be able to reuse the prior heads and just insert something into the mold to create the needed ports. What we end up with though is a very nice presentation of the character from the film in his Santa guise. The paint is clean and the red has a nice matte appearance while the black boots are appropriately shiny. The skull head is a touch off-white and has that cold appearance it has in the film. There are no soft goods present and I suppose some might have preferred actual faux fur trim or a soft goods beard, but I’m content with the all plastic approach.
As long as you can’t see the hole in the top of his head, hat-less displays are possible.
Perhaps because of all that new tooling we don’t get quite as much in the box this time around. That Ultimate Jack is perhaps the figure I own that best lives up to the billing as he came with a ton of different expressions. This Jack comes with just three: smile, wink, and a surprised look. The smile and surprised look are both slightly different from the same expressions found with the standard Jack. You can use the heads from that release with this one, but you won’t be able to make use of the hat or beard as both peg into the heads. The beard is on a double ball peg while the beard has a peg on each side. It’s a little bendy and forgiving, but also mushy. I could not get it into the alternate heads without first dunking them in a cup of hot water. Santa Jack also has an array of hands including sets of relaxed, clutching, pointing, and flat hands which are all repeated from the previous release. To complete the look, he has a plastic sack and three different, wrapped, presents to go along with a candy cane and his clipboard with a picture of himself in this Santa suit. The accessories are all quite fine and will help to build out a little scene on your shelf. He also has the same stand that came with the other figures and you will need it. In fact, I recommend borrowing a second one from another release if you have one. I put regular Jack and Sally away so I had another to make use of and it helps to keep him upright.
All of Jack’s accessories will contribute to your holiday display.
The articulation for Santa Jack is exactly the same as it was for the standard Jack (linked at the end of this post). The only difference is we now have the hat and beard. The beard, since it just pegs into each side of the face, can swivel forward and back which helps a little with adjustment posing. The hat is a double ball peg so it can rotate, but also slide around a bit to be posed at slightly different angles. It’s a nice touch and obviously the only downside here is it means the hat isn’t usable with the standard Jack heads. I do wish NECA had found a solution there. A magnet makes the most sense, but maybe they couldn’t get one into the heads without putting an ugly seam on the top. It also wouldn’t solve the beard issue. If the beard could have just pressure fit to the heads somehow that would have been great, but probably tough to get right. Even something like sunglasses on a figure or the faceguard on the movie Shredder still has tabs to click onto and there’s just no way to do such here without making them visible. Or we could have just got more heads like we did with the regular Jack. I’d have loved more expressions, but it wasn’t in the cards here.
Sally may have been returned to her box, but not Zero. He gets to stay.
Santa Jack is perhaps a little less “ultimate” compared with the standard Jack Skellington, but it’s still a nice figure. The likeness is terrific and the articulation is just enough to make him rather expressive, provided you can keep him standing. That’s my one lingering critique of this line as the disc stand we get just isn’t quite enough in this case. It’s a nice holiday decoration though and if you like the film and this version of Jack it’s an easy recommend. To my surprise, I have not seen a single copy of this figure at stores this year. I’m guessing NECA has been shipping them, but apparently not in tremendous numbers. He can be found online though with hopefully enough time to arrive before Christmas.
If you like The Nightmare Before Christmas or just Christmas toys in general then take a look at these other reviews:
When Tim Burton created The Nightmare Before Christmas while working for Disney I don’t think the powers that be had any idea what kind of a gift he had just given them. Obviously they didn’t since they didn’t even believe enough in the film to release it as a Disney film instead opting to put…
If you buy a Jack Skellington action figure, then you almost have to get him a Sally. That’s exactly what I did, though it proved mildly difficult to track down. I have seen NECA’s Ultimate Jack Skellington around throughout the year as I head into stores that carry NECA products, but Sally had proved elusive.…
There are a number of Christmas specials out there that are basically known by all and I’ve written about most of them here. Some have been annual traditions especially when we had more of a monoculture in the US, but the slow death of cable television has made those annual traditions fade away. One holiday…
One Christmas special I seem to break with my peers on quite a bit is the Rankin/Bass television special The Year Without a Santa Claus. The special was originally aired on ABC in 1974 and is sort of a sequel to Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. It’s one of the later arriving Christmas specials from the company and I’m guessing there was a feeling of diminishing returns at this point. As best as I can recall, The Year Without a Santa Claus never had a sustained run on broadcast television in the years to follow unlike its predecessor as well as other Rankin/Bass specials like Rudolph and Frosty. This one wasn’t on my radar as a kid and I’m not sure when I first saw it. I’m not even sure I ever sat through an entire viewing until now.
During the 90s, Christmas made the leap to cable. The Family Channel, which is now known as Freeform, was one of the networks that started making a habit of turning over much of its broadcast schedule to Christmas specials come December and The Year Without a Santa Claus was featured rather prominently. Is that the source of its enduring popularity? It could be, or like a lot of things with Christmas specials, it just happened to find its audience at the right place and right time. So many Christmas specials largely came and went and even though you may have folks who grew up during the same era, their idea of the best Christmas specials might differ quite a bit depending on what they were exposed to.
It’s not 1:1, but there’s some cohesion here with past Rankin/Bass specials.
I am not a huge fan of the Rankin/Bass stuff. I know, doing a Christmas blog and saying that sounds almost incompatible, but it’s really just nostalgia goggles that helps me even appreciate the few I do like. I tried to watch this one in the past mostly because people my age would cite it as one of their favorites, but it never took. In an effort to meet them halfway, I have decided that in order to feel like my Christmas rankings are complete I better give it another go. And I’ll say upfront, it’s not as bad as I remember. It’s still not all that good which is why we’re talking about it at this point in the countdown, but it at least has something to say even if I think it kind of chickens out in the end.
Mrs. Claus gets to assume more of a starring role this time, but maybe not as much as I would have gone with.
The Year Without a Santa Claus is a stop-motion holiday special and it follows with a similar story structure to other past Rankin/Bass specials. In the role of narrator, we have Mrs. Claus who is voiced by Shirley Booth. The stage queen would retire from acting after this role at the age of 74. That’s an old age to retire, but don’t feel too bad for her as she would live another 18 years. Unlike Sam Snowman and Special Delivery, Mrs. Claus is actually a key character for the plot as opposed to a passive observer or story-teller. She is reflecting on a Christmas from long ago, but it hardly matters for the story. And it’s another one that takes place at an almost impossible to nail down moment in time. It’s just sort of vaguely 1900s America.
Almost the exact same picture from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.
The special begins with Mrs. Claus setting the scene. She’s up at the North Pole doing North Pole stuff, but who is not is Santa Claus (Mickey Rooney). He’s not feeling so hot as we find him climbing into bed. It’s a single bed, and it appears to be the only one in the room so I guess Santa and the Mrs. keep things very old-fashioned. The castle and setting are not exact copies of the North Pole from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, but it is similar and I appreciate that attention to detail. Mrs. Claus goes back and forth between talking and narrating, sometimes even adding a “Said Santa Claus,” after he talks about his achy back and such. It’s annoying and unnecessary. Before Mrs. Claus gets Santa into bed, he walks about to a painting of himself driving the sleigh. It appears to be the same such painting from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. Once again, I appreciate the attention to detail.
This doctor needs a new profession.
Santa gets in bed as Mrs. Claus welcomes a doctor in. The elf doctor (Bob McFadden) is a pretty grumpy sort. He also doesn’t look much like an elf. The doctor is not surprised he’s not feeling well and suggests he never got over that case of pneumonia he picked up riding in the sleigh. I was expecting some made-up, funny, ailment, not a real world one. This doctor is a real kill joy as he tells Santa no one cares about Christmas and no one cares about Santa. Geez. He best hope this doesn’t drive the old man to suicide. When the doctor leaves, Mrs. Claus discovers that Santa has taken his words to heart. Declaring no one cares and that he’s due for a holiday, Santa instructs his elves to inform the masses: Santa is taking the year off.
This elf is seeing pink elephants they’re so distraught!
Time for Mrs. Claus to sing the title song as the opening credits play. It’s not a terrible jingle, but there’s a reason why it hasn’t become a radio classic in the ensuing years. During the song we get some lines from Santa himself explaining his weariness and sightings from towns of people taking down Christmas. How depressing. When it concludes, we get a little more Santa informing the men that there will be no Christmas gallivanting this year. He instructs the stables to close down and the toy shop shuttered. During her explanation, Mrs. Claus refers to the workers as elves and gnomes which I find interesting. None really look much like elves. Sure, they dress in silly clothes with bells and such, but where’s the pointed ears? Where’s the continuity? You had two specials already that heavily featured elves and these guys don’t resemble them at all. At least the reindeer are more or less consistent with Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.
Jingle (right), Jangle (right), and Vixen (sleeping, though you probably could have guessed that).
Mrs. Claus is going to take it upon herself to get Santa back into the Christmas spirit. And to do so, she’s going to call Santa’s number one elf, Jingle Bells (McFadden). He answers the phone as the number one elf and I don’t know if that’s confirmed elsewhere. He could just be really full of himself. With him is, get this, Jangle Bells (Bradley Bolke) who has a really of the era design to him with shaggy, blond, hair. I was expecting him to introduce himself as the number two elf, but he does not. Jingle doesn’t seem to think highly of him and boots him off the phone. He then just says “Yes, Mrs. Claus,” a whole bunch and we’re not privy to the other side of the conversation. When he hangs up the phone, Jangle asks “Who was that?” and Jingle responds in an exasperated manner, but maybe Jangle was just being polite and not listening in on the conversation?
Oh my!
We cut back to Mrs. Claus as the elves assumedly head her way. She’s admiring her reflection in a mirror while wearing Santa’s hat and remarking that she could pull off the look. This launches us into another original song, “I Could be Santa Claus.” It’s a song about how she thinks she could pull off the gig and she’s pretty convincing. Why not? This could almost be a female empowerment type of song if the special decided to run with it, but no. Jingle and Jangle arrive at the end and are surprised to find Mrs. Claus in Santa’s suit. It’s not played off salaciously or as if this is some major faux pas, which could have worked comedically. Instead it’s just general surprise, and then they move on. Apparently, just their look of surprise is enough to convince Mrs. Claus that she can’t be Santa and she takes the outfit off and declares they need to move onto Plan B. I guess her heart just wasn’t in it? Plan B is for the elves, and a diminutive little Vixen, to head south and find some Christmas spirit. Mrs. Claus is convinced that’s all it will take for Santa to feel motivated to resume his usual Christmas activities.
Santa isn’t even going to give his elves a chance to fail.
When the two leave, there’s a familiar music sting that’s pulled right from Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. It sounds like it’s done on a xylophone. You’ll know it when you hear it, it’s apparently the reindeer take-off sting. Mrs. Claus heads back inside to do some ironing while Santa asks what’s going on. Apparently everyone hears that xylophone when reindeer fly? She tries to be evasive, but rather poorly. Santa gives her a chance to tell him if she thinks he’s making the wrong decision, but she declines to challenge her husband. He can tell she’s up to something and she comes clean about the mission Jingle and Jangle are on with Vixen, though she doesn’t tell the boss she put them up to it. Santa is concerned for their safety, especially Vixen since she’s just a baby (they really should have taken a bigger reindeer, or why not two?). I get the impression he doesn’t care what happens to the dumb elves. He also references the Miser Brothers and his doubt that the two can get past them. Santa has no other choice but to get out of bed, put on his Sunday best, and set off on Dasher to go after them.
The real stars of this special, or so I’ve been told.
We then find the trio as they have to pass between the two warring step brothers: Heat Miser (George S. Irving) and Snow Miser (Dick Shawn). These guys, as best as I can tell, are a big part of why this special is beloved by some. Heat Miser is a round and brightly colored fellow with red-orange hair that resembles a flame. He’s like the Burgermeister, but colorful. Snow Miser looks like Dick Van Dyke with hair made of ice. The snow effect is just okay and looks more like aloe vera gel to me. They’re basically sitting on clouds and fighting over where it should be hot and where it should be cold in the world. The elves know they should avoid them, but are pretty damn terrible at piloting reindeer (Mrs. Claus, who has continued to narrate this adventure, puts the blame on the baby reindeer and I am not having any of that). They fly right in between the two and a burst of light from Heat Miser knocks them from their reindeer. So much for Plan B.
For some reason, everyone who isn’t a main character in this one is a total dick.
The special decides to just “yada yada” the whole falling from the reindeer thing as we next find the two back on Vixen flying through the sky. Seriously, do elves bounce or something? We were denied an incredible midair rescue by Vixen. The pair fly over a town and decide it’s as good as any to find some Christmas cheer. Southtown, USA is the chosen destination, but the elves are not accustomed to traveling these parts. They land in the street and are surprised to see them empty. A cop (Bolke) comes up on a bicycle and do you think he’s going to be helpful? No, of course not, he gives them a ticket for riding a “Vixen” the wrong way on a one way street. The stupid elves think the problem is people being unaccustomed to reindeer, so they put socks on her ears to try and pass her off as a dog. Sure. They then find a woman and approach her about Christmas. She’s horrified by their “dog,” which they have dubbed Rover, but the mere mention of a dog proves disastrous. The woman was holding her hands in one of those warmers that have a hole on each side, only it’s not one of those warmers. It was actually a cat this whole time who freaks out when Jangle tells Vixen to bark like a dog, which she does. The cat turns the tables though and chases Vixen, who is apparently afraid of cats as she bolts forcing the elves and woman to chase after her.
Up in a tree is a good place to be when you’re scared of the world.
We next find Santa who has also made his way to Southtown, USA. How did he know the elves would end up here? I guess we’ll just attribute it to Christmas magic. Or reindeer somehow leave their scent floating in the sky when they fly. Santa is talking to the same cop who gave the elves a ticket and he confirms he saw the pair earlier and seems delighted at the idea of a judge throwing the book at them. This guy sucks. Thankfully, Dasher was smart enough to hide in the bushes and doesn’t come out until the cop leaves. Santa expresses worry to the reindeer about the pair and assumes they must be scared to death. We then cut quickly to the trio high in a tree and Jangle remarks he’s scared to death. That Santa sure is perceptive, isn’t he? Jangle is ready to bail while Jingle is happy to blame everything on his elf partner. Jangle at least has the bright idea that if they want to find Christmas spirit they should look to the children. Jingle thinks that’s a great idea and they remove themselves from the tree.
Hello children, we would like to talk to you about Christmas.
The pair are shown approaching a school and they’ve removed their jackets because it’s quite hot. Vixen also isn’t doing too well. She’s not accustomed to heat so the two decide to just leave her in a shady spot in the town where cops hope you get incarcerated for riding an animal the wrong way on a one way street. This will go well, I’m sure. The elves then approach the kids who are just playing with balls. They recognize the two as Christmas elves right away and then also share they know that Santa is taking a holiday – it was in all the papers! Things get confusing when the kids then express no interest in Santa and remark how they’re too old to believe in him. But, he was just reported on in the paper? I am so confused. Do they think papers only print lies? This is the opposite of Yes, Virginia. The elves are soon equally confused when the kid points out that they have bigger problems. Naturally, it’s the dog catcher and he’s got Vixen. The elves can’t continue their conversation on the subject of Christmas as they now need to chase after the truck that’s making off their dog, I mean, reindeer.
Santa and the Thistlewhites.
The kid heads home and our narrator informs us he’s somehow pretty important. Outside his home, he runs into Santa Claus. That’s when he introduces himself as Ignatius “Iggy” Thistlewhite (Colin Duffy) and asks Santa for his name. He was apparently not prepared for someone to ask him his name. He’s also not great when put on the spot since the only thing he can come up with is Claus. Why not just go with Chris? Iggy shares that he saw a couple guys dressed like Christmas elves and Santa can only respond with a sneeze. This gets the attention of Iggy’s mom (Rhoda Mann) who insists on inviting him in to give him something for that cold. He accepts and inside we meet Mr. Thistlewhite (Ron Marshall) as well and everyone sits around the table and Santa asks more about what happened earlier. This ends up leading into a conversation about believing in Santa. When Iggy asks his dad if he believes, he responds in the affirmative. He then turns to Santa who also confirms he believes.
Iggy’s dad as a kid. This is a strange family.
Time for another song. This one is called “I Believe in Santa Claus” and it’s pretty self-explanatory. Santa kicks it off and then Iggy’s dad picks it up from there. It’s a bit odd as he starts singing about a time when he thought he grew out of believing and the camera zooms in on a picture of Mr. Thistlewhite as a kid with his parents. He looks like Iggy, but what’s really weird is his mom looks almost exactly like the current Mrs. Thistlewhite. Did this guy marry a woman because she reminds him of his mother? His first name must be Oedipus. We’re treated to a flashback, and this special does something I hate. The dad stopped believing in Santa until something happened. What do you think that was? Why, it was Santa himself! He woke the little bastard up to basically admonish him for not believing anymore. Now, imagine you’re a kid who is starting to doubt all of the Santa stuff and you’re watching this. Wouldn’t it just make you wonder why he doesn’t reveal himself to you like he did here? We’re creating some unreal expectations here, folks. More specials need to deprive the main characters of actually seeing Santa.
Aww, poor little reindeer.
Poor Mrs. Thistlewhite doesn’t get to sing her own section and the song ends with Iggy seemingly feeling bad for not believing. Well, that’s all it took to right this ship. With Iggy’s belief in Santa restored, the real thing can now ask some more about his friends. Apparently, Iggy had yet to get to the part about the dog catcher which immediately worries Santa. He’s also smart enough to figure out that the dog in question must be Vixen and we cut to poor, sick, Vixen in the pound looking mighty miserable. The attendant at least knows something isn’t right as we see him holding a thermometer and he looks a little concerned. The camera zooms in on Vixen, who sheds a few tears. Aww!
See what I mean? Guy married his mother.
Santa gets directions to the pound and heads off. He’s in such a rush that he summons Dasher and the two take off right in front of the Thistlewhites. They’re surprised, but not too surprised, and that clever Iggy figures out that Mr. Claus is really Santa Claus! He remarks to his dad that he wishes he could do something to help Santa and his elves and his dad tells him when he has a problem he should take it straight to the top like a true Karen. That means going to the mayor to inquire about getting the reindeer released. Mrs. Claus interrupts to inform us that Jingle and Jangle were told to do the same by the man at the pound and we’re soon introduced to the mayor of Southtown. This laughing, giggling, asshole of a mayor (Marshall) of course doesn’t believe their story. That’s not what makes him an asshole, it’s his reaction to the whole thing. Iggy is there to share what he saw, but the mayor is not buying it, but he’s willing to make a deal. He’ll believe their story if Santa makes it snow in Southtown. And not only that, he’ll free the reindeer from the pound and spread the word about Santa and all that. Jangle accepts, much to the chagrin of Jingle, and the trio take their leave.
Did the jerk-ass mayor really need his own song?
Song time! The mayor is apparently something of a believer since he runs out into the streets to sing his own song, “It’s Gonna Snow Right Here in Dixie.” Dixie, eh? As he prances about and sings his little song I’m now noticing that the population here is very white. There is not a single individual of color to be found anywhere in this town. A big part of the song is about how excited he is that it will be “all white overnight,” which is just moving us into uncomfortable territory. Let’s move on. The song sucks anyway.
It’s the Mrs. Claus-mobile.
Santa is able to get Vixen released. He apparently travels with cash. The little reindeer is so sick that Santa can’t waste any time looking for Jingle and Jangle and heads back to the North Pole with Vixen across his lap. This leaves Jingle and Jangle, along with Iggy, to sit and ponder how to free their reindeer and make it snow, even though part of that issue has been resolved with them not knowing. Now it’s Jingle’s turn to have a supposed great idea, which is just to call Mrs. Claus. I guess they dialed collect, but it works and that night Mrs. Claus arrives with a reindeer pulling a different sleigh than Santa’s typical one. The trio are waiting for her on a rooftop and she seems pretty happy to see them. She also has a plan – they’re going to go see Snow Miser! Iggy is apparently coming too.
I have questions.
Time for the part that everyone seems to love best. We’re a half hour into this 50 minute special and we’re just now finally getting to the Snow Miser song. It has a thumping beat and this obnoxious horn section to announce the arrival of the character. He comes dancing in looking like a snow-themed Dapper Dan and he has a bunch of tiny versions of himself dancing around as well. How did those guys come into being? It is a fairly entertaining number, though I don’t think the lyrics matter much. It’s all about those comical sounding horns. When he’s done doing his thing, Snow Miser comes across as a pretty affable guy. He’s hospitable towards Mrs. Claus and crew, but when she requests he make it snow in Southtown he has to inform her the only way that can happen is if Heat Miser okays it.
Heat Miser doesn’t seem to be as into the song and dance thing as his brother.
You know what that means – off to see Heat Miser! The special cuts right to the chase and we join Heat Miser already into his own song. It’s the exact same song as Snow Miser, just with different lyrics to suit Heat Miser. He also has his own minions, but they don’t look like him. They look like little gremlins or monsters. Heat Miser also gets to show off his fire powers which exposes the limitations of stop-motion animation. Their solution for fire is just colored cotton. In the past they used foil or colored paper and I can see why they would feel that’s fine for standing flames, but not for Heat Miser’s fire breath. Heat Miser isn’t as helpful as his brother and demands something in return for letting it snow for one day in Southtown – The North Pole! Mrs. Claus calls Snow Miser on a video phone – pretty fancy for a cloud dweller. He has no interest in surrendering the North Pole to his brother, which comes as no surprise. Now it’s Mrs. Claus’s turn to behave like a Karen and go over the heads of the two squabbling siblings – to their mother!
So that’s Mother Nature…
Who do you suppose is the mother of these two boys? Iggy can’t even guess it so I guess he’s not too bright. If you guessed Mother Nature (Mann) then you are correct! Everyone acts scared and intimidated over going to see her, but when they do we find she’s just a pretty normal looking old woman. Only she has a bird’s nest in her hair. Honestly, pretty underwhelming character design. They couldn’t even make her a tree or something? She’s fine though, very accommodating, and immediately summons her boys to her side with a bolt of lightning. The two grumble, but Mother Nature informs them how this is going to all go down. Snow Miser is going to make it snow in Southtown for one day and Heat Miser can bring summer to the North Pole for one day as well. They try to protest a bit, but another bolt of lightning silences the pair and they do as their mother tells them.
Looks like Snow Miser was true to his word. And unlike Santa, Mrs. Claus doesn’t ditch kids on the roof.
Time to check in with Santa who has returned to the North Pole (it’s still frozen). He puts Vixen in his own bed and finds a note from his wife informing him that she went after Jingle and Jangle. Satisfied she can handle things, Santa settles himself into a rocking chair for a little rest. Down in Southtown, the snow is falling. The mayor is shown taking a phone call from his wife where his wife is instructing him to wear his goulashes, bundle up, and so forth and he’s doing the whole “What?!” schtick until he finally looks outside. We then jump back to the North Pole where Mrs. Claus and Jingle are rousing the old man from his slumber with a newspaper. The headline concerns the snow in Southtown and Jangle enters with more papers about a day off for Santa. He looks them over and informs his wife that she was right the whole time, but his conclusion is that the world is giving him a day off and he settles in for more nap time. Mrs. Claus can only shrug in the direction of the elves.
Aww, geez.
Mrs. Claus then returns to her narration duties to inform us that the children of the world became committed to giving Santa a day off. Now we get a multi-cultural group of children running over a map, writing letters, and wrapping gifts. They’re basically returning the favor and sending them to Santa and Mrs. Claus tells us they had more fun that December than any they could remember. Santa is then shown waking up and stumbling around. It’s like he’s having a senior moment as he just wanders the grounds grumbling taking note of the quiet workshop and sleeping reindeer. He pauses outside as a bird delivers a letter to him. He opens it up and it’s a picture of a sad, crying, girl with the message, “Dear Santa, I’ll have a blue Christmas without you.” I guess she wasn’t one of the kids having the most fun ever. This begins the song, “Blue Christmas.” Pretty surprising to see a licensed song enter at this stage of the production. I guess since this wasn’t adapted from someone else’s song they had room in the budget for a different one. The song is sung by a little girl (Christine Winter) and a children’s choir (The Wee Winter Singers) and it’s an even more somber version of the song compared with the Elvis version. It’s nice though. Most may like the Miser Brothers and their song, but I like this more. I will concede it’s weird the girl is clearly drawing a blue Christmas tree while singing about a green one, and the lyrics don’t work as well when they’re supposed to be about Santa and not a former lover. Especially sung by kids. Let’s not think about this anymore.
Tonight, we ride!
One letter is apparently all it took. If all of those kids were bullshitting everyone and really wanted Santa to come bring them toys, then they have this girl to thank. Santa, feeling especially vigorous all of a sudden, announces that Christmas is back on! Santa can’t take a day off on Christmas, he has stuff to do! Santa assembles the troops and starts barking orders and asserts that he’s feeling just fine. Set to the tune of “Sleigh Ride,” everyone gets back to work as Santa announces, “Tonight – we ride!” There’s almost a violence to how he says it, like they’re about to go crack some skulls. Might I suggest they start with that asshole mayor?
Looks like everything turned out fine in Southtown.
Santa flies off with a complete team of eight reindeer, including wee little Vixen. We get a partial moon shot as we head to Southtown, USA where the mayor has put up a sign designating it Santa Claus Lane. I bet you can guess the song chosen for this section. That makes two full songs they had to pay for. Santa reveals himself to the entire town as the sleigh touches down and slowly makes its way literally down Santa Claus Lane. Kids and adults are there to wave him along before he returns to the sky. Mrs. Claus gets the last word as she narrates over children, including Iggy, finding their gifts under the tree the next morning. She affirms you can always count on Santa Claus which takes us into a reprise of “The Year Without a Santa Claus.” Santa leaps from his bed and puts on his coat. He jumps into his sleigh and they take off into the night sky. As they fly towards the full moon, the special comes to an end. There will never be a year without a Santa Claus.
Everyone seems to like these guys, but they’re barely in it.
That wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I still think this is a pretty mid-level Christmas special. It’s just too uneven for me. The first chunk of the special almost feels unneeded. They could have easily just jumped to taking their concerns to Snow Miser to bring snow to a place in need of Christmas cheer, but it’s like we have to screw around for a half hour first because ABC wanted a full hour broadcast. I found it funny how Mrs. Claus narrates that Iggy is very important to the story, and then he proceeds to just be along for the ride. Yeah, he had to pass along the information about what happened to Vixen and the elves to Santa, but that’s it. Anyone could have done that. For as memorable as the Snow and Heat Miser are, they’re not in this one a whole lot. They did more recently get their own Christmas special, but I have never heard anyone recommend it nor do I have any interest in checking it out for myself.
Some of the effects could have used some refinement.
What I did like about this one is that the music by Maury Laws is very similar to the past Rankin/Bass specials. As I mentioned during the write-up, some music and sound effects are lifted straight from them while a lot of the instrumentals just call-back to them without exactly duplicating them. It helps to create this cohesive feel to everything. I’m surprised they didn’t drop a “Jessica” somewhere in reference to Mrs. Claus or make the elves resemble the old ones a bit more, but it still feels like a sequel or at least like this is the same Santa from before.
Mrs. Claus plays a big role in this one, but could it have been even bigger?
What bothers me most about this one is just the missed opportunity for a better story. I think I would have rather seen a Christmas where Mrs. Claus steps into the role of Santa. Maybe she would have found it’s really hard to do what he does and have some mishaps, but still get it right in the end. She so rarely steps into the spotlight, and even though the special didn’t take that path, this is still more Mrs. Claus exposure than we’re accustomed to. She did at least orchestrate the resolution to the story, even if it was just complaining to the manager. I also would have preferred an ending where Santa does just take a day off. The world lets him know how appreciative they are and he returns the following year with renewed vigor! Instead, there’s an outpouring of love and one kid is sad she’s not getting presents. Crisis averted, Santa is magically feeling better and Christmas is back on!
The general vibe is at least good. This little girl is adorable.
I guess what I’m saying is, there was a chance to subvert this one a bit, but Rankin/Bass decided to just pull a fake-out. The title is a lie as there never was a year without Santa. He just needed a little extra motivation one year. And we never did get to see Heat Miser bring warm weather to the North Pole. I kept waiting for the special to come back to that. I fully expected an ending with Santa and the Mrs. enjoying the sun at the beach for a day after the holidays. We were denied seeing Santa in a bathing suit. What a pity.
They squeeze in quite a few moon shots in this one. I went with my favorite of the bunch.
If you’re one of the people who does love this holiday special then you probably know where to find it. It still airs on cable each year and it’s sold on physical media and on streaming networks. If you’re opposed to paying, it’s also pretty easy to find online for free without having to go anywhere seedy. For me, I consider this one a little better than most of the other Rankin/Bass specials, but I also dislike most of them, which is why I rank it at #169 out of 209. Too low? Too high? Just right? If you have opinions to share, let me know in the comments. Hopefully, no one reading this will have a blue Christmas over it.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
In 1985, a little film called Back to the Future debuted in theaters. Starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, the story about a modern day teenager going back in time 30 years to encounter his parents when they were teens was an instantly timeless tale. It spawned two sequels which were shot back-to-back and…
It’s the fifth of December so that means we are returning to one of the 25 Greatest Christmas Specials (as decided by me because it’s my blog) to take a deeper look than what was done some 8 years ago. When I re-evaluated my Top 25, one of the biggest fallers was A Flintstone Christmas.…
This year, I’m bringing back a feature from last year where I take another look at, what I consider to be, the greatest Christmas specials ever made. I explained my reasoning for doing this in prior posts, but in short, the first time I looked at some of these specials I did just a short…
Last year, I made it a point to go through the vast majority of the Nicktoons Christmas specials I was at least somewhat familiar with. My cut-off was basically 1996 which coincided with the premiere of Hey Arnold! That was when I started to fall off of Nicktoons and Nickelodeon in general. I was entering my teen years and other things took priority. Plus, my preferred Nicktoons were more of the gross-out, slapstick, sort of toons like The Ren & Stimpy Show and Rocko’s Modern Life which Hey Arnold! did not resemble at all. However, upon reflection, I would have to say that my real Nicktoons cut-off is CatDog.
CatDog debuted in early 1998 right after that year’s installment of the Kid’s Choice Awards. I had basically long since aged out of that show, but I was at least still watching Nickelodeon enough to be aware of CatDog‘s existence. I’m going to blame that on a crush I had on Summer Sanders, host of the gameshow Figure It Out which I would check out after school. CatDog was something that was heavily promoted, as most new Nicktoons were, and I can recall at least having some interest. By the time it was airing in a more normal timeslot though I had basically checked out. I know I did watch at least an episode or two, but my determination was “This isn’t for me.” And it probably wasn’t nor was it supposed to be.
All that being said, CatDog could possibly entertain me as an adult. I don’t know. It’s basically another take on The Odd Couple. Here we have a paring of naturally opposite animals in Cat (Jim Cummings) and Dog (Tom Kenny) with the wrinkle thrown in that they’re physically conjoined at the hips. Or spine? They don’t really have rear hips. They’re the super pet Bart Simpson created in Fly vs Fly with a cat on one end and a dog on the other. How they poop is anyone’s guess. They both eat so I guess there’s a two-way street running through them which sounds unpleasant. There’s certainly room for humor though, Arnold this is not, and did you see those names in parenthesis? Talk about a cartoon superstar pairing of Jim Cummings and Tom Kenny. I honestly can’t recall ever hearing Cummings on a Nickelodeon show, he was more the domain of Disney and Warner Bros. He’s also been around forever so I’m sure I heard his name on Nickelodeon before (and it looks like I probably did as he did do some work for Aaahh!!! Real Monsters), but it’s interesting to see. Sort of like finding Mel Blanc on a list of Disney credits – it’s not something that happened very often.
There’s two of them so they need two tree, right? That’s why my family of four has four trees in the house. Wait…
The Nicktoons were hardly the equal of the Disney Afternoon when it came to opening numbers, but CatDog begins with one of my least favorite songs out of them all. It’s this country number that just sounds so generic. We’re not off to a great start. When that intro is through, we get a rather simple title card before we’re taken to the home of the titular character, CatDog. Duality is the name of the game here and it informs a lot of the style surrounding CatDog. The house is basically a giant fire hydrant on one side and a dead fish on the other. Inside, it looks like a pretty normal house so I guess that fish isn’t an actual decaying corpse. The two (one?) characters are decorating their Christmas trees. It’s basically two trees in one with one side covered with fish and the other steaks. The two have just finished decorating and now it is time to place their gifts for each other under this double tree. Dog goes first and places a wrapped gift while Cat closes his eyes. We can hear him hoping it’s a sports car (I wouldn’t get my hopes up). When it comes time for Cat to do the same, he has nothing. He fishes around in his “pockets,” which is mysterious fur pockets that appear when the need arises, and comes up with a single jellybean. That would seem to be these two in a nutshell, Dog is the caring and considerate one who is held back only by his lack of intellect. Cat is selfish, like most cats are perceived to be. It’s the inverse of the Ren and Stimpy pairing.
It’s the only way to travel.
Despite Cat’s gift for Dog being an unwrapped piece of candy, he doesn’t take notice and instead is eager to head off on another Christmas tradition. The two put on scarves and Dog adds a stocking cap as they fly out the window. To travel on the snow, Dog basically becomes a toboggan with Cat grasping hold of his hands. As they travel, Dog begins to sing, but his song only has one line, “The best part of Christmas is being together.” After his one line, the scene fades out and then comes back in on a mall shaped like a pig’s head. I guess that works as an analogy.
Via the process of elimination when looking through the credits it would appear that this guy is called Mr. Sunshine. I appreciate the irony.
The camera moves inside the mall where we get a closeup on a Santa figure that appears to be doing The Macarena (remember that?). It’s followed by quick cuts of other cheesy merch and fists full of cash as they fly off the shelves. There’s a snowman that appears to be capable of dropping its pants (it’s wearing jeans for the sole purpose of removing them, resembling one of those novelty Seymour Butts dolls people would have affixed to their rear windshield), a boxing Santa, Mean Bob action figure, dinosaurs in festive attire, and so on. When the cuts are finished the camera lingers on a star atop a massive tree. The star is emblazoned with a dollar sign because this is a mall, after all. The camera pans down this massive tree and a very unenthusiastic individual dressed as an elf moves into frame to say, “Imagine the thrill of meeting Father Christmas,” in a very even, flat, tone of voice. I think it’s Billy West using a similar voice to the one he used for the ghost in the Ren & Stimpy episode “Haunted House.”
Cheer up, Santa, I have a feeling that Dog is your kind of guy. Err, dog.
We then find Santa (Brian Doyle-Murray) seated at the base of that tree with some monkey kid on his lap. He asks the lad what he wants for Christmas and he responds that he’d like a Kung-Fu Kenny with real blood and hands you can slice off into death rays! Santa is not impressed despite the kid standing in his lap and jumping about. When the kid leaves Santa remarks to himself, “So much for the Christmas spirit.” Enter CatDog, who comes sliding up the stairs out front and then rolls through the mall like a runaway tire. The duo soar into the air only to land directly in Santa’s lap. Despite the pair obviously cutting the line, Santa asks Dog what he’d like for Christmas and assumes it will be something expensive with a death ray. Dog sort of chuckles at the suggestion and then, once he confirms that Cat isn’t trying to eavesdrop, whispers in Santa’s ear that all he wants is for Cat to like his present from him. Santa is taken aback, pleasantly at that, at Dog’s selfless desire. The feeling is short-lived as Cat and Dog switch places with Cat, rather loudly hoping that Dog will hear (he’s too busy playing with an ornament), informing the big guy that he’d like a sports car.
Such a lovely little girl.
Santa has no reaction to Cat’s selfish want and Cat doesn’t seem to be at all interested in getting his approval anyway. The two depart, but a call to “Make way,” is soon heard. It’s coming from the mall owner, Rancid (West), who is a big, ugly, green, rabbit that looks like some sort of cross-over between an Arthur character and something from Life in Hell. He wants everyone to move out of the way so that his niece, Rancine (Maria Bamford) can tell Santa what she wants. She’s about as ugly as him, just smaller and in a dress, and she does not look happy. Santa goes through the whole routine with a look on his face that suggests he knows that this kid isn’t going to ask for something selfless. She at first can’t even think of anything since her rich uncle buys her whatever she wants, but then she lays eyes on CatDog.
CatDog is not for sale!
Now, this gets pretty bizarre and also pretty horrific because Rancine informs Santa that she wants to own CatDog. This is a world inhabited entirely by animal people, from what I can see. Santa is a human, and that flat-speaking elf is humanoid, but green, while everyone else appears to be an animal person. Like CatDog. This is like a kid in the real world sitting on Santa and pointing out at a pair of conjoined twins and saying “I want to own them!” Obviously, totally illegal and morally reprehensible. Any parent who raised a kid who thinks they can own another person or persons obviously failed. Naturally, Rancid tries to “buy” CatDog from itself. Themselves? Whatever. They are not for sale and tell Rancid that in no uncertain terms. Santa seemed a bit worried that they’d go for it, but upon hearing that he basically breathes a sigh of relief. What a weird way to have one’s Christmas spirit reenforced. Rancine screams in protest, but surprisingly that’s as far as she goes.
This is unsettling to me for some reason.
In another part of the mall, Cat is admiring himself in a mirror when they’re approached by a gang of dogs. These are the Greaser Dogs and, since they’re dogs, they seem to enjoy picking on Cat. Cliff (Kenny), the leader, is singing Dog’s Christmas song as they come upon the pair. Immediately, they desire to kick the crap out of Cat so the pair have to split. As they run, Cat drops the mirror he had been looking at and all three members of the gang step on it, cracking it. That’s 21 years of bad luck right there. CatDog ducks into a store display Christmas tree to avoid the dogs and lurking inside is their neighbor, Winslow (Carlos Alazraqui), an ugly, blue, mouse. Cat doesn’t ask him why he’s in a tree and instead asks him if he knows what Dog got him for Christmas. When he tells him he hopes it’s a sports car, Winslow gives him a reality check on that one. Cat tries to reassure himself that it would take a Christmas miracle to get such a gift, but Christmas miracles happen all the time! Winslow informs him, “Not to you, they don’t.”
There aren’t enough scenes set inside Christmas trees. Someone needs to make a special that takes place inside a tree the whole time.
Winslow ducks inside the tree which has its own infrastructure, it would seem. It’s not as nice as the tree Chip and Dale take shelter in for Pluto’s Christmas Tree, but it still looks like a place I want to visit. When he emerges from the tree it’s beside Dog. He tells Winslow that he hopes Cat likes his present – a popsicle stick house boat. Winslow tells him there’s no way he’s going to like that, but Dog thinks Cat likes all of his gifts from him. Despite Cat always throwing them away (he thinks he does this to entertain the kids who live at the dump). Winslow breaks the news to him that the only way Cat will like the gift he got him is if it’s a sports car, and he’ll never, ever, be able to get him one. He walks away chuckling to himself how he loves messing with these two on Christmas while Cat and Dog are both left feeling pretty down about Christmas.
Oh Cat, you are wrong to focus only on the material stuff at Christmas. Haven’t you seen any Christmas specials?
We next find the pair exiting a store called Soap Dish. Dog is enjoying a bar of soap which he thinks is delicious. I have no idea if this is a one episode thing or if he always eats soap. As he chews and swallows it, bubbles come out of his mouth. When Cat speaks, bubbles also come out of his mouth thus proving my theory that whatever Dog eats Cat “shits” out his mouth and vice versa. What a horrible existence. Cat is pretty down thanks to Winslow and doesn’t see how their Christmas can possibly turn out well. Dog falls back on what he perceives to be their great traditions like putting up their double star. We just cut to the pair doing so in the past which results in Cat getting flung into a wall which he dubs the “Double Scar.” Dog then tries to cheer him up by talking about how they have their friends and family to spend the holidays with. Cat reminds him that they are their own family and all that happens on Christmas is Winslow, Eddie the Squirrel, and the Greaser dogs all show up uninvited, but Dog considers this a major compliment. Cat, on the other hand, wants stuff (specifically citing a golden toaster oven which seems extravagant) and directs Dog to a display of dog bones. Cat appeals to Dog’s stomach and asks him if he’d like a nice, new, bone. He responds in the affirmative, but in a very plain manner like, “Sure, I wouldn’t mind a new bone.” Cat, on the other hand, really must have that sports car. He has an idea, and he indulges himself by asking Dog the old “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Dog is thinking about drinking out of a toilet, but Cat is most certainly not. He has an idea to get stuff for Christmas, but all he does is laugh. It’s a chilling, evil, sort of laugh and Dog seems rightly unnerved. Until he starts laughing along.
