BONUS EPISODE: "CHRISTMAS AT TVTIME"

The final installment in our Holiday Trilogy is now available for listening! Check it out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen. 

It is without a doubt the biggest (and longest) episode we've done. With so much talked about, we're providing you with the titles of all the films our cast recommended. 

This episode features your hosts, Taylor and Nick. Joining them, our southern correspondent, Anthony Graziani, and the head of our "research department",  Megan Zaccario.

Here you go: 

TAYLOR DISCUSSED: 

The Little Drummer Boy (1968) 

Frosty Returns (1992)

and several other Rankin/Bass Christmas specials 

NICK DISCUSSED: 

It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002) 

Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (2002) 

Jingle All the Way (1992) 

ANTHONY DISCUSSED: 

"Hey Arnold!": Arnold's Christmas (Season 1, Episode 11) (1996)

Krampus (2015) 

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) 

MEGAN DISCUSSED: 

The Polar Express (2004) 

Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999) 

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) 

Some other titles mentioned include: The Muppet Christmas Carol, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey, Frosty's Winter Wonderland, and The Magic Christian (not a Christmas movie). 

THE WEIRDER SIDE OF CHRISTMAS, PART 3: NESTOR THE LONG EARED CHRISTMAS DONKEY

[Be sure to check out Part 1 for a little history on Rankin/Bass Productions]

by Taylor Zaccario 

Part 3 of 3 

NESTOR THE LONG EARED CHRISTMAS DONKEY (1977)

Here's a recipe you won't find in Julia Child: Take one cup Rudolph, one cup Dumbo, add three tablespoons of The Little Drummer Boy, and then just a pinch of Bambi. Cook for 24 minutes and let cool. You've just made Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey. 

If you want a better summation of this odd little masterpiece, listen to Roger Miller's song of the same name, the inspiration for the short. But for those Roger Miller-loathers out there, he's my take: 

The story begins in the "present day" stable behind Santa's workshop. Santa's donkey (didn't you know Santa had a donkey?) tells us the story of his ancestor, Nestor. Yes, sir. 

Nestor, you might surmise from the title, is a donkey with long ears. They are so freakishly enlarged that the poor guy is constantly tripping on them, falling flat on his ass (ass? Get it? donkey? jackass?... keep reading...)

All the other reindeer donkeys in the stable make fun of Rudolph Nestor for his abnormality. He's a real misfit. On Christmas night, Nestor inadvertently screws up Olaf the Donkey-Keeper's sale of some donkey into slavery to the Roman Empire. Like any slave trader worth his salt, Olaf tosses Nestor out into a blizzard. 

Nestor's mother hauls ass (get it now?) into the storm after him. She finds shelter and makes Nestor sleep beneath her, the warmth of her body keeping him alive. Nestor wakes the next morning to find his mother frozen to death. And just like in Bambi, you're scarred for life. 

Let me be clear about this: Nestor's mother is dead. Beneath that mound of snow we see him sobbing beside lies his mother's... frozen... corpse. 

Merry. Christmas. 

Orphaned and homeless, Nestor wanders the forest alone. He meets a cherub named Tilly (voiced by the iconic Brenda Vaccaro). Tilly has been sent down from you-know-where by you-know-who (God, not Voldemort) to guide Nestor to Bethlehem. 

Once arriving at the outskirts of the city, Tilly leaves Nestor at a stable, where yet another sadistic group of barnyard animals give Nestor the business. 

A married couple arrives in need of a donkey to take them across the stretch of desert to Bethlehem. Despite another cruel donkey-keeper telling the pair that Nestor is essentially a dented car, the couple chooses the long eared donkey for "his gentle eyes."

The wife, who's got a bun in the oven, rides on Nestor's back across the desert. A terrible, blinding sandstorm makes the journey perilous and conceals their path to the city. Time runs out! Hope is lost! So are they! 

Thank goodness Nestor's ears are long enough to hear a voice from above that guides them to Bethlehem. See! His abnormality was a good thing! Take that, jackasses!!!

They arrive safety, but -- don't'cha know it -- there's not a single room open at the inn. Remembering fond memories of feeling warm and protected by his mother in their stable, Nestor takes the couple to a nearby manger. That night, the woman, Mary, gives birth to a child.

Guess who? 

Nestor returns to the original stable he was kicked out of. He reunites with the same abusers who mocked him and indirectly led to his mother's death. But all is forgiven! 

