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!

SCARY Links of CREEPY Interest

Welcome to what is effectively the Year Without a Halloween.  Stupid pandemic.  I'm determined to keep the spooky season alive even if I can't pass out candy or keep a running tally of what costumes I see most often, always a fun pop-culture barometer.  Here are some mostly Halloweeny (or not) links for you.

*  Boundless Realms - I don't think I've met a single foolish mortal, Disney Park geek or otherwise, who doesn't adore the Haunted Mansion.  Foxx, of the fantastic Passport to Dreams website, has just written a gorgeous book on the Mansion and it is a must-have. 

* Staying in the Disney Parks world, the always excellent Defunctland released a fantastic documentary about the original EPCOT plans.

* You're Wrong About is my new podcast obsession that goes over historical events, famous figures, and urban myths that, it turns out, we got all wrong.  It's fascinating, if not exactly light listening.  Get ready to scream in anger at various decibels at least once.

* If you need some cuteness after that, I suggest Kyra Kupetsky's creepy-cute "Chickn Nuggit" short-shorts.

* No stupid pandemic is going to stop the guys at Sludge Central from doing their annual Halloween special.

* I am so, so happy that people are starting to rediscover "Michael Jackson's Halloween", if only because it proves I didn't hallucinate all those years ago.  Have a podcast and a video essay.

*You want more Michael Jackson Halloween specials and putting "Thriller" on an infinite loop isn't enough?  Channel KRT just reminded the world of the truly insane "Ghosts" which is... a thing... that exists...

* "Into the Spiderverse" is that rare movie that gets better and better every time I watch it and the latest Film Critic Hulk documentary goes into a deep dive as to why. 

* Saturday morning and weekday morning cartoons are coming back thanks to MeTV, who will be airing blocks of classic theatrical cartoons starting in January.  Consider this your early DVR alert.

* For the first time in decades, the Peanuts holiday specials are not airing on broadcast TV, which is even more upsetting than it looks on the surface according to Emily VanDerWerff's report.

* Spectember is well in the past but I'd be remiss if I didn't share Alphynix's fantastic series of spec creatures and the history of Speculative Biology.

* "Eli Roth's History of Horror" is back for another season and I'd be very happy if we got to do this every year please and thank you.

* And if that wet your appetite for horror movie docs, I also love The Kill Count, which, while it is exactly what it sounds like, is also a surprisingly good kind of a Cliff Notes of gory horror for wimps.

* As far as horror movies of a different sort, Xiran did an excellent tweetmenary of the "Mulan" remake, effectively saving us all thirty dollars.

* The Halloween Jukebox is back!  Without a shuffle feature, sadly, but with 250 songs for your Halloween!

* Finally, Glen Keane has a new movie out and he sat down for an interview to talk about it, "Tangled", "Treasure Planet", and more.

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Art of the week!  A little Fairy Dragon.

The 25 Weird Days of Christmas Day 3: The Old Magic of Christmas

Christmas has always been weird.  That's the unspoken message of The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year by Linda Raedisch, a book that I snagged during Amazon's Cyber-Monday sale and promptly read virtual-cover-to-virtual-cover.  It's still relatively inexpensive, so if you've ever wondered about the "There'll be scary ghost stories" line in "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year", this book has answers and then some.

But as for specific Christmas folklore, that brings us to the...

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Art of the Day!

So, snow fairies, ice queens, winter witches, and other female Anthropomorphic Personifications of cold weather are sometimes said to take flight in the form of geese, swans, and other large aquatic arctic birds. There's another bit of folklore that says if you see geese "skating" on the morning of St. Martin's Day (that is, if the water is already icy on November 11), the winter will be nice and calm.  If the ice hasn't formed yet and the birds are swimming, expect a rough winter.

Combine the two ideas while watching an old ice skating special (stay tuned) and voila:

Inktober Day 12 - Happy Columbus Day!

Q: Wait, I don't get it?

A: Watch this.

Q: The hell did I just see?

A: A small part of this barrel of madness.  And watching that video, it's even more deranged than I remembered.

Florida Holiday 2011 Trip Report - EPCOT Wins Christmas!

EPCOT is the best park during the holidays. It is; they go all out in World Showcase. Every land has their own special decorations and... I am getting ahead of myself.



The giant tree in EPCOT is in the walkway near the center of the park, where Future World transitions into World Showcase. I took this photo from near the bottom so you get a sense of the scale.



The tree is decorated with greetings from all over the world.

"Christmas All Over the World" is the theme of EPCOT's holiday events, and each country has their "annual gift-person" equivalent do a brief performance and interact with the children. These presentations were worth going to the park on their own:



Papa Noel from Canada: best Santa equivalent or BEST Santa equivalent?



