Blogababble: Obscure Christmas Media

 

   The older I get the more acceptance I grow for Christmas, despite the bullshit. Sure, it's not as fun & optimistic as it was when I was younger but I still accept its aesthetics. If you read this blog from the first year of its inception you'll see that I was not as receptive to the holiday, right down to the point where I just spent a whole entry shit talking the holiday & its participants. I'm still aware of the stupidity & the hypocrisy of Christmas, but in recent years I have come to the belief that corporate America wants to do away with holidays. I'm not against making Juneteenth or Indigenous Peoples Day a national holiday, but corporate America (Who also has been dictating Government policy since forever) will rather die than to let it become an official national holiday. They'll let you talk about it but to get a day off they'll outright fire you & say “We'll give your job to someone who really needs it! Most notably someone from overseas who needs it!” We're not here to talk the state of sick sad affairs of dying humanity in American work culture here, this is gonna be a lite, fun episode here!
So I'm aware Christmas now isn't the same as it was when I was a kid, but despite that I can still look at the positives.

I already talked at length about Christmas commercials & everyone has talked about Christmas movies to death. At this point I believe the whole Die Hard debate is instigated by trolls who can easily manipulate people dumb enough to engage in these internet arguments (Look back at 'Yanny & Laurel' to see how stupid people are). Don't get me started on the whole “The man of the house should receive a plate before the children.” bullshit I'm seeing recently. Yeah go on, argue about that & then afterwards y'all will argue about how cut a person's sleeves should be. I might talk about traditionalist stupidity, but not now. Today I'm talking about some of the more obscure, if not the less talked about Christmas specials, episodes, a little bit about movies but most importantly comic books!

Before that, I must rant about something minor & this is one thing I noticed with X-mas advertising right now as we speak. Surprisingly I'm not seeing the same callous capitalistic side from years past, but one thing I've seen recently is parents that gift their 'millenial/Gen Z' parents a self-help book, mostly about marriage or starting a family. I'm here to say as someone who is of parental age, If my parents gift me one of these self help books I'm getting a vasectomy that same week! I'm sorry but I don't want to bring a child into this fucked up world. I've seen three commercials (One from Extra Gum that presented it as a joke) where parents gift their adult son or daughter with a book that may as well be titled 'Give Me Grandchildren You Horny Bastard!' Then again for some reason there's conflicting headlines that we've seen during the pandemic which just shows how manipulative news media is.
'Millenials Don't Wish To Start Families?!!'
Then in the same week I saw this headline.
'Millenials Start Pandemic Baby Boom!'
I get it, give them a gift that they'll use but at this point I'd prefer a straight razor or a deoderant.
Look, I'm not saying you're a terrible person for knocking up your wife & starting a family. You do your best to raise your kid right. Break your generational curse, be the exception to the rule....the rule being kids are messy and stupid while the parents do nothing as the kids run around Rite Aid & knock over a DVD shelf so they run away while both me & my older sister help the worker fix everything cause OUR MOM RAISED US RIGHT! I do speak from experience.

Where was I going with this? Oh, yes. The choice to not have children is my choice & I won't deny it seeing all of you at 21 with five kids is part of the reason why I don't want kids. I won't get into celibacy right now, that there is for another time,, another topic enterirely. To all the folks who just became or are about to become parents, don't let my scary words deter you. I'm sure y'all will be good parents so I got nothing but congratulations to give you. I just don't like this forced societal bullshit of you have to be a parent by this age, you have to be married by this age or else you will die alone or your kid will turn out like Chris Chan because you decided to knock one out with your laser sperm. I don't get how there's people who are 30 & they got a baby brother that's 2 years old right now. You dad has that laser sperm! PEW PEW PEW!!!! Going back to pressure form family here, I lived a life under the thumb of specific people doing what they asked me to, when do I get my freedom? When? This is all my take, don't let my opinion affect you personally. I'm happy the way I am right now.
End Rant.

To start this list is a TV special which I have not seen since 2002 & sadly I cannot speak in-detail about this since I cannot find a copy anywhere. YouTube has a fan trailer (With Ryuichi Sakamoto music over it) & an official trailer that was filmed by someone who doesn't have a capture card so they just recorded it off their phone aimed at the TV.

A Freezerburnt Christmas (2002)- This aired on CBS once & never again was it seen outside of a home video release. You'd think people who own the tape or DVD may have ripped the film & uploaded it to YouTube or Archive.org, but sadly no luck. I saw this special one weekend in December of 2002 & just remembered it recently as I started concocting this list. From what I recall the story is about this good natured ice cream man who stumbles upon a plot by three mob looking guys that want to take over Santa's workshop, so this ice cream man decides to thwart their plans & save Christmas with his ice cream truck. The whole thing was done in stop motion animation so of course much of the imagery sticks to my head. I recalled liking it, can't really speak for it now since I can't find a copy! If I can find a copy then you best believe I'm going to stream that sucka on Twitch! I forgot about the title until I decided to google search the plot & viola! There it was, aired in 2002. Surprisingly I could not find a promo from CBS commercial break recordings.

Looking back I feel this special is severely overlooked & truly obscure. The special only aired that year, had somewhat of a limited home video print run & was just left in obscurity. This could either mean it was unfairly maligned (Not the first holiday special to end up like this) or it was really the worst thing ever created like that one people are going nuts over called 'Rhapsody Kids'. That special is also one that aired on TV once & never again until copies started appearing online. Unlike Freezerburnt, apparently 'Rhapsody Kids' aired on KTLA 5 back in 2005 but I did not see any promos for that shitty CGI special. Seriously, the era of the one-shot TV special is dead & I miss it, including the terribly produced ones that you can tell were made because some uncreative person with money & power thought they were going to capture the hearts of children.

