What’s next for a video game that looks like a cartoon? Why, a cartoon! Novel concept, huh? Cuphead is a 2017 video game created by Jared and Chad Moldenhauer heavily inspired by animation from the 1930s. It’s basically a hand drawn video game and a fully playable one, at that. It made waves when it was first unveiled and seemed to instantly become one of the most anticipated video games in recent memory. It attracted so much attention (and additional funding) that the Moldenhauers and Studio MDHR decided to expand upon the game from its original boss rush premise to something closer to a full-fledged platforming experience with the addition of run n’ gun levels. Upon release it received quite a great deal of praise for its animation and a lot of notoriety for its punishing difficulty. The game has since been released across several platforms and also received a downloadable add-on, Delicious Last Course, which also received a physical release alongside the main game.

Once Cuphead was a bonafide success, it was basically a no-brainer to commission an animated series. Netflix, along with King Features Syndicate, did just that with The Cuphead Show! releasing in 2022 on the streaming platform. It has since released three “seasons” totaling 36 episodes, though in typical Netflix fashion, all of the seasons were part of the same initial episode order. We’re now two years removed from the finale airing without word of another batch of episodes being ordered so I guess that’s all she wrote, but with a streaming show it’s not uncommon for years to lapse in between seasons.

The show is about Cuphead (Tru Valentino) and brother Mugman (Frank Todaro), two rubber-hosed miscreants with cups for heads who get into mischief all throughout Inkwell Isles where they live. Early on, they get on the bad side of the Devil himself with Cuphead losing a game in which the cost was his very soul, so the boys have to spend a great deal of time (and episodes) avoiding the Devil at all costs. The show is animated with modern technology, the puppet-like stuff utilized by most, despite the video game being hand drawn. Despite that, it does a reasonable job of approximating the look of a hand drawn cartoon and is one of the best looking animated shows on Netflix (or pretty much any streamer, for that matter). Like the game, there are filters applied and some desaturation techniques to make the show look aged while the soundtrack (provided by Ego Plum) is appropriately jazzy. There is a throughline to the show involving the plot surrounding Cuphead’s deal with the Devil and the ghostly Chalice (Grey DeLisle) character, but for the most part episodes can be consumed in a stand-alone fashion. This helps to make The Cuphead Show! feel almost like a relic in this age of serialized story-telling, even in kids shows.

As part of the third batch of episodes, we received not one, but two Christmas episodes. This one, “Holiday Tree-dition” is the first of those two and the shorter of the two. Most of the episodes are half episodes while some are stretched out to a half hour or longer. It’s quite common for cartoons with that type of setup to devote two segments to Christmas, but with this episode we’re looking at a pretty typical running time for the show. The other one starring the Devil gets the double-length treatment.

The show begins with the standard intro. When I first booted this program up with my kids, I was surprised the show didn’t just use the theme from the video game, but after hearing this new intro I could see why. This one pops. It’s jazzy, bouncy, and fun and one of those intros that is rarely skipped in my house. The episode is introduced with its own lovely title card before we’re shown the outside of Elder Kettle’s home where Cupman and Mugman reside. The opening shot is done with real assets. They’re models and I assume this is an homage to what the Fleischer Studios used to do back in the day where they’d have a live-action setting and animate over it.

Inside the giant teapot we find Elder Kettle (Joe Hanna) in his cozy confines welcoming us with a jaunty Christams tune! Mugman and Cuphead are going to join in on the fun as the trio sings an original diddy about Christmas trees. It would seem getting the tree each year is a big deal in this house and as the trio sing they put on cold weather clothing, Elder Kettle grabs an axe, and they head out the door to go get their tree. I feel inclined to point out now that the inhabitants of Inkwell Isle are a mix of anthropomorphized animals and objects. Cuphead and Mugman are somewhat unique in that they have human bodies, albeit toony ones, with a cup for a head that’s filled with what looks to be milk. Elder Kettle, is just a giant kettle with rubber hose arms and legs. I don’t know if his relationship with the boys is ever explained. He’s a fatherly figure, though more grandfatherly I suppose, but I don’t know if there’s a mother in the equation here.

