Ho, Ho, Ho everybody! Welcome to another stunning, flawless, amazing, decking the halls better than your favorites edition of Yule Blog, where we celebrate the season with a warm blanket of sarcasm. We've done a lot so far with odes to teen pop, hip hop and gay Christmas as well as helping you survive the holiday party season, the magic of crappy Christmas tunes and yesterday songs battled for Christmas tune supremacy. Whew! We've just been blogging our little hearts out.
Today we turn our attention to television. Oh TV, how we love thee, particularly during the holiday season. All across network and cable television, shows scramble to piece together holiday specials that are high on the cheese factor, low on the plot points and somewhere in the middle in terms of overall quality. "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Carol" plotlines are trotted out on the regular so the nice characters can learn how important they are to the show while mean/bitchy characters get to learn the spirit of Christmas and change their evil doing ways for about five seconds at the end of the show before reverting back to their normal nature for the rest of the season because isn't that the message of Christmas? Maybe?
Anyway, we're going to take on our personal favorite holiday-infused episodes of shows including everything from "The O.C." to "Fairly Oddparents" to "Tales of the Crypt." Oh yeah, nothing says "HAPPY HOLIDAYS" quite like serial killers dressed as Santa Claus.
First up, we take on "The Golden Girls." Long before Betty White had one of the biggest career comebacks to hit a nursing home, most every person we knew obsessively watched "Golden Girls" reruns on Lifetime. How could not love a show about a bunch of older women sniping at one another, talking about sex and eating oodles of cheesecake. If you don't love the show, all we can say is:
"The Golden Girls" did two proper Christmas episodes with our favorite being "Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas" from the show's second season. Filled with all of the requisite wacky 1980s hijinx, the episode is centered on all of the ladies trying to get back to their respective families for Christmas and encountering a series of mishaps including being held hostage at Rose's Grief Counseling Center because you know what's hilarious? CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR. Anyway, for us, the highlight of the episode comes before the girls leave for their families. Gathered in the wicker-tastic living room of Blanche's the girls exchange presents, and Blanche gives them all a very special, homemade present:
Sure puts to shame all those crappy homemade gifts we made as a kid.
Next up, Timmy Turner and his Fairy Godparents learn that having Christmas 24/7 is a horrendously bad idea in the episode "Christmas Every Day." Timmy decides to wish for, you guessed it, Christmas to be every day. Turns out, in the world of the "Fairly Odd Parents" Santa Claus gets his magical powers from the fairies donating their own magic to him. Sure. We'll go with this in the spirit of it all. Anyway, Timmy Turner sings one of our new favorite Christmas tunes in the episode while hilariously starting it off with a random "Apocalypse Now" reference. Because the kiddies will totally get that.
Speaking of Nicktoons, we can't mention them without putting a link to one of the best Christmas episodes EVAH as done by "Rugrats" with their episode "The Santa Claus Experience." The parents, wanting to give the kids the Christmas experience, decide to rent a cabin/house with Chuckie's and Angelica's fathers dueling over who gets to be Santa. Meanwhile, Chuckie, grasping onto the sort of true idea that Santa is sort of creepy in his house breaking thing, helps spook the other babies of the idea of Old St. Nick. And HBIC Angelica has decided to pull a "Gift of the Magi" on Phil and Lil because that's what divas do.
Part Two
Part Three
From the dorky charms of Chuckie Finster to the adorkableness of Seth Cohen, next up we take on the magic that is the Cohen-created holiday of Chrismukkah from the fantastic series "The O.C." There were four Chrismukkah episodes but our favorite was the first one because you had Wonder Woman!Summer, Shoplifting!Marissa and Angsty!Ryan all careening around one another while Seth Cohen, as brilliantly played by Adam Brody, held court with his special holiday. Below, some clips from four seasons of the great Chrismukkah:
Speaking of Fox shows,"Family Guy" recently did their own spin-off on Christmas episodes with Stewie plotting to kill Santa Claus, only to find out that because of the world's greed, the North Pole is one of the biggest polluters in the world. Mmmm, doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?
Which that premise is practically light-hearted compared to what "Tales of the Crypt" did with their episode of "All Through the House." The story tells the simply heart-warming tale of a woman who offs her husband on Christmas Eve. And wouldn't you know, she just so happens to end having to deal with an escaped serial killer dressed up as Santa Claus. And because she's killed her husband and still has to dispose of his body, she is not terribly eager to call the police to help her out BECAUSE SHE'S A MORON AND DOESN'T THINK OF JUST CLAIMING THAT KILLER CLAUS KILLED HER HUSBAND. Anyway, below is the creepy ending of the episode, which we still remember to this day watching as a kid:
Bonus, poor man's Elizabeth Taylor/rich man's Delta Burke Joan Collins does her own version of the tale in a 1970s film of "Tales of the Crypt."
We interrupt this doom and gloom for some groove in the form of the Simpson's singing "Simpson Christmas Boogie."
We go to the hood for our next Christmas episode favorite. One of our favorite TV shows was "227" starring Marla Gibbs of "The Jeffersons" fame as well Jackee Harry of "Sister, Sister" notoriety. We love almost 1980s sitcoms because they never ever felt the need to be realistic whatsoever. I mean, we had a former actor as president of the United States at the time, logic sort of flies out the window at that point. Anyway, here is mini-episode of "Mary's Christmas" which has the ridiculous plot that the church that all the characters going to has to be moved and somehow ends up being stolen. Oh that's right. Not the contents of the church, the whole church itself magically disappears. Times really were tough in the 1980s:
Next up, "Grey's Anatomy" teaches us the meaning of the season in their season two episode "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer." We may have been glad that Izzie finally left the show last year, but there was a time we actually adored the girl. In the clip below, Izzie caught Alex cheating on her in the previous episode but, after being convinced lispy mclisp Meredith that should help Alex pass his medical exams, Izzie comes to Alex's aid and delivers one of our all-time favorite "Grey's Anatomy" quotes.
And because it's "Grey's Anatomy," someone's holiday had to be ruined so Derek shows up to the bar to let his wife Addison know where he stands on his feelings about Meredith.
Mind you, Derek didn't really divorce Addison until way later and didn't even tell Meredith he loved her even after she was nearly killed by a bomb. Talk about playing your emotions close to your vest.
Lastly we end with the original 90210. Running for years, they did plenty of cheese-tastic Christmas episodes of note but does anything SCREAM early 1990s quite like a Christmas episode titled "It's a Totally Happening Life"? Didn't think so.
Below, a clip from the season 2 Christmas episode "A Walsh Family Christmas."
And with that, we end this edition of Yule Blog. See you tomorrow for one last stunning, flawless, fruitcake better than your favorite edition of Yule Blog. Until then . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment