I
don't know why I do it. It probably goes back to the
days when Nathan and I rented crappy movies each Friday
and watched them. The Fridays known as Crappah Moovah
Fridah. I can't explain the "ah" at the
end of each word, and I won't try. Let's just blame
it on my terrible fictional speech impediment and
leave it at that. What I'm trying to get to here is
that I don't know why I watch utterly bad movies,
but I do. And I do so with such disregard to my own
safety and the safety of those around me, I may very
well be endangering our very existence; the very fabric
of time and space itself, or at least some wildlife.
To
get through these 12 days I watched something try
so hard to be full of the Christmas spirit, try
so damn hard. And then to see it fail, not over
a course of half an hour or some other Earthly time
length, but over the course of three full hours, It
really made me stop and think about how many children’s
Christmases were ruined as a result of watching this
one video cassette.
It
killed his family, and now he's out for revenge.
The
tape is simply called "Christmas Cartoons"
and was distributed by K5 International. It contains
about 15 short holiday themed animations, although
some aren't animated or holiday themed at all. The
package it claims to have "3 Full Hours"
of "Family Entertainment" but that is also
debatable.
My
initial plans was to review each and every single
cartoon on this tape, but after watching that I know
that task would be near impossible and would probably
lead to the deaths of several economies. So what I'm
gonna do here is review one and see if I can get an
article out of it.
Santa
Claus and his Helpers is one of the non-animated
shorts. It starts off with about five minutes of miscellaneous
children. This where I began having a problem. I dislike
small children kids. Granted, I'm stuck in my childhood,
but I don't like these new kids they're coming out
with these days. Most of them either think that Optimus
Prime is a damn fire truck, haven't even heard of
the guy, or think that the Ninja Turtles were always
pupil-less. I can see one kid, or maybe even two,
knowing some back-story to their rehashed versions
of our classics. The kids in this short are classics
themselves and immensely uncool.
From
left to monster: I make cheese for Santa!; Monster
says blarghh!
These
kids are probably old enough by now to be my grandparents,
if they survived the horrific bloodshed that was Santa's
toys in the early part of time. Sharp, jagged, metal
edges were in store for kids. It's probably for the
best though that these childbeasts need not survive,
for the good of the species.
Making
fun of children is great and all, but I've already
lost focus in the first few paragraphs of this article.
This short is really about Santa, Merlin the Magician,
and the 5th Dimension! A dimension too fantastic
to be called the 4th Dimension.
Our
story starts out in Santa's village. Actually it's
more of a sweatshop of sorts and is presumably the
residence of the ugly kids pictured above. Santa then
enters and decrees that it's almost Christmas eve
and that the children need to work harder. I'm no
Santa-ologist, but isn't Santa supposed give presents
to the children of the world and not make them sweat
in a slave labor camp at the North Pole? I guess these
must be the bad kids of Earth, and mean really
bad. Not only did these kids get coal in their stockings,
Santa has abducted them and forced them to work for
pennies per hour, if that.
I'm
beginning to like this Santa guy.
INTERESTING
FACT!
Did you know that Santa has a laboratory high above
the North Pole, far out in space? NOW YOU KNOW!
After
a few more shots of the children, we head out into
space where Santa has set up a laboratory. What kind
of things does Santa have in his space fortress you
ask? After I tell you, you'll wish you didn't.
 The
Behavior Computer
The Behavior Computer, or BC, registers the
good and bad deeds of children of all ages. That's
pretty straight forward.
 The
Hear All Ear
Presumably this device listens into each
and every child's words and conversations. That's
right kids. Each time you've said poopy-head, Santa's
heard it.
 The
Magic Teletalker
It is never explained what this device is
used for, and it is never used. Does it speak magic
or give incredible head? We may never know the truth.
 The
See it All Telescope connected to the Magic Eye
This device let's Santa peer into children's
beds to see if Michael Jackson has been a naughty
boy.
Santa
uses his telescope to peer through some expository
dialogue. Through this we learn that Santa has set
up shop all over the world, and can travel to any
of his camps through the 5th dimension, invented by
his afore mentioned magician buddy, Merlin. I'm pretty
sure that this short is taking some large artistic
leaps with the Santa mythos, pretty sure.
This
is where the short takes a turn for the worse. Yes,
worse. As Santa is peering through his telescope
and into the fifth dimension, we soon realize that
it is filled with big talking anthropomorphic animals. Now, I like Bugs Bunny and all, but Bugs was never as retarded as these... creatures.
Above
we have a slack-jawed wolf named "Ferocious Wolf"
and a skunk named "Stinky Skunk". Their
alliteration needs some serious work, but so does
everything else in this terrible image of Christmas.
Mr. Wolf is yelling his ass off incoherently for about
three minutes. The only discernable words to come
out of his mouth are, "Oh! My ulcer!". Then
Puss in Boots appears. Wolf fires Skunk, and I think
Puss talks Wolf out of firing Skunk. To tell you the
truth, I had no idea what's going on at this point
and had successfully thrown down my notepad in disgust.
The voices for Stinky Skunk and Puss in Boots are
comparable to Steve Urkel being run over by a huge,
novelty sized air horn. If you have this tape, I'd
suggest turning down the volume right about here,
muting the whole damn thing entirely or throwing it
out of the nearest jet plane en route to beyond the
Moon.
You
may notice that Wolf is toting around a huge rifle.
From end to end it stands taller than he himself!
We need to see more of this type of thing in Christmas
themed media, big weaponry.
This
is a mess.
Back
at Merlin's place, Santa is worried about not being
able to get to one of his villages. Merlin then reminds
him of the fifth dimension. I don't know how Santa
forgot about a whole dimension, especially through
all that exposition. But Santa seems to be a bit loony.
Merlin then gives Santa some magic dust that can make
all the people of Earth disappear. You may think I'm
leaving out some plot points, maybe a reason why Merlin
is giving Santa this inviso-dust, but I'm just telling
you what's going on. Merlin, the whole time, singing
his own theme music that goes something like "da-da
da-da da-da da-da...etc...". Whatever you just
did in your head when you read that was the good
version of his song.
Then
there is some confusion about the fifth dimension.
Fitting as I have no idea what the hell is going on
either. I'm glad I'm not alone and the actors a clueless
as to the plot is as well.
Santa
smells a flower and gets sent to where ever those
furries are, orders them to stop fighting and to get
to work. Christmas is coming, you see, and toys need
to be built. Little Andrew wants a Unicron this Christmas.
So the furries and elves get to work and start making
toys and guns. Christmas is saved! OR IS IT!!!???
This
stuff is easily on par with 'Manos'
the Hands of Fate, widely considered to be the
worst movie, ever. If you ever come across this tape
and have an undying love for life, don't watch it.
However, if you have an undying love for ham and typing
in 76pt purple tinted font, or maybe you just are
Harry
Knowles, watch this flick, you may write in font
so big it will crush you all.
MERLIN
SEZ: BACK TO NINJACULTURE!
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