Anyway, as the trio marches off to get a tree, Elder Kettle starts to drift back out of scene. Cuphead and Mugman soon notice he’s gone, and when they turn around they see him going back into the house. They run over and bang on the door and Elder Kettle answers. It would seem he’s decided that he no longer wants to be held responsible for the Christmas tree. He’s retiring, so to speak, and entrusts the boys with the task. Now, even though he was seen carrying an axe moments ago, Elder Kettle is not going to entrust the boys with actually cutting down a tree. Instead, he gives them a ten dollar bill and instructs them to go to Porkrind’s and buy one. Porkrind is going to ask for ten, but Elder Kettle instructs his boys to only offer five bucks. He seems to suggest that they’ll enjoy having some change leftover, but then also tells them in no uncertain terms that they are to come home with change so I guess he didn’t intend for them to do anything with it.

Cuphead and Mugman then head to Porkrind’s as instructed. There we see Porkrind (Cosmo Segurson) overseeing his tree lot and reenforcing that all of the trees cost ten bucks. Porkrind, if you could not guess it for yourself, is a big pig-man with an eyepatch. I guess you would not have assumed the eyepatch part, but probably the pig part. Everyone at the lot seems fine with the price, but that’s not going to stop Mugman from attempting to haggle. Cuphead stands behind him as both a supportive voice and to play “the kid” in the relationship while Mugman is like the bartering father. He suggests to Porkrind that five dollars would be a fair price for a tree and to add to the verbal suggestion he holds up five fingers. Since Mugman is a cartoon character, he only possesses four digits on each hand so he has to use two hands to do so. Plus, since he’s wearing mittens, his fingers have to rip through the mittens for added emphasis. Porkrind seems unwilling to haggle though and tells Mugman the price was ten bucks last year, it’s ten bucks this year, and he’s even willing to say they’ll be ten bucks next year. That doesn’t stop Mugman from trying as he does the typical bad barterer maneuver of just going up a dollar on his offer hoping Porkrind is willing to give a little. He does not. Actually, he ups the price to fifteen. Mugman can’t believe it, and then some little light bulb guy (Keith Ferguson) accepts the fifteen dollar offer. Mugman tries to negotiate back to ten, but there’s a problem: Porkrind is all out of trees.

With no tree, but still ten bucks in their pocket, the boys decide there is only one maneuver left: cry. They throw a fit as Porkrind heads into his trailer fearing their Christmas is ruined, only for the pig-man to pop back out. No, he’s not feeling sympathetic for them or anything, instead he just suggests they cut down their own tree. Naturally, to do so they’ll need an axe. I guess going back to the house for the one Elder Kettle had is out of the question, so instead they opt to buy one from Porkrind. The price? Ten bucks!

Even though the boys managed to spend all of Elder Kettle’s money, when they were only supposed to spend five, and also still lack a tree, they seem rather happy as they march off into the woods. Cuphead is even swinging the axe around irresponsibly, but Mugman is apparently used to such as he manages to duck every swing and still keep a smile on his face. As they stroll though the woods, they walk by various trees which Mugman dismisses for pretty obvious reasons since they’re all pretty ugly. One tree which has the idyllic Christmas tree shape is dismissed as being too desperate because it was also juggling snow balls. The boys begin to feel like they’ll never find a good tree, which of course occurs just as they’re walking by a perfectly good tree.

With the tree found the only thing left to do is cut it down. This presents a problem because, like brothers often do, the two boys fight over who gets to actually wield the axe and chop this sucker down. As they fight over it, the axe gets thrown by accident and it cleanly slices through the trunk of the tree. That is a damn fine axe. You can complain all you want about Porkrind’s pricing, but at least he’s selling a quality product. The tree then falls over and lands on the boys, but they emerge from the pine looking no worse for ware. Instead, they have a different problem. The tree has started to move, and soon they find themselves running down the side of a mountain in pursuit of a runaway Christmas tree!

The boys have little trouble in catching up with the tree, but as they run alongside it and try to jump on, something always gets in the way be it a big boulder or a random snowman popping out of the ground. Both finally make a jump for it, but they collide in midair. When the two hit the ground they’re rolling and soon end up in a massive snowball before getting smashed apart. Now they’re running, but Cuphead can’t locate the tree. That’s because it’s sliding behind them, but faster than they can run, and it takes them both out. This works out though because now they’re on the tree, but it’s still racing down the hill in an out of control manner. The good news is the hill finally ends, the bad news is that it ends in a cave full of sleeping bears.

