Don't MESS with my Christmas Specials


Wherein Our Heroine is To Be Feared.
Fear my retribution, for it is swift, cold, and set to snappy music.

I went on a TiVo Rankin Bass search-and-record mission yesterday, instructing the TiVo to do my bidding and search out all the cheesy Christmas puppet specials it could find. I was looking for puppet-based animation of the 60's and 70's, voiced by the likes of Mickey Rooney, Fred Astaire, Shirley Booth, and Danny Kaye. I was looking for elves who were kinkily into dentistry, forest animals who nodded their heads in time to the music, the epic battle between heat and cold personified, a snowman who dresses like Tom Wolfe, and a certain adenoidal reindeer who crows, "She dinks I'b CUUUUUDE!"

An impostor snuck into the mix.

Beware the title, "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys." About 30 seconds of icky, computer-animated, derivative crap was all it took to make Our Hero and me recoil in horror. (They even have frightening baby seals in the intro to this disaster - who knew baby seals could be frightening?) The main (and some supporting) characters are easily recognizable in this intro, but everything is too smooth, too shaded, too 2001 to be the Real Deal. Those of us who remember sitting in excited wonder, footie pajamas a-tremble, waiting for the year's only viewing of the Rankin Bass specials will most likely be gravely disappointed.

You cannot say you were not warned.
Posted: Friday - December 03, 2004 at 06:05 AM         | |

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