Jolly Thoughts on Recently Experienced Festive Media!

Happy Night Before the Night Before Christmas!  I know this holiday season is probably very different, but as if to make up for the whole... everything else, 2020 brought us a wealth of reasonably good to excellent new holiday movies and specials.  And I caught up on a few specials that are new to me.  And so, some (mostly) jolly thoughts:

"Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas" - Whatever you're imagining from a Mariah Carey Christmas Special, I can assure you this isn't going to have any shocking surprises. 
But I liked it!  The Peanuts animation in the middle is so cute and the songs are, of course, terrific.  I'm just surprised that this didn't happen back in the 90's.

"My Gift: A Christmas Special from Carrie Underwood" - Carrie sings a bunch of Christmas songs and, well, that's about it.  Singing kids, sparkles, and a general "We're trying to make the best of what we can control" feeling.  It's nice.

"A Holly Dolly Christmas" - Dolly Parton sings and tells stories and generally is awesome both here and in real life.  We respect a Queen.

"Jingle Jangle" - I love this so much!  The colorful steampunk aesthetic, the music, the magic; so far this is my favorite live-action Netflix Christmas movie.
It's also a movie where a guy creates a self-aware A.I. and immediately starts planning on making more to sell as toys for children.  For some reason, they don't really dwell on that part.

"Happiest Season" - I know there is a lot of Discourse over this one but I'm not going to go too crazy here.  It is a romantic comedy -a Christmas romantic comedy no less- and I enjoyed it!  If you know me at all, you know this is huge.

"It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie" - "Oh hey," I thought, "I haven't seen this Muppet holiday special!  I wonder why Freeform aired it only two times very early in the morning in between their mandated '700 Club' broadcasts?"
And then, dear readers, I watched it.
"Oh.  Oh no... 😰
"This is, at least the second-strangest movie I've ever seen where a supernatural being played by Woopie Goldberg helps a little guy get their life in order.  That club scene though, yiiiiikes..."

"Anna and the Apocalypse" - Like many zombie comedies, this is a lot of fun until it isn't.  It's also a holiday musical, and I kind of want to add some of the songs to my Weird Christmas Playlist.  Kind of.  Seems a little on the nose for this year.

"Hilda" - The brand new second season has an episode about the Yule Lads, so it counts.  Plus the whole series is basically Weird And/Or Obscure Nordic Folklore and is so beautiful and lovely and cozy!  I don't think we've had a good cozy animated series since "David the Gnome" back in the day.  It is, I believe the term is, Hygge as heck.
(But darn the cliffhanger ending... )

"Ziggy's Gift" - You can find this in the good old Thief Archive, which is appropriate because it is very obviously a Richard Williams joint.  It's nice; worth watching for the scene with the turkeys.

"Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special" - Maybe this is a bold proclamation but this is, I think, the best live-action Christmas special of my generation that does not contain Fraggles or John Legend.  Halfway through this rewatch I was ten times happier than I was when I started it.  (Not sure why Netflix is dropping it right before Christmas though.)

"Twelve-Hundred Ghosts" - You ever notice how many "Christmas Carol" parodies and straight adaptations there are?  It was almost inevitable that some mad genius would edit every one they could find into one coherent "megamix".  That genius is Heath Waterman and if you only have time for one Christmas movie off this list, make it this one.  On the one hand, it's genuinely moving.  On the other, it's hilarious (I'll never get over Mystical Buffalo Marley).  

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Art of the Day!  Happy Holidays everyone!

A Happy Holiday To All!

Here at the Blog, we've explored all kinds of holiday specials, the good, the bad, and the weird.  In all those years, one special evaded me.  It was a Christmas special I only saw once ever and remembered... not fondly.  Not fondly at all really.  In fact, I remember it being pretty bad.  The thing is, how bad was it, really?  It seemed this would forever remain a mystery.

Until this year.  The YouTube search finally came through.  Some wonderful crazy person (screennamed Ram Jam) finally uploaded it.  Cue the jingle bells and popcorn drum machine and sparkly synths, and journey back to 1990 with me, cause it's time for "Merry Merry Christmas".  It's time for the New Kids on the Block cartoon Christmas Episode!



So.  It's not just that this is as bad and weird as I remember from the one ever time I saw this during the one ever time it aired.  It's worse and weirder.  It's like they purposefully went out of there way to make a "Star Wars Holiday Special" for boy bands.  My favorite WTF moment is that moving "Biscuit in a Santa Claus suit stares out the car window contemplating the magic of a Christmas night in New York City as Jordan Knight falsettos the sh*t out of a sad/inanely cheesy Christmas song" scene.  All the songs are from the "Merry Merry Christmas" album which... is a Christmas album that exists.

I also think we can all agree that this is a (very very distant) second-best ever production involving Donnie Wahlberg where there is a sad weird kid and mystery everywhere and a character who turns out to be a ghost in the end.

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Since I know maybe three of you here are as thrilled about this crappy decades-old cartoon as I am, here is another present.  Over the summer my aunt, cousins, and friends all got puppies.  One day the three little sweeties all came over for a puppy party, and how could I resist?  So here are cute drawings of cute dogs!  Happy, merry, holly, jolly season's greetings here!

The New and Improved Christmas Movie/Special Bingo!

Happy Night Before the Night Before Christmas everyone!  I have a very special present for you: an actually usable version of my old Christmas Movie/Special Bingo game!

 Click here to play right in your browser!  Happy Holidays to all!

The 25 Weird Days of Christmas Day 25: Lotte Reiniger's "Post Early!" and "Star of Bethlehem"

Here's something genuinely, seriously cool for Christmas Day -- but still delightfully weird:



Now, I really hope I don't have to explain who Lotte Reiniger is here. While these shorts don't quite have the full majesty of her "Prince Achmed", they are very nice indeed.



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Art of the Day

You know what Father Christmas could use along with new boots? A giant robot buddy.



I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, safe, and creative new year.  See you in 2016; hopefully my cousins and I will be going to see "Star Wars" (again?) so hopefully we'll kick off the year with a review.

The 25 Weird Days of Christmas Day 24: "The Snowman and the Snowdog"

"The Snowman", the nearly wordless and gorgeous animated short based upon Raymond Briggs' entirely wordless picture book (graphic novel?  Sure, why not), is such a strange, melancholy Christmas special, isn't it?  It captures the weirdly bleak and lonely aspects of winter and the Christmas season in such a beautiful, haunting way.  It is a sad, lonely sort of Christmas special for sad, lonely children.

That's precisely why I love it; it's one of the many beautiful and slightly unsettling animated films that affected me deeply as a child and hit many of those exact same buttons as an adult. "Snowman" honestly stands with "Watership Down", "Brave Little Toaster", "The Mouse and his Child", "The Secret of NIMH" and "The Last Unicorn" as Animation That Knocked Me Right On My Ass And Permanently Changed My Entire Philosophy Of Life When I Was, Like, Five.  (Anyone who has been following my Internet shenanigans for a while is probably nodding sagely and thinking, "Yeah.  Yeah, Trish seeing those particular animations at a young age explains a lot.")

I had every reason in the world to assume that "The Snowman and the Snowdog", a new sequel short created for the 30'th anniversary of "The Snowman", would be, in so many words, not that.  I've never been so happy to be so very wrong.



It's so damn sad, but it's a worthy successor to the original.  You can find it and the original "Snowman" on Hulu.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Art of the Day

Ah, my feels!

The 25 Weird Days of Christmas Day 21: "Frosty's Winter Wonderland"

It's the Winter Solstice, and therefore a good time to accidentally create life according to this sequel to "Frosty the Snowman".



I'll invite somebody else to write an essay on the gender issues in this short.  What I'm wondering is why in the world this wasn't titled "Bride of Frosty"?

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Art of the Day
Time to add some Jack Frost fanart to the pile:

25 Weird Days of Christmas Bonus Feature: Holiday Special BINGO!

UPDATE: Go use this instead.

Oh, hai loose end! - Thoughts on "Banjo the Woodpile Cat"

I have to say, watching "Banjo the Woodpile Cat" after having watched each and every Don Bluth film in order (hit the "Don Bluth Month" tab below if you missed that series) is quite the experience. Originally conceived as a feature film, and later as a Christmas Special, "Banjo" is an approximately twenty minute long short animated film made by the independent Don Bluth studio in it's larval stage. Many of the animators still worked at Disney while making "Banjo" on the side. And -according to animation mythology and, if true, then it gives this cute little special a punk rock touch- "Banjo" was produced entirely in a garage.

As for the film itself, "Banjo" is sweet and cute and charming. It's also interesting to see all the similarities it has with later, better-known Bluth productions. We've got a cute little character who is separated from his family, gets into adventures in a big city, and makes some new friends who help him find his way home -- just like in "An American Tail". The overall look of the film, however, is more similar to "All Dogs Go To Heaven". The characters sometimes look very odd, and there is a similar montage of characters getting into mischief in the city. The film is also visually consistent with the Disney films Bluth and company had worked on.

Overall, "Banjo" is a fun little short with terrific animation and a simple, sweet story.

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Happy Holidays to everyone! I will likely start posting again the second week in January (I may be going on an adventure for New Year's). Have a great Solstice Holiday of Choice and a very happy New Year!

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Feederwatch Friday!

Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Downy Woodpecker 2
Black-capped Chickadee 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Northern Cardinal 1
House Sparrow 30

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Festive Thing of the Day!

First off, I found this on Best Week Ever, and they could only describe it as "A Kazaam wish come true!"



I will also share with you the traditional Christmas music of my people.



And finally, Comics Alliance has an annotated preview of the comic "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" in it's entirety. It is much, much better than it sounds.

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Art of the Day!

Here's a Christmas commission I had recently. I was simply told, "Make us an album cover with cats on it". This is what they got. Fortunately, they got it right away and loved it. (Plus you can't have enough Christmas Cats.)

Forgotten Christmas Specials 2010!!! Part Two

Once again, YouTube is proof that God loves 80's children and wants us to be happy:



Here it is: Ralph Bakshi's Christmas special for Nickelodeon, "Christmas Comes to Tattertown". Let me repeat that, because the full implications didn't hit me until a while later either: Ralph BAKSHI (long pause) CHRISTMAS special (another long pause) for NICKELODEON.

It turns out that it is way weirder than I remembered. It's a little obvious at times that this is a one-off special cribbed from a rejected series, but it's still a lot of fun. Look for all the references to 1930's cartoons (was that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Flip the Frog?)

Compared to that, "The Glow Friends Save Christmas" is going to seem a little... conventional. I don't have much to add to this except that Bashful Bug is even more useless here than she is in the Glow Friends cartoon, that whoever animated this has never even seen a deer, and that I only saw this once and kept confusing it with the more (in)famous "Christmas Comes to Pac-Land" in my foggy 80's kid memory.



Hey, speaking of "Christmas Comes to Pac-Land"! Here it is, with thanks to The Retroist blog. This can't be the first time you've ever seen this can it?



Here's another "I Saw It Once and Keep Confusing it in My Memory with a Different Thing I Saw Once" Christmas Special. This is "The Christmas Raccoons". I love how every Christmas special from Canada I see tries to be more crazy than the last one I saw. I still have no idea what the hell Cyril Sneer is, and I kept confusing this with "The Raccoons and the Lost Star".



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Festive Thing of the Day!

Yeah, technically both of the two most recent posts should count, but if this isn't enough crazy Christmas specials for you, Comics Alliance has reviews of three "Most Awesomely Bizarre" holiday specials and Platypus Comix has the Island of Misfit Christmas Specials. That we live in a world where they made a Pac-Man Christmas Special makes me happy every day.

And if that STILL isn't enough, the great Everything is Terrible has a lovely collection of weird direct-to-video holiday joy for all ages.

And if that somehow STILL isn't enough, Topless Robot has a list of Unconventional Christmas Movies. For those of you who like their strange Christmas stories in print form, here is a list of Unconventional Christmas Comic Books, care of Comics Alliance. Finally, I have the Last-Minute Gift Guide up at the Realm of Mad-Ness.

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Sketch of the Day! My cousin and his family held this year's family Christmas party. It was also the first time their dogs had seen more than ten people in the house...

Forgotten Christmas Specials 2010!!! Part One

As I stated on Thanksgiving, I found a YouTube Channel that had a bunch of Christmas specials I never thought I'd see again. Among them is "George and the Christmas Star", a strange and oddly melancholy little special from our Canadian friends:



I remember seeing this in New Hampshire a very long time ago, and all I remembered was Ralph the Robot's song. All the songs are by Paul Anka and... you can tell.

The aforementioned YouTuber was also kind enough to share "Raggedy Anne and Andy and the Great Santa Claus Caper":



When we think of Chuck Jones Christmas Specials, we probably immediately think of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" But that's not the only one. "Santa Claus Caper" is an oddity from the late 1970's and the world has seemed to forget it entirely even though it's cute and really quite good.

