Five Animated Christmas Specials I Hate

I’ve spent the last month gong over animated specials I just loved. But of course, there are some I did not like, and it seemed only fair to discuss those too. Here are five animated specials which don’t work for me.

Family Circus Christmas

I found this on YouTube an it was just so boring! I really don’t have anything else to say about it. I like the comic ok but this sucked.





Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

Rankin/Bass didn’t always hit gold. Anyone remember their version of Jack Frost? Or Pinocchio’s First Christmas (I still haven’t sat through that), or the painful Rudolph and Frosty:Christmas In July? But there is one that I flat out hated! Life and Adventures of Santa Claus was based on a L Frank Baum book. Of course Baum is famous for The Wizard of Oz, and while I am sure the special is a faithful adaptation it is just        boring. And the story is really, really stupid. It involves a council of eternal people deciding to give Santa immortality. They then discuss Santa’s backstory…and it’s just real stupid. Not to mention the fact that the Santa Claus they establish here bears only superficial resemblance to the Santa we know popularly. There was one decent song and the whole special is better left forgotten. The saddest part is the last special R/B would produce. They should have gone out on a higher note.





Frosty Returns

You may have noticed the classic Frosty was not on my countdown. Call it a #11 spot I guess. Jimmy Durante is great and Jackie Vernon as Frosty is well done, but the story just makes no sense. Why would Karen go with Frosty? Is the North Pole just a train ride away? But I can respect that one, what I can’t respect is the half hear ted follow up released years later. Frosty Returns has nothing to do with Christmas (or the original special for that matter!), has bad animation, and a half hearted environmental message that is so forced. Yeah John Goodman, Jonathan Winters, and Brian Doyle Murray make a good cast but this is just bad. I haven’t watched this in years and I plan to keep it that way.

There was another sequel to the classic carton called “Frosty’s Winter Wonderland” which was straight up boring. But at least it was a true sequel. What about the more recent Legend of Frosty the Snowman? I discussed that in my Top 5 WORST Direct to Video Christmas Specials (That I’ve Actually Seen) article. Speaking of cartoons I’ve already talked about on that list.





Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

I messed up talking about this on that prior article, it wasn’t direct to video it first aired on TV before getting a VHS release, so I will go over it again here where it should be. When I first heard about this I thought it was a stupid idea. But then I figured maybe they did a clever job with it. I really tried to like it. But…nope. The first half or so is ok when they try follow the song. Problem is there isn’t really a story in the song, so the special diverts off so far away from the song you wonder what you’re watching. It’s sort of Miracle on 34th knock off only much dumber. We have Santa, amnesia, and anything else they could throw in. Did I mention the awful songs? The story is full of holes and just gets….weird. Nostalgia Critic and Rowdy have reviews this, so if you’ve never heard of it check out their reviews. It’s better than actually watching the thing.







Flinstones

For some reason The Flintstones Christmas specials never work for me. There were actually three, let’s discuss them briefly.

How the Flintstones Saved Christmas-Just boring, I get the feeling they stretched this to an hour and the story is bland.  I had a VHS which also had The Jetson’s Christmas Carol. I used to struggle through The Flintstones to get to The Jetson’s which is actually a pretty good Christmas episode.

Flintstone’s Christmas Carol-It’s as if they were torn, do a straight version of Christmas Carol with the Flintstones characters filling the roles (kinda like Mr.Magoo did) or do a spin with Fred being a scrooge at Christmas. Then, when they couldn’t decide which to do…they did both!! This is a clunky mess in my opinion. The real amazing thing? This came out in 1994! Why did this take so long?

Flintstone’s Family Christmas-The story of a caveless boy really tries, but at a half hour it’s to quick and we don’t have enough time to really care about the kid. He’s established as being rotten to the core, and within five minutes he is trying to redeem himself. That is just way to fast! If it had more time it might have been better.



Can’t love them all, but even the worst one’s have something special about them to make it worth watching.




MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIENDS!