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December 16, 2024

Dec. 16 – The Cleveland Show – “A Cleveland Brown Christmas”

By Joe
Original air date December 13, 2009.

We’ve taken a look at a lot of animated sitcoms this year and so far they’ve all been repeat visitors to The Christmas Spot. It feels like it’s time for something new, though it has a very familiar feel. The Cleveland Show is a 2009 spin-off of Family Guy created by Seth MacFarlane, Richard Appel, and Mike Henry. Spin-offs of animated shows are quite rare, but Fox must have been so pleased with Family Guy and American Dad! at the time that another MacFarlane animated show was needed. Never mind that The Simpsons helped build the Fox network and never got a spin-off. Simpsons creator Matt Groening had to practically beg them to let him do Futurama, which Fox treated even worse than it did Family Guy in its original run.

Taking the soft spoken and mild mannered character of Cleveland Brown (Mike Henry) and giving him his own show felt like an odd move at the time. The character did have a divorce angle in Family Guy which left him a single parent and perhaps made him too similar to Quagmire. Whatever the reason, the decision was made to take Cleveland and move him out of Quahog and down to his hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia. There he reconnects with an old friend from high school, Donna (Sanaa Lathan), sparks fly and they get married, and Cleveland inherits two step-children: the teenaged Roberta (Reagan Gomez-Preston) and preschooler Rallo (Henry). Also in tow is Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael Richardson) who was previously depicted as an elementary school-aged boy with a very hyperactive personality. Now, he’s 14, overweight, and speaks slowly and is, for all intents and purposes, a completely different character from what we saw on Family Guy.

I guess it’s better than The Quagmire Show.

That’s the premise of the show: a dad, a mom, and three kids consisting of two boys and a girl with the girl being the oldest. All that’s missing is a talking dog and you basically have the Griffin family, which is probably why Cleveland has a talking bear for a neighbor. The show is also referred to as a Black Sitcom because the family is quite obviously black. Only, the three co-creators of the show as well as the voice of Cleveland are all very much not black. The late 2000s was probably the last time a show could get away with this. Most of the writers appear to be non-black as well. The show did at least cast people of color to play most of the new roles, but even Henry was still handed Rallo. And no, having Kevin Michael Richardson voice white character Lester doesn’t make up for that.

The Cleveland Show has long since been cancelled and is mostly looked at now as a failure. That’s probably way too harsh a word to describe a show that ran for four years and totaled 88 episodes. It’s ratings were solid for the first two seasons, but if you’re not The Simpsons then Fox has a tendency to jerk you around when it comes to time slots. The Cleveland Show got kicked around the Sunday night lineup, probably being the chosen show to suffer most if baseball or football ran too long. Ratings slipped in the third season and basically continued to decline through the end of the fourth season. Fox initially seemed open to bringing it back for a fifth season, but the show was eventually cancelled and the Brown family packed their bags and moved to Rhode Island to rejoin the cast of Family Guy. Not a bad fallback plan, all things considered.

Personally, I didn’t really care that much for The Cleveland Show. I gave it a shot when it first premiered, but honestly don’t recall how many episodes I actually watched. I didn’t think it was terrible, it just felt too similar to Family Guy. It does at least feature a cast that seems to like each other. Or at least, they want to like each other and, in turn, want to be liked. The Griffin family is basically self-admitted trash and kind of hate each other. Cleveland is at least trying to figure out how to be a good father to his new step kids while also being a good husband to Donna. There’s more heart here so from that angle I can definitely understand why someone might actually like The Cleveland Show a lot more than they do Family Guy, though in general, I think if you like one then you’ll probably like the other. Perhaps with Cleveland, we’re less likely to get a bunch of suicide jokes.

Even on Cleveland’s show, Meg still gets treated like shit.

One compliment I can levy at the show is that it has an earworm of a theme song. It’s reminiscent of an 80s children’s cartoon in that the song basically lays out the plot. It’s sung by Cleveland who just sounds really tickled by the idea that he has his own show. Unfortunately, this being a Christmas episode we don’t get to hear it. Instead, the show opts for a holiday title card set to Christmas music which is Cleveland singing “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Normally, this is something I very much endorse when it comes to Christmas specials, but I was kind of looking forward to hearing the song since I so rarely watch the show.

The tree lust is weird, but it’s kind of sweet that Cleveland and Donna seem to be really into each other.

When the intro is finished we open on a tree lot. Lester, his wife Kendra (Aseem Batra), and son Ernie (Glenn Howerton) are all trying to attract customers to what I suppose is their lot. Lester is a typically designed redneck type while Kendra is a morbidly obese woman on a motor scooter and they live next door to the Browns. Kendra tries luring in customers by urging them to get a tree so that their neighbors don’t mistake them for Muslims. We then find Cleveland and Donna looking over a tree. Cleveland is excited for their first Christmas together and wants to get a perfect tree. He’s eyeballing this one for it is full on top and has a big old bottom. When he turns to ask Donna for her approval she adds “Don’t forget bushy in the front!” This seems to excite Cleveland who starts grinding on the tree and mimes like he’s slapping a big ole booty while quoting Sir Mix-a-Lot with “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun!” Donna appears to be getting pretty excited too and warns her husband she may just jump in there to make it a “tree way.” These two really like trees.

Cleveland is right to dislike the tree, though his reasoning is beyond suspect.

Rallo interrupts the festivities by kicking his step dad in the shin. Apparently Rallo is used to being the one who picks out the tree and Donna confirms as much saying she let him do it after his dad, Robert (Corey Holcomb), bailed on the family. Cleveland begrudgingly accepts this, until Rallo shows him the tree he has selected. It’s an itty, bitty, little tree about the size of what Charlie Brown would select, though far less sickly. Cleveland is not impressed and he picks it up by the tip and remarks how it’s not full enough for him comparing it to an Asian or a little boy or a little Asian boy. That’s pretty gross. Cleveland then goes into his “My anaconda don’t want none,” routine with this tree, but stops in the middle declaring that he feels ridiculous. He should feel like a scumbag since he just compared this tree to a little Asian boy and then tried to slap its…”ass.” Cleveland declares they’re getting the tree he likes so Rallo goes low in return: by comparing him to his real dad. We also learn that Rallo thinks his dad works for the FBI and that’s why he’s too busy to come around and see him. Cleveland asks Donna if this is really the story she had fed Rallo about his daddy and she confirms it. When Cleveland starts to protest, she kicks him in the shin causing him to cry out, “Ow! Bitch!” I said this show had more heart than Family Guy, but I suppose I should stress that it’s no less crude.

Unlike American Dad!, The Cleveland Show is going to embrace the cut-away joke.

At the Brown house, Cleveland and Donna are getting some decorations out of the attic while the conversation from the tree lot continues. Cleveland can’t understand why Donna would lie to her son about his dad being an FBI agent unless FBI stands for “Freeloading Booze Idiot.” Cleveland laughs at himself for the joke he just made on the spot while Donna explains that it was better than the truth. Plus, her ex came up with the lie and she just went along with it. She says that she’ll tell the boy when he’s old enough to understand and, honestly, it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Cleveland concludes that sometimes a lie is better than the truth, then he sets up a classic Family Guy cutaway complete with “Like that one time…” And the joke is he encountered the star of Entourage, Adrian Grenier (though not voicing himself), on an airplane and, I guess, he was going to not point out how he doesn’t look like a movie star, but did anyway. It’s basically a stock joke at this point.

Why, it looks like one of Stewie’s sexy parties!

It’s time for a company Christmas party! Cleveland has taken the family to the home of his boss, Mr. Waterman (Bruce McGill), who owns the Waterman Cable company which proudly boasts that it’s a monopoly as its slogan. Mr. Waterman is also quite likely to be a homosexual as we see right away that the staff for his holiday party are a bunch of a shirtless muscle dudes in reindeer antlers. Rallo calls attention to these fellas and Cleveland tries to explain his boss’s orientation in a more roundabout way, but Rallo just asks “Oh, is he a gay?” Cleveland confirms as much and Rallo just points out that his boss knows how to celebrate Christmas better than Cleveland.

The Watermans make everything uncomfortable.

Cleveland growls and grabs a flute of champagne from one the serving trays and chugs it, then giggles because the bubbles tickle. The family is then approached by Mr. Waterman and his wife, Lydia (Stockard Channing), who looks a little tipsy already. Waterman sees the Brown family and announces to “hide the silver!” It’s a joke because they’re the only all black family in attendance. He says he’s just kidding then matter-of-factly states “It’s already hidden.” Lydia introduces herself as Lloyd Waterman’s wife and Cleveland laughs in response. He then says to Donna that this is already better than the last homosexual’s Christmas party he went to. It’s a setup for another cut-away, and if you’re a Family Guy regular, you already know who Cleveland is talking about. We’re taken a home where the old man, Herbert (Richardson), is singing “Silent Night” while dressed as Mary in front of a group of young boys and Cleveland. It’s very uncomfortable. When Cleveland tries to leave, Herbert angrily orders him to sit back down and continues the song because you know the writers need him to say the line about virgins. Which he does, and the uncomfortable scene soon ends. I do not like this joke, not because I’ve never laughed at a Herbert joke, but the setup is basically equating homosexuality with pedophilia which is bullshit.

If Fred Flintstone can do it, then so can you, Cleveland.

Back at the party, Waterman asks Cleveland for a favor. He then asks if he remembers a Fred Peterson. Cleveland confirms that he does and then Waterman informs him that he’s not here, but usually he plays Santa at this party. And why isn’t he there this Christmas? He killed himself – I should have known! Waterman then adds that Peterson also raped a bunch of people which shocks Cleveland. A suicide joke, plus a rape joke – they’re topping Family Guy at this point. Cleveland agrees and then Waterman quickly adds that Peterson raped old ladies so that Cleveland can be shocked again. He then takes him to try on the suit, but the beard has seemingly been misplaced. Waterman cries out, “Where’s my beard?” and his wife sidles up to say “Here I am.” Hah!

Waterman may be rich, but he ain’t eight reindeer rich.

We then find Donna and Roberta at a buffet and they run into Tim (the bear, voiced by MacFarlane) and his wife Arianna (also a bear, voiced by Arianna Huffington), and there’s clearly some hostility between she and Donna given how Donna greets her. That’s only amplified when Arianna says she could see her daughter’s cleavage from across the room, which is Tim’s cue to get the hell away from that conversation. Then one of the reindeer men gets everyone’s attention and throws open some doors to reveal Santa Cleveland arriving on a one reindeer open sleigh. Roberta is both shocked and a little impressed that there’s an actual reindeer and asks Lydia if her husband rented it. She confirms that, no, he actually owns it. When Roberta points out how crazy it is to have a living being you only parade around a bunch of people one day a year Lydia sarcastically remarks “I can’t imagine how that feels.”

I don’t it’s one of Santa’s reindeer.

Rallo, on the other hand, is very impressed that Waterman landed Santa for his party. He’s so eager to sit on the big man’s lap he even shoves a little girl down just to get to Santa. Cleveland seems to enjoy having his youngest step child seek his attention for a chance, until Rallo starts trashing him. Cleveland, as Santa, tries to assure Rallo that his step dad is just doing his best, but Rallo politely tells Santa that, no, Cleveland just sucks at Christmas causing Cleveland to call out to one of the reindeer men (“Hey, Prancer!”) to leave an entire tray of eggnogs by his chair. Meanwhile, Roberta is outside livestreaming herself preparing to set the reindeer free. She thinks it’s cruel to keep such a creature locked away 364 days out of the year, plus she wants to get the attention of Tyra Banks and views this as the gateway to her becoming the Gayle to Tyra’s Oprah. Then she adds, “Without the sexual obligations.” A bit of a dated joke even by 2009 standards. We then see Cleveland Jr. setting the reindeer free, and immediately upon doing so the reindeer just thrashes him a whole bunch and runs off.

This interaction is sure to end well.

Back inside, Cleveland has just about finished off all of the eggnogs while Rallo is still sitting on his lap trashing him. He imitates him in a humorous way, and since Mike Henry voices both characters Rallo’s impression is spot on, but Cleveland still angrily retorts “I bet that sounds nothing like him!” Rallo, not sensing Santa’s hostility in the least, then moves onto the subject of his real father. Cleveland can’t stand to hear this kid slander him (especially his moustache) while worshiping a deadbeat dad instead so he uses the opportunity to drop some truth on poor Rallo about his dad. Rallo immediately looks like he’s about to burst into tears while Cleveland gets a death stare from Donna. He turns to the camera and breaks the fourth wall to ask “How am I gonna get out of this one?” before telling us to come back after some loud and off-putting messages. And since I am watching this on Hulu with ads, I can confirm that everything about said messages was very off-putting since the Hulu app on Roku is a horrible piece of shit and the ads seem to break it all of the time. I refuse to give them more money to go ad free though, because that would be rewarding them for their shitty practices.

Rallo is a little asshole, but I do feel sympathy for him.

Following those off-putting messages, we find the Brown family back at home. Donna is trying to soothe her son as he lays in bed while Cleveland pounds water, clearly still feeling the effects of the eggnog. Donna has to come clean about Rallo’s dad and the lie apparently went pretty far with Donna even faking letters to Rallo. He can’t believe his mother would lie to him like that, but the two just leave him to go to sleep. We cut to a Christmas pageant and some kid is doing a performance of “Gloria.” It’s very…theatrical. Apparently, this is Wally (Will Forte) and the Fluffers. Anyway, we’re here because Rallo is supposed to read his letter to Santa Claus which goes, “Dear Santa, Fuck you and fuck Christmas!” Arianna, in the audience, turns to her husband and says “That’s what you get when you put a Jew in charge of a Christmas pageant.” Rallo had been introduced by a very Jewish woman (Alex Borstein) and I am to assume that she was the one who organized this. Arianna is a pretty awful bear.

Looks like the family will be counting on Cleveland to save Christmas. Who could have seen that coming?

Back at home, Donna is laying the blame for Rallo’s offensive letter at the feet of her husband. He counters by saying it’s her fault for lying to him while Roberta announces she’s just happy that the lie is over. She then reveals that it was her job to call Rallo and pretend she’s their dad. She does her impression of him and they dub her with the actual voice actor for Robert, Cory Holcomb, for comedic effect. Cleveland then takes responsibility anyway and vows to help Rallo rediscover the Christmas spirit. Roberta, still speaking as Robert, praises him for standing up for Rallo, but then also calls him dough boy. He can’t win.

Rallo is not emotionally mature enough to be angry with his father so he’s going to take it out on Santa.

Cleveland, in a bid to cheer up Rallo, takes him to the local mall. There’s a giant, toy, train display that he thinks might do the trick on account of it not being as depressing as the real railroad industry. Rallo just sees a stuffed Santa “driving” the train and wants blood. He grabs the doll and referring to Santa as “A waste of a life,” holds him down in the path of another oncoming train. It strikes the doll, which has a frightened expression upon seeing the train, causing a derailment. The doll and train crash through a pile of fake snow and collide with another train resulting in a fiery explosion. A bunch of toy first responders arrive quickly on the scene and it even goes into a full-on toy news broadcast. What the hell is going on?

Every animated sitcom needs a bar crew.

Following the odd tangent, we find Cleveland with his friends Lester, Timothy, and Holt (Jason Sudeikis) at The Broken Stool bar. Outside, we see the escaped reindeer from Waterman’s party chasing some random guy in the street. The boys apparently had a secret Santa thing and Lester has gifted Cleveland a bunch of plain, old, ordinary, pens. Lester saw him using a pen once and assumed he would like enjoy them. Cleveland takes it all in stride, despite the disappointment on his face. Cleveland had Holt and he gives him a can of some Red Bull private reserve which causes him to get very emotional. Holt takes off to enjoy his present while Cleveland turns to Timothy and Lester for help with Rallo. Timothy tells Cleveland the only thing that will help the child at this point is for his father to be there with him on Christmas. Cleveland agrees and feels the need to point out that the most human among them is a bear before gathering up his pens and leaving quietly, for some reason.

Cleveland and his boy need to go see a therapist.

Back at the Brown household, Cleveland is putting his biological son to bed. He tells him he’s lucky to have a dad and shares his plan to find Robert so Rallo can have a dad on Christmas too. They’re having a nice little conversation where Cleveland is showing genuine affection for his boy. Then he makes it weird by continually stroking his face and pointing out that his son went from being an eager and excited toddler to a fat kid who can’t play baseball worth a damn! He points out that Cleveland Jr. still writes letters to Santa Claus at 14 and is especially angry that he’s just laying back and taking this abuse from his own father. His mood then immediately brightens as he says, “Okay! Now I’m going to go find Rallo and Roberta’s dad!” Why? Why do we have to make Cleveland a horrible, emotionally abusive father like Peter? Why?

Do you think they’ll invite him in?

As Cleveland prepares to get in his car to go find Robert, Donna approaches to tell him that she doesn’t want him taking off to go find Robert on Christmas Eve. Cleveland challenges her to try and stop him so she hits him with a stun gun. Cleveland collapses to the ground and lets out a few farts as he passes out. We get a “30 Minutes Letter” title and Cleveland is shown stirring. Donna tells him to just buy Rallo’s love like a normal step dad, but Cleveland vows to get Rallo the only present that can restore his faith in Christmas: his father. Then his eyes widen and he says, “What the hell?” We pan to find the reindeer from earlier has climbed a ladder and is peeping on the neighbors. Inside, Timothy and Arianna are naked in bed getting intimate. Timothy doesn’t see the reindeer, but Arianna does. She locks eyes with the beast and licks her lips and growls softly at him clearly getting a charge out of this reindeer watching.

I guess this fella is just happy to have someone come hang out with him on Christmas Eve and make him laugh.

It’s time for a holiday montage! Cleveland needs to peruse the seedy underbelly of Stoolbend to find Robert while a crooner version of “Sleigh Ride” provides the soundtrack. It sounds like it’s Lou Rawls. His first stop is the morgue where a helpful fella dressed as an elf is happy to show him a corpse that might be Robert. Cleveland snaps a photo of it with his cell phone and sends it to Donna. We see her wake up and look at it while Cleveland uses the corpse like a marionette much to the amusement of the elf guy. When Donna apparently texts back that it’s not Robert, the mortuary worker angrily slams the corpse back into the…cooler?.. and Cleveland moves on.

They’re probably okay with having reindeers inside, this one probably just doesn’t have any money.

His next stop is a place called Spanxxx Gentlemen’s Club where the “Gentlemen” is ironic. Before Cleveland can enter, the door swings open and a bouncer appears tossing out the reindeer. He lands in the street, spits on the ground, and moves on with his night. Cleveland has mostly no reaction. Inside, Cleveland shows a picture of Robert to one of the strippers who points out Robert about to duck into a private room with another woman. Cleveland holds out a bill as thanks and the woman’s thighs begin to shiver and so too does the bill. It jumps into her thong with the power of stripper Force! Cleveland just smiles uneasily and backs away.

Cleveland is going to find out if it’s possible to appeal to a deadbeat’s sense of decency.

Cleveland then enters the room Robert ducked into with the other stripper. Robert is most certainly not happy to see Cleveland here interrupting his lap dance. Cleveland gets the stripper to leave by telling her the Atlanta Falcons just entered. Cleveland tells Robert he wants to bring him home for Christmas to cheer up Rallo, but Robert isn’t interested. He points out how it could be worse and shares a story about Brian Wilson’s dad making him take a crap in a box under the Christmas tree. Cleveland is horrified to hear this, but unmoved. He tells Robert that he’s going to dress as Santa and deliver him to Rallo for Christmas and if he won’t do it then he isn’t worth the box that Brian Wilson may have dropped a little deuce coupe in! Terrific wordplay, Cleveland. I would guess the writers thought up a poop joke from “Little Deuce Coupe” and wrote backwards, but Brian Wilson did claim his dad made him shit on a plate as a form of abuse so it’s hard to say what truly inspired this joke. At any rate, Robert isn’t impressed and leaves. Another stripper pops her head out from behind the wall to tell Cleveland she thought what he had to say was very beautiful. He thanks her, then adds a “Murray Christmas, whore,” which is perhaps his most Peter Griffin line of the episode.

This will definitely make everything right.

It’s Christmas morning at the Brown house and Rallo has just descended the stairs to find his siblings opening their stockings. Donna calls him over to open a present, but Rallo is clearly still depressed. He opens a gift to find the Slinky he asked Santa for, but he just remarks how it makes him think of the old Rallo who thought a new toy could cure anything. As Rallo hangs his head and walks away, Cleveland comes bursting through the door dressed as Santa! Cleveland Jr. runs up and gives him a hug crying out “Santa!” Cleveland just accepts the hug with a grimace while crying out “You’re 14 years old!” Santa then approaches Rallo to apologize for what he said. He pulls Rallo’s little tree out his sack and presents it to him, but that isn’t going to work on Rallo. He throws the tree into the fireplace where it burns in an instant!

Everyone knows a kid who thinks the world of their dad even if the rest of the world can see the man for what he really is.

Cleveland hangs his head in shame, but then another Santa shows up! Cleveland Jr. thinks a warlock has cursed Christmas, but it’s just Robert ripping off Cleveland. Rallo is confused at first, but then Robert removes his beard to reveal it’s him and Rallo runs to him with open arms. Robert scoops him up, calls him “Rollo” by mistake, and then tells him he received some good advice the night before about where he belonged today. Saying that he needs to “see his sperms on Christmas,” he turns to Roberta and asks, “What’s up, Rwanda?” She just says “Merry Christmas, dad,” but in an irritated manner and with her back turned towards him, but Robert doesn’t seem to care. He then tries to tell “Rocko” the truth, but because he’s a lying scumbag, he ends up telling Rallo he can’t come around and see him because he’s Santa Claus!

Time for the customary Christmas sing-a-long!

The rest of the family is shocked as Donna had even remarked that Cleveland appeared to get through to Robert, but clearly he did not. Rallo accepts this lie at face value. He then turns his attention to Cleveland as he hasn’t figured it out yet. He yanks off the beard and seems surprised to find Cleveland under there, but then not as he just adds, “Sorry ass wannabe trying to be as cool as my dad.” Cleveland Jr. sees his dad and asks him if he knew that Rallo and Roberta’s dad was the real Santa Claus? Cleveland looks like he’s about to get angry with his boy, but then his expression softens and he just strokes the kid’s cheek once more remarking “You’re a good boy.” Cleveland Jr. purrs like a cat in response.

Is this the first Christmas special to end on a rape joke?

Donna then confirms with Rallo if this all makes sense to him? He gives an enthusiastic, “Hell yeah! My dad is Santa Claus!” and the rest of the family can only just shrug. Cleveland then breaks into song with “Let It Snow.” The rest of the family joins in, and we soon leave the cozy confines of the Brown’s living room and head out into the front yard where the REAL Santa Claus (MacFarlane) is standing! He turns to the camera and says, “A black Santa Claus,” in a dismissive fashion. Seeming to take offense, the reindeer makes a final appearance to ram this racist Santa and knock him to the ground. Then he proceeds to rape him. Merry Christmas!

Wow, so I was not expecting that. I said as part of the intro that I viewed The Cleveland Show as being Family Guy with more heart. I was also expecting it to be a bit tamer, but this really wasn’t at all. We had suicide jokes, rape jokes, pedophilia, and Cleveland even seems to resent his own son in an unhealthy way. He may not be as bad a father as Peter Griffin, but I don’t think he’s a good one. He’s at least very invested in winning over his step son, Rallo, and making sure he has a good Christmas. He’s more than willing to play second fiddle to his real dad even if he looks down on the guy, though a moment of weakness at the party threatens to ruin Rallo’s Christmas. He’s definitely way more invested in Rallo than his own son or his step daughter. I’m guessing that’s fodder for later episodes. He’s not really a bumbling oaf with his heart in the right place. He’s actually pretty competent, and when he wants to be, that can make him intentionally abusive, so yeah, Cleveland: not a great guy.

And that’s fine, the show can be whatever it wants to be, but it means this Christmas episode is devoid of charm. It’s a comedy and the only way to get Rallo to have a merry Christmas is for his deadbeat dad to show up, lie, and make his step dad look worse for it. And the real Santa needs to scoff at black people playing him. At least with that last bit, Santa gets what’s coming to him via the reindeer. He’s basically the only person who gets any comeuppance for being shitty in this episode. Most of the other characters are just there to be a sounding board or get a line in. The reindeer stuff is a decent gag, though the episode definitely felt like it suffered some pacing issues. The plot is pretty simple and basically the whole scene at the mall felt like padding.

Did I enjoy this holiday themed episode of The Cleveland Show? It had its moments. I liked most of the first act and the general setup. I was fine with the resolution too. Most of the stuff in the middle was of little interest to me and the jokes didn’t land as well either. I definitely don’t need to see anymore jokes with Herbert, that one is overplayed. Overall though it was fine. A perfectly cromulent holiday episode that I probably liked more than most of the Family Guy ones, at least, but it’s definitely not on American Dad!‘s level. If you would like to catch this episode, or any other Christmas episode of The Cleveland Show (it had one each season), then the easiest way to do so is via Hulu or Disney+. The show was still airing in syndication when I had cable as recently as 2022, but I don’t know if that is still the case. Either way, it shouldn’t be too hard to find if you’re really committed to watching it.

Dec. 16 – A Very Solar Holiday Opposites Special

Yesterday, we talked about South Park and its very first holiday special from the late 90s and today we’re talking about the Trey Parker/Matt Stone of the 2010s – Justin Roiland. Roiland was able to hook-up with Dan Harmon in the mid-2000s which put him on the path to comedy writer and actor, usually of…

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by Joe

Dec. 16 – The Pink Panther in: A Pink Christmas

In 1964, MGM released a film titled The Pink Panther. Such a title conjures up a certain image in one’s mind, but the titular pink panther in the film was not an animal, or even alive, but a pink diamond. Someone must have felt though that you can’t have a title like The Pink Panther…

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by Joe

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December 10, 2024

Dec. 10 – Family Guy – “The First No L”

By Joe
Original air date December 13, 2020.

It was a week ago that we took a look at the Seth MacFarlane produced American Dad! and I remarked it had been a minute since we did an American Dad! Christmas episode. Well, it’s been even longer for the MacFarlane original, Family Guy, the show that was famously unloved, cancelled, and then brought back from the dead. It’s pretty incredible that Family Guy is now over 400 episodes in total. It’s also somewhat appropriate that we look at another Christmas episode from the show in the year 2024 as, for the first time since its revival, it feels like Family Guy may be in some jeopardy. That’s because Fox kicked it out of its Animation Domination Sunday night block and moved the show to Wednesdays. As of this writing, Family Guy has not been renewed past its current season, but that’s not unusual for the current television landscape. If Wikipedia can be trusted, the show was threatening to dip below 1 million viewers per episode when last season ended, would dropping below that merit cancellation? Basically all shows on TV are seeing gradual declines in ratings (The Simpsons dipped below 2 million for the first time in its existence during the 2023-24 season) so it’s hard to tell just what warrants cancellation or renewal these days, but a major shakeup like moving from Sunday to Wednesday is something worth monitoring for fans of the show.

When I first started doing this Christmas countdown, I had the very first Family Guy Christmas episode in my top 25. It has since been removed, though not because I dislike the episode now, I just feel there are specials out there that are better. I don’t always make it a point to check out what Family Guy is doing around Christmas, but this 2020 episode was one that I did view in its initial run and it remained in my memory because of how similar it is to the very first Family Guy Christmas episode. Any show that has been on for hundreds of episodes is bound to repeat itself, but it’s especially amusing when the subject matter is the same. In the very first Family Guy Christmas episode, Lois (Alex Borstein) does her best to make sure the family has a great Christmas only to be undermined at every turn by her useless, selfish, family. She snaps and goes on a rampage until the family can restore her Christmas spirit. In this episode, Lois is going to basically do the same thing, but the snap comes in the first act. Then we get to see the rest of the family try to have a merry Christmas without her.

A joke so good we’re going to do it twice!

The episode begins in standard fashion. No overlays of snow on the song and dance number, no dressing-up of the title. The episode begins with an exterior shot of the Griffin household sparsely covered in snow. Inside, the family is watching The Today Show which features an announcer pointing out that former host Matt Lauer is watching from outside their Times Square studio. The two hosts are shown reading off benign holiday stories while Lauer lightly bangs on the glass from outside and asks if they’re still mad at him. He was fired by the show for being a sex creep.

If they really wanted to torture Lois they would have shown her trying to get this box out of the attic. The hard part is already done.

Lois then comes down the stairs dragging a very heavy box of Christmas decorations. She’s clearly struggling with it as she swears between each movement. What she is saying is a mystery since it’s bleeped, even though I’m watching on Hulu (I guess since it’s not TV-MA they have to bleep it?). When she finally gets to the bottom of the stairs, Peter plainly remarks “That looks heavy,” but Lois just cheerfully announces that the sound of her dragging a really heavy box of Christmas decorations down the stairs can only mean one thing – Christmas! Peter corrects her and says he knew it was Christmas because the “O” in Pornhub changed into a wreath recently and son Chris (Seth Green) responds, “Same” and they share a fist-bump. Father and son bonding over their shared interest in pornography really puts one in the Christmas spirit. I feel the need to point out that Peter made a very similar observation in another Christmas episode, only it was with Instagram Porn Stars in Santa hats instead of Pornhub.

Oh man, Christmas chores? No way!

Lois then makes the announcement that she wants the family to help out with Christmas this year. Peter informs her that won’t be happening because they split everything 0 – 100, he being the zero contributor and she 100, like most couples (Peter’s words, not mine). Lois ignores him and continues to say she also wants a real Christmas present this year and not some clearance, misprint, shirt from Marshall’s. Peter then holds up a t-shirt and says, “But you love the Roling Stons,” and he has the defective merch to prove it. We’re doing a bit here. Lois again ignores him and instead hands out a list of chores for each member of the family. Peter’s rebuttal this time is he can’t do any chores because his trick elbow is acting up. He then turns to Chris and pushes a playing card out from between his forearm and bicep and asks, “Is this your card?” When Chris says it is not Peter quips “Oh no it’s worse than I thought!” Lois just keeps setting him up and Peter keeps…knocking them down?

A character getting their identity stolen from a fraudulent ATM could be the plot of a Christmas episode for some shows, but on Family Guy it can be a quick joke.

We cut to downtown Quahog which is tastefully decorated for the upcoming holiday. Peter and the kids pull into a strip mall to do their shopping. Brian (MacFarlane) asks why they’re doing their shopping here and Peter informs him it’s because the gas ran out here. Chris tells him he needs to get that gas gauge fixed, but Peter rhetorically asks him “Do you want the gas gauge fixed or a year of Quibi?” Chris, wisely, chooses the gas gauge. Remember Quibi? Crazy how dated an episode from 2020 can already feel. Meg (Mila Kunis) assures the family they can find everything on their mother’s list here, while Stewie decides this is the right moment for him to get a line in by saying this place better have Baby Yoda toys or else…he’ll probably just get something with Spider-Man on it. Peter then leads the group to a freestanding ATM and points out how dangerous and terrible an idea it is to use such things. It eats his card and he gets a phone call to which he answers “Peter Griffin. Oh, not anymore?”

One of those stock jokes that could appear in any episode. The only requirement is that Peter needs to at least mention H&R Block.

Peter leads the family into a greeting card store and announces that this is a place to look at cards while releasing tiny farts. The family does this, until Meg unleashes a more pronounced fart that the clerk (Chris Parnell” objects to announcing that this store is for tiny farts only and directs her to Lids for her big, juicy, farts. Peter then heads to an H&R Block to get what I suppose is a very early start on his taxes. He addresses the clerk (Mark Hentemann) and asks how much the H charges, then how much R charges, then inquires if R knows that H has a side thing going on with M? He then mentions the store H&M suggesting he is not entirely confident in his joke being understood. The clerk seems concerned and suggests he has no idea what Peter is talking about. Then a giant, letter, R (Rachael MacFarlane) with lipstick comes out of an office and asks if H is back yet? Then H (Ralph Garman) enters wearing a designer shirt purchased at a fraction of the price with lipstick on the collar. R accuses H of cheating on her and H suggests he wanted to get caught and we suddenly have a suicide joke as R blows her brains out. H drops to his knees wailing “Why? Why?” A letter Y then emerges from the bathroom and asks, “What’s up? I was just taking a pee” Then a letter P pops in and says, “Someone called?” Peter then looks at the camera and informs the audience that sometimes the writers let him write his own skits. It’s an attempt to save this half-cooked idea of a joke, but doesn’t exactly redeem it.

Never count out Peter Griffin!

We then return to the Griffin house and Lois is watching CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose lurking outside. It’s the exact same joke as the Lauer one, only now it’s Charlie Rose. The family enters the house noticeably empty-handed. Lois is pissed and starts listing off all of the stuff they were supposed to either purchase or put out. Peter assures her he has everything under control and then takes off. Time passes and it’s night time. The Griffin house is now covered in snow and the family is inside enjoying a quiet moment by a roaring fire. Peter then enters dramatically with a big tree at his side. Lois runs over and gives him a hug. As she tells him she loves him, the word “Peter” just keeps repeating. We dissolve to find it’s Lois calling his name while beating on the window of the family station wagon while Peter sleeps in the driver’s seat.

A chance to get some more characters some face-time.

Lois demands to know what’s going on as Peter wakes up. He explains he fell asleep after rubbing one out to Madonna’s “Santa Baby.” He then announces that tonight’s “Date Night” has been cancelled due to lack of interest. Lois storms back into the house irate that no one is stepping up and helping her out with Christmas like she wanted. She directs her anger at Brian claiming he’s supposed to be the smart one and punctuates it with a “Bad dog!” He whimpers on the floor like an actual dog – I do always find it amusing when Brian behaves like a dog would. Lois then demands to know who got candy cane all over the couch and Peter begins to mimic Brian by whimpering on the floor. Lois declares she’s had it and will be leaving the family for Christmas to spend it in Cabo with her cousins. Quagmire (MacFarlane) then cartoonishly just pops in thinking she’s leaving Peter, but she corrects him. Then Mort (Johnny Brennan) shows up in a manner identical to Quagmire thinking that Lois plans to ruin Christmas by covering over the town’s decorations. This excites him on account of him being Jewish. When Lois corrects him, a deaf woman (Marlee Matlin) pops in to inquire if she’s doing deaf jokes. Lois says no to the deaf jokes and the woman has to break the news to the classic character Greased-Up Deaf Guy (Mike Henry), who also just pops into the house unannounced. Peter then corrects them and says “I think we are doing deaf jokes, at this point.”

There’s a lot of anger in that boy.

We next find the Griffins seated on the couch in front of the TV without their matriarch. Lois has seemingly followed through on her threat to spend Christmas in Cabo with family so Peter decides that to get revenge they’ll delete all of her favorite programs from the DVR. Chris announces that he would like to be the one who gets to delete The Crown, claiming his mother never watched it and was just stockpiling all the episodes on the DVR preventing him from watching Modern Family. Again, crazy how dated something from just a couple of years ago can feel. When Chris tries to delete The Crown he’s just confronted with a never-ending assortment of prompts confirming that he actually wants to delete the very prestigious show. This eventually leads to a prompt that tells Chris that he actually can’t delete the program so he rips out the cable box and smashes it on the floor in a fit of rage. We then hear the television impossibly announce “We now return to The Crown,” even though television stopped doing that 30 years ago, if not more. Some unintelligible British voices filter out of the TV and Chris is forced to confess he kind of likes it. Peter says the same and adds “It’s because I’m trash and I love how fancy it is.”

Thank goodness the dog is here to prevent Peter from murdering his children.

Meg is the one who points out that none of this will help them save Christmas. The kids turn to their father for advice, but his only suggestion is for everyone to go kneel in front of the holes he dug for them suggesting a murder-suicide is on the table. Brian emerges removing a baseball bat from Peter’s hands and tries to convince everyone they can handle this. Peter just announces his Plan B, which is to take opiates and listen to records. We cut to him drooling in his lounge chair listening to some bad jazz or something. The camera zooms out to reveal Stewie and Brian standing next to him with Stewie announcing, “It’s been four days.”

Lois didn’t really go to Mexico, she just wants to punish her family with her absence and watch them unravel from a cheap motel. Fiendishly clever!

We next head to the outskirts of town to check-in on Lois. She is not in Cabo as she threatened, but actually at a cheap motel that’s high enough in elevation that she can view her family through the window with binoculars. After remarking just how good her binoculars are, she spies Peter bringing in a very dead tree into the house and the family looking excited by it. She suspects that she’ll get a phone call any minute now from them begging her to come back and save Christmas. While she waits, she decides to relax on the bed and turns on the TV. A voiceover (John Viener, I think) coming from the TV welcomes her to the hotel and announces their stationary is the best in the industry for recording suicide notes. More suicide jokes – hooray! Lois announces her plan will work perfectly and intends to “Wait like a cobra.” This is the spot for a traditional Family Guy cutaway gag of a Cobra (Alec Sulkin) waiting for his table at the bar. A waitress (Rachael MacFarlane) asks if he would like her to bring his drink to his table for him and he replies that he would and points out his lack of hands. This might be the worst cut-away gag I’ve ever seen on this show.

Poor Peter. It’s so hard being a white man in 2020 New England.

Back at the house, everyone is outside putting up the decorations. Peter announces it’s time to put out the 2020 version of their decorations and then begins listing off the figurines he’s placing in a manger scene: ethnically accurate baby Jesus, Father Mary, Mother Josephine, the three genderless wise people on their scooters, Tig Notaro (for some reason), and the Little Drummer Them. He then adds, “Because, God forbid, we call a boy a boy.” Chris tries to confront his dad on his apparent transphobia and he erupts shouting “I don’t like what the world is! I’m white! When’s it going to be our turn?!” This does feel pretty authentic for the Peter character. Brian tries to calm him down, but Peter doesn’t see how that’s possible without “the woman who normally takes care of all of this.” He either doesn’t appreciate Lois to the point where he can’t remember her name, or he’s so mad at her that he doesn’t even want to address her by her name. Both seem plausible. Brian asks if he means Lois and he just refers to her as the redhead with the voice. He then starts tossing decorations over his shoulder as he goes through them remarking how she would put them up until one of the kids points out that he did it.

Now this is a true Christmas miracle!

The family turns to look at the house and the decorations are shown to have miraculously landed precisely where they were supposed to. Peter declares it perfect as the whole family basks in the festive glow of the holiday display. His cell phone then goes off and it’s Quagmire. He requests Peter dim the lights because he’s presently in bed “with a three and light isn’t doing her any favors.” We then cut to Lois in shock as she views the family’s accomplishment. She is then interrupted as the letter H from earlier mistakenly enters her room with his side piece, M. He sees Lois and then apologizes adding, “We’re excited because my wife just killed herself.” Why are we returning to this joke?

Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean the show is going lay off Meg.

It’s time for a holiday montage! Set to an instrumental version of “Deck the Halls” that’s heavy on saxophone, we find the Griffin family in their living room as Peter holds up a holiday movie: Christmas with the Kranks. He inserts it into the DVD player and we then see the family relaxing with the glow of a fire cast on them. We zoom out to see that Peter actually set the movie on fire. As someone who has seen the film, I approve. We then check out Peter hanging the stockings. The kids nod in approval before Peter hangs up the last one which is for “Dad’s gym friend Emilio who he goes to Greece with every summer.” Apparently, Peter is a closet homosexual who cheats on his wife – I suppose that explains his disinterest in her. We pan out and Emilio (presumably) is revealed to be standing behind Peter in just his boxer shorts. He gestures to Peter who playfully waves him off to the shock of his children. It’s now time for Christmas dinner and Peter is preparing to cut the ham. As the camera moves across the table it’s revealed that there is a live pig in one of the chairs. Peter reacts with surprise and runs to the oven only to find he mistakenly cooked Meg instead of the pig. Whoops!

The only thing Lois has accomplished is showing the family that it can thrive at Christmas without her.

Time to check-in on Lois once again. She is aghast to find the family having a snowball fight in the front yard. Tom Tucker (MacFarlane) and a news van are even onsite to document this. Lois then observes the family standing hand-in-hand while Peter says “I love you,” to his kids, but in slow-motion. Lois suggests the kids better not return the sentiment in slow-motion as well to emphasize her horror so of course they do. “That’s it,” she shouts as the camera zooms in on her rage with a rack focus technique so that she can inform us that she must stop Christmas! She’s interrupted by the sound of a fart from the room next to hers. She pounds on the wall and shouts “What do you think this is? A Lids?!” The logo for the store is superimposed over the screen while the announcer voice chimes in with “Lids: come get a camouflaged Knicks hat and let one rip!” The clerk from earlier told Meg to go fart in Lids. Did someone have a particularly bad experience in a Lids? I don’t get it. I don’t think I’m supposed to.

You just can’t take the “Mom” out of Lois, even when she’s trying to be bad.

Well, there is only one place for this story to go. Lois shows up at the house decked out in Grinch attire. Before she can get down to business, her cab driver (Viener) has to bid her farewell while sharing his unprompted racial stereotypes about people from Turkey. She enters through the chimney intent on ruining Christmas, but then spies all of the dirty dishes left out. Lois does the dishes and then tells herself she won’t even think about the grocery situation, but then of course she open the fridge to find it nearly empty. We cut to her coming through the back door with two bags of groceries, but now she’s dragged in mud so she has to mop the floor. Once finished with that she seems ready to resume (well, start) ruining Christmas, but then she tells herself not to think about checking the washer to see if they left the wet clothes in it without transferring to the dryer. Of course she checks and finds what she expected and remedies that situation like she did the others.

They’ll both never speak of this again, it would seem.

With the clothes properly sorted, we can finally go into the “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” parody segment we all expected. It’s an instrumental version of the song and as it plays Lois creeps around miming the Grinch from the far more famous television special. There aren’t really any jokes as she just does exactly what the Grinch does, though she does pause to do a hideous version of the Grinch smile so there’s your joke. As she stuffs up the tree, she’s interrupted by a little girl asking “Santa Claus?” Well, actually, it’s Stewie and he’s dressed like little Cindy Lou Who from the special. He asks why Santa is taking the tree, but Lois just responds by asking why he’s in pigtails and a little girl’s nightgown. Stewie, realizing he’s in over his head, just suggests they both forget what they saw tonight and heads back up the stairs.

You know, this whole time I’ve definitely been asking myself, “What’s Quagmire doing at Christmas?”

We now head outside and the house looks to be in disarray now that Lois has effectively stolen Christmas. We see her creeping down the sidewalk with all of the Christmas stuff as the show decides that now is the right moment to check-in on Quagmire. He’s all alone in his house and remarks how he dislikes being alone on Christmas so he whips out his phone and calls someone named Joan. He asks if he has a payment due on his Discover card. Based on what follows, we can assume that Joan asked if he’s alone on Christmas and Quagmire denies it. He says he’s with his very large family, but she asks him for names. We don’t actually hear anything from Joan, just Quagmire’s responses, but he basically repeats all of her questions so we don’t have to guess. He lists off obvious fake names (Bloofus and Klunt) for his kids and when she doesn’t believe him he starts smashing stuff around his house and blaming the kids. She doesn’t buy it and Quagmire is forced to hastily retreat from the conversation and hang up. I’m guessing the episode came in a little short and Quagmire was called on to fill some time.

Is this the part where they join hands and sing?

The next morning, the family rises to find that Christmas has been stolen. They’re pretty shocked, but Peter has a solution: everyone kneel in front of daddy’s pre-dug hole. That’s his solution for everything! Brian then tells Peter this is all his fault for getting rid of the Ring camera. We jump back via cut-away to Lois entering the house wondering who crapped in front of their door. She pulls out her cell phone to check the Ring camera, but Peter slaps the phone out of her hand and smashes it. He tells her that whoever it was probably had no choice because their family was using all of the bathrooms.

Lois may have failed to inflict misery upon her family, but at least she taught them to appreciate her.

Lois is shown arriving via cab, and before she enters the house she puts on a sombrero and poncho to play up the ruse she was on vacation. The family is watching a Tony Bennett (RIP) Christmas special and we see Tony badly singing “Jingle Bells” and falling asleep mid song. The bit continues with an announcer saying to stay-tuned for a duet with Willie Nelson. We then cut to the two of them asleep. They wake up and start performing different songs. They’re both very old. Lois enters the home and Peter welcomes her back by pointing out he cleaned and bought groceries, but unfortunately Christmas was stolen. Lois has to feign shock, but then is really surprised when she finds out that not everything was stolen. It turns out, they got her a present, but since they didn’t think she’d be home for Christmas it was kept upstairs. The kids retrieve it and Lois is forced to read the card out loud. It’s played straight and thoughtful, but the gag is that it’s going to just go on and on. She has to read the inner card, the back, and even some stuff hidden by a black light while sad music from This is Us plays. I’ve never watched the show so I don’t know if the sad music is authentic, but whatever.

I bet you saw this coming.

Lois is moved to tears and finally opens the gift to find a misshapen bowl. Meg tells her they all took a pottery class and made it for her. Despite the bowl looking terrible, it affects Lois. This is the part where the narrator comes in to inform us that Lois’ heart grew three sizes that day complete with overlay as seen in The Grinch. We then smash cut to Lois unconscious in a hospital bed because your heart tripling in size is actually a bad thing. The doctor (MacFarlane) is there to tell us she’s lucky to be alive, and then soon leaves the scene allowing the family to all hug Lois while Peter declares it the best Christmas ever! The narrator returns to inform us that Lois is happy this medical emergency covered up her crimes. We’re told Lois never came clean and instead their Muslim neighbor was arrested for the crime and deported back to Turkey. Another voice chimes in, “See? What did I tell you? Always Turkey!” It’s the voice of Lois’ cab driver from earlier who shared his views on race unprompted with her.

This episode basically had to end with another double-up on a past joke. It’s clearly something the writers are fond of.

We’re not done yet! We return to the Griffin house and everyone is seated in the living room by a replaced Christmas tree. Peter says he’s glad to have Lois back so he doesn’t have to keep doing dishes and buying groceries, much to her annoyance since it was Lois who did those things. The family then challenges her on her alibi and asks her to come up with names for the cousins she was supposedly visiting the whole time. Predictably, she hastily comes up with the same names Quagmire did earlier: Bloofus and Klunt. She even says she thinks she hears them upstairs. She runs upstairs and we stay with the rest of the family as they listen in on Lois narrating the carnage being spread by Bloofus and Klunt. She smashes a diorama Meg made which was due the next day and also Stewie’s aquarium containing the fish you have to feed so damn much and they die anyway. Stewie is apparently buying this charade as he remarks, “Fricken’ Klunt, man.” She then gets to Peter and his discreet box of pills. He races upstairs, but can’t beat “Bloofus” to the toilet who flushes them away.

Lois just wanted some help around the holidays and is basically punished throughout the episode for that.

And that’s how Lois stole Christmas and got away with it! Well, she did get hospitalized as a result of her scheme and I bet the resulting medical debt was crippling to a family like the Griffins, but she still technically got away with it. I like this one as a companion to “A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas” as it’s a 2020 take on that 2001 episode. The show and the depiction of the family has changed so much since then. They’re basically all worse people, though really only Peter and Lois are on display in this episode. The kids are mostly window dressing and Brian is still in his role of arbiter and moral compass. It’s still a familiar premise of underappreciated mother figure getting the shaft at Christmas. Only Lois tries to combat this with subterfuge and is basically punished for it. Just not all the way punished since her family is basically none the wiser. Though they do border on accusatory in that final scene, but then appear to accept Bloofus and Klunt.

There are some good jokes here and some not so good ones. Family Guy is a show that tries to overload its running time with as many jokes as possible. It’s quantity over quality. If I’m being honest, the strategy doesn’t work too well here as there’s a lot of groan-inducing jokes. And this particular episode apparently either didn’t know which ones were going to land, or felt that a bad joke could be improved by repetition. We return to the stupid joke with the personified letters as well as the discarded television show hosts. The observational humor the show tries for with the ATM machine is just okay, while Peter’s insecurity via the nativity scene was decent. The suicide jokes were numerous and even American Dad! loves those in their Christmas episodes so I guess it’s a MacFarlane thing? I liked the repeated gag of Peter’s suicide solution, but not so much the rest.

If they wanted to make an image creepier than the original then mission accomplished!

If you are a fan of Family Guy then I think this episode lands as “just okay.” The show has better Christmas episodes like its inaugural one and “The Road to the North Pole.” Those are the only two I watch each year and if it weren’t for “The Road…” being an hour long I’d have covered it in this space by now. Instead, I did the one that parodies The Grinch because I am a sucker for that. In terms of Grinch parodies though, this one isn’t that great because it just doesn’t use the opportunity to make a new joke. We just get a visual gag of Lois trying to smile like the Grinch and Stewie being confronted by his choice of evening wear. The Quagmire bit that followed was pure throw-away too, but I guess we needed it to setup the final scene.

If you would like to watch “The First No L” then the easiest way to do so is via Hulu or Disney+ depending on where you reside or subscription plan. Family Guy still airs in syndication as well for you cable subscribers and this episode is likely being shown somewhere this December. If you, however, only have room in your schedule for one Christmas episode with the Griffins, then you can probably do better than this one.

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 10 – Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

Today, we return to my best Christmas specials of all-time list with television’s first family: The Simpsons. The Simpsons are the brainchild of series creator Matt Groening who allegedly came up with the idea as a spur of the moment one when he needed something to pitch to the Fox Network. He essentially based The…

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Dec. 10 – A Chipmunk Christmas

Alvin and the Chipmunks is one of the oldest, family-owned, pieces of intellectual property left in the world. And it might not be for much longer as the franchise is reportedly up-for-sale and has been since last year, but as-of this writing nothing has been agreed upon. The Chipmunks date back to the 1958 novelty…

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Dec. 10 – It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!

For December 10, we are returning to the theme of this year which is to revisit the best of the best. When I originally ranked my favorite Christmas specials, I had the recently released It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! ranked at #19. The years have been kind to this throwback Christmas special as last year I…

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December 3, 2024

Dec. 3 – American Dad! – “Season’s Beatings”

By Joe
Original air date December 11, 2011.

It feels like it has been a minute since we took a look at an American Dad! Christmas episode. The show can be counted on to produce such an episode almost annually and often times the Christmas episode is among the best of the season. 2024 is also the year we had to say goodbye to actor Martin Mull. It’s possible you don’t immediately conjure up a role for Mull upon hearing his name, but he’s definitely one of those “Hey, it’s that guy!” type of actors that most have encountered. He seemed to get a lot of work in TV in the 90s and I can’t think of a program he was a part of that wasn’t better off for having him. And, to no surprise, he’s great on this episode of American Dad!.

Included a couple of years ago as one of the top Christmas specials of all-time was the season seven episode of American Dad! titled “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls,” so it only makes sense that we return to American Dad! with the season eight episode “Season’s Beatings.” We’ve gone out of order with the show as I wanted to jump ahead to the sequel episode of “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls” with “Minstrel Krampus,” so now I’m here to rectify that.