Santa isn’t going to like this.
We return to Santa and Rancine is still on his lap screaming. CatDog comes waltzing up and Rancid remarks, “Look, it’s those freaks you wanted.” Cat has come to make Rancid an offer. He is willing to go along with this proposal and be his niece’s new plaything if it comes with full access to all of Rancid’s stuff. Rancid is in agreement, but what about Dog? He doesn’t like that this deal makes him feel sort of cheap. Cat reassures him by saying this deal gets him access to a sports car and Dog all the T-bones he wants! Rancid then asks him if he likes T-Bones in a suggestive manner indicating that Cat is right. Dog cheers up and says “T-Bone was my nickname at fat camp! Where do I sign?” Santa had been staring at the group with bated breath while Francine rubbed her hands together like an evil sort of person. Rancid tells Dog there’s no signature needed, they’ll shake on it. And they do.
CatDog is one gift among many. That hardly seems special.
Outside a massive, stone, mansion rests a rather cruel and inelegant looking Santa robot. It’s a decoration for Rancid’s home and everything has a very cold presence. The limo pulls up carrying the crew, but only Rancid and Rancine emerge. Rancid has a large, wrapped, box in his arms and once he enters the mansion he chucks it towards a giant tree. As it hits the floor we hear CatDog groaning in pain from inside. The gift comes to rest at the base of the tree as Dog remarks there’s only a few more hours until Christmas and access to all of Rancid’s stuff! Cat is just as giddy and remarks that this is an idea with absolutely no downside. We then cut back to the mall to find Santa seated on the stairs outside looking downright miserable. Mrs. Claus (Bamford) is there beside him trying to ease his mind, but he can’t get over what he saw. CatDog sold itself to Rancid as a Christmas present! That would seemingly make CatDog a prostitute in the eyes of Santa and he just can’t get over that. Meanwhile, that even speaking elf is just flabbergasted that this Santa is the real deal. He asks if that means the Easter Bunny is real too and Santa remarks “He better be, he owes me sixty bucks!”
That’s one cold looking Christmas.
Dog was Santa’s only hope for Christmas spirit in this world, but now that belief has been shattered. Santa feels that he has no other choice: he has to cancel Christmas. The world is no longer deserving, and as Santa flies off in his sleigh with four reindeer (he’s a fake!), Christmas basically just disappears. Lights, decorations, trees, all vanish before our eyes. The giant tree in Rancid’s mansion? Stripped of even its fake pine needles leaving behind a cold, monstrous, spiked, metal contraption. All of the gifts beneath it have vanished, all except the one containing CatDog. It’s been stripped of its festive color, but at least they weren’t wiped from existence too like all of the other stuff.
That must have been a comfortable experience. At least they’re used to being close together.
With Christmas gone, we cut to a news broadcast. The anchor (West) informs the viewing audience that Christmas has been cancelled and that their sources out of the North Pole have indicated it’s all the fault of CatDog! Winslow is shown watching the broadcast from CatDog’s couch and he’s pissed. The Greaser Gang then barges in looking to murder CatDog, but Winslow has no idea where they are. We then return to Rancid’s mansion where Dog is ancy to be opened. And with good reason, that box is way too small to comfortably house a CatDog. Rancine approaches and opens the box and acts surprised it’s a CatDog! The pair flop out and seem oblivious to how empty the place is. Rancine informs them she got screwed this Christmas and warns them that they better be good! Dog happily tells her they’re the best and don’t even require batteries. I’d be wary of this Rancine girl if I were you, CatDog.
Cat got what he wanted. I guess the story’s over.
Or perhaps not? We next find Dog and Rancine having a tea party. Only, instead of tea Dog is being served bones. Rancine looks like her usual, miserable, self so I wonder if she’s capable of experiencing any joy? Cat is eager to take Rancid’s sports car for a drive though so Dog must go too. As he pulls Dog away, Rancine replaces him with a large, green, stuffed, dinosaur with a message of “I Heart You” on its chest which makes me think this is a Barney reference. CatDog goes racing around the interior of the mansion with Cat declaring he’s king of the world, a Titanic reference because it’s 1999. Cat is feeling pretty good about his decision to sell themself for Christmas and Dog appears to be in agreement as he consumes his bone. They then come to a stop beneath the giant, metal, Christmas tree. Dog leaps up to embrace it, but is turned off to find it smells of sweaty metal.
Rancine is not the sort of person one should expect caring or understanding from.
Now, Dog starts to miss Christmas and their usual traditions. Even Cat is in agreement as he reflects upon their double star and the way it caught the light. They both want to return to their old Christmas, so they race back to Rancine in the sports car to inform her of their decision which she will undoubtedly take well. When they initially pull up indicating they’ve made a terrible mistake she’s in agreement for they left giant skid marks in the hall. Cat then informs her they made a different mistake and that they need to go home. Dog tries to bid her farewell, but Rancine clamps onto his snout and informs him that the last person who tried to welch on a bet with her had his shins turned into a coffee table. She then gestures to a table where there’s some guy laying on his stomach with his ankles going through a table surface so the transformation was less gruesome than it sounds. The message is clear though, Rancine isn’t letting the pair leave, and to make sure they won’t she drags them to her room and locks them in a bird cage suspended from the ceiling. As Dog yells to her that she’s a very naughty child, she returns to the room to agree with him and add that she’s proud of it. She’s definitely going to be one of those girls that wears the sweatpants that says “Juicy” across her ass cheeks when she gets to college.
She deserves this.
In the streets of town a mob has formed all demanding an end to CatDog. We see the Greasers, Eddie, and presumably other recognizable faces amongst this crowd with murderous intent. Eddie (Dwight Schultz) is particularly aggrieved since he was supposed to get a Jet Ski this year. Back to CatDog, and Dog is laying at the bottom of the cage with foam coming out his mouth while Cat calls for help. Rancine enters annoyed that all of her toys break on Christmas. She ascends a ladder to the cage and we can see that Dog has achieved this state via another bar of soap. Cat pulls the old switcheroo leaving Rancine dangling from the cage as they make their escape. Dog, always the nicer of the two, tells Cat they can’t just leave her like that. He agrees, and sets the ladder back up that she used to reach the cage. CatDog climbs up and shoves Rancine into the cage and shuts the door. There, problem solved!
Rancid has such a massive ego that his doors and windows are shaped like him. I’m trying to imagine my house if every opening was shaped like me.
CatDog now must escape the mansion, but to do so they need to avoid Rancid. As they creep through the halls they spy the rabbit coming their way. He has his head buried in some paper though and could hardly be bothered as he walks by. They pretend to be one of his many statues anyway and in the process reveal that they can change color like a chameleon. Was this done for comedic effect or is this something they do often? Regardless, with Rancid avoided the pair make their way back to the main living room with the big, metal, tree. There’s a window high up on the wall and Cat takes over to climb the tree to the top. The window is still a ways away, but there’s a chandelier above them and Cat still has his scarf. He twirls it over his head like a lasso and successfully ropes the chandelier. The duo swing for the window…and slam into the wall. He missed, and CatDog falls to the floor, but worry not! The front door is unlocked, so that was a lot easier than expected. Too bad about the pain and misery that was all for nothing.
Free at last!
CatDog goes belly-whopping out the door just like Frosty himself! They slide over the hillsides all the way to their home. They seem completely oblivious to the lack of Christmas decorations in town and on their house, but Cat is just relieved they still have five minutes of Christmas left. Then they enter their home to find no tree. That’s the least of their worries for soon the Greaser Gang shows up with Eddie the Squirrel and Winslow. They’re still pretty pissed about the whole cancelled Christmas thing and are looking to exact a bit of sweet revenge by wailing on CatDog. Well, Cat more than Dog it would seem as old habits die hard. This is also when CatDog finds out that they’re the reason Christmas is cancelled, but before the gang can wail on CatDog, Rancine shows up. She declares CatDog her property (disgusting slaver!) so she gets to wail on them first, followed by Rancid. Cat then breaks down declaring it all his fault, but they just reply with “We know,” and prepare for a beating!
It’s like the reason for the season. Or something.
It’s Dog who cries out for everyone to be quiet. It’s time for a speech. Dog declares they can still have a Christmas even without all of that usual stuff. He then grabs a bunch of junk from around the house, fills a punch bowl with water from the sink (gross), and assembles it all into a double junk tree! He’s pretty proud of himself, but it’s Cliff who points out that it’s just a pile of jump and disgusting dish water. Eddie gets in the best line calling Dog a Noel Nincompoop, but his gesture worked on Cat. Or maybe Cat just doesn’t want to get beat up? Dog points out they’re together just like every Christmas and even Shriek (Bamford) the poodle is forced to admit this is what they do every Christmas. Cat even goes so far as to call them all a family. Sort of. Winslow still thinks they’re stupid, but when Dog takes his picture of a steak and bites it into the shape of a double star and places it on the “tree,” everyone is overcome with awe.
I assumed this would happen at some point.
The room is filled with a wondrous glow. The new double star works just like the old one and finally everyone seems to agree that Christmas is possible even without all the “stuff.” Dog says they didn’t cancel Christmas and Cat adds “Because no one can.” He indicates that Christmas “is in here,” though he can’t quite decide just where in here as he moves his hand around his chest until he finds just the right spot. Now we get the required “Merry Christmas, Dog,” from Cat followed by a “Merry Christmas, Cat,” from Dog as the two embrace. Winslow, overcome with emotion, says “That’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw. With the possible exception of some stuff I saw when I was in the navy.” Is that a gay sailor joke in a children’s cartoon?!
So, wait, we’re just going to let the slavers in on this group hug?
There’s no time to contemplate that one as Winslow says “Merry Christmas, CatDog,” and goes in for a hug too. Then the rest of the gang does the same and we have a big group hug. Winslow adds that now it’s just like that stuff he saw when he was in the navy, except everyone’s clothes are on. Okay, he didn’t really say that, but imagine if he did. This warm, happy, moment is broken up by the sound of a crash outside, followed by laughter. The kind of laughter that can only come from one person: Santa Claus!
You can’t pay Brian Doyle-Murray to play Santa and not have him show up again at the end.
Santa comes in and a more natural light does with him. We were in kind of a cool blue and black environment, but now it’s positively bright. Cat immediately goes to Santa to apologize for what he did. Santa counters that he should apologize to CatDog, even though what they did was among the most vile acts imaginable. He’s really laying it on thick. He definitely equates this whole thing with prostitution. Imagine the naughty stuff Santa must see and he found that to be the most vile? Maybe this world is just way cleaner than I could imagine? Dog accepts Santa’s apology and Christmas is back on, baby! All of the stuff returns and Cat and Dog are each left holding presents from each other. Or Santa. I don’t know anymore.
Now, everybody sing!
Santa departs leaving CatDog to open their presents. Cat gets the popsicle stick house boat he always wanted while Dog gets a delicious bar of soap. All that’s left now is to hang the stockings and sing. It’s an original song, and during it the Greasers get to rough up Cat a bit and Winslow hits him in the face with a snowball. He hands Cat a snowball of his own to basically rub on his head, so I guess this is as nice as he’s going to get. Everyone is then surprised when the quietest, and tallest, Greaser, Lube (Alazraqui) breaks into a lovely solo. Everyone gathers round, well, everyone except CatDog. They’re singing about nothing being better than Christmas with CatDog, but CatDog isn’t around.
Looks like the house is backing to looking nice.
And that’s because they’re with Santa! We cut to an external shot of the house all covered in snow and lights. There’s a magnificent full moon in the sky and Santa’s silhouette goes passing by. There’s four reindeer, and something peculiar leading the team. It’s CatDog, or more like Dog, who is basically a reindeer while Cat is holding on for dear life. He urges Dog to get them down in one piece, but Dog sees a garbage truck. This is bad for Cat, and Santa, as Dog lunges for it taking them with him as we fade to black on this holiday special.
I feel like we’ve had a low number of Santa Moon Shots this year.
That was certainly an unusual Christmas episode. CatDog needs to learn a pretty conventional lesson about how it’s not the material things that make Christmas so special. Well, Cat more than Dog needs to learn that, but it comes via the duo prostituting themselves to a rich, spoiled, kid. Santa reminds us several times that CatDog sold themselves for Christmas and that it’s a truly vile act. It’s so bad it shatters his belief in Christmas which is pretty wild. Maybe you don’t like the prostitution analogy, but the only other one would be CatDog selling themselves into slavery which is pretty abhorrent. I’d argue even more so as that’s really selling one’s dignity. Sex work is just work, selling one’s actual being is something only a desperate person should even consider, not someone who just wants a sports car and bones.
At least it’s an original tale and I only felt semi-lost by the inclusion of recurring characters whom I had no knowledge of. I don’t really need to know why a pack of dogs delights in beating up a cat, especially one who probably lies and cheats his ways out of problems like Cat. Winslow seems like just an asshole and no frame of reference needed there while Eddie is…well, he’s just there. I’m surprised they didn’t use him to make a Cousin Eddie reference. The look of this one passes the Christmas test as there was plenty of that present, until it wasn’t as part of the plot. Rancid and Rancine are as ugly as their names imply which I assume is intentional. Same for Winslow and the gang. There were plenty of not ugly character designs so it’s clear that the ugliness is a choice in places. This isn’t a Klasky-Csupo joint where just everything and everyone is unpleasant to look at.
They certainly have the Christmas spirit so you could do worse than watch CatDog.
Is this episode CatDog good? I don’t know. I felt pretty indifferent about CatDog when I was younger and the show was just starting and I suppose I still feel that way. I get the whole point of the show and the whole opposites attract kind of thing makes sense conceptually, but I mostly felt nothing. Maybe that would come from watching more episodes? Cat seems like he’s mostly intended to be unlikable while Dog is cheerful and sweet. He’s almost too cheerful and sweet here as he’s oblivious to how shitty a friend Cat is to him. I don’t worry about them getting beat up, I’m not begging them to not sell themselves for Christmas, and I’m not really invested in their Christmas experience. I kind of wish the episode went all-in on its messaging and just ended it on the group hug. They didn’t need stuff, so why bring the stuff back? Maybe just cut to Santa flying overhead and looking on with an approving smile? The final visual of CatDog pulling the sleigh was fun, but the special didn’t need it either.
I guess this one gets the absolute lightest of recommends from me. It’s a Christmas episode and there’s some value to be found here. I didn’t hate it, I wasn’t bored, but I don’t anticipate watching it again unless one of my kids suddenly acquires an affinity for CatDog. It’s pretty low on the list of Nicktoons Christmas episodes for me, but I suspect people younger than me who may have been the right age for CatDog when it aired feel different about it. And that’s fine, different strokes and all that. If you would like to check this one out then the easiest way is via Paramount+. There you will find this episode along with every other episode of CatDog waiting for you, should you wish to view them.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
Let’s try this one more time for 2023 – can we find a good Looney Tunes Christmas special? And more importantly, a good Bugs Bunny one? We’ve looked at two already that were merely okay. Nothing terrible, but hardly holiday classics. For our final go at this, I’m feeling a little more optimistic and that’s…
When it comes to The Christmas Spot, I have very few rules. I definitely favor animated Christmas specials, but that’s not some rule I’ve created for myself. The programs don’t have to be all ages, they don’t have to be “nice,” and they certainly don’t have to be any good as I’ve looked at an…
One of my favorite modern Christmas specials is the DuckTales episode “Last Christmas.” I feel like anytime I talk DuckTales I have to specify which era, though in this case I really shouldn’t since the original DuckTales never did a Christmas episode. To make up for that, the 2017 edition of the show did two…
It was right here in this spot one year ago today that Futurama‘s “Xmas Story” was inducted into the very prestigious Christmas Spot Top 25 Christmas Specials of All-time. Well, it was named as such a few years prior, but last year is when it got the full write-up treatment. And while I selected that Christmas episode for inclusion, it really is a toss-up for me over which Futurama Christmas special I enjoy most: “Xmas Story” or its sequel “A Tale of Two Santas.”
“Xmas Story” is our introduction to Christmas in the year 3000. Philip J. Fry (Billy West), the time-displaced protagonist of the series, gets to learn how much Christmas has changed over a thousand years and we, the viewer, get to experience the same. Turns out, a robotic Santa Claus had been invented several decades prior to that story which went crazy. Its standards for niceness were too high and thus everyone was deemed naughty. Santa, apparently no longer content to hand out coal to naughty children, decided that it would prefer to kill the naughty instead making Christmas one of the worst days of the year.
That tidbit about Santa is basically just a third act story in that episode. Prior to that, the episode is a bit more light-hearted with some conventional Christmas episode drama and it’s purposefully done that way to highlight the drastic change in tone once Santa shows up. This sequel episode, which took a long time to see the air, doesn’t dawdle and instead gets right to Santa. Seeing that the robot is the big source of conflict for the holiday and the most unique aspect of Future Xmas, the episode doesn’t see a reason to delay the robot’s arrival until the final act once again. Though Santa is going to be put on ice, as it were, for a sizable portion of the episode.
“There were no survivors.”
The episode begins in a typical manner. Our tagline is “This episode performed entirely by sock puppets.” which is a damn lie! The snippet of an old, public domain cartoon just before the Planet Express ship crashes is some screaming, black, dog character (Bosko? – Yes, according to Wikipedia it’s Box Car Blues which is a Bosko short). When the episode begins, we find the Planet Express crew watching television, a familiar sight on Futurama. The news is on and our lovely anchor, Linda (Tress MacNeille) is sharing a story about a futuristic version of a Polar Plunge. You know, those charity events where people dive into frigid waters at Christmas time sometimes dressed in festive attire? Well, in this version the people are jumping into a river of ammonia and we get to see it happen live on television! As Morbo (Maurice LaMarche) informs us after, there were no survivors.
Lock your kids in the closet and say goodbye to your pets – there’s no stopping Santa’s brutal rampage each year.
It’s now time to hear a holiday message from the head of Walter Cronkite (Frank Welker). He is here to offer up a warning about Santa Claus. As he details the danger this menace presents, we’re treated to images of the robot’s exploits from the prior episode. The message is concluded with Cronkite telling the viewer, “Remember, I told you so.” And as he finishes, the screen gets covered by planks of wood. Hermes (Phil LaMarr) is apparently pretty frightened by the prospect of Santa to the point where he feels the need to cover the television. Fry is fine with it since he’s tired of this wood show. We cut to the crew trying in vain to install the fireplace cover to keep Santa at bay. The Professor (West) is there to scold them for taking too long saying he only has a few years left to live and doesn’t want to spend them dead! Leela (Katey Sagal) encourages Fry and Bender (John DiMaggio) to push harder prompting Bender to say, “Oh? Push!” Once the robot is pushing instead of pulling the giant shield slams into place causing Fry and Leela to get tossed aside.
This basically the “Season’s Greetings” of the year 3001.
With the shield in place, the Professor seems no happier. Declaring they’re doomed, he takes a seat and remarks he’s thankful that he installed some blast shields for shutters. He presses a button on the chair and we see his idea of defensive shutters are more like the shields on the 1989 Batmobile. Steel plats cover the entirety of the Planet Express building. Unfortunately for Amy (Lauren Tom), no one told her the Professor was going to be activating them as she was busy boarding up the windows. The blast shields knock her off of her ladder. There were no survivors. Actually, she’s fine, I just couldn’t resist going back to Morbo for a second. Once the shields are in place, we can also see the Professor’s holiday greeting spelled out in Xmas lights on the roof of the building: Trespassers Will Be Shot.
Naturally, the crew has to undertake a mission that will surely endanger their lives.
The Professor shouts a challenge to Santa calling him a cadaver junkie in the process. Even so, with the shields in place the Professor surmises that they’re all likely to make it through the holidays alive so long as they’re not dumb enough to leave the very spot they occupy. Fry, Leela, and Bender all cheer at this declaration, until the Professor remarks that they have a delivery to make: letters to Santa addressed to his death fortress on Neptune. We cut to the Planet Express ship leaving the building, getting some of its landing gear stuck in the blast shields which are very eager to close up. On the ship, the three seem to be in decent spirits and Fry is even reading some of the letters to Santa. One is from a little girl (credit to MacNeille, but I would have guessed it was Lauren Tom) expressing her desire to not want Santa to bring her any gifts this year because the bicycle he shot at her from his bicycle gun really hurt. She’s still sporting a cast in the cutaway. Leela remarks, “How awful! Let’s read another!” The next one is from a little boy (MacNeille) and he’s writing to ask Santa for a coffin for his grandfather. He goes on to point out that Santa choked him with a chestnut last year and his corpse is really starting to stink. The camera even pans to poor, dead, grandpa in a shadowy corner.