We return to "present day" where Santa's donkey is joined by the Big Man in Red himself, the missus, Rudolph, and a gaggle of reindeer and elves. They gather around the Christmas tree to sing the praises of Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey. 

The donkey that saved Christianity. 

You still with me? Okay, good. 

I didn't own this one on VHS, and I didn't see it until I was 12 or 13. Probably just the right age when the true grimness of existence becomes apparent. Of all the second and third tier Rankin/Bass movies, this is my unfettered favorite. All the reasons most people might be turned off to it, I find lovely: Depressing, nihilistic, redemptive, uplifting, soul wrenching, tear jerking, good tunes to hum. This movie just ticks all the boxes for me. 

It would be very easy to dismiss this film as an unoriginal photocopy of Rudolph, Dumbo, Little Drummer Boy and Bambi. But if you are going to plagiarize, do it well. By blending the best elements from those movies, Nestor becomes entirely enjoyable on its own merits. At 24 minutes, Romeo Muller's script is tightly plotted, every moment counts and the story steamrolls forward. 

Children, who aren't completely shattered, will learn a good message in a simple, coherent way. Adults will be moved by the honest emotions of the piece particularly the sacrifice of Nestor's mother and those sad eyes of Nestor himself. Even those with frosty, chilly souls can't help but be charmed and moved by Nestor's plight. 

Unlike Pinocchio's Christmas, the songs sung by Roger Miller are major earworms that will burrow deep into your brain. In anticipation of writing this article, I couldn't help but hum the title theme song by Roger Miller all morning. Miller is one of the big draws of this short.  

Rankin/Bass usually had a celebrity to narrate their specials. Fred Astaire, Jimmy Durante, Joel Grey, and Andy Griffith all served the role throughout the years. Roger Miller's homespun accent and honky-tonk twang are not only pleasing to our less freakishly long ears, but also perfectly suited for the story. After all, the short was inspired by his own song. 

(For those of you unaware, Miller is the voice of the rooster, Alan-a-Dale, in Disney's Robin Hood, for which he provided several songs and the narration.) 

And, of course, there's Brenda Vaccaro. No movie with Brenda Vaccaro can be a 100% stinker.  

I'm sure some kids nowadays might run screaming from the room into the awaiting couches of their therapists. Maybe Roger Miller isn't to your liking. And perhaps some of the religious elements might put you off, though those story beats never try to proselytize. 

I think this film is terrific. Don't undervalue it as a hodgepodge. Simultaneously hum-worthy and tear-jerky, a story with pathos on the level of anything by Shakespeare, Homer, or O'Neill; and a sweet message about acceptance. Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey deserves the same attention as all those films it stole from. 

THE WEIRDER SIDE OF CHRISTMAS, PART 2: THE LEPRECHAUN'S CHRISTMAS GOLD

[Be sure to check out Part 1 for a little history on Rankin/Bass Productions]

by Taylor Zaccario 

Part 2 of 3 

THE LEPRECHAUN'S CHRISTMAS GOLD (1981) 

Nothing screams of the Yuletide season quite like a banshee. Presumably, that's what Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass thought when they created their penultimate "Animagic" short, The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold. This unholy splicing of Christmas and St. Patrick's Day goes to show that even the greatest of minds can produce the most idiotic of ideas. 

If Pinocchio's Christmas indicated that Rankin and Bass were running out of material, then The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold proved that they had. The story tries to be two things at once and ends up being neither. It reminds me of that scene from The Silence of the Lambs. Remember the one where Hannibal Lecter slices off that guy's face and uses it as a mask? That's what this short is: a St. Patrick's Day special wearing the skinned face of a Christmas special. But unlike Hannibal, The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold doesn't get away with it. 

(Before you continue on, I recommend you read the rest of this article with a thick Irish brogue. This is the closet way of experiencing the film without actually seeing it.)

Set on Christmas Eve, Dinty Doyle (nice guy but a bit of a putz) is the cabin boy of the good ship, Belle of Erin, bound for Zimbabwe -- I'm just joshing! -- they're going to Ireland, of course. The ship's captain spots a tree on the beach of a small island, and he sends Dinty to bring the tree back for Christmas. 

But misfortune strikes when Dinty plucks the tree from the sand and unwittingly releases a banshee named Mag the Hag. 

No, no, no. This is a Christmas special! I swear! 

Here's the wonky thing about Mag: if she can't find gold before Christmas (tomorrow), she will transform from her corporal state into nothing but tears. Sucks, right? And just before the holidays too. As a banshee, she cannot steal gold; it must be given to her. 