American Dad! is old news around here so I’m not going to make the usual preamble in this space, just know that you’re getting a subversive Christmas special. It’s not going to be for everyone. I hesitate to use the word “edgy” because it’s too often relied on and seems to be a favored descriptor for those with bad takes, but this episode is probably on the edgier side since it’s going to deal with the main character trying to murder a kid at Christmas. He’s the antichrist though so it’s okay! Still, if your idea of a good Christmas special is something like an episode of Full House or The Little Drummer Boy then this probably won’t be for you.

Roger is here to whip up some good old-fashioned eggnog!

The episode begins in conventional fashion with no Christmas theming added to the opening title. Lame. Once over, we at least are immediately treated with an exterior shot of the Smith household all decked out for the holidays with a fresh blanket of snow. Inside, Francine (Wendy Schaal) and son Steve (Scott Grimes) are making cookies while Roger (Seth MacFarlane) is mixing up a batch of his special eggnog. Steve scolds him for taking so long with the ‘nog and Roger assures him it’s almost ready, but it just needs a final test. His slurred speech would suggest he’s already tested the drink extensively, but just to be sure he pulls out a cage containing two rats. He offers a ladle full of the stuff to a brown rat who sniffs it before taking a few licks. It immediately starts screaming and tares off the head of the other rat in the cage with it. After making out furiously with the severed head, the rat dawns it like a headdress and runs in circles until it stops to vomit out blood until it collapses and explodes sending rat pieces flying. I told you this wasn’t the sort of Christmas special for everyone.

The eggnog may feature some side effects…

After Roger declares his eggnog perfect, Stan (MacFarlane) enters the room with exciting news: Father Donovan is putting on a Christmas pageant at the mall all about the life of Jesus! Fran asks if he’ll be trying out and Stan smugly announces that he’s sure to land the lead role of Jesus for the play because he’s the most devout member of the congregation. Roger drunkenly laughs about the concept of Christianity, referring to it as his favorite deadbeat dad story (comparing it to the real song “Biological Didn’t Bother” by Shaq) as he slurs his speech and somehow manages to not fall off of the stool he’s standing on. Stan angrily slams down the pamphlets he was holding and demands that Roger not insult his religion. Roger, rather calmly, gathers up his jewel encrusted “pimp cup” and stumbles over to Stan as if he’s about to offer some retort, only to point out that Stan as a pimple under the skin of his chin that’s likely to reach its apex in about two weeks. He then saunters off into the living room.

She sure is flexible.

In the dimly lit living room, Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane) and her husband Jeff (Jeff Fischer) are cuddling on the couch watching TV. Hayley asks her husband if everything is all right noting that he cried a lot more than usual during sex this morning. Jeff sits up and announces that he wants to have a baby. He feels they have a lot of love to give plus he also feels broken inside and kids are sure to fix everything! Hayley wants nothing to do with being a mother declaring she has no maternal instincts and only animal ones. She lists off eating and pooping as such instincts and casually tosses in a “laying on the ground ahead of a storm” which she immediately demonstrates by walking around in circles and curling up on the carpet as thunder booms outside. She punctuates the joke by scratching her ear with her foot.

Not the role Stan was anticipating.

At the mall the next day, some parishioners are setting up for the play while Father Donovan (Martin Mull) looks on with a lit cigarette casually placed between his fingers. Stan comes into frame to enthusiastically confirm that he’s willing to play Jesus in the play, but Donovan shoots him down immediately. Stan can’t believe it and points out that he’s the most devout member of Donovan’s flock, but Donovan just laughs him off and informs him the role has nothing to do with devotion – it’s all about the abs, baby! Jesus is shredded, and Stan is, well, not. Stan tries to convince him other wise by laying on the cross that’s being worked on at the moment, but it snaps in half under Stan’s weight causing the female worker who was painting it to declare, “Now what am I going to burn on my ethnic neighbor’s lawn?” Father Donovan assures Stan he has the perfect role for him and holds up a red jacket and pants. Stan thinks this is a reference to Fireman Jesus, but Donovan confirms for him that he wants him to play Santa. To try and convince him how great a role is he produces some Bratz dolls that Santa gave him – for free – last Christmas! He then darkly adds that he can’t believe this is the suit Earl died in.

The Smith family has added a new member, and he’s an orphan! Maybe this will be a wholesome Christmas special after all?

Back at the Smith home, we see Jeff’s van pulling into the driveway and then cut to the living room. Jeff has an announcement to make – he’s adopted a son! He has named the little guy (who I would guess is 2 or 3) Nemo, after his favorite character from his favorite book: the novelization of the movie Finding Nemo. Hayley is outraged that Jeff went and did this while Francine is shocked and delighted. She can’t believe she’s a grandmother and felt her only chance at becoming one was if Steve got raped by a confused lesbian. She runs to Nemo and scoops him up covering him with kisses. Jeff says he wanted a son to carry on his legacy – his Suburu Legacy, so maybe this is going to be a running joke with him. Hayley is confused because adoption should be a lengthy process and asks Jeff how he pulled this off. He’s dumbfounded and chalks it up to an end of month clearance event while adding that the orphanage seemed real eager to get rid of this kid. Nemo then walks over to Hayley who backs away declaring “Eww, get it away from me!” He grabs her hand and nuzzles it which triggers Hayley’s maternal instincts to kick in times ten. She starts sobbing uncontrollably and wraps Nemo up declaring him her baby. Aww! Stan then comes down the stairs in full Santa costume and demands to know who Nemo is. Francine declares they’re grandparents, and he just responds, “Steve was raped by a confused lesbian?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Back at the mall, Stan is apparently not playing Santa in the play, he’s just playing the part of Santa for the mall. There’s a kid sitting on his knee and Stan curtly asks him what does he want? The kid, in a deep, gravelly, voice, replies with “Umm, let me think about it?” Upon hearing how deep his voice is, Stan demands to know if he’s even a little boy, but the guy just tells him “Don’t worry about it.” After telling him he can’t be here, the not kid says “Come on, I waited in line let me just sit here a minute.” Stan doesn’t agree to that and tells him to get off, but the not kid assures him he’s almost done. When Stan asks what he’s almost done with, he just responds “Don’t worry about it.”

I’m sure Stan will have a rational reaction to Roger landing the role of Jesus.

The performers in the pageant then enter and Stan declares he has to see this. Tossing the not kid from his lap, Stan hurries over to the stage to find out who is playing Jesus. It’s Roger, who is wearing a wig and a loincloth and has some impressive abs on display. Stan is outraged to find Roger as Jesus and demands to know why he would want to do this. He says that Stan made it sound like a big deal and notes it gave him an excuse to work on his abs and his…savior bulge, as he gestures to his groin. Stan can’t believe it and when he finds out that Roger is also drunk he loses it. He punches Roger in the face and climbs on top of him to rain blow upon blow upon this false idol. Roger gets away momentarily and crawls to one of the female performers. He doesn’t ask her for help though, just calls her ugly. He’s definitely not Jesus material.

Looks like I was wrong.

We return to the Smith home as Stan pulls into the driveway. Inside, Nemo has Jeff’s hat on which I’m assuming everyone finds cute. Hayley is filming him and still sobbing uncontrollable prompting Francine to remark that her “bitch crying” is ruining the home movie. Stan then enters still in his Santa suit only now it’s covered in blood. Francine jumps up and asks him what happened. His cover? He was sitting on the bus next to Courtney Love and she sneezed. Even if that were believable, it’s ruined by good old television which Jeff points out as a news story covering the beating at the mall is played. Stan insists it’s not what it looks like and that he was defending Jesus while the anchor describes the beating as an unprovoked attack on Christianity. It’s not helped by the soundbite of Stan shouting at Roger as he wails on him “You can’t play Jesus you lazy, wine-loving, bisexual!” We then pull out from the TV to reveal a female priest is watching the coverage. She picks up the phone which cuts to another priest type doing the same and this goes on until it reaches the pope who asks “Are you watching this shit?”

Very wrong.

Stan insists to his family he wasn’t slandering Jesus, but Roger. The news then alerts the viewing audience that the mall Santa has been identified as none other than Stan Smith. The phone rings immediately and Steve answers informing his father that it’s Father Donovan, and he sounds punitive. We cut to the church where Stan is having a face to face with Donovan who has some bad news: he’s being excommunicated from all of Christianity. Stan can’t believe it and asks how he can get back in. Donovan tells him there are only three ways: find the Holy Grail, kill the antichrist, or donate ten million dollars to charity adding that’s how Jared Fogle from the Subway ads got back in (this episode was made before Fogle was arrested and jailed for being a pedophile so this joke reads quite dark now). Stan points out that he can’t do any of those things, but Donovan can only offer his apologies. He demands that Stan turn in his badge and he apparently does have a gold, Christianity, badge that he places on Donovan’s desk. As he goes to leave, Father Donovan calls out to him to wait! He doesn’t have anything to add, he just wants Stan’s opinion on if he should grow a mustache or not further asking, “What do hookers like?”

Klaus doesn’t get a line this entire episode, but at least he looks cute.

The only thing for Stan to do is go home and cry in front of his family about being excommunicated. Roger is still nursing his injuries from his encounter with Stan at the mall (and really seems to be taking it all in stride, probably because he achieved orgasm during the fight which he confirms to Steve) while Klaus, the goldfish, can be seen wearing an adorable little Santa hat in his fish bowl. Steve tries to suggest to his dad that he just get a new religion and Francine remarks it worked for Mohammed Ali and thinks he changed religions, and his name, to Kareem Abdul Jabar. No, Francine, those are two different people. Stan doesn’t want to change religions, so he just sobs instead.

That’s quite the discovery, Stan.

In his office, Stan is grabbing all of his kitschy religious items and tossing them into a box. As he does, he cries some more until his wails are interrupted by little Nemo who comes walking into the room doing the same. Stan seems to have taken to his new grandson better than I would have guessed as he picks him up and goes in for some snuggles. He then notices a mark on the boy’s head. It reads 6…6…2, phew! Wait! Below the 2 is a “+4” and then under that is the number 666! Nemo is the antichrist! Roger then enters with one of those tins filled with caramel corn. He claims to Stan that he made it just for him, but there’s a card on it indicating it was a gift to their neighbors Terry and Greg from someone named Trevor. We then get a quick cutaway of the pair looking for the gift under their tree while an angry Trevor, who thinks they regifted it, looks on. Trevor declares that they’re worse than Connor and everyone, including Trevor, gasps at the outburst. Connor must be pretty bad. Back in the study, Stan tells Roger to forget the corn because he has found a way back into Christianity and all he has to do is murder his grandson! And I thought they were bonding.

I’d call Father Donovan out on this boast, but I’m afraid he’ll try and prove it.

It’s nighttime and Father Donovan is pulling up to the Smith house in a car that features a license plate which reads “12 Inches.” Sure, buddy. Donovan enters the house and Stan shows him Nemo’s mark as the kid sleeps in a crib in the living room. Donovan tells Smith that he better make sure he knows for certain that Nemo is the antichrist before he kills him. Apparently, he’s made some mistakes in the past. Roger and Jeff then enter the house with Roger remarking that was some of his worst caroling, but best tagging, ever. We get a quick cut to someone’s garage door which features an image of Santa and what looks like strippers. Stan informs Jeff that he needs to take them to the orphanage where he got Nemo so that he can find evidence that proves he’s the antichrist so he can kill him. Jeff just says “Okay,” either not grasping what’s going on here or he just doesn’t care. Roger tells Stan to give the cutest orphan a crisp bill of some kind and the ugliest one a…he backhands Stan for dramatic effect. Stan then informs Roger that he’s coming too since he got him into this mess. Roger is fine with that, but informs everyone that before he can go anywhere he needs to…wipe…better. Gross.

This probably doesn’t bode well for the priest.

Outside the burned down remnants of the orphanage, an old groundskeeper is there to tell the gang the place burned down last week, the day after Jeff adopted Nemo. He also shares with them that was the day he got his cholesterol test results back which no one seems to care about. The group split up and look amongst the wreckage for any clues they can find about Nemo. Only Father Donovan seems to have found anything as he looks over a manilla folder and calls Stan to tell him to meet him outside. As he waits for the others to come out, a crow observes Father Donovan pacing back and forth. Its eyes glow red and we cut back to Nemo who is playing with blocks with his mother. His eyes glow red and then in slow motion he knocks his little block tower over which causes the orphanage to shake and collapse on Father Donovan.

This is probably something the orphanage should have shared with Jeff.

Stan and the others race outside seemingly avoiding catastrophe, but Father Donovan is not so lucky. His torso is sticking out of a pile of flaming rubble. He tells Stan he can’t feel his legs and asks if they’re okay. We pan over to see the man’s severed legs on fire prompting Stan to deadpan “They’re fine.” Donovan hands over what he found which is Nemo’s file confirming that he is indeed the son of Satan with a jackal for a mother. There’s even a nice family portrait of Nemo, a jackal, and a Satan that resembles Tim Curry from Legend. It’s at this point that Jeff realizes that Nemo spelled backwards is Omen, but Roger is quick to point out that doesn’t make sense since Jeff was the one who named him. They choose not to dwell on it as Father Donovan outlines what it means for Nemo to be the antichrist. He tells Stan that he needs to retrieve the sacred daggers from the Vatican as they are the only items that can kill Nemo. When Stan asks if he’s sure, Father Donovan says “Yes, I read it on Wikipedia.” He then goes into a long history on musician Jon Bon Jovi which he also read about on Wikipedia. As he does this, he’s clearly struggling to breathe, but he manages to finish the lesson before finally passing. Stan informs Jeff and Roger that they need to hurry to the Vatican, but Father Donovan wakes up and continues his history lesson. His last words are “Kenny…Loggins.” Stan seems afraid to say anything else in fear that it will prompt Father Donovan to share more last words. Godspeed Father Donovan. I hope there are hookers in Heaven waiting for you and they don’t care if you have a moustache or not.

Something tells me Steve will not enjoy this.

Our next scene reveals that Stan has apparently managed to utilize CIA resources to get a plane and head to the Vatican. Stan calls home to let his family know what’s going on and he gets Steve. Steve immediately starts to share the results of his latest eye exam, but Stan obviously doesn’t care. He just blurts out the Nemo is the antichrist. Steve pauses, looks annoyed, then resumes sharing the details of his exam. At the next pause, Stan just shouts what they’re doing and passes on a warning to beware of Nemo before hanging up. Steve, clearly agitated, puts the phone down only to be startled by the presence of his nephew on the couch beside him. Nemo’s eyes glow red once more and Steve shivers beside him until his eyes turn red in response. He drones that he is here to serve him as his buddy Snot (Curtis Armstrong) enters the house. Steve’s head spins around with a snapping sound and Snot rightly is freaked out and makes a hasty retreat.

What did Seth do? I don’t think I want to know what Andy Dick did.

Stan, Roger, and Jeff arrive at the Vatican. Roger is already bored and complaining of thirst while Stan ignores him and outlines the plan. They need to gain access to the catacombs in order to find the daggers they seek, but when they arrive at the gate the two guards inform Stan he’s not allowed to enter. We get a close-up shot of a flier of banned persons. One is Jared from Subway with an “OK” stamped over him. Stan is there and below him it looks like maybe Christian Slater and Andy Dick? The one that looks like Slater might just be Seth MacFarlane, I don’t know. It is! When the camera zooms out we can clearly see his name below. Odd that they didn’t include it in the frame for the close-up. Anyway, Stan informs Jeff and Roger that they’ll have to retrieve the daggers, but Roger doesn’t want to. Stan then asks him why he can’t just assume a persona that’s eager to do this? Roger likes the suggestion and morphs into Roland Chang – Super Positive Asian! He basically wears a wig and smiley face hat and gets slanted eyes. It’s kind of racist? Roger is certainly not PC.

We know what this means…

The catacombs are pretty creepy as we see Jeff and Roger walk amongst some dusty, old corpses. Roger tells Jeff to be on the lookout for the daggers and empty boxes since he has a friend that needs boxes in preparation for a move. A rat emerges from a hole in the wall to spy the pair and its eyes immediately turn red. We cut back to Nemo who is seated in a highchair with a sippy cup and army men splayed before him on the kitchen table. His eyes in turn glow red and he removes the lid to his cup and dumps it upon the army men. In the catacombs, Roger asks Jeff if he does coke and gets no reply so he just says “Yeah, me neither.” Suddenly, a rush of water comes surging in and Jeff and Roger are forced to try and get to safety. Roger manages to get onto a ledge, but the water sweeps Jeff away. Roger cries out, “Jeff!” in response to this only for Jeff to shout back “What?”

That is just a fantastic nut shot. Look at how the eyes go cross.

We then see Roger emerge from a floor vent into an ornately decorated sanctum. A group of cardinals, or bishops, or whatever they’re called are just standing around a bit surprised to see a super positive Asian fellow emerge from their basement. Roger has to break the bad news to them that they have a bit of a moisture problem in the basement. He then spies the ceremonial daggers right there on the wall! He informs them he can prepare an estimate for repairs, but then just kicks the first bishop in front of him right, square, in the nuts. We cut to Stan waiting outside as Roger comes running out shouting “We’ve got the daggers Jeff died run, run, run!”

Well, at least in this state Steve should be more helpful when it comes to stringing lights and such.

We now return to the Smith household where Hayley is tossing a football with Nemo while Steve looks on speaking in tongues. Francine is on a ladder and hanging lights when she scolds Steve to stop speaking in Aramaic – it’s a dead language. Stan and Roger come speeding in and Francine demands to know where they’ve been. Stan asks her if she got his message, but as illustrated by Steve crawling around on the roof in some kind of a reverse crab walk pose, she did not. When Stan points out that Nemo turned Steve into an apostate of Satan, Francine confirms he’s been a pill all day. They also find time to slip in casually that Jeff is dead which shocks Hayley. When Stan tells her that they have to kill Nemo, he tries to use Steve like a club of sorts to telekinetically beat back Stan. Francine still doesn’t buy into this and just thinks Steve is hungry. She tells him she just made a Trader Joe’s run and lists off a bunch of digs at Trader Joe’s ending with something about a mushroom flatbread pizza that smells like nutsack.

Get ready for an extended brawl as our main character tries to kill a toddler!

Hayley, despite all of this, isn’t willing to let her father murder her son. She grabs him after Stan gets tossed into the ladder Francine was on forcing her to grab onto the lights to stop herself from falling. Roger leaps into action to stop Hayley from taking off, but Francine comes inadvertently swinging in and knocks Roger to the ground. The lights end up causing a fire which provides a distraction for Stan to grab Nemo and run. Hayley tackles him through the living room window of Terry (Mike Barker) and Greg’s (MacFarlane) and they roll around their house destroying a bunch of stuff in the process. Stan kicks his kids out of the house, but Nemo uses his telekinetic powers to throw Stan through the ceiling. He dangles for a second, then falls and resumes chasing after Nemo. Terry realizes this is the perfect opportunity to destroy some figurines of Greg’s he hates so he awkwardly swats them off an end table, well after the Smith’s have vacated their home, and does a pretty poor job of acting like it was an accident.

Did we really need to mock the blind here? This one was a little too dark for me to be funny.

Back outside, Hayley pounces on her dad and demands he not harm her Satan baby indicating she’s accepted the reality of the situation, but still would prefer to not have her son murdered. A menacing looking dog leaps to Nemo’s defense so Stan pulls out his gun and shoots it. A blind man then wanders over asking if they’ve seen his dog, Clancy. Hayley and Stan don’t move or say a word and just let the poor guy pathetically call out for his service dog while receiving no response. He decides to move on, and is promptly run over for his efforts. That was just unnecessarily cruel.

It’s all come down to this. Is American Dad! really going to show toddler murder on network television?!

With the blind man dead, Hayley and Stan resume their brawl only to be interrupted by Steve. He jumps on his father, still speaking in tongues, but Roland is here to put him down! He sprays Steve with some bug killer that causes him to fall off and act like a spider that just died. Roland tells Stan now they can kill that boy together and punctuates his optimism with a hearty thumb’s up. Stan grabs the daggers while Nemo tries to flee through the backyard. He uses his mind powers to chuck a charcoal grill at Stan, but Roland grabs him and pins him to a patio table. Stan goes in for the kill, and misses Nemo stabbing Roland in the hand. Roger immediately snaps back into his standard persona and begins to insult Stan, but then has to remind himself that’s not who Roland is and instead offers words of encouragement. Stan regathers the daggers and looks to try again, only for Hayley to pull his own gun on him. He gives her one look, then decides to kill the kid.

Don’t worry, this isn’t The Wizard of Oz.

The screen goes white as we hear the sound of a gunshot. We’re at the hospital and Stan is waking up in his hospital bed surrounded by his family – including Jeff! If you’re thinking this whole episode was a dream, well you’re wrong. All of that stuff really happened, and Hayley did shoot Stan! It’s not explained how Jeff survived, he just did. Nemo was not murdered, but the family has good news regardless. Turns out, Roger’s pimp cup from act one was actually the Holy Grail so Stan has been readmitted into Christianity! As for Nemo, Hayley sent him somewhere far from Stan where he’ll be safe. We then cut to someone tucking little Nemo into bed – it’s Sarah Palin (Schaal). She offers up some encouragement about sleeping in the White House soon and then leaves the boy because her new issue of Highlights magazine has arrived. With his new mother gone, Nemo pops out from under the covers. He takes off his onesie pajamas, which are covered with crosses, and puts them on upside down. He then speaks in a shrill voice threatening Stan Smith that he’ll see him at the Rapture! His head spins around and he vomits a whole bunch while a voice over lets us know that Baby Antichrist wants to wish us a Merry Christmas! The screen is then covered in green vomit and the credits roll.

Merry Christmas to you too, Baby Antichrist!

I told you it wasn’t going to be one of those warm, fuzzy, Christmas episodes. American Dad! knows how to deliver the subversive, and since its main character is a devout Christian it makes it pretty easy to craft a Christmas special. There are probably some uncomfortable images in this one for those who take their religion seriously, but there isn’t much here truly mocking Christianity. Father Donovan isn’t really a wholesome take on a priest while the suggestion that anyone with money can buy their way into the good graces of the Pope could certainly be taken as a jab at the faith. On the other hand, Donovan did say “charity” when mentioning how Stan could pay his way out of trouble so it’s not like he was enriching any one person had he been able to go that route.

Sarah Palin jokes were pretty dated in 2011. They’re even more so now.

No, what’s really the aim of this episode is just to fashion a Christmas episode around a grandfather seeking to kill his newly adopted grandson. That’s pretty messed up, especially because Stan seems completely fine with the whole thing. Then again, Nemo is pretty clearly the antichrist and I suppose a good Christian would want to kill such a creature. And it’s not as if Nemo had been around all that long. I find it funny, and the episode is chock full of Christmas theming which I do so enjoy. We get lots of decorations and fun Christmas outfits for most of the family. I definitely could have used a bit more of Father Donovan so I was a bit sad to see him killed off about halfway through, but at least he didn’t overstay his welcome. The Palin joke at the end wasn’t very good. They insulted her intelligence with the crack about Highlights magazine, but it’s a pretty toothless joke. And Nemo did leave us with a taunt, but he would not return. There’s even a later Christmas episode about The Rapture, but no Nemo. I guess he’s still biding his time up there in Alaska, but he should probably ditch Palin and hitch himself onto another wagon if he wants to get into Washington.

Bless you, Father Donovan. Hopefully, you’re in a better place.

Should you wish to partake in this non-traditional Christmas special the easiest way to do so is via Hulu. If you’re outside the US, then Disney+ will have it. TBS is still the cable home for American Dad! and you can probably find this one playing throughout the month there as well. It’s not my favorite American Dad! holiday episode, but it’s up there. Maybe even number two, so I give it a strong recommend with the caveat that it’s not for everyone. Now let’s all strive to be a little less like the antichrist this holiday season and a little more like Roland Chang – Super Positive Asian!

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 3 – Animaniacs – ‘Twas the Day Before Christmas

Children’s cartoons often take to Christmas when the season rolls around. The holiday is usually ripe for parody or just direct adaptations so it’s easy for the writers to kind of phone it in. What’s not customary is for a cartoon series to feature two dedicated Christmas episodes in a single season! That’s what Animaniacs…

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by Joe

Dec. 3 – Popeye the Sailor – “Mister and Mistletoe”

Last year for the Christmas Spot we took a look at the 1960’s TV series Popeye the Sailor and its Christmas episode “Spinach Greetings.” There are a lot of Popeye fans in the world and my assumption is that most would not put Popeye the Sailor above the theatrical shorts that helped catapult Popeye to…

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by Joe

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December 19, 2022

Dec. 19 – American Dad! – “Minstrel Krampus”

By Joe
“Minstrel Krampus” originally aired December 15, 2013.

I’m quite surprised to have made it all the way to December 19 without resorting to The Simpsons, American Dad!, Bob’s Burgers, or some other animated sitcom that has an annual, or near annual, Christmas episode. Not that I have been avoiding such shows, and I may turn to one again before this is all over, it’s just worked out that way. American Dad! is the animated sitcom that might have the best claim to possessing the highest quality Christmas specials. They’re not an annual guarantee anymore, but the library the show has accumulated is quite good. Bob’s Burgers might be the runner-up at this point, but The Simpsons have a solid claim due largely to just having such a vast library of Christmas episodes at this point (and it could have been a lot more if not for the fact that the show was reluctant to go back to the holiday following the first, aired, episode).