These elves are a pretty sorry looking bunch.
Fry is dismayed at all of these letters. Xmas was a time for bringing families together in the 20th century and he wants to bring that kind of Xmas back for the people of this era. Bender questions who would be willing to do such a thing and Fry confirms that they are! Leela is in agreement as the ship speeds towards the north pole of Neptune. Upon landing, we meet the Neptunians of Jolly Junction which looks more like a war zone than a happy, Santa, village as the sound of gunfire and barking dogs fills the air. The Neptunians are dressed like elves and seem to always come in pairs which are always holding hands. A welcome party, as Leela dubs it, comes over to greet them. The first one (West) offers to sell them a kidney while his companion (David Herman) invites Fry to punch him for a buck. Leela refers to them as elves which is when they explain they’re Neptunians (I think Elzar is one too, a four-armed alien race, basically) that are just small because Santa doesn’t feed them. His companion then grabs Fry’s hand and makes him slap him demanding a dollar in return.
At least they have something to look forward to.
As the gang walks through Jolly Junction we get to see how the elves live. It’s not pretty. Some are being massacred by wolves while another pair is trying to stab each other with broken bottles. When the crew walks past a house with two Neptunians each holding a baby (the babies are in turn holding hands) they beg for any morsel of food that they could provide. When Fry points out that they live in a gingerbread house, one of the elves retorts “Hey! It’s food or shelter – not both.” Fair enough. Bender calls them lazy and assumes that they should have money from all of the toy making that goes on. Just the mention of toys causes all of the elves within earshot to gasp and raise their heads. A helpful one points out that the toy factory has been closed for years since Santa judges everyone to be naughty. We see the closed toy shop which has a “Coming Soon: Crack House” banner on it. Fry has his blood angried up at this and vows to shove his foot up Santa’s chimney! He informs the elves that he just needs directions on how to get into Santa’s ice fortress. The first elf to greet them volunteers and his companion takes one look at their hands which are joined together and remarks, “Aww, phooey!”
On Neptune it’s eat or be eaten.
The eager elf and his unwilling companion lead the crew into Santa’s fortress as promised. They’ve hidden them in the sack of letters they’re to deliver and stuck them in a sleigh. This allows the elves to transport their guests past Santa’s traps, which are basically buzzsaws designed to take out anyone taller than an elf and some guard dogs (Welker) who bark “Jingle Bells.” A poor, wayward bird comes into lethal contact with one of Santa’s lasers which drops at the feet of the elves. The pessimistic one remarks, “An omen?” while the more cheerful of the two just shouts, “Dinner!” and stuffs the carcass into his pocket.
He seems excited to bask in the world’s naughtiness.
We cut to inside the fortress to find Robot Santa (DiMaggio, taking over the role from John Goodman) seated at a large console. It’s apparently his way of spying on the people of Earth to see who is being naughty and who is being…naughty. He’s viewing two robots from the robot mafia wailing on some poor guy in the street. Santa declares that beating up a shop owner for protection money is very naughty, but that not paying the mobsters their protection money is equally as naughty! Satisfied with himself, Robot Santa changes the display and it’s Scruffy, the janitor, seated on a stoop doing nothing. He runs his finger across the underside of his nose and Santa accusingly shouts “I saw that!” and appears to write Scruffy’s name on the naughty list. His standards really are set too high, there wasn’t even any nostril penetration!
Leela is the type to think she has the solution to a problem that’s plagued humanity for generations.
Santa is interrupted by the elves delivering the sack of letters. Santa is angry they failed to knock reminding them he could have been watching something really naughty on his device (“I get New Orleans on this thing!”). The elves, clearly terrified, apologize and run off before Santa can say anything else. Inside the letter sack, Leela informs the others of her plan to confuse Santa with a logical paradox and issues a warning to Bender. The three emerge from the sack and Santa is understandably surprised. He whips out a very large gun preparing to blow them away, but surprisingly responds in kind when Leela asks him to stop. He listens as she introduces her paradox (while Bender covers his ears and hops up and down) which claims that Santa is designed to punish the naughty, but is too naughty, and therefore he should have to destroy himself. The robot’s head begins to smoke and spin before finally exploding. Wow, that was easy. Why didn’t anyone think of that before?
Maybe all of the explosive stuff was in the back?
Because Santa had a head built with paradox absorbing crumple zones – that’s why! A new head just pops up to take the old one’s place forcing Fry and Leela to bail. Bender, because he was covering his ears, is a bit slow to pick up on what’s going on, but upon seeing Santa pointing his massive bazooka his way he gets the right idea to run. Santa fires as the trio duck into an elevator and the doors close right on the missile. It’s stuck there, blinking and beeping, while the elevator goes down. The tip of the warhead gets cut off, but we soon see Fry, Bender, and Leela emerging from the elevator at the base of the mountain, only Leela is carrying the explosive for some reason. She pauses, remarks “Wait! This is what we’re running from!” then tosses it back into the elevator. Fry hops onto a toboggan with Bender behind and Leela in the rear. They just sit in place with Fry shouting “Faster! Faster!” The bomb in the elevator then explodes and the force of the explosion sends the crew shooting down the mountainside.
No one gets away from Santa Claus!
The trio go fast enough down the mountain that they’re able to avoid the many security towers raining gunfire down upon them. They zoom through the elf town even passing by the pair that helped them sneak in tossing a bunch of snow up in their wake which covers them. At least the bird they were roasting on a spit was spared! The crew crashes into the Planet Express ship and frantically races abord to try and get the hell out of there. As Leela tries to take off, the ship refuses to respond. She doesn’t understand the problem, but we soon cut to outside the ship and see Santa has a grasp of the rear thrusters. The situation seems dire, but the burning engines cause the ice below Santa to melt. He slips into the water and when Leela powers down the engines the water immediately refreezes burying Santa up to his chin in ice.
Looks like they fall ass backwards into a way to imprison Santa.
The crew comes out to survey the situation, as do the elves. With Santa literally on ice, Xmas can go on as it was always intended! Fry announces that he can be the one to deliver the presents, but Santa scoffs at him and points out that no human could deliver billions of toys in a single night. Fry objects and argues Evel Knievel could, but Bender chimes in that only a robot could do it. Then he realizes that by pointing that out he’s basically volunteered himself and regrets it immediately. The elves, for their part, all cheer in unison tossing all manner of clothing into the air in celebration!
These guys need a better union.
After a break, we find Bender with Santa’s hat on outside the ship still. Santa declares that Bender can’t do the job since he wasn’t built to Yuletide specifications. Bender retorts that he wasn’t built to steal Leela’s purse either, but that didn’t stop him. He produces her purse from inside his jacket and Leela immediately grabs it from him. Bender then orders the elves to bow before their new master, which they seem happy to do. This takes us into a musical section where the elves, along with the Planet Express crew, sing a song welcoming the elves back to work. It’s a rather cheerful sounding melody with dark and bleak lyrics. The elves proudly announce they’ll do the job for free and expect to be horribly maimed in the process. One elf gets a toy lodged in his brain. There’s a spot where Leela sings about turning up the controls to super speed, which she does, causing even the song to get faster in response which is pretty clever. The elves make some pretty shitty toys while Bender gets spray-painted red to look the part of Santa Claus. When the song is over, it’s time to get Xmas underway!
Bender knows what to do with a flying sleigh.
The song concludes with the elves getting their drink on celebrating their adequate gorillas. Bender takes flight and passes by the moon before circling the area and dropping gifts that explode like fireworks. Poor Robot Santa can only issue threats from his icy prison. Bender arrives on Earth and encounters his first home. The chimney has a grate across it which Bender bends easily before entering. Upon landing in the fireplace, he comes face to face with a mother and her kids. She (MacNeille) declares that this is the end and frantically instructs her children to take their suicide pills. Bender stops her telling her he’s the good Santa and he comes baring gifts – at reasonable prices! This is when the father (Herman) pops his head up telling his kids not to believe Santa for he is the father of all lies and the uncle of all tricks. Not even Bender producing a box of Tri-Ominos can sway them and he’s forced to bail. As he does, the entire family wails on his legs with fireplace tools. Bender is able to escape though quite the worse for ware.
You have to admire the woman’s confidence to think she could seduce a robot.
His next stop sees him popping out of the chimney to a well-lit room which startles him. It’s the home of the, shall we say, loose old lady character? She (MacNeille) is perched in a doorway rather seductively, though her charms are unlikely to affect Bender. She saunters over to the mechanical man and offers him a cookie from her cookie jar. Bender is receptive to the idea and sticks his hand in only for an old-fashioned mouse trap to snap across his fingers. As he regals the trap, he asks “What’s in these things?” The old lady them suggests he slip into something…fiery, and she pulls out a flamethrower and lights him up. Poor Bender is then shown emerging from the chimney charred and broken.
Poor Kwanzaa-bot.
We next catch Bender flying in the sleigh his body reflecting the punishment he has endured this evening. He is soon approached by Kwanzaa-bot (Coolio) who is in some sort of rocket powered canoe. He’s alarmed to see “Kringle,” as he calls him, in such a sorry state, and Bender just bemoans the fact that everyone hates him. Kwanzaa-bot counters with an at least everyone understands you. Bender asks if he wouldn’t mind helping him out with these toys, but Kwanzaa-bot has his own work to do tonight: handing out the traditional Kwanzaa book “What the Hell is Kwanza?(sic)” Kwanzaa-bot then hangs his head and sighs, “I’ve been giving these out for 647 years.”
Fry should probably look more disgusted than he is here.
It’s time to check-in on the rest of the Planet Express crew at their headquarters. Amy, looking no worse for ware following her earlier accident, is using a jetpack to spray Xmas lights onto the traditional Xmas tree. They come out of a can like silly string. Leela is decorating a bush with candy canes which Nibbler promptly eats off. Fry has moved an old-fashioned clawed bathtub into the living room to make eggnog in – just liked Grandma used to drink (even though in the prior Xmas episode we found out his idea of eggnog was just bourbon and ice cubes)! Hermes looks on as Fry tastes it immediately spitting it out declaring it’s gone sour. Zoidberg (West) then emerges from the nog requesting privacy while he takes a scented bath. Leela is at the side of the Professor’s chair reminding him that Bender is Santa so they don’t have to hurt him. He angrily shouts back at her “Yes! Yes! Yes! You sound like a broken mp3!” and waves her off.
It’s hard being Santa Claus.
At that moment, Bender drops in with an unenthusiastic “Ho. Ho. Ho.” The Professor immediately produces a shotgun and blasts the poor robot in the chest knocking him down. Leela cries out, “Professor! Don’t you remember what I just told you?” He just shouts, “No!” in response and blasts Bender again who had been assisted to his feet by Amy and Hermes. We cut to the roof Planet Express HQ where Bender is seated crossing off the Professor’s name on his list. He moans that there’s got to be a better way. We then cut to a street view with a Toys for Tots bin in clear view. Bender walks by it with his sack of toys and then just dumps them in the sewer. He declares himself a genius then walks off laughing his usual evil laugh. A sewer mutant (Vyolet, voiced by Tress MacNeille) pops up waving one of the Barbie-like dolls Bender just dumped in the sewer crying out that it creates an unfair standard of beauty.
What a world.
With the toys “delivered,” Bender ducks into an alley to unscrew his present – a bottle of booze. As he enjoys it, New New York’s finest beat cops Smitty (West) and URL (DiMaggio) happen upon him. They both reason that bagging Santa on Xmas Eve would do wonders for their careers, earning URL a promotion and getting Smitty back onto the force (he’s apparently not an actual cop in this moment). They approach Santa Bender who looks alarmed to see them. There’s no struggle, apparently, as there’s a camera shutter and then a copy of the New New York Post is superimposed on the screen with a picture of Bender and the headline “Suspect Nabbed in Santa Case!” And below that, “Chanukah Zombie Still at Large.”
The Professor is now a man who just carries a shotgun everywhere he goes.
We then find our defendant at Famous Original Ray’s Superior Court where Bender is being brought before the Honorable Judge Whitey (West). His crime? Being Santa Claus! When the judge asks him to enter a plea, Bender stands up and announces “Not Santa,” at which point the Professor rises from the crowd to shout, “There he is again!” and blasts him in the back with his shotgun. The Hyper-Chicken (LaMarche), a frequent lawyer character on the show, is addressing young Premula on the witness stand. He tells her she need not fear him and then promptly pecks at her. He apologizes for mistaking her as corn, then politely asks her to point at Bender. She does, the crowd gasps, and the Hyper-Chicken has no further questions. Bender, apparently representing himself, then gets his chance to cross-examine the young girl (who appears to be the same girl injured by the bicycle gun from earlier). He points out that she was paid for her testimony today. She confesses that it’s true as Bender gave her a dollar and some candy causing Bender to scream back at her, “And yet you haven’t said what I told you to say! How can any of us trust you?!” The girls breaks down into tears causing the judge to order Bender to stop badgering the witness. The mere mention of a badger gets the Hyper-Chicken all flustered as he starts looking about for danger.
Maybe one day he’ll be a judge.
Judge Whitey gavels the room to get the Hyper-Chicken to stop freaking out over imaginary badgers. He’s apparently heard enough as he tells everyone in the court he has a ham dinner with mayonnaise waiting for him back at his mansion, so he finds Bender guilty. He sentences him to death which will take place at sundown (wow, the future moves fast). Bender is lead out in handcuffs while Leela is left to remark she hopes that dumb chicken feels bad about what he’s done. We cut to the chicken at the top of the courthouse crowing to the heavens.
He apparently gets a lot of the same messages.
After a break, we find our hero (villain?) Bender being lead to his cell by Smitty, URL, the mayor and the robot preacher while Smitty calls out “Deactivated robot walking. We’ve got a deactivated robot walking.” When Bender comes to a cell with some gangster looking robot in it, he (DiMaggio) calls out to Bender that when he sees the Robot Devil to tell him he’s a coming for him! One cell down the hallway is where Bender finds the Robot Devil (LaMarche), but before he can tell him what the other guy said he just says “I heard him!”
That wasn’t part of the plan.
Fry and Leela apparently aren’t going to give up without a fight. We find them on Neptune where the elves are dressed in summer casual attire and happy to see the two return. Leela doesn’t care about them though as they’re here for one thing and one thing only: Santa. Leela reasons that if they return to Earth with the real Santa the courts will have to spare Bender. She uses a chainsaw to free him from the ice while still leaving him stuck in a cube. Santa taunts her the whole time over who will get the last “ho.” Once Santa has been extracted, everyone soon realizes that they have a problem. The heat from the factory has caused a greenhouse effect and the cube starts melting immediately. Santa is soon free forcing Fry and Leela to bail on this idea. There’s a brief chase sequence through the toy factory which includes on animation goof where Santa suddenly has his hat back on, even though Bender stole it. He also gets his ass impaled on a toy solider. Fry and Leela reach the ship without much trouble and as they fly away trying to devise another way to free Bender, the camera pans to find Santa clinging to the ship and hitching a ride to Earth.
Bender already hates magnets so this is probably the absolute worst way for him to die.
Back on Earth, Bender has been strapped to a table in-between two gigantic magnets. Mayor Poopenmeyer (Herman) is there to explain to Bender how these two magnets will rip him to shreds in the most humane way possible. When Bender points out how that doesn’t sound very humane, the mayor confirms that it is for the witnesses since it’s not boring! He then dawns an executioner’s hood and takes his place by the switch. When a random number generator hits zero, he’ll throw the switch. Since the number generator is random, it just spits random numbers that aren’t zero, for the time being.
Jesus must have been their ace in the hole in case the Spartacus routine failed.
This allows the others to attempt to free Bender. Leela comes running in ordering the mayor to stop the execution on account of the fact that he has the wrong Santa. He just keeps calling out numbers though while the “real” Santa is brought in. It’s Fry dressed in a Santa suit which causes the witnesses to all gasp and the mayor to cry out “What?” Then Hermes enters in a Santa suit declaring that he’s the real Santa, followed by Amy (in a much more revealing outfit) and the Professor. And in the rear is Santa’s friend Jesus, which is Zoidberg in a Jesus costume. Fry tells the mayor that he’ll have to execute all of them. The mayor tells them they’re not Santa and points out that they’re not even robots, then gets in the line of the episode, “How dare you lie in front of Jesus!”
Is Santa looking out for a fellow robot? Or does he just need something from Bender?
The random number generator then hits zero and the mayor gleefully throws the switch. Bender immediately feels the effects of the magnets, which as you may or may not know, causes Bender to sing folk songs, “Swing low sweet chariot coming forth to carry me home!” Fry can’t bare to see Bender suffer, while the Professor happily points out that at least it’s not boring! At that moment, the real Santa finally comes crashing through the wall in his sleigh. Doing so destroys one of the gigantic magnets though Bender still appears to be in some distress since he is attached to the board he’s on. Santa also has his hat back, so I guess he found a spare somewhere. Santa opens fire on everyone in the room and destroys the other magnet. The mayor cries out to Jesus for help, but Zoidberg informs him that he helps those who help themselves and then makes a retreat.
Is Robot Santa going to turn over a new leaf? Is this the heartfelt Xmas special conclusion we’ve been waiting for?!
Santa then approaches Bender who immediately thanks him for saving his life then begs him not to kill him. Santa laughs and tells Bender he’s not here to kill him, but he does need his help to save Xmas. Sappy music chimes in and Bender remarks, “Gee whiz, Santa, you want me to help you save Xmas?” Fry then cries out, “Don’t do it! He’s evil,” and it’s Santa who turns to Fry and says “I know he is, but I have no choice!” Robot Santa needs Bender to help him complete his brutal rampage, because without that it just wouldn’t feel like Xmas. He the turns to Bender and says, “Bender, won’t you join my slaying tonight?” All Bender can muster is a, “Well, ’tis the season!”
Of course not! Now there’s two of them for twice the carnage and mayhem!
It’s time for a holiday montage! It begins with Santa and Bender flying through the city streets while Bender smashes light poles with a baseball bat set to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” Santa then fires a missile into a diaper truck, one that apparently picks up dirty diapers? It rains diapers on the people of New New York causing Robot Santa to cry out, “Let it snow!” Bender then gets to hurl dolls through windows and brick walls and poor, little, Premula gets shot with a bicycle gun once again. It just wouldn’t be Xmas without that poor girl getting shot with a bicycle gun.
Fear: The Magic of Xmas.
At Planet Express HQ, fire is raging all around while the crew is huddled in the darkened living room. Leela is miserable because all of the trouble they went through just lead to an Xmas just as horrible as before. Then it dawns on Fry that this terrible future version of Xmas still does retain some of the magic of the one he left behind for it’s fear that has brought them together. The Professor is ready to tell him how stupid he thinks that sentiment is, then an explosion goes off and he meekly requests, “Hold me!” The whole crew are then left embracing each other in terror on the sofa as somber music plays.
Bender doing his best Hans Gruber.
We’re not done though, as we need to check-in with Bender and Santa one more time. We learn that Santa’s reindeer are Smasher and Thrasher as Bender calls out to them while also whipping them. Kwanzaa-bot pulls up alongside them to inform them Chanukah Zombie is throwing a party and they should come check it out, Bender just responds with “Word.” With Kwanzaa-bot gone, Santa tells Bender he wanted to give him something for covering for him while he was trapped in the ice. Bender greedily accepts the present, but is surprised to find that the box is empty. When Bender informs the big guy he made a mistake, Santa turns to him and says “Oh it might appear empty, but I think the message is clear: Play Santa again and I’ll kill you next year!” And with that, Santa swats Bender out of his sleigh where he falls to a fiery end. Laughing, the robot turns and heads off towards a gold-tinged moon laughing all the way. Merry Xmas, everyone!
Merry Xmas, Santa!