A Junky's Christmas (1993): A 21 minute stop motion short narrated by William Burroughs & presented by Francis Ford Coppola. This special is not as dark & nihilistic as you would expect from a title like that. Who would of thought a short involving drug addicts in Christmastime would give you such a heartwarming feeling? Well this short does just that for those of us who gag at sugary saccrine stuff. Of course the whole short is William Burroughs reading his short story (Of the same name) while stop motion animation tells the story visually. The visuals do help immensely since, let's be honest, Burroughs often slurs his speech constantly. The short captures the grittiness and the sleazyness of urban New York but also captures the heart & the optimism of his short story.

Surprisingly this story resonates heavily towards people who were heroin users which speaks loud volumes. This is highly recommended if you were a user or not. It's well animated, amazingly performed by Burroughs & would you believe this special aired on VH1? Yes, the same channel that now brings us thots throwing wine at each other & yelling while clapping in-between words.

Y'all used to have integrity.

King of the Hill- The first episode I want to talk about (The first X-mas episode of the series) is the ep where Hank goes blind because he saw his mom & her new husband having sex in his kitchen. I wouldn't go blind if I saw that, I'd just off myself. So from the beginning Hank feels threatened when his mom brings over her new beau who happens to be a New York Jewish man by the name of Gary. From the first momentwe see Gary is very sympathetic & has his own way of speaking and looking at things. Hank feels discomfort not because of cultural differences, but because he can't fathom the idea of another man being with his mom & that's where we lead to Hank going blind. So his blindness isn't permanent so the optometrist tells Hank that in order to get his sight back he must confront his trauma. I'm sure you all know how this turns out. The episode is as you'd expect, grounded & funny. There's a reason why people often question why this show is even animated. It doesn't need to be animated, but at the same time I don't think the show's charm would have a long lasting effect if it were live action. It's such a great, wholesome & funny episode, but the series doesn't end with just one Christmas episode.
The second Christmas episode, 'Pretty Pretty Dresses' shows Bill reaching an apex in his naivete when he begins setting up decorations & wrapping gifts for his ex-wife (Lenore) who never shows up for the holidays. Leading to constant surveillance of Bill after his failed suicide attempt, Hank enforces a tough love reaction by convincing Bill that Lenore is never coming back. This breaks something in Bill's psyche to the point where he now wears women's clothing & believes he himself is Lenore.
“Hwy do you keep calling me BILL?”

Before people start calling this episode an attack, let me assure you the ep was not an attack on Trans or Intersex people. Rather this episode is a lesson on how mental health is really health. The episode doesn't outright say Hank handled the matter perfectly, but rather Hank's finds out the hard way that he made matters worse rather than fixed it. By the end Hank sticks up for Bill when at a party all the other party attendants react negatively to him wearing women's clothing cause you know, Texas conservatism. Once Bill starts being ganged up on here comes Hank wearing one of Peggy's dresses standing up for Bill. As stated before Bill was not meant to be trans or to poke fun at that community but rather show that this was an issue with Bill's mental health. Despite the darker, if not more comedic approach to suicide, this episode still sticks in my mind as a good one. There's funny moments & there's also profound moments that make this a must watch. One thing King of the Hill always tackled with such astounding positivity is sexuality & gender. There's the episode where Hank finds out Dale's dad is gay. Out of Bill & Boomhauer, Hank is the one who accepts Dale's lifestyle with tolerance whereas Bill & Boomhauer immaturely laugh at gay culture. Then there's a later episode where Peggy befriends a drag queen, though she fails to notice that her firend isn't a biological woman. This show really handled those aspects very beautifully.
Although dated now, the episode 'Hillenium' also contains a pretty profound message. So Hank tries to keep calm as everyone starts freaking out over Y2K. He doesn't believe things are getting nuts until the hysteria starts affecting Strickland Propane. So Hank starts freaking out over Y2K to the point where he gives his family gifts that he feels would be useful after the fall of technology, which of course doesn't sit well with Peggy thinking she was going to get a new computer. So Hank decides to varnish a grandfather clock out of anger until the fumes of the varnish start to get to him. In his hallucinogenic dreams he finds himself one of the gophers inside a whack a mole machine. This is where the ep's profound message kicks in. Tom Landry, in gopher form, tells him life is uncertain but everyone must preserve because to live hiding in fear is not the best way to trek through life. A message you rarely hear around the holidays, especially new years. It's a message I feel will always be relevant.

The final episode titled 'Livin on Reds, Vitamin C & Propane', is more of an adventure rather than a satirical Christmas episode. The episode revolves mostly around Hank & Bobby who travel to Arizona on an 8-wheel truck shipping Hank's mom's stuff, but of course Dale, Boomhauer & Bill end up being stowaways in this truck. Hank tries to assert himself among real truckers & fails, then to make matters worse Hank & company end up stuck in the mountains. So everyone works as a team to get out of this predicament in order to make it to Arizona in time for Christmas. A fun episode that wasn't trying to push a message but rather it was made to entertain. There's also a B-plot where Peggy & Luanne are trying to create a new Christmas song, but it isn't as interesting compared to the A-plot. A worthwhile episode.

In between these amazing Christmas episodes, I will admit there's two that aren't at all good. The episode 'T'was the Nut Before Christmas' has Bill dressing up as Santa as he offers the neighborhood kids a winter wonderland, complete with fake snow & an inflatable bouncy castle. Well the whole episode is Bill trying hard to make himself happy by continuing to dress up as Santa well into Spring. He stupidly misses out on dating a single mom because of this (One of the many times he screws up opportunities for himself) & ends up befriending a douchebag by the name of Wally who takes advantage of Bill's kindness. Not the worst Christmas episode, but it's not one I skip around this time of year. I will say the episode does have Bobby drinking his first beer. Then comes my most hated Christmas episode simply titled 'Mrs. Wakefield'. This is one of thee worst Christmas episodes of the series. So the episode is of Hank opening his doors to an elderly woman who grew up in his home way before Hank & Peggy settled there. Well the woman is not only there just to relieve memories, instead she asks Hank to let her die in his home. Rightfully Hank refuses & for some reason his neighbors & almost everyone in the city takes the side of the old lady. Why? I wouldn't want an old person dying in my room & for all I know maybe someone in the past did die in my home. The whole episode is everyone giving The Hills grief for not letting this old woman die & shit herself in their home. It's trying to pass itself as comedic (I think) but it comes across as horrible. Then at the party Hank decides he should accept the old woman's wishes & it just came to her mind that she shouldn't die in his home, at least not while everyone is partying. I do not like this episode. It's mean spirited & pretty stupidly written. It tries to establish conflict in the most unrelatable & grim situation ever. Skip this one at all costs, it'll just end up pissing you off as it did to me.

Moving on to another Christmas episode of mature animation here....

The Simpsons- Everyone knows about the first aired episode being the 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire' where the family's Christmas is saved by 'Santa's Little Helper'. One thing you may or may not have known is the episode was never meant to be the first Simpsons episode to air on TV. The first episode was supposed to be 'Two Cars in Every Garage & Three Eyes in Every Fish' where Mr. Burns tries his hand at running for Governor after his nuclear plant has been caught with tons of safety violations. It's obvious it was meant to be the first episode when a journalist comes across Bart & Lisa as they sit lakeside. That was meant to be a proper introduction to both those two & as well as the introduction to Blinky the three eyed fish. Well the first episode that aired in 1989 was the Christmas episode & we all know that served a very heartwarming & cynical introduction to the family since it was play against family sitcom tropes. The best line in that whole episode is when Homer is carrying Santa's Little Helper & he says “He's a loser, he's pathetic, he's....(Dog licks his face)... a Simpson.” As a dog owner I can tell you that moment is very relatable. Well as much as I love that episode I must stand my ground & say the funniest Simpson episode is the Bonestorm episode titled 'Marge Be Not Proud'. Bart attempts to steal a copy of the newest game, Mortal Kombat. I'm sorry, I mean 'Bonestorm', but it's meant to be a parody of MK. So he gets caught, is let off easy under the condition that he doesn't return to the 'Pic N Save'. Okay, it was called the 'Try N Save'. So Bart thinks not returning to the store will be an easy task, that is until Marge asks the family to take a family portrait at that same store. Well, he gets caught & right at that moment you do feel sympathy for Bart as well as Marge. There really aren't any villains in this story, Marge feels shame, Bart feels guilty for his actions & the security guy is just doing his job. I won't ruin the ending but I'll tell you that ending is the reason why people have such fond memories of the show. Aside from the well written drama & character evolution, you also got the funny & memorable moments in this ep.
Millhouse: This is great & all I've done is enter my name. Thrillhouse!
TV Screen: Welcome Thrillho
A very multi-layered joke that still holds up. Then there's also the bit of nostalgia since the episode was directly referencing not just Mortal Kombat, but there's also the appearance of not Donkey Kong, green Mario & red Luigi & purple Sonic as he shouts “Takeittakeittakeittakeittaketakeit!!! Take it!” Of course who could forget Lee Carvallo, a parody of real life pro-golpher Lee Trevino whose NES game is parodied as 'Lee Carvallo's Putting Green'. Now with scoring pencil!
“Ball is in...parking lot. Would you like to play again? You have selected...no.”

This episode hits all spots for me. The humor isn't just gamer humor, if you are a gamer you'll catch the little details like the letter cap joke I mentioned earlier. It's clear the writer for this episode is very familiar with video games as if that 'Thrillho' joke wasn't enough. It doesn't lack in the emotional side & the humor doesn't fall flat. It's a well balanced mix of both.

Since I talked my least favorite Christmas episodes from 'King of the Hill', I must say my least favorite Simpsons episode (Ignoring everything post season 20 material here) is Season 9, episode 10: Miracle on Evergreen Terrance. So dumbass Bart decides he can't wait till Christmas morning to open up his gifts & decides to wake up early & open up his gifts, but accidentally ends up setting fire to the rubber Christmas tree. As the family wakes up & they notice both the tree and gifts are gone, Bart lies to them saying burglars stole everything. The whole city of Springfield chips in (Along with two children from the homeless shelter) to help the Simpsons get the Christmas they deserve. Well as you can tell throughout the episode Bart grows more & more guilty until finally the truth is revealed that their tree was never stolen but rather Bart destroyed the tree & burried it under the snow. Rather than punish Bart, the whole family is punished & the final scene is the Simpsons sitting in an empty ransacked home. I guess the intent was to make an anti-christmas episode but it comes across as mean spirited rather than a subversion. I will admit there are funny moments & scenes like when Homer says: “Where's Christmas? Lisa, where's Christmas?”
or a bit that makes me laugh out loud is when Bart is having that lucid dream after drinking tons of water & there's a cheerleader hyping a crowd “Give me a P! Go go go, pee pee pee!!!!” Despite those funny bits. I will say it's not the worst episode ever made in that whole season, but the story left a sour taste in my mouth.

Now on to the first, but not the only, Christmas film in this list. Now tell me, what kind of imagery do you imagine when you hear that there's a movie starring David Bowie & Ryuichi Sakamoto? I'm sure many of y'all think of a weird, cult, sci-fi movie with tons of surreal imagery & experimental music. Well, sadly we don't get that but instead we get a war drama!

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983): Now this film is not something you put on for the family & expect a happy go lucky viewing experience. This is one of the more melancholy, at times disturbing, Christmas movies I've watched this year. The whole thing takes place during the later years of WWII where British POW's have to deal with the strict & traditionalist rule of Yanoi, played by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Then you got David Bowie playing this POW, by the name of Jack Celliers, who is a straight up rebel, then you also got Tom Conti as Mr. Lawrence, headline star of the film which threw me off because we all expected Bowie to be the star. Also this is around the time Bowie would constantly throw out bangers on the pop charts. I'm sure to the teeny boppers this film was a surprise.