“Minstrel Krampus” just might be my second favorite of the American Dad! Christmas episodes, but even that’s a tough battle. Last year, we looked at my favorite such episode and rather than go to the next in-line we’re doing Krampus. I suppose it’s slightly redundant given we already looked at a Christmas special this year featuring the beast, but if we can fit Santa into multiple specials then why not Krampus? This Christmas episode, like so many others, does tie-in with previous ones via The Smith family’s relationship with Santa Claus so it makes sense to look at this one this year. There was a Christmas episode released in between “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls” and this one (“Season’s Beatings” which is excellent and likely to be looked at later), but it didn’t contain Santa so we’re not really missing anything continuity wise.

We have ourselves a festive framing device for this one.

This episode foregoes the opening credits and begins on the title screen with the sound of sleigh bells in the background. They should have brought back the candy cane font, but I’ll forgive them. The absence of an intro would seem to indicate we’re in for a slightly longer episode than usual. Normally, that’s a good thing, but when you’re writing a blog entry that has to cover the whole of an episode it’s less thrilling. Once the title is removed we’re presented with an ornate looking storybook that lets us know this is an American Dad! Christmas episode. A narrator, who is clearly Stan’s father Jack (Daran Norris), chimes in to set the mood. It’s Christmas, the time of year when children are the worst! They’ve figured out they’re getting stuff whether they’re bad or good and that just sucks.

In order for this episode to work, Steve has to be a giant brat. Just go with it.

We then find ourselves at a toy store. To apparently illustrate this point, we see Stan (Seth MacFarlane) and Francine (Wendy Schaal) pushing a cart filled with toys while their teenaged son Steve (Scott Grimes) rides in the basket. He grabs an RC car from the shelf and tosses it into the cart, which Francine removes and places back on the shelf. He immediately protests and when Francine tells him it’s too expensive he throws a tantrum. Stan reminds him he only gets what he wants if he’s good, and Steve responds by slapping his father in the face. Stan doesn’t understand what’s gotten into their son while Francine just refers to him as a mystery. This is apparently an inspirational quote for Steve who hops out of the cart and breaks into song, the first line of which is “I’m the one they call a mystery.”

This is the first of a handful of musical numbers in this one, most of which are really well done and catchy.

I think this is around the time of the show where the writers fell in love with Scott Grimes and his singing ability. And with good reason – he sounds great! Steve sings his song, which I assume is titled “Bad Bad Boy” or something to that effect, with a simple, synthesized, backing track. His vocal inflections remind me of Bad era Michael Jackson, and considering the song’s premise, that’s probably intentional. Steve basically just dances around the store plucking items from the shelf and tossing them, which Francine has to pick up. It cuts into segments of Steve dancing in hip hop attire with background dancers on top of a giant, green, red-ribboned, present with flames in the background. It’s absurd, but quite entertaining. It goes on for a half minute or so before Francine demands an end to this song and dance. Stan then laments that he can’t just beat Steve like his father used to beat him, which actually gives him an idea as he tells Steve he’s going to show him what happens to bad boys when they grow up.

Jack Smith has a little story to tell his grandson.

We switch scenes to a penitentiary. Stan’s dad, Jack, is locked-up here and Stan wants Steve to speak with his grandfather and hopefully get scared straight. When the two sit-down with Jack, divided by the usual security features of a prison, Stan demands Jack tell Steve how awful prison is, but Jack just reminisces about Krampus. Neither Steve nor Stan have any idea who Krampus is, but Jack says Steve is lucky he’s not around anymore because when he was a kid Krampus would punish the naughty. He then tells the tale of Krampus which is displayed via still images as if they’re from an old storybook. He covers the usual stuff, like how Krampus rode with Santa and beat on bad kids, but when Steve calls it a bunch of bull-jizzle (eww) Jack explains he’s not around anymore because he trapped him! One Christmas Eve night, little Jack got out of bed to get more of his mother’s strudel, but he found Krampus with his head buried in the copper pot full of the stuff. Jack slammed the lid on him trapping him forever!

You have to feel for a kid who walks in on some goat-man going to town on his mother’s strudel.

Stan and Steve don’t believe the old man’s story which is when Jack tells him to check his basement. It would seem all of Jack’s stuff is stored there, on account of him being in prison and all, and that includes the copper pot containing Krampus. He urges Stan to investigate, but the two get up and leave forcing a guard to enter to drag Jack back to his cell all the while with him screaming for Stan to check his basement (he also mentions some really fast skis he’s keeping down there too).

This feels like the setup for a B plot, but it really doesn’t go anywhere.

Back in town, Main Street is all decorated for Christmas and Hayley (Rachel MacFarlane) is out doing some window-shopping with Klaus (Dee Bradley Baker), the fish. Klaus is comically riding around in a hamster ball full of water while wearing a festive Santa hat. He asks Hayley if she’s decided what she’s getting the family for Christmas and she indicates she has not. This is her opportunity to break into song. It’s not particularly funny or anything as she just needs money for Christmas (to just buy popcorn?) which leads her to Roger (MacFarlane) who demands she stop singing and just tell him what she wants. It’s a job she wants and she’s hoping she can work in Roger’s attic bar, but he gestures to the open area that he has plenty of help since he hired some collegiate water polo team. A bunch of physically fit men in red speedos are serving drinks and Roger remarks suggestively he has “more hands than jobs.”

Oh my!

Roger tosses Hayley a newspaper and tells her to check the want ads. She finds an ad for airport work and puts a circle around that. One of Roger’s waiters then walks over and he inspects the young man’s…area. He’s not satisfied with the fit of the speedo and complains that it’s too loose and that you could fit two men in it! He demonstrates by squeezing himself into the garment and the poor waiter looks rightly uncomfortable with the situation. Roger complains it’s still too loose and calls over another waiter to get in.

What are the Smiths going to do with this boy?

Later at the Smith residence, Steve is ripping open his Christmas presents and finding them not up to his standards. He pulls out what looks like a futuristic looking RC car and questions if his parents bought the floor model before emphatically smashing it on the floor. Francine comes over demanding to know, “By the power of Grayskull,” just what Steve thinks he’s doing. Stan gathers up the remaining unopened gifts and says he’s going to hide these ones until Christmas. This takes him down into the basement while muttering how Steve has him “…talking like Bernie Mac.” He tries to place the gifts on the top shelf of some wall unit, but he ends up knocking down a whole bunch of boxes which reveals his father’s copper pot.

A Krampus moon shot! Now there’s something you don’t see in most Christmas specials.

Stan approaches the pot with trepidation, but soon hears a voice calling from inside. It’s Krampus (Danny Glover), and he wants to be let out! He mistakes Stan for Jack, but Stan corrects him by telling the demon that Jack is his father. The beast continues urging Stan to free him, but he’s apprehensive about unleashing a literal demon upon the world. Then he hears Steve screaming at his mother upstairs about his Mickey Mouse towel and it gives him an idea. He offers Krampus a deal: he’ll let him out, but he has to scare Steve straight. Krampus is more than willing to do so as he reminds Stan that’s basically his thing, so Stan removes the lid. Immediately, a black, wraith-like, being comes flying out and past Stan! We cut to Steve sleeping in his bed when his window smashes in and Krampus appears. He picks Steve up by the neck and shoves him in his sack. Stan comes bursting in just in-time to see Krampus fly out of the window riding his sack like a witch rides a broom. Before he leaves, he tells Stan to bring him Jack if he ever wants to see his kid again. On the way out, we get to see Krampus fly past the full moon – a new holiday tradition!

That’s one way to do it.

We cut to the prison and Jack is flipping out at the news that Stan freed Krampus. When he incredulously asks upon hearing the news, “You did what?!” Stan replies that he just wanted Krampus to scare Steve straight which causes Jack to scream, “Sexual orientation is not a choice!” For as shitty a person as Jack is, at least he isn’t a homophobe. Stan ignores him and just lays out his proposal: Krampus has Steve and will only return him if Jack takes his place. Stan informs his father that he can use his CIA connections to have him released if he’s willing to switch places with Steve. Jack flips up his eye patch exposing a hole where his eye once was and pulls a cigarette out from it that he must have been stashing. He inserts the filter end of the cigarette into the hole and lights it, takes a drag somehow, and then takes it out and smokes it in a more conventional sense. He then agrees to Stan’s proposal.

You just can’t trust that Jack.

We cut to Stan and Jack leaving the prison. As they do, Jack reasons that Krampus must have taken Steve to Bavaria where his castle is. He tells Stan to give him his keys, which Stan does only for Jack to punch him out and steal his car. As he does so, he shouts “See ya, sucker!” in Stan’s direction who is left sitting on the ground. He just chuckles to himself between mutterings of “Yup,” indicating he should have probably seen that coming.

They can’t all be teapots and candelabras.

At the castle of Krampus, Steve is being dragged by the leg to a holding cell. As he gets dragged by a large wooden door, it opens and some normally inanimate objects emerge and note their surprise at seeing Krampus. They are a toilet brush, bidet, plunger, and beer stein. It would seem Krampus’ castle is not unlike that of the Beast from Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast. Krampus then chucks Steve into a caged area all the while Steve is insisting he can’t be treated like this because he’s an American child. He even refers to himself as a treasure. He then spits in the face of Krampus and tries to threaten him, but Krampus checks him to remind him who he’s dealing with.

You get the rod!

This is Krampus’ turn to break out into song (singing voice provided by Charles Bradley) and illustrate to Steve why he’s a creature to be feared. It’s a funky little R&B number and probably the highlight of the musical component to this episode. Krampus basically dances around torturing Steve with the climax of each verse being “You get the rod!” followed by him wailing on Steve’s ass with his birch sticks. There’s a break in the middle where Krampus explains to Steve that he doesn’t know real pain like he does which leads to a quick story about Krampus being dumped by a girl named Sheila in the middle of downtown Baltimore to go with a guy named Dennis. When he goes back into his song, he sings about Sheila presenting him with a baby she claimed was is, but looked just like Dennis. That damn, Dennis! This guy has some real trauma in his past. The song closes with him holding Steve by the ankles as he spanks his bottom with the birch sticks. He leaves the boy sobbing in a fetal position in the cage telling him that’s where he’ll stay until he gets Jack.

Roger seems like he’s actually a good bartender. Terrible boss, but good bartender.

At the Smith home, Stan is nursing a beer at Roger’s bar. Roger, being the ever attentive bartender, asks Stan to tell him what he did, or who he did, was it another boy?! Stan tells him what happened and Roger surprises him by actually knowing who Krampus is. He suggests that Santa would know where to find him, but Stan reminds Roger that Santa hates him and we get a brief flashback to their confrontation from before. Plus, Stan adds, he has no way to get to the North Pole, but Roger informs him he’s wrong about that assumption and calls for his “boys.”

If you’re feeling bad for the one dead one, I’m guessing the others aren’t far behind so at least he won’t be alone.

We cut to Stan and Roger on a floating sleigh with the water polo team pulling it through the arctic waters. One of them is clearly dead while the others jump and swim like dolphins. They arrive at a frozen island with a massive, 100 foot wall of ice in front of them. Roger just asks Stan to give him a boost so he does and the scene just cuts to Roger effortlessly climbing over the edge. He then calls out for Stan to grab his hand and the shot is positioned over Roger’s shoulder so that Stan is comically too far away to reach. The scene cuts back to Stan and Roger’s hand is in-frame. I don’t know if this is a reference to anything or just something the writers thought was funny, but it is! Stan is then jumped by a group of elves obviously working for Santa. The ice beneath Roger’s feet breaks away from the side of the wall causing him to fall and crash through the ice. An elf reaches into the newly formed crater with a snare to wrap around Roger’s throat. He pops up and commands the elf, “Harder.” He tightens the snare only for Roger to respond with, “Way harder!”

Roger’s just making the best of a bad situation.

At Santa’s workshop, Stan is tied to a chair with holly and a coat-less Santa comes strutting in to smash his face with a revolver featuring a candy cane pattern. Santa (Matt McKenna) is not happy to see Stan and seems ready to kill him, but Stan mentions Krampus. Santa is really not happy to hear about the return of Krampus as he hates sharing the spotlight with the demon, plus he used to nibble on his list. He then makes Stan an offer: help him kill Krampus, and he’ll help get Steve returned safely. Stan agrees and says “Come on, Roger,” and as the camera pulls back we see Roger is tied to a chair nearby and the elves are still choking him. He tells Stan he’s “Almost there,” indicating they can leave once he…finishes.

I see nothing wrong here.

Back at Krampus’ castle, the objects come to cheer up Steve. First he’s approached by a roll of toilet paper who offers to dry his tears, then the others appear. Bidet offers Steve a drink of water from his “spout” which Steve is happy to partake in. Steve uses the opportunity to complain about how mean Krampus is, but the others disagree and tell him he has Krampus all wrong. They let him out to illustrate their point and the group finds Krampus at a piano singing his heart out.

Yeah, Krampus, sing your heart out! I am here for it!

Krampus is in pain, and it hurts him to punish children, but it’s something he must do! Steve is touched and joins Krampus for a duet where he explains that he understands the demon now. The song is very soulful, and Charles Bradley sings his ass off. The song does devolve into Krampus singing about his love life again and brings up his ex, Sheila, once more. It gets dark when Krampus vows to kill her, but then ends by professing his love for her. He’s got some stuff to work out. When the song ends, the two have a heart-to-heart and reach an understanding about the role Krampus plays and Steve seems to have turned over a new leaf. Krampus tells Steve he just wants to see Jack so he can apologize for failing him as he blames himself for Jack turning out so rotten.

Another atypical moon shot, this one is really spoiling us!

At the North Pole, Stan, Roger, and Santa are ready to set out for Krampus. The three of them are in Santa’s sleigh which is only being pulled by six reindeer – but wait! Tagging along behind them are three additional reindeer being ridden by elves. Do we grant credit for the proper number of reindeer to this scene as a result? It’s inconclusive, but maybe. The sleigh takes off and they pass by a full moon once again and Stan even makes a comment about it. Roger adds that once you’re above the clouds the moon always looks full, but when Stans asks if that’s true Roger just blows him off. And if you’re wondering, the answer is “No,” that is not true. Santa then adds that Stan will be on the permanent Good List for helping him kill Krampus, right alongside Jesus. When Roger points out that Jesus is a Jew, Santa reacts with an incredulous, “What?!”

Ugh, let’s just forget this happened.

As the sleigh group passes over an airport, we pan down to check-in with Jack again who is trying to board a plane to Jamaica, but his flight has been delayed. He gets in a little tiff with an airline employee named Mary-Ann (Marissa Jaret Winokur) who refers him to customer service. There he finds Hayley (remember her arc?) working a customer service kiosk. She’s being accosted by a group of Jamaican men (all voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) who seem rather upset about their flight. Jack is surprised to find Hayley here and when he asks her what she’s doing she says she needs money to buy presents for her family. When Jack expresses that he doesn’t understand why anyone would want to do something for their family, she breaks into a Calypso/Rastafarian number about how family gets you high and it is just awful. It’s not even funny bad, it just sucks. It’s apparently all the convincing Jack needs though as when the song ends he’s convinced he needs to help his family so he changes his flight to Bavaria to go after Krampus.

They just couldn’t help themselves.

It’s morning at Castle Krampus and Steve comes walking into the kitchen in an oversized dress shirt to find Krampus cooking breakfast. Are we supposed to read this like the classic setup of a woman wearing a man’s shirt the next morning after a night of sex? Normally, I’d say no, but with this show I’m betting they want us to think of it in that way. Krampus serves him his breakfast and Steve is basically still apologizing for being a bad kid, but Krampus wants to thank him for reminding him how good it feels to convert bad kids to good ones. He’s made blueberry crepes, and Plunger asks Steve if he wants homemade chocolate sauce. After he asks, he drags his body across a plate of the dish leaving a brown trail behind. Yes, this is definitely a poop joke.

You’ve sauced your last crepe, Plunger.

Outside, Santa’s sleigh has been parked and we find the assault team roaming the halls of the castle. Santa signals for all to stop when he hears the sound of a toilet flushing. We see plunger using the bathroom and finishing up before the door flies open. Stan angrily storms in and grabs Plunger and drowns him in the toilet. In the kitchen, Steve is helping Krampus with the dishes. Krampus scrapes the contents of a plate into a trash bag which is a living bag that begins hopping towards the door to take itself out. Stan, Santa, and the elves burst in and one of the elves grabs the trash bag and cuts it open. Blood appears as the contents of the trash bag spill on the floor indicating it has died while Steve cries out “Trashy!”

If you smash a bidet, does it bleed? Yes.

They begin laying waste to the various objects in the kitchen. Santa chucks the toilet paper onto an open flame while Stan wrestles with the bidet. He ends up tossing it out the window where it smashes into a pile of porcelain and blood on the ground. A living table stands up on its end for Krampus and Steve to duck behind while the boy cries out for them to stop their assault. He also cries out as his friends are slaughtered and this is clearly going to scar the boy for a long time. During this sequence, we see Jack has arrived and is skiing towards the castle as the sound of gunfire filters out. The table gets shot and dies leaving Krampus exposed. Santa fires off a round and nails him in the chest. As Krampus lays on the ground bleeding out, Steve comforts him, but Santa just comes over and puts one foot on his chest. Declaring himself “Big man on Krampus,” he blasts the demon in the forehead ending his existence.

Avert your eyes, Steve!

With Krampus dead, Santa turns his attention to Stan. Drawing his gun on him, Stan tries to reason with him, but Santa lays it out in plain terms that he’s the bad guy! Steve chimes in to tell his dad that’s what he was trying to tell him, that Krampus was good and Santa evil. Santa laughs and confirms as much saying he’s in bed with “Big Toy” to make sure all kids get what they want on Christmas so that he can profit. When Roger tries to point out that this doesn’t make any sense since Santa gives toys away, he tells him to shut up and not to think about it too hard.

You were a fool to trust him, Stan. That’s twice you’ve failed!

Santa then fires off a round at Stan, but through the window comes Jack! He’s able to soar in front of his son in slow motion to take a bullet for him while simultaneously sending one of his skis to plunge into Santa’s chest. The act causes Santa to lose his revolver and Stan is able to grab it. Santa still tries to throw a knife that was on the floor at Stan, but he misses and hits the wall which we find out was alive. Santa then runs for it shouting “Every man for himself,” with his trio of elves trailing behind. With Stan kneeling over his dad, Jack takes the opportunity to tell Stan he’s a good guy and to apologize for being a bad father, but Stan corrects him and says his abuse made him what he is today. That’s the message of the episode folks, kids need to be beaten into goodness. Jack expresses regret for sealing Krampus away for all these years feeling that, if he hadn’t, the world wouldn’t suck so bad.

At least they got to have one touching moment before he died.

On the floor, the blood pooling from Krampus mingles with the blood of Jack. The body of Krampus turns to a blue apparition and gets absorbed into Jack. His lifeless body begins to float and blasts of light shoot out of him and a new Krampus is born! This new Jack-Krampus basically looks as you would expect and is quite thrilled at the idea of being alive again. Steve points out the obvious, while Stan asks him if he’s going to be Krampus all the time or just on Christmas. Jack rightly doesn’t know, but he declares it’s Christmas Eve and he has some bottoms to blister! He turns into the wraith form and flies out the window. Outside, he flies right up to the screen to break the fourth wall to tell us “You better be good, boys and girls, or I’ll beat you until blood’s comin’ from your ears and your eyes and your mouth. Merry Christmas! …and from your ass!” The scene turns into another image from the storybook that started it all. It zooms out and closes signaling that’s the end.

Behold! The new Krampus!

“Minstrel Krampus” is a thoroughly wacky tale that only American Dad! could tell. In order for it to take place, Steve needs to act like a petulant child and do things he normally never would, like slap his father. And for his part, Stan needs to act in a way he normally would not for if Steve ever struck him in another episode he probably would beat the child or inflict some kind of psychological torture on the boy. It’s also dependent upon Santa being a bad guy in this universe and that part is played up. It’s not exactly a perversion of Christmas to view Krampus in a somewhat favorable light if his punishment is deemed corrective discipline. And the observation that basically all kids get toys on Christmas, be they good or bad, isn’t exactly wrong.

Unlike the old Krampus, this one doesn’t seem to be transferring his own trauma onto bad kids. I think he’s just going to like wailing on children.

Where the episode takes it further is by introducing the message that capital punishment is the best form of punishment for children. That’s obviously made in jest and I don’t think the show intends for us to take it literally, it’s just there for the sake of humor. Steve encountering a group of magic, talking, objects is a direct parody of Beauty and the Beast and the episode makes certain to select the most unsanitary of objects for its characters. Most of these wouldn’t have existed in the Beast’s castle, but imagine if Belle encountered a magic, talking, chamber pot? I’m actually a little surprised they went with the comparatively less disgusting bidet, but they got their poop joke in via the plunger so it’s not as if the episode didn’t “go there.”

The only weakness I find with this one is in the B plot, if you can even call it that. We get a very brief scene at the beginning of Hayley looking for a job which only happens so that Jack can encounter her at the airport and have a terrible song come from her that changes his perception of family. For this to work, we basically have to ignore Hayley’s usual character as she’s not likely to feel this kind of pressure to get her family anything for Christmas. In that, it’s similar to Steve acting as horrible as he does which is just as out of character for him. It’s just not a rewarding plot and the whole scene at the airport is easily the weakest moment. They could have cut the whole thing and just had Jack witness something at the airport that changed his heart. Maybe a parody of Home Alone with Kevin’s mom declaring she’s getting home to her son for Christmas could have provided a comedic way to turn things around. Basically anything would have been better than the scene we got.

The storybook pages are a lot of fun, and I’m always down for more Krampus stories!

Aside from that one song, the others are quite entertaining. This episode is almost a musical. I don’t think there’s enough music to really call it that, but it doesn’t matter as it’s just semantics anyway. The songs are pretty great though and I really loved the opening number with Steve at the store and both songs involving Krampus. Scott Grimes and Charles Bradley give terrific performances and the delivery of their songs are very earnest, with the lyrics sometimes being ridiculous. This is the type of episode I recommend watching with subtitles on at least once so you can get all of the jokes. That last song with Krampus sure takes things to some dark places by the time it’s over.

Ultimately, this is just a funny Christmas episode. It’s not as bloodthirsty as the previous one we looked at, so some that found the battle between the Smiths and Santa’s minions distasteful might actually prefer this one. It certainly has that American Dad! spirit as the show was well into its life at this point to know how to do a proper Christmas episode to the point where it feels automatic. And if you’re wondering, yes both Santa and Jack-Krampus return in future Christmas episodes so you might not want to stop here. And if you do want to watch it, and any other American Dad! Christmas episode, Hulu has you covered. Cartoon Network is also sure to show it and the rest all month long, though by now the number of viewings are likely dwindling so act fast!

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 19 – Krazy Kat – “Krazy’s Krismas”

One of the most celebrated comic strips of all time is Krazy Kat by George Herriman. Krazy Kat debuted in the New York Evening Journal in 1913 and concluded its run in 1944. It contained a fairly simply premise where a cat named Krazy pined for a mouse named Ignatz, only the mouse hated the…

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by Joe

Dec. 19 – Christopher the Christmas Tree

We look at a lot of Christmas stuff pulled from every day cartoons, for the most part. On occasion though, I suppose we should throw the Christians a bone and look at something a bit more secular. Yes, I think most people know Christmas was basically co-opted by the church many years ago, but it’s…

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by Joe

Dec. 19 – The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives

Every year I do this I am reminded at how surprising it is that so few Christmas themed Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts exist. Disney put out several memorable ones over the years featuring their characters, but Warner Bros. mostly stayed away. Bugs Bunny would eventually get a Christmas television special in the 70s,…

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by Joe

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December 8, 2021

Dec. 8 – American Dad! – “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls”

By Joe
Original air date December 12, 2010.

It was just last year that we finally broke the seal on American Dad!. It surprised me how long I was able to avoid American Dad! year in and year out since it has a wealth of Christmas episodes at its disposal. Last year, the featured Christmas episode was the very first one the show did, “The Best Christmas Story Never Told.” This year, I’m skipping ahead to Season 7 (or 6, it’s confusing) and the fourth Christmas episode the show has done, “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls.” This episode had the distinction of being the only numbered entry in my Top 25 Christmas Specials from last year that had not been covered in some capacity on this blog. This year, I am rectifying that even if it means skipping over a couple of others, but that’s not a big deal because like most sitcoms there is no continuity from one episode to the next.

Except for this one! Actually, this episode is the beginning of a continuity in American Dad! that really only matters at Christmas. And that continuity concerns the Smith’s relationship with the big man in charge of the holiday. No, not Jesus, but Santa. This episode will show why Santa has a hatred for the Smith family and it’s a subject that will be revisited in subsequent Christmas episodes covering the old man’s death and even his resurrection. I think the last Christmas episode the show featured Santa in, “Santa Schmanta,” had him back to his old self at the end. The show doesn’t always do a Christmas special every year since it’s a TBS property that doesn’t always have anything airing around the holiday. Last year, the show was able to return to Christmas with “Yule. Tide. Repeat.,” and that was because they simply delayed airing the season finale three months so it would air in December.

I can’t believe this episode is more than 10 years old.

This Christmas episode happens to be my favorite from the show because it’s just over-the-top and ridiculous in a way that only American Dad! can get away with. Writer Erik Durbin wanted to make it bloody and referenced the movie 300, and he’s pretty much going to realize that dream. We’ve seen plenty of violent Christmas specials from places like Robot Chicken, but the violence is often used for just sheer shock value. Sure, there is definitely an element of that present in this episode as well, but it’s setup and earned over the duration of the show and most of the violence is reserved for the end. Plus, this show dares to imagine Santa as kind of a bad guy. He’s mostly just vengeful here (and with good reason), but the bad guy persona will be explored in greater detail and reinforced in the Christmas specials to come.

It cannot be overstated how much Stan hates Jeff.

The episode opens with the usual intro, only the title of the show is displayed in a candy cane font at the close and dissolved into a snowy sky. Stan (Seth MacFarlane) is in his living room and Jeff (Jeff Fischer) comes running downstairs to express his joy at the imminent arrival of Christmas. He expresses hope that Santa will bring him a polar bear helmet from the movie The Golden Compass and races outside to mail his letter to Santa. Stan is intensely annoyed with Jeff’s presence and thinks he’s an idiot for still believing in Santa Claus. Haley (Rachael MacFarlane) stands up for her husband and says his childlike innocence is one of the things that charms her, but she’s not winning Stan over who insists he will never accept Jeff as part of their family.

Nice clog, Francine.

When they leave they’re replaced by Francine (Wendy Schaal) who comes in carrying clogs. She is in search of a new family tradition and she thought the custom of filling clogs with presents was a good idea since Barbara Walters recommended it and she slept with a married, black, senator (“She doesn’t drive in the slow lane”). Stan doesn’t care as he’s excited about giving Steve his Christmas present this year: a gun. Francine is strongly against the idea of Steve having a gun, despite Stan’s protests that they’ve been unable to bond over anything else, and makes Stan promise not to give Steve a gun for Christmas.

Merry Wednesday!

We hard cut to Stan shouting “Merry Wednesday!” and presenting Steve (Scott Grimes) with a machinegun. Steve is a bit unsure if he’s ready for such an item, but his father’s insistence seems to be working. Jeff then pops into Steve’s room to enthusiastically declare that he’ll go shooting with Stan and Steve, much to Stan’s annoyance. He tells Jeff he can’t come since this is a father-son bonding thing and punctuates it by telling Jeff he’s not a part of their family. He closes his eyes and tells Jeff he wants him gone when he opens them. The camera shifts to Stan’s point-of-view as he opens his eyes and we see Jeff still standing there smiling like a dope.

Roger must go to great lengths to get drunk this Christmas.

The family alien Roger (MacFarlane) is out shopping for booze. He expresses to the clerk at a liquor store (Clancy Brown) that he needs something strong for his eggnog. When the clerk tells him most people use bourbon, Roger snaps at him with desperation in his voice that he can’t get drunk and needs something stronger. The clerk says he merely was checking to make sure and then leads Roger to the side of the counter and the two huddle down. He begins to tell Roger a tale about a legendary four-armed, nine foot tall, blind man who lives at the top of a nearby mountain, but has to stop his story when another patron interrupts them inquiring about seasonal beers. Roger tells him he’s ruining the story, and the guy goes away allowing the clerk to finish the story and present Roger with a special map leading to this man’s location. The customer then interrupts again to ask if the store sells watch batteries causing Roger to leap in the air, in slow motion, and slap the guy telling him to “Get out.”

Time to be a man, Steve.

Stan and Steve head off to try out Steve’s new gun. Stan gives him a lesson in handling a firearm describing it like making love to a woman, “First you inspect it to make sure she’s clean. Then, you grab her by the butt and jam the magazine in. If it doesn’t fit, make it!” Steve sets up to fire his new “toy” at some tin cans. When he fires the gun, he has little control over it and hits a nearby road sign causing a bullet to ricochet and strike Steve’s glasses, just like in A Christmas Story. He pleads with his dad that this isn’t safe, and Stan surprisingly agrees with him as he picks up the shot glasses.

Whoops…

We hard cut to a store parking lot, and Stan has just bought Steve safety goggles. Now they’re safe! He instructs Steve to take aim at a nearby snowman and Steve riddles the snow being with bullets. The snowman then starts to gush blood before falling apart to reveal a Santa had been standing behind it smoking a cigar and drinking a coffee. He’s filled with bullet holes and falls over face first into the bloody snow at his feet. Stan and Steve rush over with Steve freaking out about shooting a mall Santa. He then asks his dad, “Is he…?” and Stan interrupts him by finishing the question, “Is he dead?” by deadpanning that, yes, this guy is very dead. Stan casually loads the corpse into his car, while Steve continues to freak out. He assures him everything will be fine, they’ll just take him home and use Stan’s CIA resources to check his prints.

That won’t be necessary, Roger.

Roger reaches the top of the mountain the clerk instructed him to climb and finds an old, downed, airplane and a stereotypical redneck sitting on a porch outside the plane. Roger introduces himself and explains he’s looking for a nine foot tall, blind, moonshiner with four arms. When the man says he is the one he’s seeking, Roger is confused as he’s definitely not any of those things he expected him to be. The man has Roger take a sip of his shine and then Roger hallucinates the man into the creature he expected. He then introduces himself as Bob Todd (Erik Durbin) and goes into a long explanation of what people refer to him as. Roger politely endures this explanation from Robert Toddford Williams, then humbly requests to purchase some of his shine. When Bob Todd tells him he has no use for his money, Roger gets down on all fours preparing to pay for his booze in another fashion. When Bob Todd explains that he’ll teach Roger how to make it, he cheerfully hops back to his feet remarking “You had me in the palm of your hand there. In another second, it would have been the other way around!”

She’s right to be mad, Stan really should have put down some trash bags first or something.

At the Smith residence, Stan and Steve are preparing to head inside to check the fingerprints of the corpse when Francine arrives home. Stan instructs his son to act casual and compliments his wife on her appearance and Steve awkwardly follows suit. She’s flattered though, and the two head inside to check the CIA database. Stan can’t find anything on the guy, which puzzles him, and then gives an “Uh oh” as they look outside to see Francine has found the bloody mess of a Santa in the back of the family SUV.

Francine acts like someone who has done this before.

The family convenes in the living room and Francine expresses her displeasure with Stan. Steve starts crying about a boy shooting a man and his hysterics get Haley’s attention. She’s shocked to find out what happened and asks if anyone has called the police. It’s then Francine who says this isn’t going to ruin their Christmas and they’re all heading out to the woods to bury the corpse. We then cut to the family doing just that, and Francine is angry with the family for not letting her smash the guy’s teeth and cut off his hands. When they look at her with shock, she asks “Well you want to get away with murder or not?!”

Donkey Todd.

On top of the Chimdale mountains, Roger is ready to make some shine. He’s dressed like a hick in overalls and a crooked, bowl cut, wig and even has some janky teeth to go along with it. Bob Todd gives him a hit of the shine, and he morphs back into the mythical nine foot tall creature. The sequence of preparing moonshine is done-up like a game of Donkey Kong. Bob Todd chucks barrels and amusingly provides all of the sound effects, while Roger has to leap over them and get to the woman at the top of the still. He does, and gives her a big kiss only for the effects of the hallucination to ware off and reveal he’s smooching a raccoon. Bob Todd proclaims his training complete, for he has smooched the raccoon, and hands over some jugs and tells Roger to get to it.

Maybe that wasn’t your garden variety mall Santa.

Back at the Smith home, Stan is wrapping gifts in his study when he finds an elegant looking scroll with a message written on it, “I noel what you did in the woods.” We then see Francine preparing a turkey and she finds a scroll too, this one reads “Your goose is cooked.” Steve finds one by the fireplace that says “Your nuts will roast on an open fire,” while Haley has one stuffed in her bong that says, “THC you in Hell.” The family race to convene in the living room to show off what they found. As they wonder if they have a snitch in their midst, the television interrupts the family to provide some important plot details. A calendar salesman, who makes calendars featuring cats for lesbians, is asked what month it feels like and he says October as the Christmas cheer appears to have been sapped from the population. The reporter, Terry (Mike Barker), even punctuates it by suggesting it feels like someone killed Santa Claus.

They’re cute when they’re armed.

The family, now in a bit of a panic, decide they need to dig up the corpse and confirm if it’s Santa or not. They exhume it, only to find it’s empty except for the bloody remains of Santa’s suit. A note, not unlike the ones the Smiths already received, is left behind letting them know that Santa is pissed. As they stare in shock, an arrow whizzes past Stan’s head to lodge in a nearby tree. As they look up, they see an elf riding a reindeer armed with a bow and arrow. He laughs (Dee Bradley Baker) in a comical voice and tells them Santa can’t be killed. He’s home in the north pole recuperating, but he’ll have his revenge before dawn of Christmas morning. He then beckons to his reindeer, Mimsy, and the two fly off leaving the Smiths to comprehend what they just saw. We then see a quick scene from The North Pole of Mrs. Claus casually knitting while Santa is shown recuperating in a rejuvenation chamber of sorts.

Hick Roger is here to save the day!

Stan tries to dismiss the elf as the antics of a “midge,” but then the family uses the correct term of “little people” which is nice since they used the hurtful term in the prior special. The arrow dissolves into light though confirming once and for all that Steve did indeed fire upon the real Santa. As they wonder what to do, Roger appears still in his hick attire. He carries on the persona for a bit, then drops it as everyone seems confused. He tells them they can hide out in the mountains with him, then cracks a Deliverance joke at Ned Beatty’s (R.I.P.) expense.

Who wouldn’t want to spend Christmas Eve here?!

Atop the mountain, the family is introduced to Bob Todd who is happy to have guests for Christmas. As the sun goes down, the family heads inside to sing carols. The group looks setup to play carols jug-band style, and even seem excited about it, but the sound of sleigh bells startles them before they can begin. They open the door to see it’s just Jeff, driving up in his van. Stan is pissed at the sight of his hated son-in-law and Haley says she told him where they would be so they could spend Christmas together. Jeff enters the house and Stan angrily tells him to shut off the sleigh bell sounds coming from his van. When Jeff says his van isn’t making that noise, the family looks to the sky and sees Santa and his army descending upon them! As they fly towards the mountain summit, a metal version of “Carol of the Bells” by August Burns Red serves as the herald for Santa’s army.

He’s here!

Stan is now even more pissed at Jeff because it was he who wrote a letter to Santa telling him where they’d be so he knew where to deliver his present. Stan tells him to leave in hurtful terms insisting that Jeff is not, and will never be, a part of this family. The family doesn’t have time to get angry with Stan though as Bob Todd opens up a weapon’s locker and arms everyone. Steve is handed a gun and is unsure if he can ever touch one again, but it’s Francine who slaps him around and orders him to go outside and commit murder. He does as he’s told and takes the weapon, jamming the magazine into it as his father showed him earlier while referring to it as Linda. Stan, Steve, and Bob Todd then go out to defend the homestead while Haley and Francine are left to fire from the windows.

The Smith men finally found a way to bond.

Outside, the battle commences and Bob Todd apparently hates Santa. He calls him a butt licker, which is a strange insult coming from him because Bob Todd looks like the kind of guy plenty willing to go ass-to-mouth (probably with a raccoon), and starts blasting elves from the sky. Stan and Steve fire from behind a bunker and Steve questions his dad if it’s weird that he has a boner? Stan replies “It would be weird if you didn’t,” as the two, pretty cheerfully, lay waste to the reindeer and elves in a perverted bonding experience.

The perfect setting for some mother-daughter time.

Inside the hull of the downed plane that Bob Todd calls a home, Francine and Haley have a similar heart-to-heart about Jeff in between machinegun fire. Francine assures her daughter that her father will come around, eventually, it will just take some time. She references how long it took for him to adapt to Roger and adds “And the other one.” We hard cut to Klaus (Dee Bradley Baker), the fish, in his fish bowl at home to basically acknowledge his lack of a part in this episode.

He told you that he’d be back again some day!

Outside, Bob Todd is chucking molotov cocktails and Santa’s minions unleash a behemoth snowman. Bob Todd blows it up with a full barrel of flaming moonshine, only for presents to burst from the corpse each one containing a miniature snowman ready to attack. Inside, the girls are out of ammo and Roger suggests they use these oversized candy canes he has as weapons, they just need to sharpen them with their mouth first. All three suck the end of the candy cane, and Haley is the first to produce a pointy tip. Roger compliments her on her ability to do so while Francine struggles, but insists she can do it!

Nice to see Rudy make an appearance.

Jeff shows up behind Stan and Steve and asks if he can help. Stan tells him he can shield him from the arrows and die. Santa (Matt Mckenna) emerges from his sleigh and lights a cigar on Rudolph’s nose as he surveys the battlefield. He then calls out to Jeff telling him that he’s been a good boy and that he doesn’t need to die with the Smiths. Everything stops as everyone turns their attention to Jeff. Santa tells him he has the present he requested, the polar bear helmet from The Golden Compass, and urges Jeff to come stand by his side. Jeff quietly leaves Stan and Steve and walks towards Santa as Haley calls out to him urging him not to side with Santa. Stan tells her to let him go, using this act as a way to illustrate how Jeff was never a part of their family.

Merry Christmas, Santa!

Jeff receives his gift and happily puts it on his head as an elf smashes Stan in the back of the head with a club knocking him unconscious. Santa then grabs an ornate looking rifle and sets his sights on the unconscious Stan. Jeff, wearing the spiked helmet he just received as a gift, apologizes to Santa for what he’s about to do and then rams his head into Santa’s kidney area. The fat man howls in pain and doubles over as Jeff races over to Stan and drags him into the house. Santa calls to his elves who immediately bandage his wounds with wrapping paper.

Now he’s bonding with his son-in-law, Stan is on a roll!

Inside the plane, Jeff takes Stan into the cockpit to tend to his wound. When Stan comes to with his head bandaged, he expresses his surprise at Jeff’s actions. He’s shocked that Jeff would do something like that for him, but Jeff corrects him that he didn’t do it for him, but Haley. He then tells Stan that he actually thinks he’s an ass, and Stan is impressed with him for the first time ever. He then tells Jeff that they should go out there and die as a family. They open the door to the cockpit and survey the carnage as their family tries to fight off a horde of tiny elves with a wholesome score behind them to celebrate this moment as a magical Christmas one. The two then join the fray as it appears the family will soon be overcome by Santa’s minions.

Now there’s a festive image!

Outside, Santa is puffing on his cigar when he notices the sun rising. He curses, then calls off the troops. They all retreat and fade away into Christmas dust as they apparently only had until dawn of Christmas Day to do the deed (I wonder who filled in for Santa all night with his regular job?). The family emerges, battered and bloody, from the home. Jeff remarks that this means he probably won’t be getting any more Christmas presents, and we hear the voice of Santa chime in, “You’re damn right you jerk!” Francine catches a note from Santa which contains a threat for next year. She’s actually delighted since it looks like her family has found a new Christmas tradition! We then hear from Bob Todd who survived the massacre. He drags over the corpse of a reindeer explaining how it tried to turn into dust, but he was having none of that. When Stan remarks he’ll get some nice venison out of that deer, Bob Todd tells the family he’s going to prepare a Christmas feast for them, but first he’s going to make sweet love to this reindeer corpse. He and the family wish us a “Merry Christmas!” as the camera zooms out to show the bloody aftermath.

The aftermath.

“For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls” lives up to its promise of being a bloody, violent, Christmas special to the point that I’m surprised they didn’t opt for a pun with the title and use “slay” instead of “sleigh.” It’s almost an anti-special, since the family kills Santa and all, but it’s conclusion is pretty standard holiday fare as the Smiths learn the meaning of family. Family isn’t just blood, it can also be who you choose, and Stan finally accepts the fact that Jeff is married to his daughter and is indeed part of his family. And it does put an end to some of the venom from Stan that he reserved for Jeff previously, though he’s still allowed to think of him as an idiot. I like the natural setup of the episode with Stan attempting a last ditch effort to bond with his son over guns, and that leading to the tragedy of Steve accidentally murdering Santa (though I described it as an accident, I can’t overlook that he did willingly fire a machinegun in a crowded parking lot and chances are he was going to kill or wound someone in the process). There’s some great misdirection, from the reveal of Santa being shot, to Francine’s insistence on covering up the crime, and Jeff’s turn that are all quite funny. Another joke is rarely far away with this show as it’s often line after line of funny.

A new family tradition is born.

The violence is the star though as the last several minutes of the episode are devoted to a bloody battle of man and elf. There are numerous shots of reindeer getting shot out of the sky intercut with the expected Saving Private Ryan moments of limbless elves wandering among the fallen in a daze. Their search for their limb ended by another relentless volley of machinegun fire. The violence is juxtaposed with casual conversation from the family as they sort out their business adding to the humor, while Bob Todd is mostly allowed to just be a homicidal maniac. The portrayal of Santa as a vengeful blowhard is entertaining, but as I mentioned in the lead-in, we won’t really see a full-on villainous turn for years to come. Here he’s justified in hating Stan, and the whole family played a role in covering up their crime. You just wouldn’t expect the classic interpretation of Santa to be so bloodthirsty.

Merry Christmas from the Smiths!

The violence contained in this one obviously means it’s not a Christmas special for everyone. It’s not something I’d show my young kids at this juncture, but it is one that I get a laugh out of! Even though I’ve seen this one probably more times than any other American Dad! Christmas episode, it’s still the one I look forward to returning to each year the most. These days there are a lot of anti-Christmas specials, but this one might be the best.

If you’re looking forward to spending Christmas with the Smiths this year then you should have a few options at your disposal. The show is shown daily on Cartoon Network during its Adult Swim block and it will certainly air this, and a bunch of other Christmas episodes, this month. The show is also available to stream on Hulu and available to rent or own in various places. My advice is if you have a cable subscription just load-up the DVR with American Dad! Christmas episodes and have yourself a nice, festive, binge. It’s what I’ll be doing all month!

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 8 – TV Funhouse – “Christmas Day”

When someone hears the title TV Funhouse they probably first go to Saturday Night Live and The Ambiguously Gay Duo, a cartoon Batman and Robin parody that hypothesizes the relationship between the two heroes is more than just friendship. What many aren’t aware of is that the comedic short starring Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert…

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by Joe

Dec. 8 – The Adventures of Pete & Pete – “O’ Christmas Pete”

Nickelodeon used to be a weird channel. It was composed mostly of old black and white television shows like Lassie and Dennis the Menace while mixing in old cartoons like re-packaged Looney Tunes blocks. Then there was early morning educational stuff including some anime that wasn’t obviously anime, plus Mr. Wizard. And don’t forget about…

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by Joe

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in christmas, Television

December 4, 2021

Dec. 4 – Family Guy – “Christmas Guy”

By Joe
Original air date December 15, 2013

In the fall of 2013, beloved family dog, Brian, met his demise. Brian was an extraordinary dog capable of communicating in English with his family members who was often seen walking on two feet. Despite that though, he met a rather ordinary end for a dog when he was unceremoniously struck by an automobile. Life goes on though, and the Griffin family to which he belonged turned to a new dog: Vinny. Like Brian, Vinny was a remarkable specimen as he too could speak English and chose to walk on two legs, plus he functioned as an Italian stereotype and even appeared to have connections to the underworld. The audience latched onto Vinny, and while no one could replace Brian, we all accepted that these things happen and the best thing we can do for Brian is to never forget him.

Of course, that was all bullshit. No one cared about Vinny and Brian Griffin was as unlikable as basically every other member of the Griffin family at the time of his death. And these deaths never stick, so no one was surprised when the show brought Brian back a mere two episodes later as part of Family Guy’s Christmas episode that year.

This episode takes place during the short-lived Vinny era

Brian Griffin had once been one of the few voices of reason on Family Guy. Despite the fact that he was a dog, he seemed like the most real of any of the Griffin family and many of his problems seemed to stem from the fact that he existed in this unreal world. He seemed to deal with the craziness of being Peter Griffin’s dog with booze and therapy and he seemed to delight in needling the youngest member of the family, Stewie, who was always threatening to kill someone or take over the world, but Brian saw through his bullshit. The two were foils and didn’t seem to really like each other, which is partly what made their team-up episodes, like “The Road to Rhode Island,” so successful.

After Family Guy’s cancellation and return to television, Brian underwent a change. Instead of being the voice of reason, he was made a narcissist who manipulated women and was happy to stand on a soap box and lecture folks on things he had no business speaking on. He took on the role of uninformed liberal capable of regurgitating popular talking points with no subtext. In short, he became insufferable as basically every character on the show took this route, just via different means.

In a show basically devoid of charm (and that’s by design), about the only charming aspect would become the Stewie and Brian relationship. Once adversaries, the pair are now best friends. They understand each other and accept each other’s deficiencies. Their relationship seemed to be solidified in the Season 8 episode “Brian & Stewie” in which the two get trapped in a bank vault over a weekend. Since then, not only is Brian Stewie’s best friend, he’s probably a better father to him than Peter and there’s genuine warmth between the two. This being Family Guy though, their relationship can’t just be sweet so the writers also added a weird subtext where Stewie appears to desire sex with Brian. Why can’t we just have nice things?

I have long since ceased to care about Family Guy as it’s not a show I particularly enjoy. It is a frequent contributor to Christmas though, and “Christmas Guy” felt like an episode worth revisiting. We get to relive the era of Vinny and a story about a baby just wanting to get his best friend back for Christmas is certainly a sweet way to approach the holiday. And it should be better, and definitely shorter, than the other major Brian and Stewie Christmas story “The Road to the North Pole.”

They’re getting ready to celebrate Stewie’s “first” Christmas.

The episode begins with a lovely exterior shot of the Griffin house covered in snow and all decorated for Christmas. Given how inept Peter (Seth MacFarlane) is at virtually everything, I am amazed at how well the decorations look. Maybe that’s just the one thing he’s good at? The family is inside watching television and it’s a version of Home Alone with capable robbers. It’s an observational piece where the robbers enter a house and immediately take note of things like toy cars on the floor and frozen stairs so as to avoid them. When the Kevin character appears at the top of the stairs, they just shoot him and he tumbles down the stairs, dead. We then find out that the family is gearing up for the annual Christmas Carnival that takes place at the mall. Lois (Alex Borstein) is particularly thrilled about celebrating Stewie’s (MacFarlane) first Christmas by sharing the carnival with him. Upon saying that, Stewie says “Again?” which is a clever way for the show to acknowledge that no one ages. I think the one-year-old Stewie has celebrated Christmas a dozen times at this point. This also sets up an awful cut-away joke about how Peter enjoys teasing the clerk at Tiffany’s into thinking he’s actually going to buy something. The joke is that no one in their right mind would believe Peter because he showed up wearing Sbarro wrappers for shoes.

Stewie and Vinny were able to form a fast bond in Brian’s absence.

An exterior shot of the mall lets us know the family has already made the short journey. Stewie is decked out in an elf costume and Vinny (Tony Sirico) makes a few comments on it causing Stewie to ask him if he only uses adjectives sarcastically. Vinny, predictably, responds with sarcasm. The family soon notices that there’s no Christmas Carnival, or really any sign of the holiday for that matter. Stewie suggests whoever is responsible will suffer for it and Vinny makes a smart comment that “tough don’t sell in curly-toed shoes.” Stewie suggests to Vinny that he go buy more cologne setting up another worthless, but at least brief, cut-away.

Lois approaches a security guard to inquire about what happened to the carnival. She addresses him as sir, and he tries to correct her by saying “officer,” but she puts him in his place with a “No, it’s sir, and barely sir.” After the guard hangs his head in shame, he explains he doesn’t know using the term small cog to describe his role in the decision making process. This prompts Chris (Seth Green) to comfort his father by saying “See dad, you’re not the only one with a small cog,” clearly referring to his dad’s penis. Both Lois and Peter respond in unison saying “I told you that in confidence!” so apparently husband and wife are both disappointed in the size of Peter’s penis.

SNL did it better.

Stewie then asks if Santa was killed by Muslims, intentionally mispronouncing the word Muslims. This sets up yet another cut-away as Peter declares he hates being disappointed. This one is Peter in a restaurant commenting on the quality of the coffee, only for the server to tell him it’s Folger’s and call him an idiot for liking it. There’s a tag at the end about how Folger’s is only worth drinking if you’ve been tricked into it. I’ll give them a little credit here as when I saw the joke setup I thought they were just going to have Peter play Chris Farley’s character from the same bit on Saturday Night Live.

It just wouldn’t be a Family Guy Christmas without a little Meg torture.

We’re shown another exterior shot of the Griffin house only it’s nighttime now. Peter and Lois are in bed discussing the events of the day. Lois is worried about Stewie as he seemed so disappointed in the carnival’s cancellation. She remarks he’s been acting out all week and Peter brushes off her concerns with a “He’s a baby, how bad can he be?” We’re then shown the family seated for a meal and Stewie is loosening the cap on the salt shaker. Meg (Mila Kunis) takes it and goes to sprinkle some salt on her food only for the top to fall off completely and out pops a giant snake! It bites her and she instantly swells up to gargantuan size.

We change scenes, and get this, there’s another exterior shot of the Griffin’s house to mark the change! Back to daytime, and the family is once again watching TV so we get another Christmas movie parody joke. This time, it’s Miracle on 134th Street and a guy is shown running to his car in a panic because he left his phone in it. The miracle, and the joke, is that the car has been left undisturbed and his phone is fine. Vinny then enters to say he talked to a bunch of guys and a girl (allowing for him to be casually misogynistic) and found out that the mall’s owner cancelled the carnival and he is none other than Carter Pewterschmidt, Lois’s father. Vinny is then shocked at this twist letting out an exaggerated “Oh!” He then takes his leave as he has to get the “Ohs” out as he keeps saying it over and over. Off camera, we hear them gradually decrease in intensity.

Peter resolves to dealing with Carter, but first has to ask Lois if he’s The Little Caesar’s guy. She responds in a manner that suggests this is a frequent question from Peter and he’s relieved to know that Carter is not, in fact, The Little Caesar’s guy. He then likens Carter’s attitude towards Christmas to a gluten-free Santa, setting up yet another cut-away of a Santa waking a kid up in the middle of the night to ask about what the cookies were made out of. It’s yet another dud of a joke.

Peter and Carter do have an odd chemistry when paired-up.