I’ve watched my fair share of dark or bleak Christmas specials over the years. I tend to find most of them funny when they’re done well. As a result, I’m pretty used to them and sometimes it takes me doing one of these write-ups to notice just how bleak an episode like this one is. Santa is a murderer. He inflicts violence upon children and misery upon the “elves” of Neptune. I can see why some at Fox would find this depiction of Christmas distasteful. There’s a perverse message in it that Xmas is supposed to bring people together in fear and we see our beloved main characters all in a fetal position grasping at each other. The darkest joke may have been the family Bender drops in on and the mother ordering her children to take their suicide pills. Does that count as a suicide joke? I suppose not in the traditional sense, but there’s no way to frame a mother ordering her children to kill themselves in order to spare them a long, torturous, death as anything but bleak.
Was the darkest joke in this one the family suicide pact? The little girl getting repeatedly attacked with a bicycle? The kid asking Santa for a coffin for his grandfather’s rotting corpse?!
Despite all of that, the episode is very funny. There are way too many lines in this one to quote them all. I might as well just post the script. Some of them don’t even read as well as they come out like the Professor’s “No!” in response to Leela asking him if he remembers what they just talked about. Billy West’s delivery is just so perfect. Pretty much every line the Professor has in this episode gets a chuckle out of me and it’s largely because of the performance of West. John DiMaggio does a lot of heavy lifting as well voicing Bender and some of his usual incidentals while also taking over the role of Robot Santa. He sounds surprisingly similar to John Goodman’s version of the character enough so that if you weren’t watching these close together you may not even notice the change. DiMaggio would continue to voice Robot Santa in his various appearances on the show. None of which really compare to the first two. I enjoy the other Futurama holiday specials to some degree, but the first two stand head and shoulders above the pack.
Professor Farnsworth is my pick for episode MVP. Every line he has is gold.
If you’re interested in this dystopian Xmas of the future then you can check out Futurama on either Hulu or Disney+, depending on your subscription and residency. Futurama still airs on cable in syndication as well and this episode is probably airing somewhere, perhaps even right this very minute! The series has also been released on physical media and is available to purchase digitally. Futurama is an easy show to find, and a worthwhile one as well.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
Welcome, to the world of tomorrow! Today! We’re looking forward while we look back on one of the best animated Christmas episodes of all time – Futurama’s “Xmas Story.” Have you ever wondered what Christmas could be like in the 31st century? Well, now you don’t have to. Turns out, it’s pretty bad, but the…
Let’s continue our look at the best of the best in the field of Christmas specials with perhaps the most quoted, parodied, and maybe even beloved special of all time: A Charlie Brown Christmas. This is the special that shouldn’t exist. It’s one if you are able to separate your nostalgia for the special itself…
We’re rounding the corner to Christmas. With just five days left until the big day, that means we have time for just five more specials after this one! And since we’ve hit another multiple of five, it’s time to do another retro-lookback (or whatever I’m calling these things) at an all-time classic: Toy Tinkers. Toy…
I did not grow up with SpongeBob Squarepants. He is very much a post-Nick show for me as I wasn’t paying much attention to the cable channel when he premiered. Over the years, little has changed for me when it comes to SpongeBob Squarepants save for the fact that I’ve come to appreciate the show’s take on Christmas. SpongeBob Squarepants has two all-timers for Christmas specials on its resume. There may be more than just the two, but as far as I know the little sponge is batting 1.000 when it comes to Christmas. When I found out a new Christmas episode was due to air in 2021 I immediately took notice. I obviously didn’t write about it then, or the year after, or the year after that, but today I am going to remedy that. Can “SpongeBob’s Road to Christmas” possibly live up to the show’s other Christmas specials? Let’s find out.
The episode begins as any other without any extra holiday fanfare. The title card is at least set to an instrumental version of “Deck the Halls.” When the episode begins, we’re shown a traditionally animated (for this era of the show) shot of Bikini Bottom decked out for the holidays. It’s somehow covered in snow or a snow-like substance, but this show has very few rules when it comes to its setting. SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) is in his aforementioned pineapple under the sea preparing for Santa’s arrival. Unlike most people, or sponges, SpongeBob actually has a present for Santa. Either he’s really generous or he’s angling for a little something extra. Either way, it’s a nice gesture that goes beyond the typical cookies and milk.
I don’t think you’re fitting down that chimney, pal.
SpongeBob, along with his pet snail Gary, retire for the evening since Santa doesn’t visit homes with active residents. And soon enough, Santa (Lewis Black in what is a pretty atypical role for him) arrives! It’s a bit weird seeing him animated in a more traditional sense after only seeing him depicted in the stop-motion A SpongeBob Christmas, but his design seems to be more or less the same. He has a rather elven appearance to some of his facial features, but he also has the big, round, belly one would expect of Santa. Initially, he has a little trouble navigating SpongeBob’s home on account of the fact that he’s way too big. I guess we didn’t see this aspect of Santa back in that other special, but he actually needs to shrink himself with magic dust in order to enter the home. Once inside, he’s positively giddy as he dances and prances about SpongeBob’s living room. His jiggling, bulbous, ass knocks the present SpongeBob left out for him behind the couch without him ever noticing it. He places a gift for SpongeBob under the tree and then departs.
This story is a tragedy unlike any other.
Seven months later, we find SpongeBob doing some vacuuming in his home. He moves the couch to vacuum behind it and there he finds the present he left out for Santa all covered in dust and cobwebs. At first, he has almost no reaction to it, but then the realization sets in. Santa didn’t get his present! It’s two-hundred and twelve days late (making this exactly seven months later on July 25th, assuming no leap year) and all SpongeBob can do is clutch the present to his bosom and roll around on the floor sobbing. Roses rain down upon him as he does and they’re from Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) who thinks SpongeBob is performing or something. SpongeBob rises to his feet and informs Patrick of the situation. He doesn’t see the big deal here and rather matter-of-factly just suggests to SpongeBob that he deliver the present to Santa himself. Sleigh bells ring in SpongeBob’s head at the suggestion which he absolutely loves! Patrick volunteers to go too, but the only issue remaining is how to get there? Patrick suggests they push and shove their way to the North Pole and, wouldn’t you know, SpongeBob loves that idea too. He opens his face like a locker and stores the gift for Santa inside himself for safe-keeping, then Patrick shoves him out the door.
Plankton does make for a pretty convincing booger.
The two idiots, I mean friends, take turns pushing each other down the street laughing all the way. Nearby, Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) emerges from the confines of The Chum Bucket looking rather smug. I don’t know why, or if that’s just his natural disposition, but he soon gets squished by a rolling SpongeBob. SpongeBob pops up from the ground and Patrick mistakes the glob of Plankton on his nose for a booger. He offers SpongeBob his handkerchief who accepts it and delivers a hearty blow leaving behind what Patrick refers to as the ugliest booger he’s ever seen. The booger soon reveals itself to be Plankton who seems to be taking this all in stride. SpongeBob tells him what’s going on and Plankton gets an idea. Ever since he got the phrase “Born to be Naughty” tattooed on his right arm Santa has had him on the Naughty List. If he were to sneak into Santa’s workshop and change his designation on said list then he could finally receive the Krabby Patty secret formula for Christmas! Again!
They’re going to be traveling in style.
Plankton informs the two that he’s coming with which they don’t seem to mind at all. When they ask how he’d like to be shoved, Plankton smugly whips out a remote. Informing the two they’ll travel via other means, he presses a button and out from the Chum Bucket emerges a sort of fishbowl on snowmobile treads and skis. Plankton informs the pair he built it to fly and run over bodies in preparation for the zombie apocalypse. I’m guessing they needed to include the zombie apocalypse bit to please the network censors since they likely couldn’t simply depict Plankton as murderous.
Is that regret I see on Plankton’s face?
The three strap in with Plankton insisting on fastening their seatbelts. SpongeBob does as he’s told while Patrick just pulls his shorts over his head. Plankton is clearly showing some signs of regret in bringing these two along, but the decision has been made. He fires up the vehicle and it rockets off nearly taking out Mr. Krabs as they zoom past the Krabby Patty. SpongeBob and Patrick almost immediately jump out of their seats to look out the window and at all the fish they’re passing over including one farmer fish who mistakes their vehicle for a UFO. Plankton barks at them to return to their seats, but Patrick points out that the seatbelt light has been turned off. Plankton has no retort and the flying machine soars off into the sky. Or undersea. Whatever.
Plankton is only interested in what’s in the box for about five seconds. That’s about as long as I pondered the subject, myself.
Night falls and Plankton is looking beat. Lucky for him, the ship is equipped with autopilot so he’s able to go to bed, but first he needs to pick on SpongeBob. SpongeBob has been polishing his gift (it’s wrapped in a conventional box so he’s just polishing paper) and Plankton decides that he’s entitled to a peek. He snatches it out of SpongeBob’s hands and starts shaking it around wondering what’s inside. SpongeBob isn’t telling, and he turns his own eyeball like the dial of a safe to open his face and stash the gift back inside. Plankton expresses hope that the contents are a stink bomb since he has a hatred of Mr. Claus, which SpongeBob takes offense to when Plankton refers to him as potbellied (“Santa is not potbellied, he just suffers from seasonal bloating”). Plankton doesn’t care enough to argue and heads to bed, which for him is a cot onboard the ship. For SpongeBob and Patrick, it’s the floor.
The North Pole?
When Plankton wakes up in the morning he’s irritated to see SpongeBob and Patrick at the controls of the ship. He demands to know what they’re doing, but they’re happy to inform him that they’ve found the North Pole and way sooner than he said they would. Plankton is skeptical and asks how long he’s been asleep, but there’s no time for that as the ground is rapidly approaching. The ship smacks into the sign for Christmas Land Theme Park and it would appear to be on actual, dry, land. Plankton jumps onto the console to claim his rightful spot as pilot, but the seatbelt light is on so Patrick just slams him into the co-pilot chair and straps him in. Patrick is apparently the one in charge, and when Plankton asks if he even knows how to land this thing he responds with, “I know how to crash land!” The ship, almost gently, crashes into the snow-covered ground and skids to a halt at the actual North Pole. It just barely touches the pole as it comes to a complete stop and naturally this results in an explosion.
They’re certainly convinced.
Despite the explosion, the ship seems to be fine. Well, everything except the navigation system. The boys emerge from the ship (with fishbowls full of water on their heads) to bask in the glory of the North Pole. Plankton is rightly irritated with the damage done to the ship, while Patrick and SpongeBob don’t appear to be phased one bit. As they start walking through the park, Patrick and SpongeBob are captivated by their surroundings. They’re also unable to discern a fake elf or fake reindeer from a real one. Plankton, on the other hand, has taken note of the lack of coldness and the presence of smog in the air, but SpongeBob and Patrick just declare it’s some special “snog” and continue prancing along delighted by their own ignorance while Plankton just looks defeated.
This place has seen better days.
SpongeBob and Patrick then come to the heart of the apparent North Pole: Santa’s workshop. Inside, some barely functioning animatronic elves are working a toy assembly line and, once again, the two knuckleheads think they’re real. SpongeBob finally shows a tiny bit of concern on his face when one of the robot heads falls off the body of the elf and onto the assembly line where the next elf smashes it with a hammer. His concern quickly evaporates though when he takes note of a sign that says “Meet Santa Claus.” The building where this meet n’ greet is to take place is actually one the nicer pieces of scenery so far. SpongeBob and Patrick head in enthusiastically while Plankton is still piecing things together. He hasn’t quite figured out where they are, but he knows it’s a sham. SpongeBob tells him that Christmas is about believing while Patrick either has a different philosophy or mishears him as he chimes in with “Yeah, Christmas is about bleeding.”
Wait! What? Santa?!
The three walk down a dilapidated red carpet (the interior of this place is not the equal of the exterior) until they finally come to him – the big man! Or, well, he is indeed a big man, but he’s also asleep and snoring loudly in a big chair. SpongeBob and Patrick run at him while Plankton can scarcely believe it. The two nitwits each jump onto one of Santa’s knees and sit with giddy anticipation for Santa to wake up. His eyes crack open a tiny bit and he asks them what they want for Christmas. SpongeBob and Patrick immediately start shouting over each other a whole bunch of unintelligible stuff as they must be among the few thinking of Christmas lists in July. Santa’s eyes then finally flutter open to see who is actually on his knee. To my surprise, he knows them by name! Is this guy the real deal after all? He also tells SpongeBob that he’s his biggest fan and SpongeBob is forced to correct him that Patchy the Pirate is actually his biggest fan. Which makes sense, because this ain’t Santa.
Oh, it’s just Patchy! I was wondering if he was going to appear in this one.
It’s Patchy (Tom Kenny)! He pulls off his Santa costume and presents himself to SpongeBob and Patrick. Upon seeing this, SpongeBob and Patrick’s head literally explode. Once reassembled though, they’re pretty happy to see old Patchy, but what they’re not happy about is finding out they’re at an amusement park in Encino and approximately 4,000 miles away from the North Pole. Plankton is pretty pissed they went so far off course while SpongeBob is just bummed that their GPS is busted. Patchy cheerfully offers an alternative to GPS – a map! And don’t forget about Potty (Lawrence), the broken down toy parrot thing, who drops in with a compass which just so happens to land on and subsequently crush Plankton. He shakes his fist at the parrot while asking “Polly want a smacker?!” SpongeBob and Patrick cheerfully hop down off of Patchy’s knees with their map and compass and bid their old fan goodbye. As they depart, Patchy requests they tell Santa “Hi” for him and to let him know that he wants a new parrot for Christmas. Potty smacks him over the head and tells him he’d like a new pirate for Christmas.
The real North Pole is a lot colder than that other one.
The boys set off once again and we see their adventure unfold over the map. They get off to a bad start first traveling across the U.S. all the way to Florida where they’re eaten by an alligator. They escape to Idaho, before getting diverted to Nova Scotia where an angry moose donkey-kicks them up to the North Pole. When they arrive, we see the effects of the cold as Plankton is encased in a block of ice while SpongeBob has turned blue and is shivering beside him. Patrick, who has been asleep, is also blue and wakes up to ask if they’ve arrived yet, only for his eyes to shatter. Patrick and SpongeBob then disembark from the ship to approach the real Santa’s work shop. Plankton is conspicuously absent, or not. He’s actually still in ice and SpongeBob asks Patrick if he’s enjoying his “Plankton Pop.” Patrick, who has Plankton pinned between his face and the glass of the bowl over his head, declares he can’t wait to get to the chewy center. We get a close-up of Plankton which looks rather horrifying.
She may seem nice, but she’s kind of terrible.
SpongeBob and Patrick approach the door with giddy expressions on their faces. SpongeBob then realizes that Plankton has gone missing and asks Patrick where he went. The starfish looks momentarily perplexed, then his jaws are forced open by a very haggard looking Plankton. He’s able to get out of Patrick’s bowl-helmet and tells the guy he needs to do something about his terrible breath. The door to Santa’s work shop is then opened and a female elf (Jill Talley) pokes her head out. She immediately mistakes the pair for trick-or-treaters even though they would be three months early. Plankton, now seeing an open door, vacates the area as he doesn’t care what’s going on with Patrick and SpongeBob. He slaps a pair of elf ears onto his own bowl and heads inside.
I’m not so sure that’s milk.
SpongeBob tells the elf they’re not trick-or-treaters, but are actually here to see Santa. It would probably have been helpful if he explained why, but he doesn’t. The elf has some bad news though: Santa has gone on vacation with his wife in Aruba and isn’t currently here (so that’s what he does during the offseason). She speaks to them in a cheerful, but supremely condescending manner which makes her kind of terrible. She tosses the pair a candy cane each and then bids them farewell with a “Happy Halloween.” SpongeBob is pretty downhearted about the rejection, but Patrick is happy to have some free candy. Really happy. He reacts to eating the candy cane like it’s crack or something. That’s probably not a good thing. The two peer through the window and see the total elf rager going on inside. They’re behaving like drunks, but they’re clearly just drinking milk and eating cookies. Plankton is also in there trying his best not to get stepped on. SpongeBob reasons they need to get inside to leave Santa his present. Patrick has an idea for how to get in, but SpongeBob decides they should do it Santa style. Patrick, who can be seen at the controls of a wrecking ball, is disappointed in SpongeBob’s choice.
They have some pretty big reindeer up here.
Meanwhile, Plankton is strolling about the area in search of Santa’s mainframe. He intends to hack it so that he can put himself on the Nice List. Or take himself off the Naughty List. I guess he has to do both. As he walks through the compound, he sees a group of reindeer working out. These reindeer are pretty serious as they pump iron. Their overall shape reminds me of the shaven yak from The Ren & Stimpy Show. Plankton avoids them, but apparently not well enough for he’s soon approached by a rather nasty looking reindeer. He has a round, blue, nose which is probably why he’s called Bludolph (Clancy Brown). I don’t know if the name is ever said in the episode, but it’s how he’s credited. Anyway, he thinks Plankton is up to no good and Plankton certainly doesn’t look like any elf he’s ever seen. Plankton tries to play it cool, but when Bludolph is clearly not fooled he kicks snow in his face and calls him a moose. Bad move, Plankton, as Bludolph summons the other reindeer for some reindeer games. And the game is hacky sack with Plankton serving as the sack. As he’s sent through the air we get a poop joke as he shouts “That better be mud on your hooves,” after getting kicked.
Uh oh, they’ve angered the elves!
We cut to a fireplace and out from it emerges SpongeBob and Patrick. They’re in a rather cozy looking room and before them stands Santa’s Christmas tree. The two are in awe, but despite their reaction I have to say it’s a pretty conventional looking Christmas tree. All that’s left is for SpongeBob to do what he set out to and leave Santa his present, but as they approach the tree with their arms linked an alarm is triggered. The elves burst in and the girl elf from early recognizes the pair of “trick or treaters.” They think they’re hear to steal toys. They’re also too angry to listen to any sort of reason as they burst in forcing SpongeBob and Patrick to escape by climbing up the tree.
Both parties seem to give as good as they get.
It’s at this point that Bludolph and the other reindeer storm in as they were alerted to the break-in as well. This means Plankton’s beating is over, but he gets stepped on by a reindeer for good measure. He pops up wondering if they’ve had enough and calls them a bunch of cariboobs. It’s a good insult since reindeer are indeed caribou. I guess Bludolph and company are kind of like the security up here, but they also seem to have some conflict with the elves. They feel like the reindeer are out of line for coming to their aid and there’s quite a bit of hostility between the two. When a reindeer gets mistakenly hit by a toy the elves were throwing at SpongeBob and Patrick, a brawl breaks out between elves and reindeer. Despite the reindeer being the far larger species, the elves certainly came to play and both sides take on some casualties. Though some of it is self-inflicted on the part of the reindeer. One of them, I think it’s Prancer, manages to get his antlers stuck in a ceiling fan causing him to fall on some elves. Then his snout gets run over by a train.
Looks like Plankton found what he was looking for. Take that, Bono.
SpongeBob is forced to observe the horror from high in the Christmas tree. He blames himself for this since he was the catalyst for the confrontation. He looks to Patrick for support, but he’s enraptured by the aroma of candy canes and of no use to SpongeBob now. A vicious looking elf is also climbing the tree. What he intends to do to SpongeBob should he reach him is anyone’s guess. SpongeBob tries bombarding him with Christmas ornaments, but that only seems to fuel him. Meanwhile, Plankton, having recovered from his own beating, strolls in deftly avoiding the many feet around him. He’s overjoyed when he comes upon the thing that which he seeks: Santa’s mainframe. It’s not issue for him to access it and add himself to the nice list. As he strolls out the door though, he’s once again stepped on.
Don’t worry everyone, Santa will set everything right.
The foot that stepped on Plankton belongs to none other than Santa! He’s none too pleased to have to come back from his vacation early due to the alarm going off in his quarters. He’s less happy to find the elves and reindeer seemingly at war with each other, but he brightens up when he takes notice of SpongeBob who was about to be attacked by the elf from earlier. He even playfully refers to SpongeBob as a menace which the little guy laughs off. He hops down and it’s at this point I’m reminded that Santa had to shrink himself to fit into SpongeBob’s house at the beginning of the episode because now SpongeBob sits in the palm of the big elf’s hand. He explains what’s going on and pulls out the gift he has for Santa. Santa seems touched and he carefully opens the tiny present to find a gloss bottle inside with a piece of parchment within it.
Read it, Plankton!