So the plot consists of allied soldiers trying to uphold their own traditions & maintain their humanity while imprisoned in a Japanese camp where the Japanese soldiers would rather the British Allies abide by their own harsh customs. Well Jack just straight up comes in not giving a flying fuck while Mr.Lawrence tries to appease both sides as he serves as interpreter. I admit watching this I was expecting a Ryuichi Bowie makeout scene. By this point in 1983 the audience of the time (Mainly the folks who were alive during WWII) felt the movie was 'too soon'. Really, 30 years too soon? Many of the critics at the time didn't think the movie was all too great & I can kinda see why but I must disagree. In no way is this torture porn but you are basically watching a bunch of soldiers get fucked over by a bunch of angry Japanese soldiers. Then I must comment on the way it's filmed, it's shot like a TV movie aside from a few shots with gorgeous lighting. The fact this is a Japanese filmmaker showing the flaws of his country during this time is quite a feat for the time when US Japan relations were still there. I'm not saying Japan in 83 was still maintaining all of its traditions (Thank god!) but around that time you still had that minority that thought they were in the correct during WWII.

After a while the film does meander a bit, but I don't think it's the worst film I ever saw. The soundtrack is pretty amazing, of course you got Ryuichi Sakamoto as part of the cast so it didn't hurt he was willing to provide the music. If you were expecting something upbeat like his work on Y.M.O or a funky track like 'Paradise Lost' then this OST isn't for you.
The one thing I did find funny & tuned me out of the movie for a bit is when you get this flashback of Young Bowie as a kid where they hired a child actor to play him, but by the time his character reaches his older teens it's adult Bowie playing himself as a 16 year old. Let's see, 1983 born in 1947 (Sorry, mate) so he was a 36 years old playing a 16 or 17 year old! That was hilarious, like something you would see in Austin Powers.

It's certainly not a must watch thrill ride but it's one that if you happen to feel too happy or just wanna see a sad Bowie movie, this is the flick for you. Before I forget, a very pissed off crazy Takeshi Kitano is in this flick, which doesn't surprise me since he's no slouch with drama. I must remind you that in Japan he is a man of many talents. Aside from his serious acting gigs he's a well known comedian, of course everyone knows him as the host of 'Takeshi's Castle' ('MXC' for all you in the west) but he also hosted a Japanese prank show. Of course there's the WTFucker that was 'Takeshi's Challenge', an NES game he helped design to troll gamers because in his words he thinks gamers are fucking stupid. Of course who could forget his directorial work making dark Yakuza movies (When we get to 1997 on my film retrospective, I got some choice words for 'Hana-Bi'), as well as being a painter & an author. Like, the man is one eclectic & diverse person.

Cobra (1986)- Yes, the Stallone Cobra flick!

It's a Christmas film!

Now sure Stallone as Cobra doesn't say 'Yo ho ho' or 'Welcome to the party, pal'. The script doesn't fully utilize Christmas to its plot (Besides cleaning a gun & eating pizza cut with scissors just as an X-mas 'Toys R Us' commercial plays on his dinky TV), but what it lacks in the script is fully present in its visuals. It's a California Christmas, a visual look we rarely get today! Most of these movies set in Christmas always take place in the East coast or Midwest because it's easier to convey the time of year in those two places than in LA, Arizona or Texas. Sorry Oregon, every day is sad white guy fall there. The supermarket in the film is very much decorated like every single supermarket in LA around this time of year, not to mention a few scenes during the car chase (That submarine on wheels that Stallone drives) there's a guy in a parking lot cubicle wearing a Santa costume . The film is riddled with Christmas aesthetics which therefore should be required December viewing.

Speaking of movies that happen to be set during December despite looking humid, we got one I've added as a new X-mas tradition.

Hardware (1990)- Though not set in the West coast, this is set in New York (I think) but it's the post apocalyptic cyberpunk future where the ozone layer has been destroyed, everything has this warm orange tint to it & the world has gone to shit. The whole film's plot is a Christmas present going kill crazy like another classic horror film set in Christmas. What was it called? It had these weird ass creatures killing people after being fed after midnight, some Chinese man warned white people & of course they never took his warnings seriously, these 'gremlin' type creatures begin mutating & there was some song about 'do you see what I see?' Anyone know what I'm hinting at? (Snaps fingers) Munchies! That's that film I'm thinking about!

Classic du 80's cinema arte!

Not only do you have killer robot shit but there's also a scene before the Ministry 'Stigmata' music video where Jill is watching TV & in between channel flipping there's two people in reindeer costumes dancing while the announcer talks about cheap yuletide steaks. Christmas isn't always snow & moderately attractive people in some fictional small town falling in love despite the other leaving their well paying job just to marry some guy in Fuckberg Wisconsin who lacks charisma, personality or a shotgun sized dick. If you have an unironic love for Hallmark movies then I fear for your mental health. Those movies can't be good for you. They cause Karenism.

GET THERAPY!!!

I should mention the movie 'Go' from 1999 which isn't fully a Christmas movie, but the plot during Katie Holme's segment revolves around her scoring fake drugs to sell at a Christmas rave. Other than that the whole movie is just vignettes that may as well be set any day of the year, most notably summer. Either way if you're in the mood for a late 90's teen noir/dark comedy then I highly recommend it. When I say dark comedy I really mean dark comedy.