At first, the bears appear like they’ll remain sleeping and it will fall on the boys to somehow get the tree out of there quietly, but before they can do anything the bears all suddenly wake up with a roar! From outside the cave, we see the tree get tossed out. Then we hear the sound of pummeling before a bear emerges holding both Cuphead and Mugman by the back of their shorts. He gives them the boot, but they end up landing on their tree which is sliding somewhere. Cuphead remarks that those bears were pretty mad while Mugman sees an opportunity for a pun and says “Yeah, we barely escaped with our lives!” As he does so he nudges Cuphead looking for some feedback on his joke, but Cuphead couldn’t hear him.

And that’s because they’re in a sawmill! Mugman doesn’t realize it at first as he keeps repeating his joke only for Cuphead to say “What?” Finally, they notice where they are just as a bunch of wild saw blades appear. There’s a pretty menacing, personified, furnace (Dave Wasson) full of saw blades that waits for them at the end of a conveyor belt. It’s laughing too, but whatever it planned to do it either doesn’t or we just don’t get to see it because we cut to an exterior shot of the mill. It literally spits the tree out, with the boys still atop it, and they sail into the night sky past a full moon holding each other and screaming.

The tree returns to Earth and is once again in motion. It’s all bent and mishapen and Mugman is in some serious distress over the quality of their tree. When he declares that things can’t possibly get any worse, Cuphead responds in the only way a cartoon character can, “Wanna bet?” It would seem they’re heading for a cliff and when the tree goes off of it, it hangs in the air a second allowing the boys to scream before it drops. When it hits the ground it does so with a bounce. It pops open, like an umbrella, and returns to its former glorious shape! The boys aren’t out of the woods yet though (well, technically they are out of the woods, but you know what I mean) as the bounce and pop of the tree has basically turned it into a rocket sailing through the sky.

At home, Elder Kettle opens the front door and wonders aloud where the boys are. That’s their cue to come rocketing in like Goofy after the ski jump! Elder Kettle is barely able to jump out of the way as the tree crashes through the front door. When he peaks his…head…into the house, we see Cuphead has crashed into the piano while Mugman landed on the stool. As for the tree, it’s right where it’s supposed to be in its tree stand in the middle of the room.

The trio look on with awe and it immediately transitions to a decorated tree. Elder Kettle announces that the boys get to do the honor of lighting it. He holds up two ends of an electrical chord and the boys cheerfully plug it in. The tree lights up a glorious hue, but then the cable sparks. The spark travels down the chord leaving blackness in its wake until it arrives at the tree and the whole thing goes up with a puff of smoke leaving a smoldering husk behind.

Once again, Cuphead and Mugman are reduced to tears. As they cry into Elder Kettle’s…waist?..the two wail that they ruined Christmas. Now is the moment where some traditional Christmas special wisdom is brought in. Elder Kettle tells the boys that Christmas isn’t about a tree, it’s about who you spend the holidays with. He adds that whatever tree they have will be just fine. Then he adds, bluntly, “Even if it is burnt to a crisp.” The trio then rejoin in their Christmas tree song and march once around the tree before standing and looking upon it together. We get an external shot of the house all lit up for Christmas and that’s the end.

This holiday edition of The Cuphead Show! is plenty fine. It’s just a fun romp about the two main characters setting out in search of the perfect tree to keep their family tradition alive and encountering problems along the way. Its a silly, absurd, sort of cartoon with a lot of fun quips and visual delights. It’s not the most inventive and it’s pretty easy to predict the next story bit as the cartoon moves along, even the non-traditional ending felt like a foregone conclusion. The only real surprise was that there was no payoff for Elder Kettle’s threats about not returning with change. I was expecting a Home Alone style ending where we hear the outraged scream of Elder Kettle looking for his five bucks before smashing to credits.

Even if this feels almost by-the-numbers for a silly Christmas adventure, “Holiday Tree-ditions” manages to entertain with its audio and visual presentation. I really love the cast for this show and feel like they found the perfect voices for both Cuphead and Mugman. There’s also a smattering of Christmas music in the background as well as a lovely, fast-paced, instrumental version of the Christmas tree song which accompanies the duo’s journey down the mountain on their tree. The animation is really expressive and this is the sort of cartoon that rewards people like me who pause it constantly in search of good screen caps because it allows for one to appreciate all of the facial expressions in use. My only critique of the visual presentation is that maybe we should have seen Cuphead and Mugman’s condition degrade throughout the episode since they do get smacked around pretty good.

If you would like to check out this episode of The Cuphead Show! then I think your only avenue is via Netflix. I’m not sure if it’s been sold outside of the streaming giant or not. If the episode seems a bit too light for your taste, then you could always check out the other Christmas episode from the show which is much longer. Maybe we’ll even cover it here very soon…