A rainbow suddenly leads Dinty to a hillside of shamrocks, because this movie has a quota of Irish stereotypes it must meet! The hillside splits open and reveals a hidden cache of.... you guessed it!...

Leprechaun gold! The trove is lorded over by Blarney Kilkilarney, a mercurial leprechaun and former gold miner. Blarney loves his gold almost as much as he loves delivering his exposition. He invites Dinty in for a cup of tea and a long-winded flashback sequence that lasts for 10 of the short's 24 total minutes. 

Blarney tells Dinty the story of his life. Blarney was... oh, to hell with it. It's too complicated, and I can't bare the thought of having to type it all out. 

What you need to know is that banshees are shapeshifters, revealed only by their ever present tears and that Mag was imprisoned beneath that tree on the beach by Blarney via the aid of St. Patrick himself and a pine cone. 

Once the flashback ends, Mag slips a mickey into Blarney's tea, causing him to feel compelled to give away the gold. Only he doesn't give it to Mag, he gives it to Dinty. Wanting no part of a leprechaun-banshee kerfuffle, Dinty vamooses for his ship. 

As if being named "Dinty" wasn't bad enough, he discovers his ship is gone. He's marooned. But don't you shed no tears for Dinty! He happens upon a beautiful Irish girl whose been shipwrecked. He takes the gorgeous wee lass (Oh, Jesus, now I'm doing) into his care and tells her all about the gold. He doesn't know what to do with it all. She convinces Dinty to give the gold to her, and she can pay the leprechauns to build a ship to bring them all back to Ireland. 

This is usually the point in the movie where I start clawing at my scalp and smash my fists against the wall.  

Does this make sense to ANYONE!? 

I've seen this short a billion times, and I never know what the hell she's talking about.  Leprechauns don't build ships! What qualifications as miners and shoemakers (the two career opportunities on the island) make them shipbuilders? And where are they getting building materials from? 

That part always grinds my gears. 

But of course, Dinty is a simp and gives her the gold. We viewers have one or two more braincells than the "Dint" Man. We've noticed the tears streaking down this young shipwrecked woman's face. We know Dinty the putz just handed over the gold to Mag the Hag.... 

More stuff happens...

But it doesn't really matter what. Nothing in the short really makes sense, and no one is pretending it does. 

You can group The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold among the rarest and most obscure in Rankin/Bass' holiday output. I remember seeing it only scarcely on TV, shown at 6:00 am on ABC Family Saturday mornings. 

It's a movie that only works because it doesn't work. It belongs in one of those early 20th century freak shows. The kind of place P.T. Barnum would display conjoined rhinoceroses and fake mermaid cadavers. The Christmas elements are jammed so roughly into the story that even I felt sore. Much of what's wrong with the film, unfortunately, comes down to the teleplay. 

I say "unfortunately" because I really admire writer Romeo Muller, who scripted most of the Rankin/Bass classics. He's the man behind Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, and a whole host of superior films that he should be exalted for authoring. But this one simply doesn't work. Dinty is too passive a character, sitting by idly listening and reacting to others. The flashback scene regresses the story and takes too much time away from our supposed protagonist, creating an extremely disjointed narrative. 

Perhaps the film's biggest disgrace is it's treatment of Mag the Hag. The redemption and absolution of villains are two cornerstones in Rankin/Bass films. The Abominable Snow Monster (Rudolph), Aeon the Terrible (Rudolph's Shiny New Year), and Jack Frost (Frosty's Winter Wonderland) are just a few examples of villains with justifiable beefs, who learn the error of their methods, and reform. 

Mag is never given the opportunity to leave the Dark Side. All she wants is some gold to prevent herself from turning into tears. That's not unreasonable. But these cheapskate leprechauns can't give her a little bit? Not a coin? Not a bag of gold dust? Throw her a bone! A golden one, even. Her ultimate demise feels like a cruel deus ex machina and leaves Mag's story without proper resolution. #JusticeforMagtheHag

I'm not even going to attempt dealing with the Irish stereotyping going on. It's not even that the film stereotypes the Irish on screen; it's that the film vomits stereotypes of the Irish onto the screen. All of Irish history, mythology, and culture are reduced down to leprechauns, shamrocks, gold, and rainbows. They even manage to slip in a potato reference. 

But remember, I'm still recommending you check it out. It's not all tears and dead banshees. This mutant-hybrid has a few bright spots. Just like in Pinocchio's Christmas, the stop-motion animation is exquisite. All the tunes are toe-tappers, and Art Carney is an enjoyable narrator. The biggest boon to The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold is Ken Jennings. 