Dead Bang (1989)- Just like Cobra, the film is an action film set around the holidays, but unlike Cobra it does try to center it's character dialogue around this time of year. For starters you got our main lead, a divorced alcoholic cop (Played by Don Johnson), on duty at Christmas. The LA streets are mostly empty, just like in real life because people are either at home or they're working so there's no traffic in places that are typically congested year round. Sure, there's no snow but the biggest detail I adore from these X-mas in LA movies are dead or dying leaves accompanied with grey skies or better, clear skies with breezy weather. There are no golden falls in Cali but if you look at the right places (upper class neighborhoods) you'll see there are spots where golden falls reside in the state of smog & earthquakes.

The film deals in a cop tracking & taking down a private neo nazi military until the setting switches from LA to Oklahoma where we see more of a traditional winter. The film is your standard cop drama with Don Johnson (Nash Bridges, anyone?), but what sets it apart is the attention to detail. From the beginning it's established Johnson's character is an alcoholic cop/divorcee who doesn't have custody of his kids & drinks alcohol for breakfast. So after a chase on foot he tackles the criminal then afterwards he pukes. That's a detail these drunk cop movies often ignore. Then there's the other detail I commend the production on, there's a character who arrives at Oklahoma & he spends most of his screen-time putting on chapstick. Believe me I've traveled enough around this time of year to know sometimes we're not ready for the natural elements. Winter is a son of a bitch, especially if you don't have gloves & work nights every day until the skin on your hands start to decompose. I speak from experience!
So yeah, 'Dead Bang' is not just something you call when you wanna hold an orgy at a morgue. BA DUM TCH! It's a December movie on top of it being a Christmas movie. One thing I will say is a flaw is the soundtrack. It doesn't sound as action packed as you expected, instead it sounds like what a school counselor listens to during their lunch break as they shit talk rap music.

Now that I got that out of the way, let's get back to TV here with a very obscure Christmas episode from a TV show I talked about on here.

Martial Law- Episode 10, Season 2 titled 'Sammo Claus'. The only Christmas episode in this short lived series & while I can't call it a classic, it's tons of fun despite the flaw of it being a season 2 episode. By this point most of the producers from season 1 (The folks that gave this show it's HK Action flare) were replaced by the producers for 'Walker: Texas Ranger'. The same story beats, the same tropes, even the same filming style and editing from 'Walker' are present in season 2 of 'Martial Law'. A sad shame but luckily Stanley Tong was there to maintain order in his series.

The A-plot of this episode is Sammo goes undercover as a mall Santa to track down a group of Santa robbers who terrorize toy stores over sought after plush toys. Yes, this episode satirizes the Beanie Baby craze that was still fresh in '99. Of course this also leads to the B-plot where Sammo helps a kid who wants his big brother back for Christmas. I will admit the plot is generic but there's touches in it that do make it more grounded in reality. When it comes to these attempts at drama in these kinds of shows they always fall flat by having characters come across as a savior of sorts. This show at least gives reasons as to why the father of the runaway teen doesn't go out to look for his son. House arrest, usually screenwriting shorthand is always “Daddy's a scumbag.” Well the show stars a martial artist & throughout the whole series the show has spent countless scenes trying to shove in excuses to fight so of course the big brother is in some underground cage fighting circuit.

Fun for the whole family.

Now we get to one that, for a while, used to air a lot around 05, 09 & now it's barely a blip on the radar (Leaving aside recent scandals).

The Fat Albert Christmas Special (1977)- I got a fondness for this special, much more than the Peanuts Christmas special, sue me. I guess it's the fact that you got these kids in the junkyard setting up Christmas decorations in their little clubhouse is what I find relatable. So Fat Albert & the gang help out a family who has been stranded in the city during a snow storm after the father's job opportunity fell through. To add to this his wife is pregnant & the child feels his parents would be better off without him. So it's up to Fat Albert & the gang to find the kid & teach him the lesson with a belt to the ass! I'm kidding, they teach the kid that his family will always love him despite economic hardships & of course there always has to be a money hungry scrooge who is never mentioned before or after this Christmas special because how else will there be conflict? And of course that scrooge is an asshole just because of personal tragedy. All a reminder to never be an asshole just because you lost someone. I still enjoy the episode despite the melodrama. It teaches it's audience what really is the truest essential, which is what many specials today miss out on whether it be intentional or not. Many specials now are just entertainment, which I don't feel is bad but I feel kids are missing out on profound messages because the biggest flaw for these kinds of specials is they make the message too preachy or they push a message that you may as well shout “Well duh!” Not saying Fat Albert is nuanced, I mean come on they had an episode where a child was killed because of gang violence. I'm not making a creepypasta up, there really was an ep where Fat Albert saw a kid get shot.

Before I get to the last entry on the list, let me delve into a rarely mentioned segment of media that people don't consider when talking Christmas related stuff. Comic books! Yes, even the superheroes celebrate or at least are aware of the holiday. One of the big defining specials I say everyone should check out is the Christmas episode of 'Justice League Unlimited'. Such a great & charming episode.
What I'm going to list off here aren't necessarily huge story arcs or graphic novel stories so they can easily be seeked out at your local comic book shop in the discount bins.

First title on this list..........................

Green Lantern #59 (DC)- Written by Ron Marz, this issue of Green Lantern is set at roughly around Kyle Rainer's first year of taking over as Green Lantern & is currently training under Arsenal, another rarely spoken of DC character. So Green Lantern is on monitor duty on Christmas eve while everyone else takes a break or attends to their own business. Kyle takes the initiative to sneak out & patrol on foot until stumbling upon criminals robbing a charity & coming across Polaris, a villain threatening to destroy things because he's a villain. The comic is nothing special, but it does something interesting by depicting superhero work like a regular work shift. Then there's the added isolation of having that shift set on Christmas. The ending is nothing to write home about, Kyle gets a present from some chick he barely knows & it's mistletoe. Meh.
I'd say skip it, but at the same time it's not the worst Green Lantern comic I ever read. I'm sure there's worse out there. Maybe because it's set in Christmas & it sorta tries to stand out from all the trite Christmas stories & tries to tell a 'just another day' kind of story is what attracts me to it. Kyle Rainer doesn't come in flawed so there wasn't a lesson for him to learn. It was what it was, a day in the life but it just so happened that day is Christmas.

