Category: Christmas

Mike Judge and Greg Daniels’ King of the Hill is one of the greatest shows that ever aired on television, animated or otherwise. If you need me to explain why, you really need to go back and watch the show. Start at the beginning. Then do your best to sort of grin and bear everything after Season 6. It’s not bad. It’s just not the same.

Anyway, there have been a few Christmas episodes and I recently re-watched the first three of them: Pretty, Pretty Dresses; Hillennium and ‘Twas the Nut Before Christmas.

Adam and I got sloshed last night and watched Bad Santa 2. It was horrible.

After looking back through the archives, it seems I have not written a blog post about Bad Santa. This is probably because we covered it on one of our Christmas episodes. To varying degrees, Adam and I were on the same page about that one. It had some charm. It was overall an enjoyable film that deserved to exist.

Full disclosure: this review is nostalgia-informed. Perhaps nostalgia-captive.

I love Ranma 1/2‘s Christmas OVA, Tendo Family Christmas Scramble. I even love the title, because it includes the word “scramble”, which is an A+ comedy word.

Netflix is finally going after the sweet, sweet schmaltzy cinematic trash money that ABC Family has been hogging to themselves for years. To wit, I provide you the trailer, which essentially plays the entire movie out in 2 minutes:

Brian’s Exploratory Christmas Endeavor 2016: 9/25

It’s no secret that I’ve spent most of my life disapproving of this movie. I watched it a fair amount as a child, as my aunt gifted me a copy one year for the holidays. Then I grew out of it, left it in that great pile of films I once enjoyed but didn’t feel much need for any longer.

Brian’s Exploratory Christmas Endeavor 2016: 8/25

I love this special. It is unassuming, low-budget, hurried in its production, and unique. The child characters are voiced, hilariously, by inexperienced real children. Its soundtrack is among my favorite music, Christmas or otherwise, that I’ve heard in my entire life.

It’s just wonderful. And I discussed in our holiday episode last year. So I’m not going to go to too much trouble reviewing it here. It’s a 30-minute (less, really) family-friendly Christmas cartoon that does its job, and well. A classic if ever there was one.

★★★★☆

GOOD