You might know Jennings best from his many game show appearances; however, that's a different Ken Jennings. 

This Ken Jennings is an actor, primarily known for his stage performances. I can't objectively tell you if his performance as Dinty is good or bad. I am too awed by his being the original Tobias Ragg in the first Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. But he's honest as Dinty and gives a real, committed performance. 

That's it for bright spots. 

The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold will never rank highly on anybody's Christmas list, but a movie that attempts to meld together pots of gold and Christmas trees deserves 24 minutes of your time.  

Next up in Part 3.... a donkey is mocked, abandoned, and sent off on a divine quest for Bethlehem in...

Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey 

THE WEIRDER SIDE OF CHRISTMAS, PART 1: PINOCCHIO'S CHRISTMAS

by Taylor Zaccario 

Part 1 of 3 

You know Rudolph and Frosty and Santa and Yukon Cornelius. Mrs. Claus and Heat Miser and Snow Miser and Burgermeister Meisterburger. But do you recall Dinty Doyle and Nestor and Maestro Fireater and Olaf the Donkey-Keeper? Allow me to initiate you with the weirder side of Christmas. 

If you've turned on a TV in December since 1964, you've likely encountered the holiday specials from Rankin/Bass Productions. Perhaps you watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and Frosty the Snowman (1969) on CBS, or The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) on ABC Family. Whether you know the company's name or not, it's very likely their films are an aspect of your holiday season. 

Founded in 1960 by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, the company produced an amazing output of animated projects for film and television, such as The Hobbit (1977), The Flight of Dragons (1982), and the animated series ThunderCats (1985-1989). (Rankin/Bass Production also had a hand in one of my all-time favorite bad giant monster movies, King Kong Escapes [1965]) 

But it's for their holiday output and their frequent use of a stop-motion animation technique called "Animagic" that has bestowed their work with immortality. Their more famous Christmas specials, Rudolph and Frosty, have been played every year on CBS since they premiered. 

However, some of their lesser-known titles are worth a watch, based solely on just how incredibly bizarre and brazenly odd they are. These may not reach the quality of their upper tier projects; however, I am of the school that believes any film with the names Rankin/Bass on it can't be all together bad. Pure charm saves any of their more middling work.  

Here's Part 1 of 3. We begin with a little wooden boy....

PINOCCHIO'S CHRISTMAS (1981)

Did you feel the classic Disney version of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio needed a dream sequence featuring the little wooden boy giving dance lessons to Santa's toys? Then this film is for you! 

It's Pinocchio's first Christmas since being chiseled out of a tree limb into the approximation of a boy in puppet form. Geppetto buys his dopey cedar son an arithmetic book, but Pinocchio, being a repellent little brat, returns the book for some cold hard cash. First he decides he's going use the money to buy Geppetto something for Christmas. Unfortunately, the little schmuck gets bamboozled out of the dough by his two "pals", the Cat and the Fox. 

From here, Pinocchio undergoes a series of increasingly nightmarish misadventures, straight out of the mind of Hunter S. Thompson on psychedelics. 

You ready for this? Okay: 

Pinocchio becomes a dancer in a puppet show; falls in love with a non-living puppet named Julietta ala Lars and the Real Girl; kidnaps that puppet and lams it in the Enchanted Forest; stands idly by as the Cat and the Fox are repeatedly barraged by lightning strikes...

But wait! There's more!...

Gets sold into domestic slavery; teaches a duke the meaning of Christmas; catches a ride back home with Santa to have Christmas breakfast with the Blue Fairy and the Talking Cricket. 

Oh, did I mention that Geppetto discovers a lookalike marionette that he mistakenly assumes is a dead Pinocchio, and spends several scenes mourning his lifeless son that he himself carved out of wood? 

Merry Christmas! 

I didn't grow up on this one, and I never owned it on VHS. I remember ABC Family only showed it when I was either heading out or coming back from getting my Christmas tree each year. Either I saw the first half or the second half, but never the whole film. Eventually, I succumbed and bought the DVD. 

Pinocchio's Christmas lacks the imagination, thematic unity, and endearing characters that are so emblematic of Rankin/Bass. Pinocchio is the only protagonist in the company's filmography that you hope gets turned into kindling. Words like "jerk", "bratty", "moronic", "obnoxious", "infuriating"should rarely be used when describing a protagonist. Yet, they are perfectly suited in describing Pinocchio. 

At a painful 1 hour, the short isn't so much a "short" as a "long". Pinocchio's Christmas was one of the last "Animagic" specials Rankin/Bass produced. It came at a time when the company began to run dry on ideas. It shows in the meandering, padded script and the (mostly) forgettable, uninspired tunes. One song is literally comprised of Pinocchio singing "dancing" over and over again. 

Despite my snark, I still want you to see it. The "Animagic" is top notch, perhaps the company's best. The film shows off the technical expertise Rankin/Bass acquired over many years. George S. Irving, more famous for voicing Heat Miser in The Year without a Santa Claus, creates an equally befuddled and heart wrenching Geppetto. The scene in which he clutches the marionette he assumes is Pinocchio and sings a mournful song is genuinely moving. 

A little more concision in Romeo Muller's teleplay would have been much appreciated; however, some praise should be given to the script, as it manages to envision a take on Pinocchio that is wholly distinct from both Disney's version and Collodi's original. Yes, it meanders. Yes, it's padded. But Muller's psychedelic slant on the tale and the absurdly forced Christmas elements are so wrong-footed, they become a wreck you must slow down to watch. 

Come for the dance sequence. Stay for the Talking Cricket's Brooklyn accent. Best enjoyed while on hallucinogenics. 

Next up in Part 2... pots of gold, a banshee named Mag the Hag, Dinty Doyle, Christmas in Killarney, and Sweeney Todd's Ken Jennings in...

The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold 

OCTOBER MADNESS: EVERY HALLOWEEN MOVIE I WATCHED IN OCTOBER 2021

Our Halloween episode was one of my favorites this season on the podcast.

If you haven't listened -- go ahead, slap yourself, I can't reach your face from here -- Nick and I filled out a bracket with Halloween movie titles, and we proceeded to play one of those "knockout tournaments". The average bear plays the game with college football teams, but I don't know any college football teams. However, I know a lot about lists. 

I'll let you in on a little secret about me: I have an inveterate obsession with lists. I love lists. I love reading lists. I love asking people about their lists. What's your top 3 favorite Sherlock Holmes movies? What's your list of best screwball comedies? Can you list for me 10 must-see episodes of the Jetsons? 

Give me an AFI Top 10 list and a bottle of Poland Spring water, and that's my idea of a swell night. 

Most of all, I love making lists. 

Since January 2018, I've kept my own daily record of every movie and TV show I've watch, as well as every book I've finished. Aside from my list fetish, I do find it fun to look back on my year or the year before. There's something cathartic about choosing a random date from May 2019 and seeing what movie I saw that day. 

It becomes greater than the title itself. I can peer back through time, getting a sense of where my life was at that moment. What was I doing? How was I feeling? What was going on? I can glean all this just by noting what I was watching. A movie title can trigger vivid and salient memories. That's why it's good to maintain a record. 

In keeping with my plug for our Halloween episode -- available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc. -- I'm sharing with you everything I watched in October 2021. 

I attempted a month long marathon of Halloween-themed films. I wasn't entirely successful. Keened-eyed list-readers will notice several titles, such as Judy Garland's The Pirate (1948) and Daniel Craig's No Time to Die (2021), as having NOTHING to do with ghouls, goblins, and Cromwell witches. 

The marathon reached an odd culmination on Halloween Day. I suppose Planet of the Apes (1968) could be classified as a monster movie but only with the broadest of definitions. The family friendly Andre (1994), the heartwarming story of a girl and her pet seal, might not seem like spooky fare. But a brief scene set on Halloween meets one of the following criteria I used in order to designate my choices as Halloween appropriate:  

1) The film (entirely, partially, or a single scene) is set near, about, or on Halloween. 

2) A monster, vampire, ghost, or zombie is featured. 

3) The presence of a mad scientist or mad scientist-type. 

4) A horror film made by Universal Studios during the 1930s or 40s. 

5) Any Disney Channel Original Movie that premiered during October in the 90s/2000s. 

Meeting at least one of these made the film eligible for the marathon. (By the way, how incredibly insane am I?) 

The marathon got off to a slow start, though October 1st did include Batman: The Long Halloween Parts One and Two (2021). Things really got monster-mashing on October 5th with The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944). Classic Universal Monster flicks and sprinklings of Disney Channel Original Movies comprised the bulk of my marathon. 

Seinfeld and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (that's the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares) appear frequently. I was doing simultaneous rewatches of both. 