Now we move on to a two issue comic book starring a little known character from the gogo 90's called 'Solar'.

Solar: Man of Atom #30 and #31(Valiant)- Issue #30 is another run of the mill issue that pretty much takes place anywhere in the year. A group of scientists experiment on a small glowing orb which eventually destroys & severely injures the scientists, all except for Dr.Raven who ends up absorbing the lifeforce of his dying coworkers. From that moment on Dr.Raven becomes Ravenous. If you're named Dr.Raven, 9 times out of 10 you're gonna be a villain. Well it's up to Solar to stop him & he does, no surprise there. Well then moving on to Issue #31, Solar has no place to toss aside the captured Ravenous. By this point Valiant has no institution by the likes of JLA Headquarters or Marvel's Avengers Tower (Or maybe they do, it's just Solar isn't part of this sort of team. I haven't read much Valiant comics) so he decides to take his work to his girlfriend's home. As you can tell she is none too pleased to see a supervillain in her home, especially on Christmas Week when the two have plans to visit a friend's party. Well since Solar wants to keep tabs on Ravenous he decides to take Ravenous along to the party. Naw, nothing wrong will happen there. Well as you can expect Ravenous manages to untie himself & nearly kills Solar's girlfriend until he finally gets the idea to toss him into an abandoned nuclear chamber. Well after all that stress Solar attends his work Christmas party & it ends with him coming face to face with his petty ass dad. I still need to check out Issue #32 as I'm pretty sure it continues with the Christmas setting, but overall the switch from issue 30 to 31 felt very stark. As mentioned before issue 30 felt like a typical summer issue, then next issue we make the leap from anytime to Christmas week. Maybe there was buildup in issue 29, I need to check that out but it was not a bad Christmas comic book. I will say it was a tad bit better than 'Green Lantern #59'.

Now we move on to something much more grungy as we can get with Christmas comics.

Judge Dredd #60 (Fleetway Quality Press)- It wouldn't be a great holiday reading list if I didn't mention the satirical dark comedy of Judge Dredd. Issue #60 is done in the usual template of two stories & a one-off short, all taken from the original weekly '2000AD' magazine from the UK. The two big stories in this issue are written by John Wagner with art by not only Alan Grant but Carlos Ezquerra, the co-creator of Judge Dredd.
So the first tale in this issue, 'A Merry Tale of the Christmas Angel' begins with a brief look of how the residents of Mega City One celebrate holidays as well as seeing what plans the judges have in store for the mutants outside the city walls. Suddenly Dredd is called to action when a crazed suicide bomber begins to take the cast of a stage play (Fellini's Nativity & a ½) & makes demands. While this happens a reformed /lobotomized criminal is given parole where he's gifted a Christmas meal with a couple. While the parole officer says the mutant is fully harmless, when gifted a toy Judge Dredd toy his memory comes back to unleash a murderous rage. So Dredd not only has to deal with a suicidal bomber, but also an angry mutant who is headbutting random people.
Our second tale set on Christmas Eve, 'The Night of the Rad Beast', a pair of muggers nab a man who has had countless transplants performed on him. The muggers toss him into a radioactive swamp & he soon emerges as a mutated rad beast. After taking care of the muggers he runs around Mega City One crying for flesh & exposing those near him to radiation. Then there's the one-off story titled 'The Snikker BURRRP! Snack' that is written by Peter Milligan. Eh, it's not bad but in an issue with two Christmas stories it's something you can skip if you want. The whole comic ends with Walter The Robot wishing everyone a “Mewwy Cwistmas” Not a bad holiday issue, very cynical & dark but for a Dredd title I wouldn't have it any other way.

Gotham City Sirens #7 (DC)- Now here's one for the ladies. The Gotham City Sirens are the de-facto heroines who are taking over while Batman is out of the picture. The group consists of Catwoman, Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy. As you guess the comic is these three gals protecting Gotham City from scumbags & other super powered villains. Well in this issue the three spend Christmas day doing their own thing. Catwoman stops a group of robbers in Santa costumes. Poison Ivy is spending the holidays in the humid rainforest, but her peace is interrupted when she comes across a cartel terrorizing a vacationing family. Then we get to the main feature, Harley Quinn visits her dysfunctional family. Her mom is as hot tempered as any, her brother is a deadbeat loser who squandered Harley's money & then you get the worst, her imprisoned dad. Of course he tries to manipulate her into telling him where she has that special bank account she set up for both him & her mom. The superhero action in this only lasts about four pages, the rest of this issue is mainly Harley Quinn trying to find some sanity around the holidays. Written by Paul Dini, expect a lot of charm & comedy in this fairly short read. Of course this is 2010 when comics became nothing but 30% story & 70% advertising. If you can find it for cheap then I say pick it up.

Speaking of short DC comic books.

Green Lantern: Larfleeze Christmas Special (DC)- Seems like around 2010 to 2015 it was impossible to avoid Geoff Johns, for better or worse. His name, along with Scott Snyder, were in almost every comic book during & before that New 52 transition. Geoff has written for Wonder Woman, Justice League, Batman, some Superman, but the character which launched him to stardom was his work on Green Lantern. He went from a monthly Green Lantern series to also writing the overlong (in my opinion) 'Brightest Day/Darkest Night' series. Among his variety of work Geoff Johns has brought a holiday one-shot called the 'Larfleeze Christmas Special'.