Plankton, upon seeing the gift, assumes it’s the thing he covets most: the Krabby Patty secret formula! Seeing what he wants before him, he abandons his plan to remain nice until Christmas and instead opts for thievery. He swipes the bottle and taunts Santa for good measure with his tattoo before opening the bottle and taking a look at the message inside. Of course, it’s not the secret formula (why would SpongeBob even have it?) and he sheepishly offers to return the gift to Santa. Seeing an opportunity to punish Plankton a bit, Santa instead demands he read it and Plankton reluctantly does. It’s just a simple message from SpongeBob that notes there’s no present that would be commensurate to what Santa has gifted the world over the years, so instead it’s just a simple message of thanks. Santa gets all teary eyed for no one has ever given him a Christmas present before. No one until SpongeBob Squarepants.
In the next episode, Patrick goes to rehab.
Santa thanks SpongeBob, but the little guy is always looking out for others. He makes sure to point out to Santa that he would never have made it to the North Pole without Plankton’s help. He even tosses in a “he’s not such a bad guy,” to try to sweeten the sentiment. He also credits Patrick to getting him there, which causes him to remember that Patrick is still in the tree! We pan to Patrick in the tree who has managed to get his hands (flippers?) on several candy canes. His eyes are all striped again and he just offers up a “Happy holidays to me!” I think it would have been funnier if he said happy Halloween.
SpongeBob is the king of thoughtful, inexpensive, gifts. I kind of envy him.
Fast forward five months and it’s a Christmas party at the famed The Krusty Krab. SpongeBob and all of his friends are enjoying the festivities as presents are being handed out. Plankton is there as well and we see him cheerlessly open another present which contains a lump of coal. He tosses it aside where it lands amongst a pile of other coal. SpongeBob then sidles on up and gives Plankton a gift as well. It’s a picture of him, Patrick, and Plankton with Patchy the Pirate from their adventure to the North Pole. It also contains a message of encouragement from SpongeBob for Plankton as it says “One day you will destroy us all!”
Though in this case, SpongeBob’s words of encouragement have apparently unleased this thing upon the undersea world.
Upon reading such words of encouragement Plankton appears touched. Then his soft expression is replaced with a hardened one. One of determination and malevolence! He shovels all of that coal immediately into a giant robot which has just been standing there. The coal-powered monster belches fire and we cut to an exterior shot of the restaurant now glowing from the fire within as the sounds of screams (and Plankton’s laugher) coming from inside take us to credits.
SpongeBob’s journey to the North Pole did not surprise me in that it doesn’t quite live up to what’s come before it. That’s not a slight against this Christmas episode, but more an acknowledgement of how good the previous two were. I do like the premise as it’s very much a SpongeBob plot to want to make sure Santa Claus himself gets a present on Christmas. The show does a fine enough job of coming up with something for SpongeBob to hand over to Kris Kringle and it’s not really important, anyway. This episode is about the journey. It’s a road trip for SpongeBob and his best friend plus the odd pairing of Plankton. All good road trip movies include an oil and water dynamic and that’s what inserting Plankton into the plot does here. It also provides the plot a mode of transportation and giving Plankton the goal of getting himself onto the Nice List works well enough.
Plankton carries this one for me. He’s so deliciously evil!
Where things stumble a bit for me is in the actual journey. Every road trip story needs a part where the journey clearly has gone wrong and a wrong destination or a wrong turn is often the device utilized. Here, it’s a dilapidated amusement park which I guess was fine? It’s a way to work in Patchy the Pirate who played a role in past SpongeBob Christmas episodes so I guess it’s kind of his thing. My issue with it is I think we’re denied more time at the North Pole. There are some unusual dynamics going on up there between the elves and reindeer and I’d have appreciated some more context there. Maybe we could have even had time for Mrs. Claus? It all leads to a sensible resolution though and I like the somewhat violent ending with Plankton. It caught me by surprise and that’s a pretty hard trick for a Christmas episode to pull off.
“SpongeBob’s Road to Christmas” is a perfectly charming and entertaining little Christmas episode. It’s unlikely to blow anyone away, but it’s entertaining and not too derivative of other Christmas travel specials. It’s only real failing is not being as good as A SpongeBob Christmas. If you’d like to spend time with the sponge and his friends then you can find this episode streaming on Paramount+. It’s also likely to be shown on Nickelodeon a few times this month and I bet you still have time to find it if you still have a cable subscription.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
In 2001, Rugrats had the honor of being the first Nicktoon to make it 10 years. The path to that honor was not a smooth one as the show had effectively been cancelled in 1993 with the third season. That appeared to not be performance related, but more strategic on the part of Nickelodeon as…
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Last year, Prep & Landing was given the prestigious slot at The Christmas Spot of Christmas Day. I try to reserve a really good special for the big day each year and Prep & Landing is one of the best. In fact, I have declared it the 9th best Christmas special of all-time. That’s no faint praise and I suppose that means it’s a good thing that Disney wasn’t content to make Lanny and Wayne, the Christmas Elves, one and done. The original special debuted in 2009 and hot on the heels of that was the short Operation: Secret Santa.
The first instance of Prep & Landing was produced as a half hour television special. It’s sequel was not. Coming in at a tidy 7 minutes, Operation: Secret Santa is more like a theatrical short than a television special. I don’t know why they took this approach. The sequel that’s actually a half hour special arrived in 2011 in Naughty vs Nice. Did they fast-track the shorter one to have something ready for 2010? Maybe, but a seven minute short still takes a lot of work and given the short window in which all of them were released (not to mention the other short, Tiny’s Big Adventure, which is even shorter than this one by a lot) it stands to reason that development was taking place concurrently. This special doesn’t require a lot of backgrounds or new assets and maybe Disney just figured they could combine it with one of their many other shorts of a similar length to fill out a half hour of television. Regardless, it was only an issue for one year as once Naughty vs Nice arrived in 2011 there was a reliable hour of television content for ABC pushing Operation: Secret Santa to physical media and digital.
In the first Prep & Landing, we were introduced to Wayne (Dave Foley) and new his partner Lanny (Derek Richardson). The two elves are part of the prep and landing team which is tasked with getting a house ready for Santa’s visit. Wayne was in a rut and not really feeling the job after 227 years, but by the end of the night he and Lanny basically save Christmas for one kid and it restores his faith in his job. In this short, the stakes are lower and there’s no real internal conflict. Wayne and Lanny are going to be put to a different task, but one that takes advantage of their skills. And the job is coming from an unlikely source.
You didn’t forget about Magee, did you?
The short begins with an image of a cozy fireplace at night in a very scenic home which is just used to display the title card. There’s no big intro or anything since this is a short one, or a “Stocking Stuffer,” as it’s branding would indicate. We’re then shown an exterior shot of Santa’s work shop at the North Pole while some text over the screen informs us that it’s December 21st like this is some episode of 24 or something (it was 2010). We soon find our leads, Lanny and Wayne, as they’re walking in a shadowy hallway and discussing a meeting through whispers. Lanny seems especially on edge, but both jump when Magee (Sarah Chalke) emerges from the shadows. She tersely informs them of their tardiness and quickly gets to the point. She is merely the facilitator of this meeting as it’s not with her, but someone else. Someone in a big sleigh, with a red coat, and white gloves.
Everybody is really on edge to start this one.
Magee rings a little bell and the robed one returns with the same. As Wayne and Lanny begin the long walk to the chair, Magee lets Wayne know that if he doesn’t come back from this she’s claiming his snowmobile. This is some heavy stuff! The two elves approach nervously likely anticipating a face-to-face with the big boss, Santa Claus, but are surprised to see who their real contact is: Mrs. Claus. It would seem their trepidation was unwarranted, as Mrs. Claus (Betty White) quickly shows us that she’s a kind woman and not someone to be feared. She gives the boys some hot chocolate and goes into why she summoned them. She needs to call upon their special skills to retrieve an item for her, an item that’s being kept in Santa’s own personal office.
I don’t need a fancy cookie to tell me that guy is asleep.
What do you do when Mrs. Claus requests a job of you? You do it, of course! Wayne and Lanny take the intel Mrs. Claus relayed and head out for Santa’s office. She let them know that he takes a nap everyday just before 3 o’clock so that’s their chance, but he only takes a very short one so the window is tight. As the two approach the chimney to Santa’s office, Lanny is clearly unnerved and unsure about this one. Wayne gives him a pep talk, the old stuff your worries in a hat bit (I thought it was a sack?) and the two begin their descent down the very long chimney. They go via cable with their night vision goggles on. At the bottom, they find a roaring fire which they quickly extinguish. Wayne can see that Santa is asleep at his desk and the two enter. Even though the room is very well lit, they still keep their goggles on. We get some nice espionage music from Michael Giacchino and the sequence is very reminiscent of the first special right down to Wayne using his gingerbread man device to note the lack of stirring creatures. The two start sneaking around and Lanny looks up at the clock which show it’s currently 2:45. The minute hand then jumps five minutes and the coocoo function engages!
Well this took a dark turn.
Santa (W. Morgan Sheppard) jumps from his desk as alert as if he had never been sleeping. Immediately, Lanny and Wayne are discovered. He picks up a sheet of parchment which contains the worst punishment imaginable: The Naughty List. Their names are jotted down, they’ll be on it forever, and Wayne can only faint in response. Santa shoves a lump of coal in Lanny’s hands, then his pants fall down for added shame. We cut quickly to Lanny getting kicked out the door and into the snow where he’s forced to take shelter in an igloo. Freezing and clutching his knees, it would seem there’s nothing left for hm to do except wait for the icy hand of death to claim him. That’s right, Lanny is doomed. Or not, as he quickly snaps out of it and we find out he’s just having a minor panic attack at the base of Santa’s desk.
I love these ceramic trees. I actually have a Disney one in my house, but it kind of sucks.
Wayne grabs his own head and sends Lanny a signal to resume putting his worries in his hat. Lanny just responds he thinks his hat is leaking. They move on and synchronize their watches to Santa’s clock. They have five minutes to pull this off. Wayne takes out the “doohicky” Mrs. Claus gave them which creates a 3D projection of a ceramic Christmas tree. There’s audio as well from the old gal informing them this is to be found on a shelf nearby. The elves locate it, but they have to lock it in position to advance further. Wayne is unsure of what to do, but he remarks he was never very good at trimming the tree which seems like a little motivational bait for Lanny to take. It works, as Lanny realizes that since it’s a tree it should be oriented so that the most festive side is facing out. He spins the tree parts into place and a soft click indicates that what he did was a success.
With how on edge these two have been this whole time I’m starting to wonder if they’re expecting to uncover some weird secret Santa sex dungeon.
The tree lights up and on Santa’s desk, a button emerges. It’s red and glowing – what do you do with a red and glowing button? You press it! Wayne and Lanny climb up onto the desk and push the button. The desk rumbles and shakes and the two elves do their best to hide amongst the clutter in case Santa wakes up, but the look of concern on their face suggests they know they’re boned should that happen. The floor opens beneath the desk and the whole thing descends down into the basement, or rather, Santa’s secret work shop.
Instead it’s more like Santa’s junk storage.
All fear of getting caught seems to melt away at the sight of the work shop. Some lights automatically flicker on and we can see some of Santa’s other wardrobe such as robes of green and a longer red. We hear the voice recording of Mrs. Claus in the ears of the elves explain the nature of this work shop, how it’s basically just a place for Santa to basically tinker and get some alone time. She also gets to try out some material as she warns the pair to watch out for a giant nutcracker. Naturally, Lanny bumps into it and Wayne has to help him keep it from falling over. Mrs. Claus goes on to explain it used to be in their foyer and she’d bump into it a lot suggesting it should have been called a hip-cracker. Her joke doesn’t get a response from Lanny or Wayne, better luck next time Mrs. C.
A little gift exchange is in order.
Mrs. Claus directs the boys to a pile of what she describes as “manly clutter.” The target, a small, ornate, box, is indeed amongst such clutter. It’s on top of a bunch of more conventional boxes with several more on top of it. Getting it out without making a sound is going to be like playing a game of Jenga, but apparently these elves are pretty good at Jenga. The two elves play Batman and fire off their grapnel guns into the ceiling. Then, both dangling by their belts, Wayne informs Lanny they’ll be using the Gift Exchange maneuver. Lanny seems enthusiastic as Wayne basically gives him a slap on the behind to get him swinging. As Lanny swings towards the clutter, he grabs a gift from the top. Wayne then swings in and pulls out the target. Lanny quickly swings in behind him and slots the box he grabbed into the spot vacated by the target. Piece of cake.
I thought about doing a suspended train or monorail in my kid’s room when he was little. Yeah, didn’t happen, but I bet it would have looked cool!
Or not. Unfortunately for Lanny, the force of shoving the replacement box into place caused the whole pile to shift slightly backwards. It contacts a switch which activates a toy train, the track for which is suspended from the ceiling. It’s pretty cool actually, but as Wayne congratulates Lanny on a task well done he’s struck by the train and knocked onto the top of it. Lanny snaps out of his momentary high and out from his wrist springs his mini saw. Normally, this is used for trimming a tree to accommodate presents under it, but now it’s used to slice the cable holding him from the ceiling. Lanny drops onto the track and chases after Wayne. Meanwhile, Wayne comes to after some momentary grogginess to see that the box they’re after is stuck in front of the train and is getting pushed down the tracks. A bend is coming up which is right in front of Santa’s desk. Wayne runs across the top of the train and jumps, too late. The box falls and Wayne soars through the air after it. He catches up to it, but a lot of good that did as he’s currently on a path that will see him land in Santa’s beard.
Save him, Lanny! Save him!
Lucky for Wayne, he’s got Lanny! Lanny jumps off the track after him, grabs Wayne, and fires off another grapnel. The two swing out of harm’s way and Santa’s beard stirs ever so slightly due to the rush of wind as they pass over him. They’re not quite out of harm’s way though, as they have to swing back. Lanny lets go of Wayne and the cable and they both tumble onto Santa’s desk in a somewhat sloppy manner. He still doesn’t wake, but with only 15 seconds left on their timer Lanny requests permission to panic. Wayne grants him that as he presses the button, but the desk is moving way too slow for them to have any hope of getting out of there undetected.
Come on, Lanny, you’ve made it this far without a “leak,” you can do it!
The desk reaches the top floor, but there’s only five seconds for the elves to go back up the chimney. As they run, Lanny announces they’re out of time. Wayne has one final trick up his sleeve though: a snowflake shuriken! These guys are armed with saw blades and shurikens? Seems a bit extreme for a couple of Christmas elves, but I’ll allow it. Wayne tosses the snowflake at the clock striking the second hand and knocking it back another five seconds. He catches the shuriken as well so this guy is pretty damn talented. The two quickly flee up the chimney and drop their little fire sparkle on the logs causing it to burst into flames. The clock hits three, and a little figurine pops out to ring the quietest of bells. Santa jolts from his slumber seemingly refreshed by his cat nap and none the wiser about what took place in his secret work shop that afternoon.
If you were wondering (I really wasn’t, which is a bit strange), it’s a wooden wheel.
We cut quickly to Mrs. Claus opening the box the two elves retrieved as they look on. Inside is an old, worn, wooden, wheel. Mrs. Claus explains that this thing has been tucked away for ages, but she finally found the toy it goes to. We cut to December 25th, 09:00 hours, and a bunch of elves are watching Mrs. Claus give Santa his Christmas present. We can only see the elves while Santa and the Mrs. are shadows on the wall. Turns out, the toy is a little wooden duck. It was the first toy Santa built and he sounds pretty emotional upon receiving it from his wife. Lanny, with moist eyes, nudges Wayne and remarks, “Mission accomplished, partner.” Magee then leans in to say she really wanted that snowmobile as we iris out.
And the wooden wheel belongs to this duck. I’m guessing there really weren’t any stakes here, just Lanny and Wayne potentially blowing Mrs. Claus’ surprise for Santa.
Operation: Secret Santa is a fun little Christmas cartoon. The production values are on par with the longer special that came before it, it’s just a lot tidier. It’s also a cartoon willing to let us just enjoy the Wayne and Lanny pairing. There’s no drama there, they’re happy to be working together, and they have a somewhat unusual task to perform. It makes sense though and is an extension of the original Prep & Landing which shined a light on how the job of Santa and his elves is a bit like a spy movie. This just leans full into that by having the Christmas Elves essentially steal something, rather than help to deliver a present. And if you want to portray the elves as sneaky, little, thieves, they need an altruistic task.
These specials are committed to not showing us all of Santa, though we see quite a bit of him in this one. Mrs. Claus cannot be shown about the neck.
Enter Mrs. Claus and her wish to get something from her husband’s work shop without him knowing. We can poke holes in this, of course, like why didn’t she just do it herself when he’s out delivering presents? She is old so maybe she didn’t think she was physically capable of getting that box. And since she knew where the thing was, maybe it indicates that she’s tried. No matter, it’s a lot more fun to watch Lanny and Wayne swing and sneak about to accomplish the task. They get to demonstrate their skill for the camera and the fake out was pretty fun too. It all leads to a syrupy sweet ending, but an appropriate one. It’s not long enough for the viewer to get all that invested in the object the elves are after and the structure of the short also allows it to move very quickly. It’s faster than its 8 minute run time, but it works pretty well. It’s a shame we haven’t received more.
Lanny is overselling this one a bit, but it’s a fun little cartoon.
Operation: Secret Santa was a cute little short when it came out. Now, it’s a nice little palette cleanser if you’re watching all of the Prep & Landing specials in a single session. They’re a little weighty, dramatic, and there are some actual stakes in them. This one, by extension, is far more low stakes. There’s a bit of tension, but it becomes clear that nothing save for the clock can wake Santa. After the fake-out, it pretty much feels like clear sailing, and that’s okay. We don’t need every holiday special to put Christmas in crisis and it’s also nice that we get to just like and enjoy Wayne when the longer form specials are not so accommodating.
If you want to check out Operation: Secret Santa the easiest way to do so is via Disney+. The short has also been released on physical media a couple of times, once as part of a collection of other Disney shorts and also on the Prep & Landing Blu Ray which includes the rest. Disney+ has kind of made that release superfluous, but it is definitely worth buying if you want a physical back-up.
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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Wait? Devils?! Yes, this one, as you could have probably guessed based on the title, stars The Devil himself. The Devil is the main villain for the video game and show and he gets to star in his own stand-alone episode for Christmas. It’s rather unconventional for a show to make the star of its Christmas episode Satan himself, but The Cuphead Show! isn’t always typical so why should its Christmas episode be? Plus, we got the one starring Cuphead and Mugman out of the way already opening the door for The Devil to take center stage.
Ready for some wholesome Christmas entertainment starring The Devil?!
And it’s a great move. The Devil, played by Luke Millington-Drake, is a fantastic character. The portrayal here reminds me of one part Futurama‘s Robot Devil and one part Family Guy‘s Stewie Griffin. Millington-Drake and Dan Castellaneta (who plays the Robot Devil) almost seem to be using the same affectation for their respective characters. It’s fun. It gives The Devil this somewhat stuck-up persona, but also with a certain element of childishness as well. He’s a brat and that makes sense for a cartoon devil who is unlikely to be shown flaying the flesh from the bones of the damned. And in this episode he is going to be very childish indeed. The Devil is going to set his sights on a toy choo choo. He wants it for Christmas, but he has some issues with The Naughty List he will need to address if he hopes to receive such a gift. It’s pretty much a true solo outing as well as Mugman will not be featured at all and there’s just a brief instance of Cuphead. This is The Devil’s Christmas and he is going to soak up the spotlight.
Just a taste of what The Devil has to offer.
The episode begins with an original composition. It’s a rather idyllic piece of holiday scenery of people (well, what passes for people in this universe) walking through a downtown area. The snow is falling, people seem happy, and there’s lots of winter activities taking place. And there’s also The Devil. He’s dressed for the cold with a festive scarf, though aside from that he’s completely naked. He’s at the park leaning on a large tree and observing the goings on. With a wistful smile he lets out a contented sigh and taps the ice on a nearby pond with the tip of his trident. It creates a crack which runs through the ice to a group of individuals ice skating in a circle holding hands. The crack spreads around them and the ice gives way plunging them into the cold, cold, water.
He’s a real showman.