His foklore-cousin Pierre Noel explains the Christmas traditions of France.



We ran into the Daruma seller just as she was starting her show in Japan. (And incidentally, I didn't think of Darmanitan until the very end.)



LaBefana, the Italian Christmas witch, recounts her rather odd origin story.



And then, there's Sun Hou-Kong. He rocked the house. (If you're curious, All Ears has a great report on all of the storytellers.)



"Yo-Ho YEE-OH! HO, a Viking's Life for Me!"



But among the various lands of World Showcase, nobody goes as crazy for Christmas as Germany.



Handmade glass ornaments on display.



The glassblower creating a hook as the finishing touch.







Trees packed with handblown ornaments, and -yes!- peacocks and pickles!



And best of all, Gluhwein! I was informed of this wonderful mulled wine thanks to Party Through the Parks and it is amazing! I need to find some way to introduce it to my Christmas festivities at home.



But the signature EPCOT festivities begin at night with the famous Candlelight Processional. This show is beyond description; the picture above gives you a tiny idea of the scale. I'm glad we took the DisBoard forum's recommendation to spring for the dinner package. We got seats right near the stage...



As well as a fabulous view of Illuminations, which I am astonished my camera was able to capture even this one second of! For the holidays, you get the usual Illuminations show (not that this wouldn't be enough; it's my favorite fireworks in Disney). But at the end, Disney throws every firework they have in the sky to promote world peace. I love Disney. (Seriously, this is crap-your-pants amazing.)



It's a little hard to see here, but one of my favorite "little moments" was at the very end of the show, when they projected images onto Spaceship Earth for the first time in, like, forever.

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The Blog is going on Christmas vacation for a while so I'd like to wish everyone a very happy holiday season and good luck in the new year. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Until I start posting again next year, here are some

Links of Interest: Special Festive Edition!

* For the curious, Touring Plans has a good post on Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party and the kinds of things we missed.

* Take a look at this amazing memorabilia from the world premier of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

* From my other website, it's Nessie's Annual Gift Guide!

* Via Comics Alliance, a short story that combines two Christmas traditions from Catalonia that I kind of want to adopt somehow...

* Dinosaur Tracking would like to remind us that as you are ritualistically devouring your Christmas dinner of goose/turkey/husky theropod of choice, raise a pint to Thomas Henry Huxley.

* Scott Sampson, better known as Dr. Scott, reflects on the curriculum of Season Two of "Dinosaur Train".

* ToughPigs makes a case for the all-but-forgotten Henson Company Dr. Seuss collaboration.

* Enjoy the latest in a long line of "Venture Brothers" Christmas Songs. (As an aside, I have the Henchmen version of "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" in place of the -uh- normal version in my holiday party mix and I strongly suggest you all do the same. It is worth it for the confused looks directed at your MP3 player.)

* The Orrs shared this adorable handmade felt Spinosaurus ornament. I suddenly want to make a bunch for next year's craft fairs.

* Hark! A Vagrant has a cute collection of festive mini-comics.

* And TetZoo has a festive card for all of us.

* There is also this thing you have probably already seen and this other thing you have probably already seen.

Florida Holiday 2011 Trip Report - Magic Kingdom and Downtown Disney

Now according to Disney's official literature, the Magic Kingdom is essentially Christmas Central in all of Walt Disney World. I am going to argue against that, but that's tomorrow's post.



Magic Kingdom does probably get the most decorations per square foot of all the parks. The Castle Dream Lights are the flagship. They really are gorgeous in person.



From this angle, you can see how thew color-changing is achieved. (See the lights in the lower-right?)



And you may be able to see the giant sheets of net lights from this shot of the "backside" of the castle.



"See this? I did all this. Kinda. Okay, really, my brother did, but I came up with almost all of the ideas so there!"



Back at the beginning of Main Street, they had this adorable display with the toy soldiers from "Babes in Toyland". In the window, they had little animated picture windows showing scenes from "Mickey's Christmas Carol". I like how so much of the Magic Kingdom's Christmas iconography comes from films they hardly acknowledge now.



Another look at the super-cute soldiers. I love his constantly astonished expression.



We got to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade again and this Tinkerbell float is brand new... maybe. I may have not noticed it the last time. Speaking of things I hadn't noticed until now...





SOOOOooooooo many drug references...

On that note, let's go shopping in Downtown Disney!



To be fair, there aren't many references to more recent/more famous Disney holiday films either. The "Prep and Landing" series gets a brief nod here and at the Osbourne Lights (you have to listen for it though) and they still have a full room of "Nightmare Before Christmas" stuff in the Christmas All Year Long store here at DTD.