Are you equally marveled and disturbed at how much I watched? Thank my chronic insomnia for the extra time. 

Here's my list: 

(movie titles are FULLY CAPITALIZED. Television show titles are not) 

(I've put in bold some titles that I especially recommend you check out.)

OCTOBER 2021

10/1 THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK; SPACE COWBOYS; BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN, PART ONE; BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN, PART TWO; Seinfeld 

10/2 CRY MACHO, Seinfeld 

  

10/3 THE GAUNTLET, GOING IN STYLE, Seinfeld 

10/4 THE PIRATE, Seinfeld  

10/5 THE INVISIBLE MAN’S REVENGE, Seinfeld 

10/6 HOCUS POCUS, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Seinfeld 

10/7 NO TIME TO DIE, Seinfeld 

10/8 WEREWOLF OF LONDON, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 

10/9 THE MUMMY’S TOMB, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

10/10 FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 

10/11 SON OF DRACULA, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

10/12 THE MUMMY’S GHOST, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 

10/13 HALLOWEENTOWN II: KALABAR’S REVENGE, HALLOWEENTOWN HIGH, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

10/14 THE BLOB (1958), THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES (1948), Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 

10/15 DRACULA A.D. 1972, LITTLE GIANT, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 

10/16 THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 

10/17 DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT, HORROR OF DRACULA, Seinfeld 

10/18 DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 

10/19 CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, THE HAUNTED MANSION, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares  

10/20 SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, Muppets Haunted Mansion 

10/21 THE RAVEN (1935), NIGHT MONSTER, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN 

10/22 THE HALLOWEEN TREE, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, Seinfeld 

10/23 HALLOWEENTOWN, THE BLACK CAT (1934), Seinfeld, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

10/24 BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA 

10/25 THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX, DRACULA (1931), Seinfeld 

10/26 THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN Seinfeld 

10/27 THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933), MOM’S GOT A DATE WITH A VAMPIRE, Seinfeld 

10/28 THE WITCHES (1990), THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS 

10/29 I MARRIED A WITCH, HOUSE OF DRACULA, The Outer Limits 

10/30 THE WOLF MAN (1941), THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD, Seinfeld 

10/31 ANDRE, PLANET OF THE APES (1968), Seinfeld

-T.Z. 

PLUTO'S CHRISTMAS TREE AND OTHER HOLIDAY CARTOON CLASSICS

One of my favorite cartoons also happens to be Christmas themed. If you haven't seen Pluto's Christmas Tree (1952), crawl forth from that rock you've been dwelling beneath, sign into your Disney+ account, and check it out. This short is yearly viewing in my house. 

The story follows Mickey Mouse and Pluto as they make preparations for the holiday. Mickey chops down a tree for Christmas and brings it home, unaware the fir is itself home to Chip 'n' Dale. After Mickey gets the tree all nicely decorated, Pluto discovers the two scamps lurking within the branches. The ensuing mayhem, involving ornaments, chestnuts, and candle wax, would make Kevin McCallister himself beam with jolly pride. The short ends with a cameo from three very recognizable carolers. 

I first encountered this cartoon on a VHS compilation called A Walt Disney Christmas, a collection of several wintry-themed shorts. I owned this copy:

...but I saw it for the first time on this edition, which my grandmother owned: 

You're likely to find it on other similarly themed anthologies. (It's strangely absent from Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse [2001].)

Pluto's Christmas Tree is notable for being the first time the chipmunks encountered Mickey Mouse, and a rare instance where the duo don't vex their usual nemesis, Donald Duck. Pluto, who receives the brunt of the scamps' ire, also tangled with the chipmunks in Squatter's Rights (1946) and Private Pluto (1943), Chip 'n' Dale's cinematic debut. 

This is one of 94 shorts Jack Hannah directed for Walt Disney, one of his few to not star Donald Duck. Hannah is often credited with developing Donald's personality and character on screen. (Carl Barks gets rightful credit for fleshing out Donald in his highly popular comic book series.)   

While you're on Disney+, I recommend you check out another of Hannah's shorts, a terrific film called Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1952), set in the same fictional universe as Dumbo (1941). Also worth your time are two other Christmas/holiday/winter themed shorts, Santa's Workshop (1932) and On Ice (1935). Both are currently available on Disney+.

Regardless of whether you have sugar plums dancing in your head or not, Pluto's Christmas Tree is must viewing for Disney fans and Chip 'n' Dale completionists.

-T.Z.