Fun things to notice: I don't think Chuck could ever let Wile E. Coyote go. June Foray should be in every Christmas special ever. The message of the special comes across as "Don't leave your toys mint in the box because that is bad and wrong," which is... an odd point of contention to have indeed.

Chances are you'd see commercials like these during these specials:



I love the montage of all the "Celebrate the Season with Kraft" ads that ran during the first-ever broadcast of "The Christmas Toy". They made all that cheesy goop look *so* appealing!

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Obliquely Festive Thing of the Day! It is, in Any Case, Timely!

So, there's this movie adaptation of "Yogi Bear" out now. It looks like pretty much the Worst Thing. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and io9 writer Cyriaque Lamar has watched the film for our sins. Cyriaque then wrote this amazing review, which is a must-read, because it gets downright philosophical about Yogi and his fellow Hannah-Barbera animal characters:

"If chipmunks, beagles, and platyhelminthes suddenly begin yammering at us about shamanistic folk remedies, humanity's entire philosophical, religious, and legal edifices will be blasted to smithereens... the Jellystone bears are creatures that should make SETI sh*t its pants, but they're greeted with apathy."

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Sketch of the Day!

More Craft Fair silliness!

"How the Grinch Stole Christmas" airs... tonight?

Yes, tonight. At eight PM EST. On TBS. Followed by "Shrek" and "The Cat in the Hat". Yes, THAT "The Cat in the Hat". The visual representation of the opposite of fun that also made Audrey Geisel halt any further live-action film adaptations of her late husband's books and keep very strict quality control on any other adaptations (deep breath) THAT "The Cat in the Hat". I guess we should be grateful they aren't airing the ghastly live-action "Grinch", but still,

OK, that issue aside, why November? Why the week before Thanksgiving? I recall "Grinch" being aired very early last year as well, and at this rate, we'll be seeing the special air in October some year.

But who am I kidding? It's the Grinch! You could make a great argument that this was Chuck Jones' Crowning Moment of Awesome. And having Jones and Dr. Suess and Boris Karloff and Thurl Ravenscrofft and June Foray all working together is like a perfect storm of win. This is easily the greatest Christmas special of all time and is also an excellent litmus test. Any adult who doesn't go "aww" at any moment in the show, particularly the ending (only acid reflux is more guaranteed to bring me to tears), is very likely going to display worse problems later on.

In most markets, I have noticed that "The Grinch" is often rerun in December, closer to Christmas. I'll have a list of things to look for ready by then; I just need to dig out my copy of Chuck Reducks.

What's a little bit more interesting is that there is a brandy-new "Futurama" holiday special this Sunday...
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In other news, New England Comicon is this Sunday. Lots of Comic Art Guild people will be there (but possibly not me as I have a prior commitment and just learned about this event.)

Also, the AV Club has a very nice write-up on watching the DC Animated Universe. They are dead-on about "Superman" but I disagree with them on "Batman Beyond".

ALSO also, here is a drinking game idea. "Harry Potter" fans, Drink when you have flashbacks of the long, l-o-n-g summer of 2003 (when a considerable number of movie reviews for the second and third "Matrix" movies -which are essentially one long movie released in two parts and also it had been a while since the first movie- were written by people -people paid to write reviews of movies, mind you- who did not bother to go back and watch the first movie...)

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Art of the day! Actually, it is time to start thinking of this year's Christmas card design isn't it?



EDIT: I didn't go with these designs, but cards are now available at the Zazzle store.

But there's one little loose end that deserves to be tied up, isn't there?

The DAC: The Bronze Age part two

Movie #41: "The Nightmare Before Christmas"
I'm fresh from a marathon of Christmas movies and I still feel guilty that I didn't do it during the original Chronological Animated Disney Canon posts.
Like "Roger Rabbit", you tend to forget just how amazing this movie really is. The DVD looks terrific, and I'm sure I saw sight gags that even Henry Selick wasn't aware of. Packed with terrific effects and wonderful music, this is a treasure. Plus everyone needs something a little weird during the holiday season.
The special features on the three-disc "Jack head" (not listed here, though it would certainly fit) are great fun to watch too, though they skip over one of the more interesting things about this movie: back when "Nightmare" first arrived in theaters, Disney had the damndest time figuring out how to sell it. It was actually originally released under their Touchstone banner. Toys were produced very briefly and quickly disappeared from Disney Store shelves. Fans had to wait for almost a decade before Disney woke up to the movie's cult hit status... and now they're marketing the hell out of it. And normally this would not make me sad (my Christmas decorations are sorely lacking in Halloweentown residents) but Disney seems to be marketing "Nightmare" memorabilia to a very specific demographic. That's why I say this year we steal this fandom back from the whining Emo sissypants Hot Topic.