The story begins with Larfleeze, an orange lantern, waking up on Christmas day in eager hopes of finding Santa's had left him gifts from a huge list he's written. He rushes down the stairs of his junkyard home to find there is nothing under his tree. Disappointed, Larfleeze goes out on a destructive journey to find the real Santa Clause & force him to give him the things he's asked for. All of you can already tell the joke behind this whole plot, he's an orange lantern with the same powers as Green Lantern & he's mad that Santa didn't bring him anything. This short not only provides an activity book maze but also a recipe for Orange Lantern Cookies! I may have to try out this recipe sometime. I won't ruin the ending because the ending to this title really is a good emotional gut punch, which is something I didn't expect from a book like this. This one is a well written Christmas superhero book & just like Gotham City Sirens the book is a very short read with a one-off story featuring Sinestro that I admit I skipped over. Jeez, I have been skipping over one-off shorts. Am I getting to old to read?

Now we get to the last one but a goodie.

Bizarre Adventures #34 (Marvel)- This book is an anthology so we're treated to six comic short stories featuring a diverse set of colorful characters. Published in 1982, this issue is chock full of enough reading material to keep you entertained for a while. Right from the cover we are greeted with the subtitle 'Special Hate The Holidays Issue' followed by a warning that this isn't for kids. I'm here to say the farthest the comic book goes is bloody violence in one story (That being the Dr. Deth short & maybe even Slaybells) but other than that the comic is pretty tame. Howard The Duck may feel like it's touching on a harsh taboo, but it's no more tasteless than a suicide joke in a 70's sitcom.

-Son of Santa: A runaway teenager is tossed into a battle between Santa Clause & the Anti-Clause when he accepts an offer from an Elf on 42^nd Street New York. Now from this premise alone you'd think this story would be comedic. Well I was surprised when I read it & how seriously the story is written. It's not as over the top & funny, nor is it too dark & serious as you would expect. Written by Mark Gruenwald (Love his work on 'Quasar'), Son of Santa takes it self as seriously as any other Marvel comic at the time which means it's not winking at the audience constantly from beginning to end. Is it any violent or dark? Well aside from PG-13 levels of violence, I say this one is safe enough for the kids to read.

-Howard The Duck's Christmas: It's not Christmas unless there's dark comedy. That is where Howard The Duck comes in where the first panel is Howard standing above the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge as he musters up the courage to leap off. Well as you can expect his action is halted by a guardian angel in white clothing. This story becomes yet another retelling of 'It's A Wonderful Life' but unlike all those Christmas episodes & specials this tale subverts the tropes in such a hilarious way. The whole book is this guardian angel trying to convince Howard that his life matters & the lives of all his friends will be worse off without him. Well all these alternate realities show that their lives are much better without him. It's hilarious despite its dark subject matter. I won't ruin the whole story but you would be surprised how wholesome & light the ending to this story is.

-Dr. Deth: Now this one isn't much of a Christmas story, but man was it pretty awesome. Dr. Deth is a child bounty hunter with two women on his motorcycle. The art in this is awesome, a very Sunday Morning funnies style with ultraviolence. That story is just Dr. Deth trying to get a bounty that was already caught by two hicks. It's just gunplay all along a snowy road, still a fun story though.

-Slaybells: Once again another dark comedy & even looks more like a newspaper comic strip! Remember the Christmas episode of 'The Boondocks' where Riley runs around the mall getting revenge on Santa? Well imagine that but instead of a BB gun it was real weaponry. This kid has a grudge against Santa since four years ago his dad was killed when Santa's fat ass crushed him at midnight. This one is funny & very dark revenge tale. I won't ruin the twist, all I have to say is I need to get my hand on the easter issue....if there was one. Apparently the 'Marvel Bizarre Adventures' line ended after 34 issues, this christmas one being the last issue. I hope I'm being wrong & there are more issues out there than what the internet is showing me.

-Santa Bites The Big Apple: Santa gets screwed over by New Yorkers because New York sucks, according to this story. Are they right? I don't know, I live in the west coast.

-Bucky Bizarre: Now this is the book's one-off short which I did read and....eh. Time travelling Bucky ends up in the 18^th century when he meets with a girl who sells matches on Christmas night, tells Bucky matches can be used for things other that lighting up cigarettes like lighting up a bomb which she throws at the house of the CEO of the match company she works for because they made her work in the cold while he's cozy & warm at home. I guess it was meant to be funny, like a subversion of all those historical time travel cartoons of the time. So I guess it's funny in that aspect.

'Bizarre Adventures' #34 is a pretty dark comic, but cartoonish & ridiculous to the point where it's meant to be comedic & fun. Now this one might be tough to find since it's not as common as the other comics I mentioned on here.

Now dipping back into TV here this next & final installment is anything but jovial or funny.

Alf Christmas Special (1987)- I'm sure many of you already know where I'm going with this, but for those of you who are just finding out about this, there's a good reason why the Alf Chrismtas Special is very infamous. For starters by 1987 Alf had become a huge superstar to the point where he had his own cartoon, a video game (Albeit a terrible Sega Master System game), a Marvel comic & tons of merch. He was a superstar at the height of his popularity, but the show soon became the same template of Alf fucking shit up, the Tanner family getting angry & for some reason the script manipulates the audience to feel sympathy for a furry alien who never learns any new lessons. Wash, rinse, repeat.

This special isn't anything different (For the most part), Alf fucks shit up when the Tanner Family travels to a cabin when they all spend the holidays in a cabin. Alf opens up everyone's gifts & the Tanners get angry, which leads Alf to run away like a bitch & end up in the truck of a depressed Cleavon Little. Yes, we get Blazing Saddles' Black Bart & he's depressed. He says no funny lines at all. I was hoping he'd at least toss in a 'Where the white women at?' Well Cleavon Little plays a depressed aging man who recently lost his wife & gives away repaired toys to children at the hospital. He's made it clear to his close ones that this will be his last Christmas because afterwards he's killing himself. Before that depressing shit can happen Alf ends up being confused for a toy & is given to a little girl at the hospital. Now we get to the thick of it all, the little girl is based off of a real girl who was going through Leukemia at that time.