We then setup the next scene with an exterior shot of Pewterschmidt Industries. Carter (MacFarlane) is seated at his desk filling out some paperwork only pausing to flip off the window washer outside because he dared to make a sound. His secretary then calls to tell him the guy who’s face is on all the money is here to see him and Carter hastily cleans up his papers and welcomes the obvious fake in. It’s Peter, who demands Carter bring back the Christmas Carnival! Carter declines telling Peter he hates Christmas because everyone assumes a rich guy like him will give them expensive presents while giving him nothing in return. Peter vows to return Carter’s Christmas spirit to him and then asks if he can take something home with him from his office. Carter tells him no, and he replies with an “Aww, too bad, because I was gonna pick you!” Carter then confirms that Peter is a weird guy.

Stewie, up to his old tricks.

Exterior shot of the Griffin house! This time, from a different angle though. Seriously guys, we don’t need to see an exterior shot of a building before every scene! Especially a familiar setting like the home of our main characters! Anyway, Peter is struggling to zip-up his coat and refusing Lois’s help because he’s a man-baby. Vinny is there to comment on how crappy it is to have a father who hates Christmas. He then goes off on a tangent about how his old man drowned in a bird bath thanks to a cop, but left directions to “Kick Jimmy in the sack. Go Eagles.” When Lois offers condolences, Vinny brushes them aside and tells everyone his dad was a scumbag. Lois and Peter then start discussing the issue at hand, but they’re in front of a window so obviously we’re supposed to ignore them and see what happens outside. Stewie appears, and he rips down the neighbor’s decorations and molests a snowman before apparently setting off a nuclear explosion that destroys everything in sight. Lois talking about her dad’s disgust towards Christmas leads to another cut-away, this time of Carter going down Santa’s chimney on June 16th in a “how do you like it?” joke. It’s not funny.

I seem to remember jokes at the expense of Carter’s balls in another Christmas episode.

We get another repeated exterior shot of the Griffin house. We didn’t even change settings this time! We’re still in the same place! Did they really need to kill this much time? Peter and Carter are in the kitchen and it’s not explained why Carter would bother coming over. Peter is trying to put Carter in the Christmas spirit by showing him how to write a Christmas letter. He informs Carter it’s acceptable to embellish, so Carter reads the letter and the embellishments are all ridiculous like Peter becoming the starting quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Peter tells him to read what he wrote about him only to find out the only truthful thing in the letter is Peter noting that Carter bought a tiny stool for his balls. The camera zooms out so we can see the stool in use and Carter is pissed because he doesn’t want people to know that.

Now that’s unsettling.

We then get an exterior shot of a generic hotel and Peter and Carter are seated on a bed. Peter has a carton of eggnog and tells Carter this will put him in the holiday spirit. Cater tells Peter he hates eggnog, but Peter won’t take no for an answer. It then gets really uncomfortable as Peter forces the nog on Carter and it’s clear this is intended to be a parody of a sexual assault or violent, degrading, piece of pornography. Carter ends up covered in frothy, white, eggnog and Peter starts filming him and instructs him to degrade himself in various ways. It ends with Carter sitting up and telling Peter “You know, I still don’t like Christmas, but I kind of like what we just did.” Apparently, Carter has some odd kinks.

I bet you can’t guess what’s next! Exterior shot of the Griffin house! Peter and Carter are standing outside the bathroom and Peter tells Carter that Christmas is the one day a year where you masturbate like any other but then feel shame afterwards. He goes into the bathroom for a very short duration, and then comes out hanging his head sadly with his shirt untucked. Carter tells Peter that none of this is working and as he explains Vinny casually walks by causing Carter to interrupt his ranting to remark “Huh, different dog.” Peter confirms this and adds that he’s Italian or something too. Carter then goes back into his rant and Peter tells him he had no idea that Carter was Jewish. Carter, shocked at the suggestion, asks if that’s how he’s coming off and Peter confirms as much.

Carter Pewterschmidt: Not Jewish

Smash cut to the exterior of the mall only now it’s all decorated for Christmas! There’s even a giant banner promoting the carnival with Carter wrapping an arm around a seemingly uncaring Jesus. Inside, the place is fully decorated now and Peter is excited to see the Chinese carolers from A Christmas Story are there singing their rendition of “Deck the Halls.” Peter then tells the audience their beloved holiday classic is extremely racist, which is a gross exaggeration and ruins the observational joke. They could have just had Peter give a disapproving look or something and it would have been funnier.

Is there a sadder place to cry?

Vinny then asks Stewie what he’s going to ask Santa for Christmas. Stewie isn’t sure, but once he’s seated on Santa’s lap and faced with the question he looks to his family and the camera pans from each member and rests on an empty space beside Meg. Stewie then starts sobbing and tells Santa he just wants his friend back. When he explains in further detail, Santa deadpans “You want me to put a dead dog under your tree,” and it doesn’t come off like a question. Stewie confirms this, though immediately after he sees a kid walk by with his parents and a new bike and he adds “and I’d like a bike,” with a whimper.

Vinny’s interpretation of Brian.

After yet another exterior shot of the house, we see Stewie all alone watching television. It’s another holiday parody, A Year Without a Santa Claus or Sex and there’s just some uptight dad bitching to his kid about his wife being busy all of the time. Vinny then enters the picture wearing glasses and a sweater. When Stewie asks what he’s doing, he corrects him by saying he’s Brian and does an Italian version of Brian’s “catchphrase” of “Whose leg do you have to hump to get a dry martini around here?” Stewie is not impressed, but Vinny says he put a lot of thought into this gimmick by reading up on politics and even outlining his own novel “Wish it. Want it. You blew it.” He reads some of it to Stewie and it’s just another vessel for Italian stereotypes that goes on too long. He then tries to cheer Stewie up with an early Christmas present, but the box contains a severed foot. Vinny says that was supposed to go to someone else, and we cut to a group of gangster types getting ready to celebrate the death of Johnny the Foot something, only their gift contains a train. They then go into a schtick of trying to figure out who the train refers to getting more and more specific and it just goes on and on and is never funny.

Vinny then gives Stewie his real gift which is a bowling shirt. Vinny says it’s a versatile garment that can be worn for any occasion, as long as it’s at the beach or adjacent to a beach, but Stewie seems unimpressed. Vinny then decides they should head to the toy store where Stewie can pick something out for himself. They do just that and Stewie is still in a mood since the toy store before Christmas is usually picked over. Vinny tries cheering him up by pointing out there’s tons of good stuff and demonstrates with some bronze, sheep, bookends that shine a sad light on Vinny’s childhood.

Yeah, there isn’t much mystery here.

Stewie soon notices someone familiar in the store. He follows the kid only to realize it’s him! Vinny is angry and hungry, so he goes to punch a sandwich while Stewie investigates further. Vinny then returns with a black eye and an angry, personified, sandwich. Stewie asks Vinny for his help, but he’s not really sure what he’s after. When Stewie says he needs help stealing something Vinny is suddenly all-in. Stewie explains the other Stewie is him from the past. He time-traveled to the future to get a new Jolly Farm game he couldn’t wait for. Stewie asks Vinny to distract him so he can steal the time travel device in the other Stewie’s backpack. Vinny assures him he knows just how to distract another Stewie.

Work it, Stewie!

Vinny then intercepts Stewie after he’s made his purchase. He asks the past Stewie if he’s ever done any modeling, and Stewie says “not professionally” clearly ignoring the events of the episode “The Son Also Draws.” Vinny continues to butter him up and Stewie actually starts stripping away layers as he poses allowing for the current Stewie to steal the time travel device from the backpack. He retreats to a storeroom and Vinny soon appears telling him he should probably hurry up as the other Stewie is changing into tap shoes for some reason. Stewie explains he intends to travel back in time to save Brian, causing him to realize this will undo his family adopting Vinny. Vinny, now realizing he was duped into helping Stewie significantly alter his life for the worse, seems a bit sad at first, but then lightens the mood by saying “Hey, I’m man’s best friend, not some stupid baby’s!” He gives Stewie a smile and then sits like a traditional dog would allowing Stewie to pat him on the head and assure him he’s a been a good dog (I do love it when the dog characters on this show behave like actual dogs for brief moments). Vinny then stands and announces to a Georgette that he’s coming home and walks out of the scene causing Stewie to ask aloud to himself “Who the hell is Georgette?”

A genuine moment of sweetness for Family Guy.

Stewie then hops on the time travel device and we’re taken back to the past with no establishing shot – it’s a Christmas miracle! Stewie and Brian are setting up their street hockey game and Stewie realizes he forgot his kneepads inside. He awkwardly informs Brian of this suggesting he was using them for some depraved sex act, before running inside. Future Stewie then appears and as the car destined to kill Brian screams around the corner, Stewie is able to tackle Brian and spare him. He then starts celebrating Brian’s un-death, which confuses Brian. Stewie goes on to explain he traveled from the future to save him, for when Brian died a little piece of him died as well. Brian is still confused since he just witnessed Stewie destroy his time machine, but Stewie explains how he ran into a past version of himself in the future which reminds him that he needs to send the time device back. We then see Past Stewie angrily waiting in the toy store as he says aloud to himself he’s starting to think Vinny wasn’t a real modeling agent. He then makes it creepy by adding “and I don’t think that other guy was a real Penis-Butt Inspector!”

So long, Future Stewie.

As Stewie finishes his explanation to Brian, he starts to fade away. By changing the past, he’s erased his own timeline. He’s not sad though, but rather happy to have saved Brian. His “dying” words are “Merry Christmas, Brian,” which must be a little confusing to Brian since I don’t think they’re near Christmas in his timeline. Right as he vanishes though, the now present Stewie returns (conveniently with a new hockey stick after the ones he set down in the road were run over) and asks Brian who he was talking to. Brian replies, “A pretty awesome guy,” with a warm smile, only for Stewie to mock him by suggesting he marry the guy. He punctuates the jab by hitting Brian in the balls with his hockey stick and then does circles around his writhing body chanting “Stew-S-A” over and over.

Right in the balls.

A final exterior shot of a snowy Griffin house ushers in our final scene. The family is celebrating Christmas by opening their presents. Chris got some oven mitts and an unfunny joke is attached to it. Brian then gives Stewie his Christmas present and it’s a picture of the two of them in Christmas attire with the caption “Friends Forever” underneath. Stewie tells him it’s wonderful, and Brian informs him that Stewie gave him the greatest gift of all and that he’ll elaborate further some day. Stewie then looks concerned and questions Brian if they’re pregnant? Brian corrects him, but then adds that Stewie’s his best friend and he tells him he loves him. Stewie begins to respond warmly, but then gets stern and informs Brian that he’s been making creepy eye contact with him all morning and that he wants it to stop! Smash cut to credits!

Stewie’s gift.

Well, that was a mostly unfunny romp through the Christmas season with some genuine sentimentality tacked on at the end. The episode was a rather unique setup for Family Guy as it was like two, distinct, stories that occurred consecutively rather than at the same time like a traditional A and B plot. We had the first half of the episode which was devoted to Peter trying to get Carter into the Christmas spirit, and then the second half which was all about bringing Brian back. If the writers were just trying to disguise the fact that they wanted to resurrect Brian for Christmas then they did a good job as the episode did not point in that direction at all, until Stewie climbed onto the mall Santa’s lap with less than 10 minutes remaining. Stewie’s grief was handled well though and I did like his interactions with both Vinny and Brian. This being Family Guy, they found ways to punctuate those tender moments with jokes. They didn’t always land (like the weird sandwich bit), but they didn’t take away from the moment, but rather just cut out some of the overripe sweetness of those moments. I did like how they teed up a warm closing scene only for Brian to just completely botch it which felt like the right note for a Family Guy Christmas episode to end on.

Aside from that though, the first half of the episode was a real slog. Almost none of the observational humor Family Guy strives for really landed, but they sure kept trying! The Home Alone parody was all right, but the others were lame. The eggnog scene was gross for multiple reasons, and none of the cut-away jokes accomplished anything aside from eating up time. And what is up with the need for exterior shots before every scene?! The Griffin house did look nice, but I didn’t need to see the same shot over and over! The only thing I did like was Carter finally coming around on Christmas because he was afraid of people mistaking him for a Jew.

In the end, this was a somewhat sweet story about a kid and his dog.

This Christmas episode of Family Guy ends up being memorable because it’s the episode where the show brought Brian back, even though he hadn’t been gone very long. Only one episode separates this one and “Life of Brian,” his death episode, so it’s easy to question if the show didn’t let Brian stay dead long enough to really sell the gag. It’s also Family Guy though and no one watches it for anything more than a sequence of jokes. The actual characters are rarely of any importance. Were fans happy to have Brian back? Did they like Vinny? Did they even care he died? I don’t know, but I do think it was a fun storyline to run with and they wrote themselves a nice out of Brian’s death. Aside from that detail though, this isn’t much good. You’re still better off with watching the inaugural Christmas episode from Family Guy if you must, and I think I enjoyed the Patrick Swayze one more that we looked at a couple of years ago.

If you want to watch “Christmas Guy” this holiday season it should be relatively easy to track down. I think. Adult Swim used to air every Christmas episode from the show this month, probably more than once, but lost the rights to air Family Guy this year so now it’s on the Disney family of channels. I’m assuming channels like FXX will schedule the Christmas episodes like they do for The Simpsons, but it is a bit of an unknown. The show is available on DVD and to stream as part of Hulu, which is probably the easiest way to watch it. If you enjoy Family Guy, and it’s fine to do so, then you probably like this one more than I do and will enjoy it. If you’re someone who does not care for Family Guy then you’ll likely hate this so seek holiday cheer from other sources.

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 4 – A Christmas Story (1972)

For today’s Christmas post, we’re going to take a look at A Christmas Story. No, not that Christmas Story, the first one. Way before Ralphie started obsessing over a BB gun, the duo of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera brought us a story about a mouse and a dog trying to get a last-minute letter…

Keep reading
by Joe

Dec. 4 – Taz-Mania – “No Time for Christmas”

Before there was an entire broadcast television network owned by Time Warner, there was the relationship that existed between Fox and WB. Fox, needing a lot of content to launch its kid programming block The Fox Kids Network, partnered with WB and Steven Spielberg to bring the world Tiny Toon Adventures. It was a success,…

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by Joe

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December 1, 2020

Dec. 1 – American Dad! – “The Best Christmas Story Never Told”

By Joe

img_1104Oh hell yeah, it’s time for Christmas posts! Welcome back for the year 2020 as The Christmas Spot comes at you with 25 days of Christmas posts! 2020 has been a crazy year with a lot of new normals tossed our way, but at least each year the calendar gets turned over to Christmas and for close to one month things seem consistent with prior years. And like year’s past, we’re turning this place into an advent calendar and looking at 25 festive topics. Most of which will be like this one, a write-up of a beloved or not so beloved Christmas television special. It may be one from the past, or it may be relatively current, but one thing is certain and that’s it will be Christmas. I have nothing against the other seasonal holidays occurring around this time, it’s just that Christmas is my jam and I want to share my enthusiasm with all of you.

For this year, we’re turning things over to an animated sitcom that has become fairly reliable when it comes to Christmas. American Dad! premiered after the Super Bowl in 2005 and immediately found itself in the shadow of Family Guy. That’s because the show is co-created by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and at the time it premiered it was being billed as the Family Guy replacement. This was during the hiatus for Family Guy following its cancellation, though the show would eventually return. As such, it felt like many Family Guy fans were immediately dismissive of American Dad! because it wasn’t the show they wanted. They wanted more Family Guy, not an imitation. You would think things would improve following the revival of Family Guy, but instead fans of that show once again seemed to look down on American Dad! as now that their beloved show had returned, what need of this new one did anyone have?

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Like Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers, American Dad! has become a reliable source for Christmas specials over the years.

Which was unfortunate, because American Dad! had very little in common with Family Guy. I suppose it resembled Season One of Family Guy to a point as both shows were influenced by the classic sitcom All in the Family. While Family Guy only borrowed from that show a little, American Dad! was practically a reimagining of that program in animated form. The show was co-created by eventual show-runners Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman and once the pilot was basically sold to Fox, MacFarlane backed away as he was soon pulled back into Family Guy duty. The show was conceived as a liberal’s answer to the Bush era political climate of the time. The conservative leading man, Stan Smith (MacFarlane) would be positioned opposite his young adult daughter Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane), a college-educated liberal, and rely on the conflict inherent in that relationship for several plots. Stan was presented as boorish and unfailingly patriotic, and as a member of the CIA he took national security very seriously to the point of suspecting anyone with brown skin as being a terrorist. Hayley was often the voice of reason, though also saddled with the usual college stereotype of being lazy and more interested in getting high than actually working to promote change in the political landscape. She would be paired with a boyfriend turned husband, Jeff Fischer (Jeff Fischer), that Stan hates which is basically the same relationship Archie Bunker had with “Meathead” in All in the Family.

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In this episode, Stan is going to learn the true meaning of Christmas and we’re going to learn about Roger’s past, seen here laying face-down in a mix of snow and vomit.

Eventually, the show found a niche and relied less on the Stan/Hayley dynamic. The rest of the family would play a more prominent role in furthering stories. Francine (Wendy Schaal) is portrayed as a stay-at-home mom and is the caretaker of the house and kids. She began life in the show as being a stereotypical conservative ideal, but over the years has developed her own quirks and failings, making her feel like a more fleshed-out character. Son Steve (Scott Grimes) has been molded into being Stan’s opposite ideal for a son. He’s a geek who likes comics and Dungeons & Dragons, but also is emotionally Stan’s opposite as he’s sensitive and comfortable with expressing his “non manly” emotions. As is the case with all MacFarlane shows, there’s a talking animal and in this one it’s a goldfish named Klaus (Dee Bradley Baker) who is a former German athlete trapped in the body of a fish. He’s mostly just there to make observations and the family often ignores him. By far, the big breakout character of the show is definitely Roger the alien (MacFarlane), who saved Stan’s life years ago and as reward is being kept safe from the government in the Smith household. He begins the show as an Alf knock-off, but the writers eventually found another role for him and that’s as an alien of many personalities. He often leaves the home in disguise and will even live other lives as he devotes himself to the roles he plays. He’s also literally the show’s worst character as he’s a sociopathic narcissist and will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. In that aspect, he somewhat resembles Cartman of South Park fame.

For what Wikipedia considers the show’s third season (it’s complicated), a Christmas episode was commissioned. It would be the first of several, as the very conservative Stan and his family naturally lend themselves well to the holiday. The episodes have become some of the show’s finest as they’re pretty big in spectacle and only seem to grow more and more outlandish. There would be a continuity established as well as the Smith family becomes the enemy of Santa. Because the show’s broadcast schedule is a bit erratic, not every year brings with it a new Christmas episode, but it’s certainly something I look for each year.

Since I have never covered American Dad! before in one of these countdowns, it would seem the best place to start is with that first Christmas special. “The Best Christmas Story Never Told” premiered on December 17, 2006. Some places consider that Season 3 of the show, though it would appear it’s production Season Two. Writing of the episode is credited to Brian Boyle with staff writers Laura McCreary and Erik Durbin also receiving credits. Boyle is also executive producer on the series, but has received a written by credit on several other episodes, including the 2014 Christmas episode “Dreaming of a White Porsche Christmas” which interestingly is similar to this one as it presents an alternate reality for Stan at Christmas.

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The Smith family ready to bask in the glow of the town Christmas tree.

While I do think American Dad! is quite different from Family Guy, it does amuse me that this inaugural Christmas episode begins the same way as Family Guy’s first Christmas episode. The whole family is gathered in the town square for the annual lighting of the town Christmas tree. Stan is quite jubilant about the whole thing, while Roger is face-down in the snow and booze (and vomit) since Christmas makes him feel like a failure. It’s here Roger’s origin is retconned a bit, possibly for the first time, as he reveals he’s been on Earth for over 40 years. In other words, he had a lengthy existence before meeting the Smith family. Stan doesn’t care and implores him to acknowledge the holiday. When it’s announced the lighting has been cancelled at the last minute due to the town being unable to celebrate a secular holiday on town property, Stan gets angry as a crew moves in to demolish the place. Stan rages it’s the liberals and atheists telling them how to celebrate their holiday, and when a passerby tries to reason with Stan, Stan laments he can’t wait for The Rapture. As Stan tells them they’ll be left behind, Francine tries to smooth things over by telling the other family they’re free to use their pool after they’ve been raptured, provided it’s not boiling. Francine then suggests they go to church instead and Stan dismisses that suggestion on account of church being boring. He then declares he needs to go someplace where he can learn the true meaning of Christmas – the mall!

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Take note of the little person working the camera.

Stan contentedly looks on as his kids sit on Santa’s lap and ask him for toys. He remarks that this is what Christmas is all about and as he does so the show decides to use a regrettable slur for little people and even has Hayley, who should know better, use it casually as well. The kids then implore their father to get something for Roger for Christmas, but Stan doesn’t want to since Roger isn’t Christian. Roger has no say at the moment for he’s passed out in a baby stroller. Stan then takes sight of The 99 Cent Depot and decides he can spare a buck for Roger.

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I bet you expected Stan to react this way to “Happy Holidays.”

Stan heads to the register and asks for one of the store’s wares. The clerk hands him a cassette of disco’s greatest hits from 1974-1980 and Stan deems this satisfactory. When the clerk tells him it costs $1.07 due to taxes, Stan suggests they change the store’s name, but the clerk points out that’s not his decision. Stan smiles and is satisfied with that response, but when he wishes the clerk a “Merry Christmas,” (you know where this is going) and gets a “Happy Holidays” in return his mood changes. Angry, he demands that the clerk acknowledge his holiday, but the same excuse about the sign is not enough to sway Stan this time. He pulls out a gun to demand action and we cut to Stan being tossed outside by security. When he calls back to remind them he had a gun, a gift-wrapped gun is tossed to him.

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Did you take note of that little person two pictures ago?!

At the Smith household, Stan is still visibly outraged by the “liberals” who are destroying Christmas. The family tries to reason with him, but he’s more than a little stubborn. Stan then rhetorically asks the family who is to blame for all of this, and they respond with exhaustion in their voices because this is something Stan must remind them of often, Jane Fonda. Apparently Stan blames Ms. Fonda for spreading liberal ideas through her protests against the war in Vietnam and it’s not something he’s about to let go of. A ring of the doorbell gets Stan’s hopes up momentarily as he thinks carolers have arrived. He opens the door to the costumed group, but finds out they’re only here to spread awareness of the Holiday Rapist and hold up a flier. This is the tipping point for Stan as he demands they refer to him as the Christmas Rapist. He slams the door and sets to destroying the festive decorations in the house, including tossing most of them through the living room window. Steve begins to cry that Daddy destroyed the toys Chinese kids made for him while Francine scolds Stan for his behavior. She tells him he’s sleeping on the couch tonight which Stan tries to protest by pointing out the now missing window and the presence of the Christmas Rapist on the loose.

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The Ghost of Christmas Past has been assigned Stan Smith this year. Unlike other ghosts, she apparently works alone on Christmas.

Stan is shown sleeping on the couch (in his suit, for some reason) looking a bit cold when a woman materializes beside him. She’s quite fairy-like I suppose, and when she wakes Stan he snaps open his eyes and shouts “Holiday Rapist!” and dives behind the couch before quickly correcting himself with “Christmas Rapist.” The woman then explains, in a faux British accent, that she’s the Ghost of Christmas Past (Lisa Kudrow) and she’s here to help Stan lean the true meaning of Christmas. He soon brightens up and the ghost takes him all the way back to 1970.

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The idyllic Christmas of Stan’s youth.

There the two peek into the Smith home where a young Stan is opening his Christmas presents. Stan is amazed that they’re really back in 1970 and the woman reassures him by mentioning how things are different. One of those mentions is Jane Fonda, who is presently filming to movie Klute nearby causing Stan’s eyes to narrow in a menacing fashion. He then takes off running, much to the bewilderment of the ghost, who just calls for him to come back, dropping the accent. When he doesn’t obey, she just starts grumbling to herself about how this is her first turn as Past and she already screwed it up. Apparently, she used to be a Tooth Fairy. She then reveals to us her name is Michelle, and mentions she should have just stayed with some guy named Chad.

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Jane Fonda on the set of Klute. Fonda, and the other celebrities of this episode, were offered to voice themselves, but all turned the show down. I bet they would have said “Yes,” to The Simpsons.

Stan is able to track down the filming location for Klute and watches as Jane Fonda (uncredited, but sounds like Wendy Schaal) is filmed feeding a cat, and then herself. She explains her decision to eat the cat food to the director which just irritates Stan even further. Stan is grossed out and remarks “You are so dead,” to himself.

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In order to find Stan, Michelle is going to need Francine’s help.

Back in the present, Michelle appears in Francine’s room and splashes her with water in order to wake her up. She explains to Francine what happened, and when Francine gets mad Michelle asks rhetorically if she blames mothers who lose their kids at the mall. When Francine gives her an “Are you serious?” look in response, Michelle answers the question emphatically herself with a, “No! No, you don’t!” Realizing what Stan is up to, Francine reluctantly drags herself out of bed and heads for the bathroom. When Michelle expresses her impatience, Francine tells her she isn’t going back to that filthy decade without some Purell.

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Stan makes an important discovery, and we find out Donald Sutherland is a real creep. Maybe that’s why he declined to voice himself.