Merry Christmas to all! For more posts in this ongoing series, go here, or click the Chronological Disney Animated Canon tag below.

More Offbeat and/or Obscure Christmas Animation

Well first off, I'm psyched to announce that two of my dinosaur sketches have been selected for the Art Evolved "Transitional Art Forms" gallery! I'm honored by this as I've been wanting to draw something specifically for their monthly galleries. (Unfortunately, while I do have a terrific idea for their upcoming Palaeo-Environment Gallery, it violates pretty much every stated rule for said gallery. Misplaced wildlife is a big no-no. Maybe I'll do it anyway just for fun...)
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More animated Christmas specials that time has seemingly forgotten!

"A Claymation Christmas Celebration"
Consider this Will Vinton's victory lap. He was at the top of his game when he made this special. It's finally available on DVD after languishing in obscurity for years. Here's the "Joy to the World" sequence, just to give you a taste:


"The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus"
The ultimate Christmastime "THAT'S what it was called!!!" I have already reviewed it at The Realm, but here's the commercial. This is probably why so many 80's kids were... surprised by what the special actually involved.


"Banjo the Woodpile Cat" I nearly forgot about this and that would have made me a sad Dan Bluth fangirl. I believe this was his first solo venture ever and was originally intended to be a Christmas special. It was released on DVD a while back but sadly, isn't available on Netflix. Here's a little taste of that ol' early Bluth cuteness overload:


"Christmas In Tattertown"
Sadly, the Internet has largely forgotten this oddity. It is a Ralph Bakshi Christmas Special (sort of; it's actually a hastily edited failed pilot). It aired on Nickelodeon from 1988-1992 and featured a spider character who'd later show up in "Cool World". There's rumors of a DVD release, so hopefully I can verify that I didn't dream this.

"Father Christmas"
I've only recently learned about this charming animated short film from the creator of the less-obscure-in-America The Snowman. Ever wonder what Santa Claus does on the day after Christmas? Here's a cute commercial that gives you a taste of the tone:

Bonus: And speaking of "The Snowman"...

Unusual or Largely Forgotten Christmas Specials

Before I get to topic advertised in the title, I just realized that I can no longer let Xuxa Pets (or whatever they're called) pass without comment. Here's the commercial, which I initially thought was an elaborate satire:

(Love how the actual honest-to-goodness tagline is basically, "It's just like a real hamster, but it doesn't crap everywhere!")

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"Rudolph", "Charlie Brown", "Grinch". We all know the Big Three Christmas Specials. But there are lots and lots of lesser-known specials that are still very good. Some of them are still well-loved but are simply not shown on TV anymore. Here are just a few of my favorites. Titles will link to their IMDB page:

"A Wish For Wings That Work" - Informally known as "The Bloom County Christmas Special" (even though it was made during the "Outland" era, but let's not get into the sticky issue of Breathed-verse continuity). This Youtube clip isn't the best quality, but trust me the animation is superb. Sadly, it's Opus' only animated outing. There is some concept art on Michel Gange's website that suggests a sequel was in the works, but it never came to be. It saddens me that we never got an Opus series (a la "Garfield and Friends") in this style:


"Twelve Tiny Christmas Tales" - I probably only have to say the following words here: Bill Plympton Christmas Special. It does retain his twisted humor and low-tech style, but it's also really sweet. It's available on Plympton's "Dog Days" DVD collection.


"Olive, The Other Reindeer" - It saddens me that this little slice of happy has faded into obscurity. It was produced by the "Futurama" team at the top of their game, and features big name voices that actually fit their characters. Best of all, J. Otto Seibold's artwork is perfectly replicated. As you can see, that was quite the animation challenge:


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As a bonus, here's the unedited cut of "A Muppet Family Christmas", the best Muppet holiday special of all for my money (and it has some tough competition). Tough Pigs called this Jim Henson's victory lap and when you see how many characters he created, it's easy to see why:

(I officially deem it totally cool to go "awww" during the special's very last scene in the kitchen.)