The Devil lets out a giggle and breaks into a song titled “Brings Out the Devil in Me.” And it’s a song all about how Christmas brings out the best in people, but it brings out the worst in him, which is why he loves it! As he sings, it’s treated sort of like a montage of chaos The Devil spreads about town. Some of the stuff is harmless pranks, like photo-bombing a family portrait, while other stuff may actually cause fatalities. His final act, and the big finale of the sequence, is he winds up a little toy soldier that waddles into traffic, pops the tire of a car that strikes it, which causes that car to crash into the giant town Christmas tree setting it ablaze. The Devil gets to preen in the streets while the fire department races to put it out.
The Devil and Sammy Sandwich agree: being nice sucks an egg!
The delightful toot of a toy train snaps The Devil out of his moment of joy. It’s coming from a nearby store window and he races over to it, shoves the little brats who were standing there first out of the way, and presses his face to the glass to take it in. It’s a modest little train, an engine and two cars, but it’s self-propelled and quite charming. The Devil simply adores it, but his concentration is broken by the cries of another child. This boy, Sammy Sandwich (Dave Wasson), is a literal sandwich and he’s begging his mother for a train, but he mostly just wants a spaceship for Christmas. His mom (April Winchell), a submarine sandwich, seems irritated at the requests of her son and we get to hear about how Sammy didn’t get anything last year. He was on The Naughty List, the mere mention of such perplexes The Devil, for gluing his sister’s face to the floor. Sammy pleads that he’s been nice this year so he should get something, but the conversation is over. The Devil, who was rather happy with how awful this child sounded, quietly asks him as his mother is leading him away about this whole Naughty and Nice List business. The kid gives him a quick rundown, letting him know that he detests having to be nice, leaving The Devil with something to think about.
Henchman is right to be afraid.
In Hell, The Devil’s minions are all seated at a long table debating something or other. Henchman sits near the head of the table and there’s also the character of Stickler (Andrew Morgado), a blue-skinned demon with a nasally voice who exists just to remind The Devil about things he doesn’t want to hear about. Stickler is in the midst of complaining about someone always eating his lunch out of the community refrigerator, but none of the little imps are coming clean. Henchman (Dave Wasson), who is a round, purple, imp much larger than the rest, remarks that despite living in a fiery Hell hole, they should all exhibit good manners. The debate is ended by the arrival of The Devil who takes his position at the head of the table. He asks of his minions what it would take to get someone like him onto Santa’s Nice List. Everyone goes quiet and most adopt an expression of fear. The imp beside Henchman tries to quietly ask how their boss even came to know about the list, but before Henchman can answer The Devil nukes the little imp to oblivion. The Devil then asks Henchman to explain why he withheld such information from his boss. He has to carefully tell him that he didn’t think it was his kind of list on account of him being evil and all. The Devil takes offense and when he asks in return if he’s saying that he can’t be evil and on The Nice List at the same time Henchman just remarks, “Well, yeah.” The Devil just puffs out his chest and turns away from the table seemingly intending to prove them all wrong. And since it is Christmas Eve, there is only one person who can get him onto The Nice List at this hour.
Oh! I’ve seen this before!
The Devil taps his trident on the floor and disappears in a puff of purple smoke. The scene shifts to an exterior shot of Santa’s Workshop at The North Pole. It’s done with a physical model, but there are elves (voiced by Wasson, Grey Delisle, and Cosmo Segurson) animated over it as they ride atop reindeer or walk to the shop itself. It’s also clearly an homage to the Silly Symphonies short Santa’s Workshop as it’s staged almost exactly the same way as the first shot in that classic short. The elves even appear to be modeled after the same from it. The elves are all singing (an original composition titled “The Elf Song”) and working with cheer to make Christmas happen until Santa (Fred Tatsciore) enters. He also resembles the Santa from that short and he’s an appropriately jolly fellow. He encourages his minions to keep up the good work before disappearing into his office.
Even The Devil gets a thrill out of sitting on Santa’s lap.
Once there, Santa finds himself face to face with The Devil himself! Seated at the big man’s desk, The Devil addresses him as Nicholas and lets him know that he’s here to put in a request for Christmas. Santa seems to have no idea who he is and even remarks that he’s a hairy boy. Santa, being the good-natured sort that he is, invites The Devil to whisper in his ear what he wants for Christmas. The Devil is surprised, but also a little disappointed and asks him, “Aren’t you going to…you know?” as he gestures towards the ground. Santa realizes what he wants and pulls up a stool so that The Devil can sit on his lap and whisper to him properly what he wants for Christmas. He does so and Santa thinks he says “Too too,” but The Devil corrects him that he wants a choo choo. Santa laughs and tells him it won’t be a problem, but he just has to do one thing first: consult The List!
For The Devil, this is like that feeling you would get when handing over a bad report card to an unsuspecting parent.
Santa looks over his Nice List while The Devil stands off to the side looking rather anxious. Santa seems almost embarrassed that he can’t find his name and asks him to confirm it. The Devil tells him it’s “Devil,” which Santa assumes to be a surname. When he can’t find that he asks to know his first name which he responds is “The.” Makes sense. Santa still can’t locate it, and there’s a good reason for that obviously. He then opens up The Naughty List and practically jumps out of his suit. Not only is The Devil present there, it’s number one! He’s been number one on that list since time began! This won’t do and Santa has to firmly tell The Devil he won’t be getting that too too, I mean, choo choo for Christmas. The Devil, feeling sad, sinks into Santa’s chair as a sad violin plays. Santa can’t bare to see another being in distress, even if he is The Devil, and makes him an offer: if The Devil can be nice until midnight, he’ll give him his too too. Choo choo.
The man has a drinking problem. Don’t meet your heroes, kids.
The Devil enthusiastically agrees to Santa’s proposal and heartily shakes his hand. He vows to be nice and prove to Santa that he’s worthy of that choo choo. With another puff of smoke, he vanishes back to town with confidence and bravado. Almost immediately, a little old mouse woman (Winchell) asks him if he can spare some change. The Devil recoils with an “Ew!” and blasts the little, old, women with his trident murdering her on the spot. We smash cut to an angry Santa demanding to know what happened from behind his desk. The Devil can only offer that he was off to a good start, which Santa points out was about ten seconds. He stands and grumpily remarks that he needs a drink. He walks over to a globe and it opens up revealing what you probably expected: cookies and milk. He pours himself a glass and tells The Devil that he’s likely to remain on The Naughty List forever. The Devil erupts with anger at this suggestion complete with a wall of flame behind him. Santa just shakes his head with a “tisk tisk” and adds “Threatening Santa,” to the list of naughty behavior exhibited by The Devil. At that point the horned one collapses at Santa’s feet. Groveling over his too too (Santa has to correct him this time), he begs him to give him another chance. Santa tells him there is one other way onto The Nice List, but it comes at a cost. The Devil is willing to do anything.
Nothing bad will come of this.
We cut to outside the work shop, but we can hear chanting from within. Inside, the elves are all dressed in robes like druids as they prepare an ancient ritual. A circle has been created on the floor of the darkened workshop fashioned out of peppermint sticks. One of the elves then leads The Devil into the circle, smiles at him, and departs. They all toss back their hoods to reveal lit candles and Santa enters, in a hooded, red, robe, and begins a new chant. Up until this point, they have just been chanting “Fa la la la” in a monotone fashion. Now it sounds more like Latin which the subtitles say is “Decatus, seasonem, holly jolly om.” Google says that simply translates to decadence season. Santa stops chanting and his eyes glow a light blue. He blows some sparkly dust at The Devil which blots out all of the candles. When the dust dissipates, the light returns and the elves return to their traditional song as they filter away with Santa seemingly gone. The Devil is left standing in the circle, confused, left to remark “What the heck was that?!”
Could it be another Disney homage?
The Devil returns to his throne room in Hell left to feel the whole trip north was a waste of time. As he looks at his nails, his hand begins to swell. It looks like a surgical gloves that’s been inflated and soon his other hand does the same. The Devil is quite alarmed and even appears to be in some pain as he drops to the floor. There’s a cut which just shows The Devil’s shadow on the wall as he writhes and contorts. He ends up at a vanity, clutching it as his cheeks enlarge, a white beard sprouts from his chin, and his flesh rips apart to make room for a big, red, coat. When the transformation is complete, The Devil can only look at himself, the now spitting image of Santa Claus, and exclaim “Ho ho ohh no!”
Why Mr. Devil, that is a very different look for you!
The Devil is left to stare at his new visage in the mirror in horror. His only thought is to get back to The North Pole and make Santa fix this. Before he can get his pitchfork though, some imps pass by still complaining about stolen lunches. The Devil, understandably not wanting anyone to see him, has to duck for cover. He sneaks his way into the throne room, but before he can get his pitchfork, Henchman enters with the vacuum. The Devil tries to duck for cover behind the throne, but he’s spotted. Initially, Henchman thinks he’s in the presence of the real Santa, but once he gets a closer look at this Santa he realizes it’s actually The Devil. And, once again, his first inclination is wrong as he thinks his boss has been Santa this whole time, but The Devil has to correct him and explain the situation. When Henchman asks (what we’re likely all wondering) why The Devil doesn’t just create a choo choo with his magic, The Devil angrily corrects him that creating an object for himself is not the same as receiving it as a present. That’s basically what this is all about: The Devil, having never been the recipient of a gift, wants one for Christmas.
The big guy you were expecting?
The Devil is forced to return to The North Pole and he takes a very excited Henchman along with him. When they get there, they find the elves are loading the sleigh and singing their working song once again. Upon seeing Devil Santa, they all exclaim with glee “Santa!” and move in for a hug or something. The Devil is grossed out and starts pushing them away with the handle of his pitchfork, so at least he’s not stabbing anyone. He tells them that he’s not Santa, he’s looking for Santa, but he’s soon interrupted by a loud and drawn out, “Ehmmm!”
Does every immortal being have a Stickler among their underlings?
It’s Stickler, only it’s not Sitckler, but an elf that looks, talks, and behaves exactly like the Stickler we know from Hell. This one steps forward to inform The Devil that he is, in fact, now Santa Claus which means he needs to undertake all of Santa’s Christmas Eve responsibilities. The Devil has no interest in doing that, but Stickler tells him that he must. In fact, if he does not deliver all of the presents to children on The Nice List by midnight he’ll not only never be on The Nice List himself, but be stuck as Santa Claus for all eternity. When he says that, the camera zooms in on The Devil’s face while the word “eternity” echoes in his brain. Only, it’s not an echo, as when the closeup ends we see Stickler is just repeating the word over and over for dramatic effect until The Devil barks at him to knock it off.
He’s just here to help.
Unbothered, Stickler resumes informing The Devil of the other conditions he must satisfy this evening. There’s a list of rules and rule number one is reciting the reindeer roll call. The Devil has no idea what that is, but Henchman is happily willing to inform him of the proper roll call and receives applause from the elves upon finishing it. Rule number two is that Santa must remain jolly at all times and must never lose his temper. As Stickler informs The Devil of this, he’s wagging his finger at him which causes The Devil to explode with rage. He blasts Stickler into nothingness with his pitchfork, realizes that it was a bad idea, then simply undoes it by tapping the end of the pitchfork on the ground. Once returned to the world of the living, Stickler simply moves on to rule number 3 which is that every kid on The Nice List must receive their present. The Devil reluctantly accepts this with a “How many kids can their possibly be on The Nice List?” Stickler lets the list unfold in response. It rolls across the floor, out onto the balcony, off the balcony, and then over all of the hills in the background. The Devil just explodes in fiery rage again declaring that he will burn someone, but Henchman douses his flames with a bucket of water. A soggy Devil sullenly thanks him for the reminder about remaining jolly.
That’s gonna be a problem…
We’re not done, as there is a rule number four which is that Santa must consume all cookies and milk left out for him. Henchman cheekily replies that it shouldn’t be a problem and shakes The Devil’s belly like a bowl full of jelly prompting him to inform him “Do. Not. Touch!” Henchman recoils in fear while Stickler takes The Devil by the hand to tell him the final rule: all presents must be delivered by midnight. The Devil dismisses the hand of Stickler and continues onto the sleigh to the roar of applause from the elves. The Devil arrogantly informs Stickler it won’t be a problem, but once out of sight he confesses to Henchman that he can’t possibly fulfill all of these tasks and that he fears being stuck like this forever! Henchman reassures him that everything will be fine and encourages his boss to go out and deliver those presents. Unfortunately for The Devil, he doesn’t even know the solution to the first rule. Instead of calling out the reindeer by name, he simply demands that they fly in a threatening manner. The reindeer, in a way, do as they’re told, but not before first detaching from the sleigh. With the reindeer gone, all hope appears to be lost, but The Devil has one friend he can turn to.
He’s no Rudolph, but Henchman gets the job done.
This is now a one-imp open sleigh as Henchman giddily takes the place of the reindeer to pull the sleigh through the sky. I guess it’s not a big deal that he couldn’t get rule number one down since Stickler said nothing. Henchman giddily leads The Devil to his first house. He approaches the chimney and deposits the presents down it without much care prompting Henchman to remind him to be more gentle. He takes the suggestion in stride before trying to squeeze down the chimney itself. It doesn’t go well so Henchman reminds him to use his pitchfork. The Devil does and materializes by the Christmas tree inside. There he drops the soot-covered gifts under the tree and then turns to the milk and cookies. He devours them with glee before returning to the sleigh feeling rather triumphant and orders Henchman to take him to the next house.
So many moon shots!
Tchaikovsky’s “Trepak” ushers in a montage of The Devil delivering gifts to the many houses on his list. Things do not go as well as the first house. He falls off a roof and gets tangled in Christmas lights causing himself to get electrocuted at one house. At another he gets mauled by dogs while another features a whole litter of kittens expecting gifts. They have all left out their own plate of milk and cookies which The Devil is now far less enthusiastic about consuming. We then go into a sequence of quicker shots. The sleigh flies past the moon in one direction, we get a little scene, then it flies past going in the other direction. There may be a record number of moon shots in this one. All the while there’s The Devil continuing to eat cookies and it’s clearly getting harder and harder to eat any more. During this, we do get a couple of cameos. A gift is delivered to the corpse of Telephone (Wasson) who had his soul taken from him by The Devil in, I believe, the very first episode. The gift is his soul and he springs back to life in triumph upon receiving it. We also see Sammy Sandwich who gets his spaceship. His sister, who is still glued to the floor, gets some glue dissolver.
I know what The Devil is getting for Christmas: Diabetes.
When the montage is over, The Devil is left groaning on the sleigh covered in crumbs and his belly massive and overstuffed. Henchman is there to offer encouragement as they’re nearly done. He’s looking forward to the part where The Devil gets to call out “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,” upon completion of their work, but The Devil insists that he won’t be saying that. He then asks how many houses are left? Henchman consults the list and is happy to inform his boss that only one remains. His smile is soon replaced by a grave expression, but whatever is bothering him he doesn’t relay to his boss.
The last house on the list belongs to him!
The Devil soon realizes why his henchman may have been wary about this last stop and that’s because he can see it through the clouds: the home of Cuphead and Mugman. This immediately causes the flames to rise once more prompting Henchman to remind him of his jolly requirement. They land on the roof of the massive kettle and Henchman immediately starts trying to pump his boss up. He reminds him that he’s Santa and that every kid on The Nice List deserves a present, even Cuph—. The Devil cuts him off before he can finish that sentence remarking that if he even hears the name of Cuphead he’s going to throw up.
And to add further insult to injury, The Devil has to give Cuphead the thing he wants most!
The Devil disappears in a puff of smoke and reappears in the living room of Cuphead and Mugman. If you watched the previous episode, or read yesterday’s entry here, then you’re not wondering why Cuphead’s tree looks the way that it does all burnt to a crisp. The Devil hates that he’s here and wants nothing to do with this final house. He really wants nothing to do with it when he finds out that the gift he’s supposed to leave for Cuphead is the very same train that he himself wants! The Devil almost can’t bring himself to do it. He contemplates simply stealing the train for himself. Yeah, that will teach Cuphead a lesson and shouldn’t naughty children be taught lessons? Even hard ones like not getting what you want at Christmas?
Just take it!
The Devil’s contemplations are interrupted by a sound like the coo of a dove. It’s little Cuphead (Tru Valentino)! All dressed in his cute red pajamas wondering what Santa brought him. The Devil tries to play it cool, but he’s clearly uncomfortable. Cuphead remarks that he wasn’t sure if Santa was coming and then adds he hasn’t always been nice this year. When he says it’s hard to be nice all of the time and is looking for reassurance on the subject, The Devil practically breaks down with a “You have no idea!” and stuffs his face with milk and cookies in response. Cuphead then adds that even if he wasn’t good enough to get a present this year, just meeting Santa has made this the best Christmas ever. The Devil is flattered, and sort of ashamed, and he finally agrees to give Cuphead his present. He can’t bare to look at him though as he dangles the train out with his back turned. Cuphead has to pull rather firmly, and thank Santa more than once, before he can finally pry it loose. He’s pretty much overjoyed though and The Devil will have to live with the knowledge that he contributed to his mortal enemy’s best Christmas ever. As he hears the train give out a toot, it’s almost enough to make The Devil take it back, but instead he sadly walks over to his pitchfork to prepare to leave, but before he can, Cuphead has one final message: Merry Christmas, Santa. He sighs in return, and replies with the same, before vanishing.
Did all this niceness pay off?!
On the roof, Santa Devil looks dreadful. Henchman carefully asks how it went in there and The Devil only sighs in return. He’s practically doubled over by the sleigh when he confesses how awful it felt to do something nice. The realization then sets in – The Devil did something nice! Henchman pulls open the list and goes to the bottom. The two stare for a moment, but when nothing happens a sadness overtakes them. Then the list glows! Magically, the name The Devil appears at the bottom in big, bold, cursive, letters! The two clasp hands and jump up and down with glee as Henchman cries out “You did it!” The Devil announces that it’s time to return to The North Pole – there’s a choo choo with his name on it just waiting for him there!
Well, look whose back.
The two return to the work shop and are greeted by a mass of cheering elves. Even Stickler Elf is seen clapping, though his facial expression never changes. The Devil drinks it all up and even receives a compliment from Stickler Elf. He begins to boast about how when he sets his mind to something he can do anything, and as he does Henchman notices a change taking place. He calls out attention to the swirling, blue, mist gathering about The Devil which encircles him like a Christmas tree. When the dust tree pops, The Devil is himself again! The mist then swirls a short distance away and soon materializes Santa Claus looking just as he did before the weird ritual from earlier.
Time for the fat man to pay up!
At the sight of the real Santa, Henchman looks like he’s about to burst. He keeps his cool though as Santa congratulates The Devil on a job well done. He even declares it a Christmas miracle that he was able to deliver all of the presents in time. Now, it’s time to collect as The Devil informs Santa he’s ready for that choo choo now as he rubs his hands together. Santa laughs and says he’s receiving something that’s better than a choo choo. The Devil falls for this and his eyes swell at the thought of something better than a choo choo only for Santa to inform him that his gift this year is the joy of being nice!
The Devil may be pissed, but I think Henchman just had the time of his life.
As you can imagine, this does not go over well with The Devil. Not at all. He does his exploding fire thing as he declares the idea stupid. He points to Santa and his elves and calls them all stupid before announcing to Henchman that they are leaving. As he drags Henchman away, the imp waves happily shouting “Bye Santa!” The two disappear in a puff of smoke to return to Hell. Honestly, I think The Devil took that better than any of us expected. Santa, on the other hand, looks hurt as he turns to Sitckler Elf and shrugs. The elf returns the shrug and we fade to black.
Oh to be miserable on Christmas, is there no worse a fate?
The blackness is interrupted by the opening of a refrigerator. The camera is placed inside the fridge and we see The Devil’s sullen face staring in. There’s a bag marked “Stickler” and The Devil pulls a sandwich out of it answering the question of who has been stealing everyone’s lunch. He begins consuming the sandwich as he slinks over to his throne and drops into it. He puts his head in his hand and bemoans his plight, how even when he does what he’s supposed to he still doesn’t get what he wants. Oh woe, is The Devil!
The Devil gets his happy ending after all!