Filming wraps for the day and Stan keeps close as Fonda retreats to her dressing room accompanied by Donald Sutherland (Chris Diamontopoulis). It’s while watching these two interact that Stan realizes it was Sutherland who put those liberal ideas into Fonda’s head. He then corrects himself that Fonda isn’t his target and that he must instead kill Donald Sutherland! Sutherland immediately confronts him as he was apparently standing beside Stan, but he’s a bit clueless and asks Stan if he’s here to give Fonda her massage. Stan decides that he is indeed here to do just that remarking that it would be rather nice to do so. Sutherland then leaves him to it and as Stan closes the door to Fonda’s dressing room we hear him announce his arrival and tells her to finish her cat food.

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Roger, about to make a life-changing discovery.

Stan then follows Sutherland and Fonda out to a restaurant, Elaine’s, but is prevented from entering since he’s not on the list. He then goes around the back to sneak in with the restaurant staff while stashing his gun in his pants. Once he disappears inside, we see some waiters come out for a smoke break. One of them is clearly Roger in disguise. When the other waiter asks if he got the part he tried out for he replies, “No, they were looking for someone more flesh-colored with a nose.” The other waiter tells him to give up on his dreams and leaves him. As Roger sits dejected, he notices something in the snow. It’s the disco tape that fell out of Stan’s jacket before he went inside. When Roger reads the title he announces it’s from the future! And since he’s an alien from outer space, he deems that plausible.

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The encounter that will doom Christmas.

At the restaurant, Stan is finishing up in a restroom when a hairy-looking dude emerges from a stall. Stan notices the man is smoking marijuana, and Stan admonishes him for doing so. The guy doesn’t seem bothered by it, and goes on to introduce himself as Marty, Marty Scorsese (Grimes). When Stan begins to gush and says he loves his films, Marty is shocked and assumes Stan has seen his film of a guy shaving. Stan is amused, but then assures him he’s going to be great, but that he’ll never win an Oscar if he’s hooked on drugs. Marty agrees, and starts humorously removing all of the drug paraphernalia on his person which includes many bags, joints, and even a bong in his pants. Stan is touched, and the two have a nice, men’s room, hug.

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The artists don’t usually get to draw dinosaurs so let’s throw ’em a bone!

Meanwhile, Michelle has overshot her magic and taken Francine back to the Jurassic period. They observe some cute little dinosaurs running past before a T-Rex eats them causing the two to scream before Michelle gets them out of there. You can’t play around with time travel and not show a dinosaur at some point.

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Stan assuming his cool, assassin, pose.

Feeling quite satisfied, Stan returns to the task at hand:  killing Donald Sutherland. He spots Sutherland and Fonda having dinner and when Sutherland suggests Fonda get involved in politics, he offers to talk about them over a drink at “my place.” Stan counters as he pulls out his gun with, “Let’s talk about it over your brains. Maybe all over the place?” Before he can pull the trigger, and before anyone seems to notice him, Michelle and Francine appear and pull him aside. The two express their anger with Stan, and when Francine says they won’t allow him to kill Jane Fonda, Stan corrects them to point out he’s now targeting Sutherland, the lanky, Canadian, Kiefer-spawning bastard! That doesn’t matter much to Michelle and Francine as they’re not about to let Stan murder anyone and they quickly take him back to the present.

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Something clearly went wrong.

Or do they? When the trio arrive, they find the Smith living room looks different. It’s drab, with cinderblocks for furniture and Communist posters on the wall. When Francine calls out for Steve and Hayley, a Russian man comes down the stairs firing a shotgun at them. They quickly run out into the street and find the country is now under the dominion of the Russians! Michelle gets to turn all glowy and dramatic as she informs Stan that he destroyed America! Francine then pauses to pee beside a car as she’s been holding it in since the 70s.

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A monument commemorating the birth of this new, Russian, empire.

Michelle then does some sleuthing on some tablet she has to try and figure out what happened. She knows Stan did something, but he insists he did nothing that would change the past. She has him go over what he did while in 1970 and when he gets to the part about meeting Scorsese in the bathroom Michelle gets a hit. It seems by getting Scorsese off drugs, he never went on to make Taxi Driver. And since he didn’t make Taxi Driver, John Hinckley never became obsessed with actress Jodi Foster and thus never attempted to impress her by assassinating President Reagan. Since Reagan didn’t survive an assassination attempt, he lacked the good will to beat back Mondale in the presidential election of 1984 and upon becoming president, Mondale would hand the country over to Russia. Stan then realizes that in order to stop Russia from overtaking America, he needs to travel back to the past and film Taxi Driver. When Francine objects to point out how crazy that conclusion is, Michelle steps in to say Stan is right as she’s apparently just as crazy as he is.

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Roger and his precious tape.

As those three set out to right Stan’s wrong, we check-in on Roger who’s about to make his first million selling disco songs to Clive Davis. He’s been milking that cassette he found like Biff from Back to the Future Part II and having a good time of it. He celebrates his fortune by heading to a nightclub and shouts at the sky for his mom to see him now! He then tells her to stop looking while he snorts some cocaine, and then tells her she can look again as he resumes dancing.

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Stan Smith is not a Robert DeNiro fan.

On the set of Taxi Driver, Stan is watching as Robert DeNiro (Diamantopoulis) rehearses. DeNiro is talking to himself in the mirror and Stan objects. He instructs DeNiro to talk at himself in the mirror and not at the mirror, which DeNiro finds absurd and quits. Francine is pissed at Stan for driving DeNiro away, but he assures her it’s fine since they only need Hinkley to fall for Jodi Foster. Michelle, once again, goes along with Stan who is now delighted he can make Taxi Driver with the leading man he thinks would be best:  John Wayne.

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Ever wonder what Taxi Driver would look like with John Wayne in the lead role?

At a showing of the finished film, Stan, Francine, and Michelle find John Hinckley in the audience and observe him watching the film’s climax. In it, Foster’s character is tied up and about to be set on fire by Native Americans doing an inflammatory dance routine. Wayne shows up in his cab and emerges, old and fat and with a mohawk under his traditional cowboy hat. He shoots all of the Native Americans and rescues Foster as a boom mic comes into the shot and knocks over a background, indicating they shot and edited this thing rather poorly. When it’s over, Francine immediately starts asking Hinckley what he thought and when Francine suggests that Foster was pretty hot he acts disgusted. Realizing their plan failed, Michelle identifies one last resort.

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Roger did not take Larry’s advice and switch off speaker phone.

In 1981, Regan is staying at the Hilton and he’s about to be shot. Only now, he’s not. Meanwhile, high above Roger is partying away when his phone rings. It’s someone named Larry, who informs Roger his last album only sold 90 copies and that disco is dead. He’s broke. Roger can’t believe it and when he asks how he could be broke when he has a bunch of investments and race horses, he then says “I thought you were feeding them?!” indicating there was some confusion over what to do with the race horses once purchased. Roger then tries to kill himself by jumping through the window of his penthouse, but that glass is pretty damn thick and he just gets knocked out.

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It’s time for Stan to get nuts!

At ground level, Michelle has spelled it out for Stan that in order to save Christmas (remember, this is a Christmas episode) he needs to shoot his idol, Ronald Reagan. Stan insists he can’t do it, but he’s reminded he needs to do it if he wants Christmas back. Stan reasons they could learn Russian and be happy, though he also laments he’ll probably miss a lot of elevators at first while he learns how to say “Hold the door,” in Russian. He then reminds Francine that they’ll be fine as long as they’re together as a family, indicating that maybe he has learned the true meaning of Christmas. Or at least one of them. Michelle then informs him there’s no guarantee Hayley and Steve exist now, and if he really wants to save Christmas and his family, he’s going to have to shoot Reagan. Stan reluctantly agrees, and when Michelle reminds him that he just has to “wing him” Stan laughs and thanks her for reminding him indicating that he was probably going to shoot to kill.

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If you’re doing A Christmas Carol, even loosely like this one, you still have to have this scene.

As Reagan is shown leaving the hotel. Stan makes his way through the crowd like a crazy person. He pulls out his gun and then starts shouting “Merry Christmas!” over and over as he opens fire. The screen goes white and then fades to reveal Stan and Francine asleep in their bed. Francine wakes up and immediately wakes Stan who runs to the window and opens it. He sees a paper boy outside who looks almost exactly like the kid on the cover of Paper Boy for the Nintendo Entertainment System. When he asks the kid what day it is, he responds that it’s Christmas and Stan then barks at him to get off his lawn!

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Stan mostly puts Christmas back together.

Downstairs, Stan has boarded up the broken window and re-setup the mangled tree. The gifts are re-wrapped and Hayley and Steve come down the stairs overjoyed to see that Christmas is back. Roger then comes into the room drunk explaining that Christmas reminds him how he created disco and then lost all of his money. The family laughs at him and then Stan is summoned into the kitchen by Michelle. There she thanks him for bailing her ass out by giving him a gift. He opens it to find a shiny, new, Glock. Michelle says she had just enough time to hit the mall last night for it, and when Stan questions how she got it so fast apparently bypassing the waiting period, she reminds him that he only shot Reagan. He never hit James Brady, and thus there was never passage of The Brady Bill which means guns are as easy to buy as a stick of gum. Stan is delighted and mugs for the camera with a “Best Christmas ever!”

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Roger no longer needs to be depressed that he hasn’t accomplished anything in his time on Earth, now he can lament that he lost his fortune when disco died. Also, his genitals are located near his armpit.

This is a pretty great early episode of American Dad! Stan is very much the conservative whack-job throughout and it’s obvious that the absurd War on Christmas notion is what drove the writers to craft this plot. It’s also possible they worked backward from the premise of what if Stan had to shoot his hero in order to save Christmas? The show is jam-packed with jokes as almost every sentence Stan utters is a joke of some kind. They’re just understated jokes, which is one of the main differences between American Dad! and Family Guy. Family Guy seems to rarely trust its audience with knowing what is and isn’t a joke and everything is practically screamed at the audience. American Dad! is far more confident, and while it does get absurd and thrust things into the forefront at times, it rarely feels obnoxious.

Since Stan is essentially an easy target, there are some jokes in this episode that could be considered easy, maybe even lazy. Even with those though, the show goes the extra mile to add a spin to make them seem less conventional. A perfect example is Stan’s argument with the clerk over his holiday greeting. The episode makes a point of demonstrating that Stan can be agreeable and even sympathetic to the plight of the working man who has to do as he’s commanded when the clerk makes the comment about not being able to change the name of the store from The 99 Cent Depot to The $1.07 Store to account for tax. Stan accepts that, but he can’t accept the kid saying “Happy Holidays” even though he’s directed to by his boss who can and probably will fire him for saying anything else. And because Stan’s a maniac, it has to escalate to Stan pulling a gun for added comedic effect.

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Coming up with a plot that involves Stan finding the true meaning of Christmas thus saving the holiday doesn’t take a ton of creativity. Having Stan replace John Hinckley Jr. as Reagan’s would-be assassin? Now that’s genius!

If the episode did begin with the premise of Stan shooting Reagan to save Christmas, then the writers also did a good job of making that happen. While American Dad! mostly behaves like a sitcom, it’s not afraid to get fantastical and do some crazy stuff. Granted, so many shows have done a variation of A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life that weren’t particularly crazy, but it’s still quite a leap to have your characters time travel. This show will get way more fantastic in that regard, but this episode is largely able to rise above the notion of being an adaptation of that holiday classic without really feeling like one. Normally I hate to give time to anything that indulges in the trope, but American Dad! makes it work quite well.

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Lisa Kudrow is pretty wonderful as Michelle, The Ghost of Christmas Past. The show gives her a lot to work with and her personality meshes well with the character.

The only downside with this episode is that it’s actually pretty light on Christmas. It begins festive enough, but once we jump back in time it’s actually easy to forget that this is a Christmas episode of American Dad! It manages to hang onto its premise though and that’s Stan needing to learn the true meaning of Christmas, which the episode defines as basically family time. It’s actually a surprisingly warm conclusion for a show not afraid to do cynical or dark endings. Of course, there’s a touch of the show’s cynicism in the ending since Stan has created a world in which guns are even more accessible. This probably isn’t my favorite Christmas episode from this show, but it’s definitely a good measuring stick for all of them. And since I’ve managed to avoid American Dad! (not intentionally, it just happened that way) while doing this countdown for years now, you can safely assume it will return next year as there’s a lot more I can turn to.

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“Best Christmas ever!”

American Dad! currently airs on both TBS and Cartoon Network almost daily. As a result, you should have no problem finding an airing of this episode at some point this month, and probably more than once. And if cable isn’t your thing, the show is streaming on Hulu and also available on physical media and for digital purchase all over the place. This should be an easy one to find and it comes recommended.

Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:

Dec. 1 – DuckTales – “Last Christmas!”

It’s that time of year once again! Every day goods are a little pricier, egg nog is invading the dairy case at every grocery store, and red and green versions of every candy in existence flourish in the seasonal section of department stores. Yes, it is Christmas time and it would be obnoxious if it…

Keep reading
by Joe

Dec. 1 – George & Junior’s Christmas Spectacular

Welcome to the inaugural post in this year’s edition of The Christmas Spot! We’re giving you a write-up each day in December as we march towards Christmas that will hopefully help give you a sense of that wonderful Christmas feeling. This year’s countdown is starting things off with a mostly forgotten short from 1995’s What…

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by Joe

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in christmas, Television

December 17, 2019

Dec. 17 – Family Guy – “Don’t Be a Dickens at Christmas”

By Joe

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Christmas comes to Quahog.

So it’s come to this. We’re doing Family Guy. I don’t mean to come across as a snob or some animation elitist (after all, we already did Robot Chicken), but I don’t care for most of Family Guy. That wasn’t always the case. When the show originally aired on Fox I actually liked it quite a bit. And when it came to Cartoon Network I watched it almost every night. The absurdist humor, often relying on shock or surprise, was refreshing for a moment. It came at a good time as The Simpsons was coming off of its high and network animation was kind of flailing. The show was rather ugly and that first season was a bit rough, but I have mostly positive memories of seasons two and three and I have the DVD sets somewhere in my house.

Then, of course, the show made a surprising comeback. DVD sales and Cartoon Network ratings gave Fox enough confidence to order a new season. That new season premiered in 2005, and 14 years later Family Guy appears to be going strong. What changed for me over the years? Well, shock and random humor gets old. The show fell into the trap where it needed to top itself. Have Peter unexpectedly fight a chicken for five minutes? Well, then you to need bring him back and have the fight last for eight minutes! The characters gradually got meaner and less likable. Everyone dumps on Meg to the point where it’s not funny and it feels like there is no joke that is too low. The cut-away gags have become parody at this point as the show apparently decided to double-down when South Park called them out on how lazy those jokes were way back when.

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Like probably a lot of folks, there was a time when Family Guy really appealed to me, but those days are long gone.

It’s not all terrible though. The Stewie and Brian pairing still seems to work and often brings out the best of the show. I’ll give those a watch anytime I notice them. I also still really enjoy the show’s inaugural Christmas episode, “A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas” and the double-length “Road to the North Pole” has its moments as well. That gives me some reason for optimism as we tackle today’s episode, “Don’t Be a Dickens at Christmas.” This episode is pretty modern having premiered as part of Season 16 on December 10, 2017. There’s still a chance this could go very wrong, and the title implies yet another parody of A Christmas Carol. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that one of television’s least imaginative comedy series would turn to Dickens for a Christmas special, and I’m not. The only surprise is that they held off until Season 16 to do it.

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The Pawtucket Brewery all covered in smog and snow for Christmas.

The episode opens with the standard credits, so this one isn’t scoring any bonus points for a festive intro. We’re immediately taken to the Pawtucket Brewery where Peter (Seth MacFarlane) works. Angela (Carrie Fisher, in her final appearance on the show) is trying to inform the workers that they’re getting out early on account of Christmas, but Peter keeps interrupting her by playing Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” on an old boom box. This happens three times before Angela just gives up on her speech and tells everyone to go home. As Peter races out, his coworkers turn into the cast of Dazed and Confused. The Matthew McConaughey character is present. When Peter inquires what he’s doing for Christmas, it leads him into a parody of McConaughey’s Lincoln car commercials (remember those?) immediately dating this episode. In the parody, he’s driving around aimlessly with two teens tied up in his backseat (he’s embarking on a “slay” ride). The joke ends with a voiceover saying “Lincoln – What are we doing?” which is a typical way too on the nose joke that this show is frequently guilty of.

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The family is rolling with nontraditional clothes, always a plus.

The setting shifts to the home of the Griffins and everyone is decorating while they await the return of their patriarch. Lois (Alex Borstein) is hanging stockings and points out they always hang a stocking for son Chris’s stillborn twin who was to be named Tmas (thud). Brian (MacFarlane) takes this opportunity to inform the family what he got them all for Christmas – volunteering at a homeless shelter. Chris (Seth Green) and Meg (Mila Kunis) immediately protest while Stewie (MacFarlane) is surprisingly chill with it. Lois resumes her old identity of thoughtful parent and says it’s a lovely gift and will be good for the kids, then punctuates it with a tasteless remark about watching the homeless shit through their pants. Meg fills stockings with Kanye Canes, and it’s another joke that goes on way too long and was never funny. The voiceover from the Lincoln commercial returns to announce the “Family Guy Christmas Special” and again asks “What are we thinking?” I’m thinking you’re having trouble filling out 22 minutes.

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Peter never fails to disappoint his unloved ones.

The family then moves to the lawn when Chris spots Peter’s car speeding towards home. They’re surprisingly giddy about him coming home, but he just speeds by spraying mud on them. Lois lets us know he’s heading for the bar, while Stewie points out he actually had to go out of his way to do this.

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This Norm MacDonald bit is probably the best sequence of the episode.

At the bar, Peter is enjoying some cold ones with his pals Quagmire (MacFarlane), Cleveland (Mike Henry), and Joe (Patrick Warburton) and watching Norm MacDonald (himself) read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas on television. MacDonald gets hung up on the word ‘Twas and keeps getting sidetracked as he tries to read the story. This is actually solid writing for MacDonald which makes me wonder if he did it himself or if the writers just know Norm well enough to do him right. The bit ends with Norm getting fired and goes into a joke about what Cleveland is doing for Christmas (it’s bad, and will pop up again). Peter then announces he wants to get home before the over-enthusiastic carolers arrive. He’s too late as the carolers enter and quickly overrun the bar, converting Quagmire in the process. They’re depicted almost like a singing horde of zombies. It’s not very funny, but at least it’s not offensive, and that’s basically the bar we’ve established here.

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A gag that’s pretty similar to one from the first Christmas special in which Lois keeps asking Peter to do stuff he doesn’t want to do.

At the Griffin home, we’re “treated” to a long fake commercial for those laser lights people project on their homes at Christmas. This feels like low-hanging fruit. The commercial doesn’t really make fun of the product and instead turns into a joke about blind people. Peter then arrives home and is eager to watch some Patrick Swayze movie, but before his ass hits the couch Lois informs him he has some chores to get done. He literally freezes in place in mid-sitting motion as she reads of a list that begins rather mundanely, and then ventures into absurd territories finishing with her requesting he move the house a few inches. Peter groans and asks if he can do some of it tomorrow, but Lois tells him he can’t because they’re volunteering at the homeless shelter. Peter is angry when he finds out he’s expected to go leading to a fight between the two and Chris fearful that the divorce is finally coming. Lois tells Peter she’s sick of his selfishness and then takes the kids to Newport to spend Christmas with her parents leaving Peter home alone with his Swayze movie. He then does a cut-away about taking a too full bath which doesn’t even come close to landing.

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That’s no Marley.

After a rather lovely exterior shot of the Griffen house in the snow, we find Peter inebriated on his couch watching a Patrick Swayze Christmas movie of some kind. He confesses his love for Swayze, then passes out. As he does, a burst of light fills the room and moves beside the Christmas tree. An ethereal voice beckons him to wake up. Peter opens his eyes and questions if the voice belongs to Santa, only to find out it belongs to Patrick Swayze (Don Swayze, Patrick’s real life brother, provides his voice). Peter is confused as this is 2017 and Swayze is long dead prompting Swayze to ask him if he ever saw Ghost? Swayze tells him he’s here to restore Peter’s Christmas spirit. Peter then goes into his Roadhouse gag from many episodes ago, and Swayze joins him.

After the break, Peter is shown gushing over the ghost of Patrick Swayze and even remarks he wants to run through his hair. Swayze indulges him and Peter is shown prancing like a deer through a brown meadow. He comes out of it to find himself at his home in the year 1970-80-90 when President Richard-Reagan-Clinton was in office. This is actually a clever joke at how these long-running animated series in which the characters are frozen in time have to keep reevaluating when they were born.

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“Look how thin I was!”

Inside the home, Peter and Patrick watch as a young Peter wakes up on Christmas morning. He plays with his new toys, and his mom brings him a plate of cookies for breakfast. Peter remarks how he really had the Christmas spirit back then and wonders how he lost it. He then directs our attention to his friend Holden who enters the room. Peter makes a comments that this is when he could talk, then ponders what happened. We then see him later in life at an airport trying to get to a bathroom. A little girl keeps shouting “Hold it in” and he eventually collapses  on Peter’s floor repeating the phrase until it becomes “Holden.” Peter tells Swayze this is a Game of Thrones joke and says he’d think it’s funny if he hadn’t died before the show premiered.

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Carter’s house is looking pretty nice. Why wouldn’t Peter want to spend Christmas here?

Patrick then takes Peter to the present, as he is playing the role of all of the ghosts apparently. First stop is weather man Ollie Willaims’ (Phil LaMarr) home who just yells at his kid. Next up is the home of Opie (Mark Hentemen), Peter’s co-worker with a severe speech impediment and possible brain injury that results in him mostly being unintelligible. He’s dressed up as Santa and gives his kids presents, then leaves and reappears with his kids apparently completely unaware it was him despite how preposterous that is. He then moves to the window and watches an old man reunite with his family as the theme from Home Alone plays. He then starts to sing it and subtitles appear that just say “Home Alone Theme – We think,” – isn’t making fun of brain damage fun? They then go to Cleveland’s house where Cleveland and his family revisit the joke from earlier of them listening to an R&B record in which it takes the African American singer a ridiculously long amount of time to get through a single syllable. It’s still not funny. Peter remarks that at least they’re together as a family, and Swayze informs him he knows one family that is not.

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Lois probably slept with the butler this night.

We’re taken to Newport, where the rest of Peter’s family is enjoying a meal from Boston Market. Lois’s Dad, Carter (MacFarlane), then mocks the family for doubting the quality of Boston Market, which I guess is a complement to the venerable chain? He then tells them they need to call his grandmother, Nana Pewderschmidt. He puts her on speaker phone and she’s speaking in German. I bet you know where this is going. Carter ends the call once she predictably starts complaining about Jews and then declares it’s time for figgy pudding. As they sit down for dessert, Meg questions her brother if they should call Dirt. Chris thinks she means Dad, but she corrects him that she means Dirt who she describes as some fat guy that sleeps with Lois. Lois is shown having an awkward exchange with a butler, and Peter informs Swayze that she’s using her flirty laugh. He tells Swayze it’s a subtle laugh, and you need to really know her to notice it. We then cut back to Lois who is now grabbing the butler by the face and demanding to see his penis. Cut back to Peter who is still trying to explain the subtlety of the situation. Before he can get more upset he shouts “Oh no, they got Joe!” and the carolers from earlier burst in and now they have both Joe and Quagmire in their ranks.

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I think we all expected this, or something like it, at some point.

Peter is then returned to his home, alone. He declares that Swayze hasn’t scared him, and he soon finds himself transported into the movie Ghost. It’s the infamous pottery wheel scene, only Peter isn’t playing Demi Moore’s part, but is actually the pottery. Swayze is there and tells him he’s now the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as he handles Peter’s malleable anatomy. And then we’re off to the future to find Quagmire, Joe, and Cleveland seated at the bar mourning the loss of their friend. Quagmire informs us that Lois had to sell everything to afford the funeral, and he unhappily displays the underwear he bought off of her. Peter is oblivious to who they’re mourning and for some reason assumes it’s a guy named Benjamin.

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Meet Lance. They don’t really do anything with him so there isn’t really a joke here. Lois just found someone a lot more attractive than Peter once he was out of the way.

Patrick then takes Peter to former Griffin household to drive the point home. Lois calls up to her husband to come downstairs pointing out how he’s out of frame. This allows Peter to get excited thinking he may have finally lost weight, but when a guy named Lance comes down instead he declares he must have finally worked up the courage to leave Lois. We now get to see the kids and the first to come downstairs is Chris who declares he’s going to Colombia. He doesn’t mean the school and means the country where he’ll be smuggling drugs in his rectum. Meg then comes downstairs and declares she’s going to Yale and Peter surprisingly gets ahead of the joke and knows she got a job with a lock maker. A very plump Stewie emerges to say he’s going to brown…some sausages for breakfast. Peter is happy his kids got Ivy League puns, but he wants to know where Brian is.

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Peter as a ghost dog fart. You read that correctly.

Swayze then takes Peter to a cemetery where a very old Brian is sleeping beside a tombstone. Peter still doesn’t get it and Patrick has to point out it’s his grave. The born date on the tombstone references the previous 1970-80-90 joke from earlier. He died five years before this moment when his Milf on a Shelf accidentally set his Christmas tree on fire with her cigarette. A ghost Peter then appears and we find out that this ghost is actually a dog fart. You see, people who lose their Christmas spirit and then die become dog farts for all eternity. He then disappears, but Swayze assures him he’ll reappear soon since Brian is a dog of 13. And sure enough, the ghost of Peter does return and warns Peter about his fate. More ghosts appear and they all have something gross to tell him about Brian’s rectum. They surround Peter and spin around causing him to collapse to the ground crying out he doesn’t want this to be.

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Peter using Instagram porn stars as a way of telling what day it is definitely works. He’s the type of guy that probably sends lots of awkward messages to such girls on a daily basis.