The centerpiece of Downtown Disney's decorations is Santa's house, pictured above. It's a cute touch.



I learned that Florida loves decorating with poinsettias. Nearly every part of Disney World had some variation on these poinsettia trees.



Dear Walt Disney World,

Hey, how's stuff? Listen, I'm not sure how to break the news to you but, you see, America is not in love with Duffy the Disney Bear. Like, at all. I know Mickey's little stuffed animal friend that he hugs tightly on lonely nights in his ship in the middle of the ocean (seriously) was a huge hit when he was introduced in Tokyo Disneyland. But when brought to America in 2011, he was greeted with many delighted cries of, "Who the hell is that?" and "Why is he everywhere?" And I'm not just quoting TV Tropes here to be cheap; they have him listed as The Scrappy for cryin' out loud! Please chill the heck out already. Thanks.

Love Always, Trish.



On the other hand, Raglan Road for the waffles! All of the waffles! ALL of them!



Eh... maybe minus one waffle.



Just keep walking fellow ArtEvolved guys. Don't look directly at it.



Holy crap, a "Runaway Brain" pin?!? I am mad at myself for not buying this.





Disney: "Oh, wait... some people don't celebrate Christmas do they? Let's acknowledge them once or twice ever."



See, I really wanted to get my cousin an Ariel tree ornament, but what you see is all they had. Who wants Ariel wearing a generic Princess dress and in her lousy human form?



On a positive note. I'd heard of these new LEGO sculptures outside the big LEGO store but I didn't realize they'd be this awesome!



And yes, YES! Disney Dollars are still a Thing! As a weird aside, you have to get these at Guest Services, and that was the most tedious line I stood in the entire trip.

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In our final post, we visit EPCOT center, which turns out to win at Christmas! On to the Grand Finale!

Florida Holiday 2011 Trip Report - Studios and Animal Kingdom

It probably won't come to any genuine surprise that Animal Kingdom, the red-haired, red-feathered, red-scaled, red-etc. stepchild of Walt Disney World parks, gets a little shafted as far as decorations go. Only one "land" is decorated at all and the one special event is... the normal daytime parade, except they chucked a bunch of Christmas stuff onto the floats.

Animal Kingdom does, however, get my favorite giant tree of all the parks. Here are some details:



*Squeeeeee* at those adorable lion lanterns! That's it; for Christmas I'd like courses in metalwork..



I can't wait until we get to see an Ikran festooned with garland.

By thew way, it's time to be honest: would a bunch of alien animals designed by Wayne Barlowe and Neville Page really be any more out of place in Animal Kingdom than a bunch of mythical animals like dragons and unicorns and whatnot?



The land named Camp Minniemickey (often sighted as AK fans' second choice after Dinoland as to where Pandora should go) is the only extensively decorated part of the park. The idea is that a bunch of favorite Disney characters have their own trees. That's Simba's tree.



And here is the Christmas tree decorated by Nemo and Marlin (don't worry about the logistics).



And every child's favorite, Pocahontas! (Well, she used to have a stage show here. Ah, park artifacts.)



Funny story about the aforementioned parade (called -*sigh*- Mickey's JINGLE Jungle Parade): We wanted to ride Everest (which is terrific) and see the baby Okapi, whom I assumed would be on exhibit in the park along with the other Okapi. We wound up following the end of the parade into the Pangani Forest trail -- to learn the baby was back at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Who knew they even had Okapi there?



Hollywood Studios, in contrast, has a lot of stuff going on during the holidays. I love the decorations on the lampposts they use; my town had very similar decorations.



Nostalgia for a campy Christmas seems to be the theme of the Studio decorations. Their giant tree has all kinds of strange old ornaments on it.



I think my family used to have one of those giant freaky Santa faces!



Taking a cue from the aforementioned WDW Today podcast: Gosh, Disney, close "Sounds Dangerous" for good or don't already. (Edit: Turns out they finally did close it for good. Bets are now on whether Stitch's Great Escape or Ellen's Energy Adventure are on the chopping block next.)



The crazy Christmas decorations reach their peak with the famous Osbourne Spectacle of Dancing Lights. These pictures don't really express what it's like to walk among them; they are mind-blowing on several levels.



The single all-white snow angel is in posthumous tribute to the creator of the Dancing Lights, Jennings Osbourne.



One of the few times where the Lights weren't pure hell for those of us who hate crowds.

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Next Time: We head over to the Magic Kingdom and poke into some stores. Happy Solstice everyone! On to Part Nine!