A tooting of a train horn breaks the sound of sad music. The Devil’s head pops up to behold a toy train right there in his throne room! It’s not the train he wanted, it’s even better! It’s a larger train, a ride-on, and it has four cars instead of two! The Devil is overjoyed and magics up an engineer’s uniform and hops into the center of the circular track declaring that this train makes an even better noise than the one he wanted! He jumps on the first car and rides around the track in triumph. The camera zooms out and we can see behind the throne. Henchman is there, covered in soot with a bunch of tools and some instructions strewn about. He has a look of happiness on his face as it’s clear he’s the one who got the train for The Devil. He says “Merry Christmas, boss,” as this one fades to black.
Such a sweet little demon.
And that is how The Devil had a merry Christmas! It’s such a farcical concept on its face: Satan wants a choo choo for Christmas and is willing to help Santa in order to get onto The Nice List. I suppose some would find that immediately distasteful – Satan, and Santa?! The character of The Devil is so charming and funny that we forget about how insane a premise this is almost immediately. Even his outbursts are played for laughs, though he definitely murders some folks in this one (that poor, little, old mouse) for no real reason other than he’s just a bad guy. I suppose if you want to find a moral in this one, it’s that Christmas can bring out the best in anyone. Even The Devil.
The animation is top notch even if it’s not hand drawn. I love the many expressions we see from The Devil and Henchman throughout their night. The town looks lovely with this Christmas coating upon it, almost Rockwell-esq. The music sprinkles in some public domain stuff, mostly from The Nutcracker, but also makes liberal use of its own original compositions. Composed by Dave Wasson and Ego Plum, the two originals are unmistakably Christmas tunes even if they don’t directly adapt a more well known song. The cartoon is also not long enough for us to get sick of them and aside from their first instance in the show, they’re mostly confined to instrumentals. I love the homage to Santa’s Workshop and I was repeatedly dazzled by the many, many, moon shots in this one.
The Devil does get a happy ending, but on the way he was made to suffer. Perhaps nothing was more painful than making his most detested foe happy on Christmas.
And it’s funny! This is one of the funniest and most entertaining Christmas specials I’ve had the pleasure of watching. It’s not even reliant on the viewer being familiar with The Cuphead Show! as pretty much everyone knows who The Devil is. It certainly helps to be familiar with it when the scene does shift to take place in the home of Cuphead, but knowing who he is and why the tree looks as it does only adds a little to the scene. For newcomers, they can easily understand that ordinarily The Devil and Cuphead are at odds with each other and that’s pretty much all you need to know. The cartoon does have to cheat a little in that scene for every gift we saw up to that point was fully wrapped. For Cuphead’s house, they’re all unwrapped so that The Devil can see that Cuphead is getting the toy he covets himself. They could have just had it fall out of a box or something, but I’m not bothered by it. It’s basically one of the few nits I can pick with this one, and I had to hunt for it.
If you can’t tell, I really like this Christmas special from The Cuphead Show! It is high on my list of modern Christmas specials alongside Prep & Landing, Duck the Halls, and the DuckTales Christmas episode “Last Christmas!” Coincidentally, all of those are Disney creations and this cartoon, while not made by Disney, references a classic Disney short within it. If you have never seen this one I recommend you check it out regardless of whether or not you’re familiar with Cuphead or The Cuphead Show! It’s streaming on Netflix, which is full of other Christmas episodes and specials from other properties, so it’s not a bad one month sub for Christmas season if you ordinarily are not a subscriber. I plan to watch this one again before the holiday arrives – toot toot!
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 new figures are basically the same as the old ones, just with new heads and a longer coat for Father Frost.
The Naughty or Nice Collection is essentially one figure modified for each separate release. Both figures we’re going to look at today utilize the same body as the two figures I looked at in 2022. I’ll link to that review at the bottom of this entry, but essentially if you liked those figures then you’ll probably like these ones provided you like the aesthetic they’re going for. Obviously, I’m not all-in on this line as I have need for only so many Santas in my collection, but these two appealed to me. Both figures come packaged in a window box display and it’s been modified from the first wave. Where wave one had more of a “Hasbro” shape, wave two is rectangular. There’s more red incorporated, the character name is now on the bottom of the front of the box instead of the top, the cross-sell has been updated, and the side panels feature images of other figures from wave two. I have no idea which design in-box collectors will prefer, but both seem fine to me.
Father Frost is managing better up top than his Santa brothers.
They don’t all have to be red and green.
Let’s talk Father Frost first. This is basically blue, wizard, Santa and it’s not based on any specific folklore that I’m aware of. I think of it as a combination of Santa and Jack Frost. Frost stands at about 6.5″ to the top of his head, slightly taller with the hat, and the only thing different about the sculpt from the Santa figures I looked at from wave one is that this figure has a longer coat which necessitated a different belt overlay. The head is different from the traditional Santa to feature a longer beard and hair on top and a face that is less full. What attracted me to this design is the blue and white deco. There’s a lot of red, white, and green in my Christmas display so any chance I have at adding some blue is welcome. I do like how the figure turned out, though I will say the shade of blue has a touch more yellow to it than the promotional shots and even the images on the box where it’s a darker blue. I would have preferred that, or even a more powder blue, where as this is almost in between.
And he apparently has some rather gnarly powers.
Translucent powers – activate!
The paint job on Father Frost is an improvement over wave one in some respects, but also not perfect. The head portrait is done very well. I like how he has blue eyes with a touch of white inside them. Upon very close inspection the left ear isn’t perfect nor is the transition from beard to right cheek, but it’s nothing you would see even at an arm’s length. The white portions of the coat have been dirtied with a paint wash that makes the robe look more lived in. The belt buckle is painted silver as are the buckles on the boots and it’s pretty clean. Based on the box, it looks like the end of the belt was supposed to be painted silver, but it was missed by the factory on mine and I’m guessing it will be on most. The only paint detail that bugs me a little is the hem of the coat isn’t painted all the way to the edge. It’s worse on the back, but at least it’s the back. For this wave it does look like all of the hinges are cast in the best color so when paint flakes off of them there won’t be a miscolored piece beneath it.
He comes with the same naughty and/or nice list we’ve seen a whole bunch, but in his hands I like to think of it as a spell scroll.
Father Frost comes with a solid assortment of accessories and optional parts. He comes with a set of blue gripping hands, but also has four ungloved hands: trigger right, gripping left, left fist, pointing right. Basically, if you don’t like the look of the blue, gloved, hands you have bare hands instead. He has an alternate head which is the same sculpt as the default, but it’s cast in translucent blue plastic. This was added after solicitation on the suggestion of someone in the Facebook community (if I’m not mistaken) so that Father Frost could match one of the elves in the wave and it’s a good idea and pretty cool that it was added. It looks nice, but it’s hard to get onto the ball joint. And you want to get it all the way seated so that you can’t see the painted neck. They also wisely added some gray paint to the top of the neck ball so there isn’t an odd blob of color inside the head. Father Frost’s main accessory is his staff which is topped with a translucent, blue, crystal. It looks like the sculpted rope was supposed to be painted a different color to differentiate it from the staff, but that didn’t happen. Still, it looks fine. The other accessories are reused: a present which opens, a nice list, and a stand. There’s also a little locomotive toy which fits inside the present. The present has a white and blue deco to coordinate with Father Frost.
Totally not Willie from Bad Santa.
Father Frost is the magical interpretation of Santa, Mall Santa is the opposite. This guy seems to be clearly inspired by the movie Bad Santa, but he’s kept legally distinct. He’s basically a worn down, drunken, cynical, Santa just trying to make a buck. He features a balding portrait with a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He has a five o’clock shadow and a look of almost sad indifference in his eyes. His left eye is supposed to be a black eye, but the paint there is a bit lacking and it doesn’t make it as obvious as the promotional images. His beard is part of the sculpt and I kind of wish they sculpted it in such a way to make it look more obvious and pathetic that it’s a false beard. Maybe a gap between the chin and beard or hooks around his ears would have done the trick. There appears to be a paint wash on his face to dirty him up which has been applied to the body as well. His suit is a deeper red than the other Santas and the whites are all dirty. There’s even a stain in the middle of his chest, which is a nice touch. The look the figure is going for is obvious, but I do wish he could have been on a skinnier base, but I know that’s not really what this line is designed to do.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with a cookie?!”
Mall Santa does not come with any alternate hands or portraits. His default hands are gloved, gripping, hands and I’m torn on if I prefer those to ungloved hands. The good news is if you do want different hands then you could always borrow them from another figure. Mall Santa’s main accessory is his bottle of whisky. It’s a translucent amber with a black cap with prints on both sides to let you know that it is indeed whisky. The cap doesn’t come off, and the articulation is limited in that he can’t really “drink” it. The cap also isn’t removable, so while I like it, the accessory is a bit limited. There’s also a handheld bell in case he’s more of a donation seeking Santa. He comes with a crushed, red, present with silver ribbon which is pretty neat and makes for a good pillow should you wish to display him passed out. He also has a gingerbread man cookie with a bite taken out of the head and a teddy bear toy. There’s nothing cynical about the bear, it’s just another toy for the display. He also comes with the customary stand, should you wish to use it.
“Ohh Krampus, I have another one for your naughty list.”
Both Father Frost and Mall Santa arrive as expected. Obviously, since they were based on the same molds as last year’s figures it makes sense. The articulation is completely the same, which is why I’m not doing a rundown on it for this space. I would like to see some improvements to the upper body to get better range out of the shoulders since these figures should be able to eat cookies and drink milk (or booze) and they can’t do that. Father Frost basically is what I wanted. Some of the paint could be better and I would have preferred a darker blue, but he looks fine with the other figures and will make for a nice addition to the Christmas display. Mall Santa is also mostly as expected and any disappointment I have with it is basically the same as when it was solicited. I would have loved a passed out, second, portrait and more booze. A crumpled beer can, six pack, empty bottles, something else to go with the whisky would have been cool. His paint is clean though, actually better applied than Father Frost, and the figure works for me. I also count Bad Santa among my favorite Christmas movies and I understand it’s not for everyone.
“Look out, kids, Santa needs to empty his stomach.”
If you’re looking to add more Santa figures to your Christmas action figure collection in February, then I can certainly recommend these two. The others are probably just as good and it all comes down to if you like the design. This line is exclusive to Big Bad Toy Store and everything from wave two is in-stock as of this writing. Each Santa will set you back $37 which isn’t a small amount. They are from a smaller company and not produced in the same volume as a bigger toy company, but it’s probably still a little more than I think most would want. I compare the price to original IP from other small shops where their figures come in at the 30 dollar mark. Still, with the amount of paint and overall feel of these figures I would say you’re getting something better than Marvel Legends quality so it’s reasonable to me. Just don’t ask me about those reindeer they’re currently soliciting for wave three.
Who doesn’t want to read about Christmas toys in February?!
It was looking like we were in for a photo finish this year. Last year, toymaker Fresh Monkey Fiction partnered with online retailer Big Bad Toy Store to launch the Naughty or Nice collection. Structured similar to a Kickstarter campaign, FMF posted several action figures for preorder with a minimum order quantity needed for the…
Ho! Ho! Ho! It’s the jolly one – Santa Claus! Oh, wait, no, it’s the somber, moody, one: Batman Santa! Yes, it’s our first Christmas themed post of 2023 and it’s an action figure review – shocking, I know. McFarlane Toys has held the DC license for several years now, but this is my first…
Four Horsemen Studios is back with another holiday release in its Figura Obscura line of action figures. This sister line of their more famous Mythic Legions property launched two years ago with Krampus and continued with last year’s Father Christmas. Many fans, myself included, expected another holiday figure this year, though if you had asked…
Ho! Ho! Ho! It’s the jolly one – Santa Claus! Oh, wait, no, it’s the somber, moody, one: Batman Santa! Yes, it’s our first Christmas themed post of 2023 and it’s an action figure review – shocking, I know. McFarlane Toys has held the DC license for several years now, but this is my first experience with the line. I’ve never been a big DC guy, though I do enjoy the Batman. McFarlane’s DC Multiverse line is a 1:10 scale action figure line that seems fine, but it has its own aesthetic and it’s not one that I’m particularly drawn to. It’s not very comic-like, and more of a grittier, militaristic, interpretation. It’s like a toyline based on the aesthetic found in Rocksteady’s Arkham series of Batman video games. If you like it – great, and if you don’t that’s fine too. I thought that by now I would have bought at least something from the line, but even the animated characters didn’t do much for me so I never had reason to dip my toe into the McFarlane waters. That is, until Todd decided to pair Batman with Santa.
He’s Batman in a Santa hat and robe with beard. Also, he can’t lower his arms past this pose.
The Batman Santa figure is a case of what you see is what you get. It’s Batman, and he’s dressed as Santa. I’m not aware of any story to pair with this one and there’s some artwork that goes along with it which is fine, but I’m always down for Christmas variants of characters I love. This figure is part of the Gold Label series which, as far as I can tell, is more of an excuse to tack on five bucks to the usual price as I don’t see anything all that special in the box. It comes in a clamshell package and was sold exclusively on McFarlane’s webstore in two versions: red and blue. The red is undoubtedly a more traditional take on Santa, but I like blue and blue feels more appropriate for Batman. The figure was 30 bucks, though there was a bundle to get bother versions for $50. It sold out by the time I made my purchase (even though both versions were still available as singles) so I didn’t even get a chance to consider double-dipping here, but I don’t think I would have. I only need one Santa Batman, or Batman Santa, for my holiday decorating this year.
Lot of texture on this guy. He just might be bullet proof because, you know, Santa always has to worry about getting shot at.
Batman comes in at right around 7.375″ to the top of his hat. If this Batman is reusing any parts from a past release in the main line I’m not aware, because I don’t regularly purchase figures in this line. The Bat suit he’s wearing seems pretty modern to me and very much in that style I described going in. It’s textured like Kevlar and is armor-plated on the chest and lower legs. It’s almost all done in blue plastic without any shading or much in the way of paint. He has a silver Bat logo on the chest as well as silver shoulder pads and gauntlets. The gauntlets are held on by “straps” which are sculpted into the forearms. The same is true of the kneepads, but McFarlane didn’t paint the straps. Some white might have looked nice, but oh well. There’s a lot of paneling on the boots, but it’s all black plastic. It makes me wonder why they didn’t go with a less-detailed sculpt. Come to think of it, this getup would have been pretty appropriate for a Batman ’66 release.
I do like how they chose to paint the face.
Where paint is used is on the trim of the hat, robe, beard, face, and the cuffs of the sleeves. In almost all cases, the paint is white. I can’t quite tell what’s going on with the hands. It almost looks like they painted white over blue, even if it would have made more sense to just cast them in white. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t if nothing else on the figure is molded in white. The paint is mostly fine though and is cleanly applied. I wish the white was a bit more white, but it has a dingy quality to it. I suppose that fits the line’s aesthetic better than a pure white would, though I also can’t tell if it’s intentional or just the result of painting white over a very bright blue. The masked portion of the face is painted black which I love. It looks like a classic, 70s, Batman. It helps sell this blue color scheme, which honestly makes Batman look more like a Hannukah character than a Santa one.
“Thank you for assisting with the decorating today, Mr. Freeze.” “I was…what? Decorating?!”
And that Santa element is captured in really just three features of the figure. The head features a Santa hat which is part of the sculpt as well as a beard. To go along with that is the long overcoat with a utility belt holding it in place. The belt is black with a series of pouches painted white that make up about 2/3rds of the belt itself. It’s not a lot, but it’s certainly enough to get the point across. I think just some more color would have helped, but otherwise this is a Batman Santa and it’s what I wanted. The bladed forearms and shoulder pads are the only things I’m not that sold on. While I like that they do provide for a splash of color, they also make Batman look more like the Shredder than Batman. Is this what the character looks like in the comics now? It’s bizarre to me, someone who hasn’t opened a Batman comic in 20 years.
Here is your accessory for your 30 dollar action figure.
And that’s mostly all you’re going to get, a Batman that’s dressed like Santa. For accessories, we get a sack of presents. It’s blue plastic with silver painted gifts oozing out of the top. Batman can’t hold it, it can just sit on a surface beside him. And that’s it as far as action figure accessories go. No extra hands, no extra heads, no additional weapons or toys. How about a Christmas-themed grapnel launcher? Or Batarang? Or little Charlie Brown tree with a bat for a star? The artwork features a sleigh that would have been pretty cool, but admittedly not practical at this price. If this figure is reusing a ton of assets, then I’m a little annoyed at the lack of accessories for the price. If it’s not, then I guess it’s more acceptable, but still not great. You do get a little disc stand with the figure which at least helps to stand it on cotton “snow” as seen in my pictures. There’s also a plastic piece that snaps together and the artwork insert can slot into that to create a backdrop of sorts. It’s not a bad idea and I like the artwork on it, but I wish it had something else on the reverse side. Something like a true backdrop such as the Batcave decorated like Santa’s workshop. Instead, it’s just the same image on both sides. Opportunity wasted.
This is pretty much the extent of his articulation.
This figure is basically designed to just stand there in front of that backdrop with the sack of presents beside it, but it is still an action figure so we should talk about the articulation. It’s not great. The head just swivels side-to-side as the hat and beard prevent any up and down movement. There’s also no tilt to be found. The shoulders are big ball-hinged pegs that can raise out to the side past a horizontal position. The shoulder pads are soft enough to move out of the way and the arms rotate just fine. There’s some slight up and down play, but no real butterfly joint. The biceps swivel is fine and the double-jointed elbows bend well past 90 degrees, but the joint is hideous and strangely he can’t straighten his arms out or place them at his side. They’re always bent slightly. The hands are on a ball hinge or something similar, but the cuffs of the sleeve render the joint pretty useless. There’s no forearm swivel either, which I always hate on figures with gauntlets like this one since you can’t position them and I don’t like the default placement of them either.
He’s a pretty big Batman. Also, notice where the other Batmen position those blades on their gauntlets? This one can’t do that.
In the torso, the figure has a diaphragm joint, but the coat won’t let it do much of anything. The waist twist works fine though and the legs can kick forward all the way and kick back some as well. They go out to the side for full splits, but don’t appear to feature a thigh twist of any kind. The knees are double-jointed, but despite that I can’t get them to go past 90 degrees. There’s no boot cut, and the ankles are pretty restricted by the design of the boot. They bend back pretty far, but not forward. The ankle rocker doesn’t appear to work and there’s a fairly useless toe hinge as well.
No sleigh? No problem!
Despite the coat being fairly flexible and featuring an open design on the front and back, it still makes it hard to do much with this figure when it’s combined with the articulation scheme. Batman Santa can stand there, he can do splits if you want, or assume a walking pose. He has gripping hands, but nothing to grip, which seems like a bad idea as the hands aren’t expressive. Even if he had a grapnel hook or a line to swing from, his arms are really short and he wouldn’t be able to grab something over his head. It’s not a figure you’re going to do a whole lot with, but it didn’t have to be this way.
“All right Batman, I’ll let you handle the deliveries this year, but the milk and cookies are MINE!”
Batman Santa is an action figure that doesn’t articulate well, has some weird proportions, and is a pretty terrible value considering the price tag and the lack of accessories. It’s an online only figure too so you have to pay a shipping charge as well. The cost of this guy was $39.28 for me before taxes and that’s pretty expensive for a McFarlane figure. You really need to be a Christmas weirdo to want this figure, which is what I am. And now that I have it, how do I feel about it? Well, I’m happy to have a Batman as Santa action figure, even if this actual figure barely scratches that itch. It’s a novelty, and one that probably doesn’t justify the price. If you like it, I guess go for it. If you want an action figure that behaves more like an action figure then it will probably let you down.
This Batman Santa isn’t the first Christmas themed action figure we’ve looked at on this blog, how does it stack up with these?
It was just last year that Four Horsemen launched a subline of its popular Mythic Legions brand of action figures called Figura Obscura. Practically speaking, there’s little difference between the two lines as Mythic Legions seeks to serve as a modular line of toys based on myth and legend and that doesn’t feature licensed characters.…
We interrupt our regularly scheduled holiday posts with something very familiar to this blog: a toy review! Yes, we have ourselves another Christmas toy to talk about and it too comes from Hasbro. We already looked at a Star Wars toy at the end of November, and now we’re turning to what I suppose is…
It was looking like we were in for a photo finish this year. Last year, toymaker Fresh Monkey Fiction partnered with online retailer Big Bad Toy Store to launch the Naughty or Nice collection. Structured similar to a Kickstarter campaign, FMF posted several action figures for preorder with a minimum order quantity needed for the…
The Nostalgia Spot 