Peter then finds himself back at home on Christmas morning. He checks his phone to find that all of the porn girls he follows on Instagram are wearing Santa hats in their pictures which is how he knows it’s Christmas. He names a few of them and refers to them as thirst traps.

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There’s a pair of additional surprises under the tree this year.

We then return to Newport where everyone is opening presents. Meg declares everything is perfect, while Lois seems a bit blue. Chris informs us that every time Carter bends over they can see his genitals which horrifies Stewie. Peter then bursts in looking a bit disheveled carrying a sack full of hastily bought presents. Meg reacts by calling him Dirt, so that clears up some confusion from earlier. He distributes a bunch of awful gifts which his family actually enjoy. Meg is shocked to be given a gift of any kind from her father, who apparently has never bought her anything. Peter and Lois embrace, and then the ghost of Patrick Swayze appears. Peter asks him if there’s anything he can do for him, and Swayze says “Well, there’s one thing in Heaven that Chris Farley won’t do for me,” which leads into Peter and Swayze reenacting the Saturday Night Live bit where he and Farley danced to “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend” as part of the infamous Chippendales sketch.

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This pretty much had to happen.

As the two gyrate and Peter loses his clothes, we see the rest of the family can’t see Patrick or hear the music. Lois instructs them all to just keep opening presents as Peter will eventually tire himself out. Carter then resumes handing out the gifts and everyone grimaces when he bends over. The licensed track returns as we move to an exterior shot of the Pewderschmidt compound. In an effort to fill time, a subtitle appears confessing the writers unironically enjoy the song. They then confirm this is being done to fill time as the episode ends with a festive rendition of “Jingle Bells” over the credits.

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The family’s reaction to Peter’s nearly nude dancing seems a bit overdone. This type of behavior from Peter should be expected.

I had the lowest expectations going into this one. Not only is it an episode of Family Guy, but it’s also a parody of A Christmas Carol. That should mean disaster, but it’s mostly fine. The vast majority of the jokes don’t land. This is a show that believes in quantity over quality as it’s just joke after joke after joke. And there’s no subtlety to any of it. Some of the jokes made me groan, but there were at least a few clever ones. I don’t think anything made me laugh out loud, but there were at least a few that made me smile. The show loves returning to jokes from earlier in the episode and even from previous episodes. This approach can be rewarding, but when the joke wasn’t very funny to begin with it doesn’t really work.

One thing I did enjoy was the use of Patrick Swayze. I was a bit alarmed when he showed up initially as I expected some really tasteless dead celebrity jokes to follow, but they really didn’t go for any of that. Since he was voiced by Swayze’s brother, it’s reasonable to assume that nothing in this episode would have offended the actor. It felt more like a love letter to Swayze as the character of Peter has shown an affection for him in the past. The ending scene of the duo reenacting the Chippendale’s sketch from SNL was actually more sweet than funny, which I enjoyed. It was a rather nice way to end the episode.

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This is a rather fun shot for the episode to go out on.

Family Guy has never been a show that’s all that enjoyable to actually look at, but I do like the seasonal settings in this one. The show has an honesty in how it portrays snow, which is more gray than white as it quickly gets dirtied by the environment. The homes of both the Griffins and Pewderschmidts are tastefully lit and the interior shots are warm and festive.

“Don’t Be a Dickens at Christmas” was merely all right. If I were to find myself in front of the TV watching a lineup of Christmas episodes on Adult Swim I’d probably watch this one. If I were actually seeking out a Christmas episode of Family Guy then I’d still definitely turn to the one from Season 3. My expectations for this show are so low at this point that when an episode doesn’t leave me disgusted it feels like a victory. I suppose that’s not a glowing recommendation, but you could do worse.

If you wish to catch this one on television this year, just keep your eyes open. Family Guy airs all of the time on cable and one of the many networks that airs the show will likely show this one multiple times this month. Of course, we’re getting late in the game here so if you missed it, well there’s always Hulu or various streaming services where you can either rent or buy the episode. I wouldn’t pay money for it, but I’m also not you. I suppose if you’re a fan of Family Guy then you probably like this episode just fine and you’re also probably irritated with me at this point. And that too, is fine.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in christmas, Television

December 2, 2019

Dec. 2 – Robot Chicken’s ATM Christmas Special

By Joe

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First broadcast December 16, 2012.

This is going to be a bit of an experiment. These recaps the last few years have basically focused on cartoons or live-action shows in which a story is told over some duration. I have so far avoided sketch shows, not purposely, but it’s definitely been in the back of my mind that doing a write-up in this style is a bit more challenging with a sketch show. It’s like reviewing or recapping several micro episodes of a TV show.

And when it comes to micro-sized entertainment, Robot Chicken should be the first show that comes to mind. Each episode is about 11 minutes long and contains an irregular number of sketches within that 11 minutes, some of which are literally just a few seconds long. Most of these are animated using stop-motion techniques with action figures in place of true puppets. Often these action figures require modification to animate in a more desirable fashion and when that is needed clay appears to be the medium of choice.

img_4139Robot Chicken is the brain child of Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. Green, as the most visible star associated with the brand, often handles a lot of the voicing duties and appears to get a lot of help from his Family Guy co-stars as well. Senreich, along with writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root, are veterans of ToyFare magazine which would often contain a comic in its pages called Twisted ToyFare Theater that is basically Robot Chicken in print form. Those sequences were popular, so it’s not that surprising to see the concept was taken to television where Robot Chicken has had a presence on Adult Swim since 2005.

Robot Chicken has been an ally to Christmas from almost day one. There have been several holiday editions of the show and some themes have sprung up. Santa Claus is a reoccurring character in these shorts and he is, I believe, always voiced by Seth MacFarlane. The show will often poke fun at classic holiday specials or just do something nerdy and goofy like pit Goku from Dragon Ball against a Christmas villain. There’s elements of shock humor to go along with the mostly nerd humor and shorts often get pretty violent for comedic purposes. It’s not a show for everyone, but it’s certainly aided by its brief runtime so when an episode misses the mark it’s usually not around long enough to truly stink up the place.

In 2012 Robot Chicken debuted its ATM Christmas Special, which I assume stands for Ass to Mouth because that’s the sort of humor the show goes for. Even though the show is on Adult Swim, it may have been difficult to actually get that phrase into the episode title and it’s a bit cheeky to make it an acronym anyway.

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Santa is pissed he nearly slept through Christmas.

The special opens in festive fashion with a parody of the old CBS Special logo that leads into a story about Santa (MacFarlane). It seems Santa forgot to schedule a wake-up call as he wakes up late for Christmas. It’s a scramble to the work shop where a ranting Santa takes his anger out on the poor elves. Santa is done as a doll, while most of the elves look like claymation and doll parts or something. The scramble continues to the sleigh and the reindeer are all messed up prompting Santa to fire the elf attendant, who cries, as Santa leaves.

 

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Someone got fired for that one.

From the skies Santa and his assistant chuck presents rather than do the usual infiltration thing. They’re depicted more like bombs as they cause all kinds of destruction, including claiming the life of a poor homeless man. A satellite image from space shows Earth with little tiny explosions dotting the surface. Santa makes it back to the North Pole relieved he pulled it off until he finds a lone present he missed. He vows to make the delivery and races to the home where it apparently belongs. I guess because time’s a factor, he opts to use the front door rather than the chimney, but it’s locked. As Santa pulls and wrestles with the door knob, the scene changed to reveal this is all a nightmare and Santa is at home in bed choking his wife. Some elves race in and use a cattle prod on him to subdue him, causing Mrs. Claus (Elizabeth Banks) to declare she hates Christmas.

 

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And whoa this thing got dark pretty quick!

We then smash cut to the real opening credits, which largely depict the short we just watched, but everything is in red. There’s also some clips of shorts still to come as we head into our next skit.

 

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This guy is angry at Jewish people for making him work on Christmas. That’s the joke.

A Chinese man is shown on the phone at a restaurant. He’s talking to his wife, but we only hear his side of the conversation. He’s bemoaning that he can’t come home and celebrate Christmas because a Jewish family is there and is just hanging out after their meal. We can see them at a table in the background. The man then declares he hates Jews, which is apparently the punchline of the skit.

 

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Well isn’t this a nice holiday setting!

We then jump to a living room setting on Christmas. A delighted Christmas tree (Henry Winkler) is busy declaring how lucky it is to have been adopted by this family. It’s a happy, warm, Christmas setting that ends with a little girl hugging the tree. Then we cut to a woman dragging the browning tree out the front door. It is completely unaware of what is about to happen and the woman tells the tree they’re going on vacation. It’s pretty excited and remains so as she leaves it on the curb for the garbage man to collect. As the tree is tossed into the truck, it insists it’s not garbage, but then it sees the father and daughter watching from a window as they close the curtains.

 

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On Robot Chicken, there are no happy endings.

The tree is taken to a toilet paper factory, and several weeks later we see what became of it. It’s toilet paper and sitting on a shelf in a grocery store. The image of the tree on the packaging is capable of talking and narrating the thoughts of the still sentient plant as it openly hopes it mostly gets used for boogers or urine. Then it recognizes something offscreen, and it’s the mom and daughter of the family who threw it away. It’s actually happy to see them, until the mother declares they’re having Indian food for dinner.

 

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Check it out! He had a big foot! Laugh!

We then get a brief skit of some kids looking at the stockings over the fireplace. One is huge, and they declare “No fair,” as the camera pans to reveal it belongs to Big Foot Danny, a kid with a really big foot.

 

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Well, at least he’s not choking her this time.

Back to Santa, who is seated in a lounge chair with an apparent broken leg. Mrs. Claus comes in to give him his Christmas present:  a candy cane (get it?). Santa is excited and he stands up to test it out and, finding it’s an actual oversized candy cane, collapses to the ground as the cane snaps apart. He then scolds the woman for making a cane out of candy and expecting it to work. The skit ends with Santa wondering if he broke his tibia while I worry for the well-being of Mrs. Claus.

 

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I guess Justin Bieber jokes were still funny in 2012. I guess.

In a warmly lit den by the fire decorated for Christmas, Justine Bieber (Lucas Grabeel) prepares to play us a song. He’s joined by Santa on guitar and a snowman on drums. He then rips into the song, which is probably titled “Fuck Christmas” because that’s what he mostly says. It’s an aggressive, angry, tune that gets its point across. The scene ends with two executives watching this unfold. One remarks they should have just stuck with David Cassidy, while the other enthusiastically declares that Bieber is a true artist.

 

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It’s Santa vs Jason Bourne! The fight you never wanted!

We’re then taken to a more desolate location. It’s Jason Bourne, a convincing looking doll, and he turns his head dramatically to spot someone closing in from behind. It’s Santa Claus, and there are no words spoken as Santa pulls a sharpened candy cane from his coat. The two fight, and the choreography is actually pretty intense. Bourne gets the better of the Kringle though, ending the fight by stabbing Santa with his own candy cane.

 

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How did you expect it to end? The guy is beyond elderly!

Santa is then shown laying on the ground coughing up blood. He remarks that Jason is a hard man to find and pulls out a Christmas present. Okay. Bourne takes it as Santa bleeds out and dies and seems to react enthusiastically to receiving a copy of the board game Parcheesi.

 

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Hey kid, I know how you feel as I had the same reaction to this joke.

A quick skit of a Lego family at Christmas runs. The kid seems unhappy to have received another block for Christmas and reacts with mock enthusiasm. That’s it.

 

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What are you supposed to get a ninja for Christmas? Robot Chicken seeks to answer that very question.

At G.I. Joe headquarters, some of the Joes are sitting around trying to figure out what to get Snake Eyes for Christmas. These appear to be actual toys from the toy line. They don’t know what to get him because he never tells them what he wants (he’s mute, in case you were unaware) and we see a cut-away to last Christmas when they just gave him a coffee mug that says “I Heart Ninjas.”

 

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Storm Shadow has never looked better.

Scarlett (Banks) declares she knows what Snake Eyes really wants, and we cut to the Joes surrounding a building in a snowy environment. They enter and it’s revealed to be the home of Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes’ rival. He’s in his usual white ninja suit, but also is sporting a pink bath robe. The Joes attack, but they get their asses handed to them.

 

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The question remains unanswered.

On Christmas morning, Duke (Skeet Ulrich) approaches a seated Snake Eyes and tosses his present at him. It’s another mug. Meanwhile, we can see the rest of the Joes have all been beaten up pretty bad and look rather miserable. Snake Eyes, even though he’s wearing a mask, seems perplexed by the hostile treatment.

 

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Nothing says “Christmas” quite like Kano.

We’re whisked away to a store where a woman is in the embarrassing position of having her credit card declined. The clerk can’t do anything about it as she bemoans how tough life has been for her and her two boys since their father passed away. The man behind her overhears the clerk say her name, Mrs. Cage, and it causes him to remember. The man is Kano, of Mortal Kombat fame, and a thought bubble appears over his head showing him rip the heart out of Johnny Cage post match.

 

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I knew he was an asshole the moment I first laid eyes on him!

Feeling guilty, Kano helps the woman to her car and accepts an offer to join them for Christmas dinner. At the Cage residence, he uses his somersault maneuver to hang Christmas lights, and when saying “Grace,” he puts on a yamaka as a joke and everyone has a good laugh. As he helps Mrs. Cage put the kids to bed, he confesses he can’t hide from her anymore. He apologizes for what happened to Johnny and gives the widow a gift. She opens the box and is confused. Kano claims it’s Johnny’s heart, but Mrs. Cage informs him it’s not a heart. We then smash cut to Johnny Cage on a beach in a tropical environment relaying how Kano ripped out his appendix by mistake to a group of bikini-clad women. He then grabs one and the skit ends before the orgy can commence.

 

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Possibly Robot Chicken’s most popular character is The Nerd.

In our next sketch it’s Christmas morning at The Nerd’s (Green) home. He awakens excitedly in a festive red onesie and races downstairs only to find that Christmas has been stolen. His parents give him the bad news, but he takes it fairly well. That is until his mom reveals during “Pretend Christmas” what the thief made off with:  a 1985 AFA Graded Snake Eyes action figure.

 

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I like where this is going…

Despondent, The Nerd takes to the streets to find the whole neighborhood has been victimized. He finds a group of people forming a circle and one man explains it’s a vengeance circle as they’re asking The Spirit of Vengeance to violently punish the asshole who stole their stuff. He’s then told by another that he’s mistaken and this is the wrong circle, the vengeance one is nearby. This forces things to click inside The Nerd’s brain. What Christmas story involves a burglary followed by the victims holding hands and singing? He then turns around to gaze at a nearby mountain where the thief is still in the process of getting away!

 

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When you’re down and out and in need of encouragement, look to Larry Hama.

The Nerd heads off after him, and as he climbs the mountain he bemoans his choice in clothing. As he ponders giving up, he looks to Snake Eyes for help. Since Snake Eyes is mute, he doesn’t offer anything encouraging when he appears in a cloud above The Nerd’s head. Larry Hama appears though in a similar vision to encourage him to continue. The line he feeds The Nerd is corny and unoriginal and The Nerd calls him out on it. In a bit of self-deprecation, Hama remarks how he spent his career writing comics that were essentially toy commercials and is able to spur The Nerd along by threatening to read him an excerpt from his unfinished novel.

 

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He really is a stupid looking Grinch.

The Nerd makes it to the summit where he confronts the thief – The Grinch! He moans when he sees it’s not even the good Grinch from the cartoon, but the Jim Carrey Grinch. Grinch (Green) tells him it doesn’t matter, but then The Nerd uses his anger over the film ruining the “greatest cartoon ever” to motivate him to kill this Grinch. Declaring he doesn’t care about his presents, he simply kicks the sleigh (with Grinch in it) off the mountain. He then turns around to see Max whom he refers to him as the little Stockholm Syndrome dog. Max has something for The Nerd, his precious Snake Eyes toy! Only now it has teeth marks which are sure to affect the grading.

 

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And now he’s dead and likely about to get raped.

Back at street level, one of the neighborhood men drags the Grinch’s corpse over and happily displays it. The same man from earlier rejoices that The Spirit of Vengeance answered their prayers. Another man then questions if The Spirit of Vengeance would like them to rape the corpse. The first man declares why not? – it’s Christmas! And that’s how our special ends; with a rape joke.

 

Robot Chicken’s ATM Christmas Special is certainly a sight to behold. The animation is pretty great, even when the source “puppets” are old G.I. Joe toys. I like the little through-lines with reappearing Santa throughout and the G.I. Joe sketch being sort of referenced further in the finale. The big Grinch parody was saved for last and it feels like the right spot for it. I like the self-realization of The Nerd becoming aware that he’s in a Christmas special, and even though internet nerd anger is pretty stupid, I did take some joy in this character hating on the Jim Carrey/Ron Howard Grinch while praising the superior Chuck Jones cartoon.

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There’s a tendency of the show to rely on shock humor, like a homeless guy getting decapitated by a Christmas present, but when that’s your thing it’s hard to remain shocking.

Some of the other stuff hasn’t aged super well. The “I Hate Jews” sketch, in particular, doesn’t play so well. It’s brushed off because a lot of the folks involved with this show are Jewish, and I suppose someone in a similar situation could empathize to a point, but it still felt like poor taste and just shock humor. And rape jokes are just kind of “meh” at this point. It’s another line that’s supposed to create a laugh out of shock, but the show is often so crass that it loses the ability to be shocking. I expected those people to want to desecrate the corpse of The Grinch thus negating the punch of the remark.

 

This special is loaded with guest stars who all do a pretty nice job. MacFarlane is involved with the show so often that it hardly feels right to even consider him a guest star at this point. Elizabeth Banks plays a few characters, and I was surprised to hear the voice of Henry Winkler. Larry Hama’s part isn’t acted all that well, and it was clearly shot on the cheap (maybe even wth a cell phone or something), but his willingness to basically poke fun at his own career helped to sell the moment.

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Henry Winkler’s Christmas tree is the type of character the show’s dark blend of humor works best with. Although the sketch still ended with a poop joke.

The stuff with Santa was mostly enjoyable, though the Bourne sketch wasn’t particularly funny (even though it looked great). I’m not much of a fan of G.I. Joe so that sketch fell a little flat for me. I did find the Mortal Kombat one pretty amusing, if a tad predictable, and the Christmas Tree was tragically funny as well. Overall, there were some laughs found in this tidy little Christmas special and they mostly outweigh the duds. It doesn’t stick around long enough to suck, and by positioning the best short at the end it actually does leave you wanting more. Had it ended on G.I. Joe or the stupid Bieber song I probably would feel different.

If you want to catch this special this year just keep an eye out on Adult Swim. They’re practically guaranteed to air this and the many other Robot Chicken Christmas episodes at some point this month, often even reserving some for Christmas Eve.

 

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December 22, 2017

Dec. 22 – Johnny Bravo: ‘Twas the Night

By Joe

TwasTheNight-JBThis thing kicked off this year with the What A Cartoon! original George & Junior’s Christmas Spectacular. The comedic bear duo failed to make a lasting impression and faded away from sight. Johnny Bravo, on the other hand, debuted via the same show, but to a much warmer reception earning him his own series. The character was created by Van Partible and some guy named Seth MacFarlane was a writer for the show. Johnny Bravo was essentially a modern guy with the personality of a 50s greaser who talked like Elvis. He wants to help the ladies and be kind of a stereotypical macho man. I guess he’s kind of like Uncle Jesse from Full House, except he thinks he’s as strong as a super hero and probably not as bright as the frontman for the Rippers. It honestly wasn’t a character that resonated with me right off the bat. I guess I just preferred child protagonists or animals in my cartoons, but it was a success and I think it was voted the #2 cartoon of the year by viewers of the What A Cartoon! show, behind only Dexter’s Laboratory which also got its own series.

“‘Twas the Night” is a cartoon from the show’s fifth episode. It, for some reason, premiered on August 4th, 1997 as the third segment in the half hour show. Why they chose to a premiere a Christmas episode in August is possibly due to many delays the show supposedly had in production. It’s possible it was meant to air closer to Christmas, or maybe even earlier for Cartoon Network’s then annual Christmas in July, but was ready when others were not. Or maybe they just didn’t care, since the broadcast lists online don’t appear to contain many gaps during the first season.

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I can’t tell if Johnny is supposed to be sitting on the roof or standing awkwardly.

The episode opens on a scenic look of a bridge and a city. There’s a narrator spinning a rendition of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” but with different words, and in a familiar voice. It’s Adam West! Oh, how we miss you Adam. He would guest star as himself on a later episode. The scene takes us to Johnny’s house where he’s preparing for bed and needs to silence his mama’s snoring. While laying in bed he hears a sound outside, he heads for the roof and spies a burglar. No, Johnny! It’s Santa! We cry out, but the thick-headed blond can’t hear us through the television and takes the poor bastard out. Santa has a busted arm as a result, and he’s pretty ticked, but also understanding, since he knows Johnny is an idiot. That and this Santa only has six reindeer, so Johnny was justified in thinking he was a fake. The problem is now he can’t fulfill his obligation to the children of the world, so Johnny is going to have to take his place.

Johnny hopes for cash and chicks in return for doing Santa’s job, but Santa threatens him with violence so he puts on the coat and the hat and takes off through the night. He screws up the names of the reindeer, then questions where the freak with the red nose is. We get a sort-of cut-away depicting laser wielding bad guys that look like Cobra rejects doing battle with a laser-nosed reindeer at the North Pole. The blasts even reach Johnny in the sky, but he pays them no mind. He whips out the list of gifts and it contains nothing but Senators all scheduled to receive coal. Johnny Bravo getting political! Their names are also almost all references to Hanna-Barbera and Warner properties so it’s worth a pause or two to read them. One senator is actually receiving a gift:  Senator Puffnstuff.

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At least the suit fits.

Johnny sets to delivering the gifts. The mayor is the first to receive his, new underwear, and he prances around happily in his living-room until his wife knocks him out with a rolling pin, “You promised me no cavorting!” He next visits little Suzie and squeezes down her chimney. He eats the cookies and drinks the milk while little Suzie is sleeping peacefully in an easy chair, “She’s kind of cute when her mouth isn’t flapping.” He then visits Jungle Boy in the jungle and delivers a new loin cloth and makeup for the gorilla girls. The gorilla king gets coal and Johnny calls him Magilla, and he’s right to take that as an insult. He then visits a hibernating Cronos the bear and gives him an alarm clock, which goes off almost immediately forcing Johnny to scramble out fast. Then he pops in on Scooby-Doo and gives him a slip of paper for speech therapy with Cindy Brady. I always thought he spoke pretty well considering he’s a dog and all.

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And he can also squeeze down a chimney. 

Johnny continues on through the night, and has a near miss with a space shuttle that’s woefully animated as it kind of bends in flight. He leaves gifts for a sleeping pair of twins, Tim and Tom. He’s depicted going all over the world causing him to question how Santa stays fat considering the work is hard. I guess working hard for one night can’t make up for all of the milk cookies throughout the year, Johnny. As Johnny gets to the bottom of the list he realizes he has one gift left to deliver:  Bunny Bravo, also known as mama. The problem is he has no gifts left – he must have delivered her gift to the wrong house. We then cut back to the mayor and his wife finding some woman’s garment and she accuses him of cavorting with some woman named Bunny. He tries to tell her he’s not, but gets another rolling pin to the noggin for his honesty. She’s rather abusive.

Johnny returns home, sad to not have a gift for his precious mama. As he sits sheepishly on the roof, he hears his mother cry out with joy from inside the house. He dives down the chimney and sees she’s sporting a new diamond ring. It says it’s from Santa, but she thinks it’s from Johnny. What a weird thing to give your mama. There’s also another gift and it’s for Johnny – a new pair of boxing gloves and mouthpiece. As Johnny admires his gift, Santa appears in the window to angrily remind him he didn’t forget how the night began, “Merry Christmas, you pinhead. Round two is next year!”

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These Hanna-Barbera folks love cameos.

“‘Twas the Night” is a pretty simple little cartoon short that goes the predictable route of casting its protagonist as Santa. Really, that feels like the number 3 Christmas cartoon cliche at this point behind parodies/adaptations of A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. The narration is carried throughout the short and Adam West delivers all of his lines with great timing. He sounds sincere, even when he’s saying something funny, “And mama was sleeping, you can tell by the snoring. After four times today, Jimmy Stewart gets boring,” and It’s a Wonderful Life’s title card is depicted on the television set to complete the joke. Because of the narration, Johnny is sort of just there and he gets in a line every so often, but aside from the “Magilla” comment I didn’t find them memorable. I did like how Santa was depicted as professional and understanding of what happened. He can’t just blow-up at Johnny because he needs to focus on the task at hand, but he’s also pretty pissed and he isn’t just going to forget that Johnny Bravo broke his arm on Christmas. The animation is kind of cheap and minimalist. Johnny moves with quick actions that don’t require a lot of frames, but that’s a stylistic choice. The backgrounds though are quite static and droll. The best I can say for the show is it’s bright and colorful, and the Rudolph bit was funny.

If you like Johnny Bravo then you probably like this short well enough, even if it feels like a novelty due to the inserting of the poem. I love Adam West, so I’m inclined to at least give this one a passing grade. It may show up on Boomerang this year, but it also may not. I’d be surprised if Cartoon Network bothered to air it as they don’t do much with their legacy programs. Season one was released on DVD in 2010, and so far it’s the only season to receive a Region 1 release on DVD and it’s actually still easily obtainable so I guess they still print the things. For whatever reason, probably poor sales of season one, none of the other seasons have been released or even scheduled for release. If you like Johnny Bravo then you probably already have it at this point, and if you don’t well then I guess you stopped reading about a thousand words ago.

 

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