True story time: The voice of Alf, Paul Fusco, has admitted the Christmas special was birthed from his time with the 'Make A Wish Foundation'. The children in this program asked to talk to Alf for their make a wish deal. He's talked about how these conversations were recorded & Brandon Tartikoff (President of NBC at that time) came up with the bright idea to use the conversation between Alf & sick children as a premise for an Alf special. Now on paper it sounds like a good idea, but in practice what we got was a very dark & depressing Christmas special that is constantly brought up when talking about awkward & infamous TV specials. The regular series rotation was your typical three camera sitcom with jokes & gags complete with nosy neighbors (The wife is played by Jerry's mom from Seinfeld. You'll recognize her nose when you see it. I WENT THERE!). Well this special decides to take a different approach with a single camera TV movie style & without a laugh track of any kind. As you can tell nobody was ready for a drama heavy Alf. The sum of the episode is watching Alf try to deal with interacting with a dying girl. How does the girl find out Alf is alive? She attempts to add in earrings to his ears & that's where he crosses the line. Oh yeah, because it's still the 80's & earrings on men are still considered GUUUEEEY! So add in gay panic in a show about a dying girl, classy. It didn't help that the commercials advertising this special sold it as a wacky “Oh look, furry alien man is trapped in an elevator with a pregnant woman! Hahahaha! There's laughs to be had!!”

In a form of morbid curiosity I feel this special needs to be watched once just so we all can assure each other we saw what was really presented because describing it sounds so outlandish. I'm sure many of you reading this right now thin I hallucinated the whole thing. Wouldn't be the first time. I'm talking about it as if it was this out of right field oddity, but the cast & crew were fully aware what they wanted with this special. The special was intended to be a drama to show audiences that this puppet isn't just some one dimensional jokester. I can kinda see they wanted to tell a story rather than make a run of the mill episode that just so happens to be set around the holidays. Despite that, people expecting laugh out loud comedy didn't find it here at all. Now there are a few laughs to be had, but they are so far & few in between it may as well be omitted for run time. The humor in this felt forced compared to the more wittier humor the rest of the series contained. In a way I kinda hold this episode up to the same level as that 'Family Guy' episode where both Brian & Stewie are trapped in the bank vault. There's humorous lines & moments, but there's also some well written, well performed drama. By the end of the episode it's nothing but silence, the vault door opens & both Stewie and Brian leave. No music, no fanfare, not even an end gag, what follows next are the end credits in silence. The Alf Christmas special doesn't end in a sad note ( for the most part) or in silence to help you digest what you just watched, it has an uplifting ending. Alf saves Cleavon Little by posing as Santa & talking him out of jumping off a bridge. Alf then reunites with the Tanners, but that is a bit of short lived happiness until a title card pops up to dedicate the special to Tiffany, the real life girl that inspired this episode & passed away before the episode aired.

I can't fully call this the worst Christmas special ever created because its intentions are good. I would have more of an issue with this special if it were manipulative. The problem is it's way too depressing. Alf is a bit of an asshole in this special, but the special doesn't constantly show Alf screwing up while at the same time the script manipulates you into thinking he's a good guy like Zack Morris. I would have included the X-mas 'Saved By The Bell' two-parter where the only reason Zack helps a homeless woman & her jobless dad is because he wants pussy! Pussy & Dick, the solution & problem to all the world's problems. We're not people, we are merely objects. Objects to use as sex toys with no emotion or personality.
There's some humanity to the Alf character that can easily be dismissed because he's a puppet. It's content is a bit too real but again I must say nobody would not be talking about this if they decided to plop Alf into 'A Christmas Carol' or 'It's A Wonderful Life'. Had this special been its own thing with a puppet that wasn't Alf then I would assure you there would be a much more positive reception as a drama. It would be viewed as a genuine tear jerker with some funny moments rather than what it really is, a very rude awakening for Alf fans, especially the kids. Apparently Paul Fusco's mom watched the special as it aired with the neighborhood kids & they just sat there in silence. They thought this captured their attention since the special was talking to them like adults, but I'm pretty sure that silence was more from the fact that these children were traumatized.

So that does it for the more obscure Christmas media. I know I've missed a ton of other titles but as a reminder I was going after the ones I've seen & read. I am fully aware I'm leaving out such movies as 'The Long Kiss Goodbye' and TV specials like the 'Doctor Who' Christmas episodes, but if I haven't seen it I can't talk at length about it. I will admit the only one of those I did see was the Matt Smith era special where the two kids during WWII travel into space Narnia. PBS really fucked me over with that show because during the end of Eccleston's tenure I was teased with the doctor changing form & we get David Tenant as the doctor. The episode ends with the text “Doctor Who will come back in 'Doctor Who Christmas Special'!” Our PBS affiliate yanked the show for more episodes of 'Nova' or some bullshit Victorian era drama.

So that does it for this episode. I hope this served as a well needed distraction & I hope all of you are better off now than you were at the start of this year or last year. Here's a bit of good news, I will be returning this coming year with all new episodes of 'Blogbabble'. Get ready for a bunch of interesting topics I have in store for 2022. There's also another project I've been working on that is not so much grand but it is a personal accomplishment for me. You dig it if you're the right kind of person who enjoys this kinda thing. I won't ruin it or else karma finds a way of screwing this up so stay tuned for the announcement much sooner than later.

This year I have lost some people I was fond of, but I won't lie a couple of these people I had to distance myself away from because of them being toxic & sometimes being silent is just enough to express how they feel. So one thing I want all of you to think about is who you have come in contact with & unless you really fucked them over then count them as a positive experience that wouldn't of happened if they weren't around at that moment. The world is a better place because you exist.
Put that in your pipe & smoke it.

See ya in a few months.

R.I.P
Grandma

1939-2021