12 Movies About Santa’s Extended Family

Disney+, yes I have it too, has a new movie coming out with Anna Kensrick about Santa’s daughter. When Santa’s son disappears before he’s supposed to take over, she has to find him. Nice idea but…Wait a minute, when did he have children?? Yeah for about twenty years now creators have realized that they have done all the stories they could about our favorite man in red. Where to go next? His family of course!






One of the first was in the 90’s. CBS had a TV movie about Mrs. Santa Claus which was so boring it put me in a coma. And of course Santa Claus 3 had a plotline about Santa having a child, who we didn’t see until the very end. I can’t figure out exactly when it was but at some point people must have started to wonder, what if Santa had kids? Or even a brother or sister? And these days there quite a few movies out there abut that very thing. For some reason we just put aside how disturbing the idea of Santa having sex is, and accept the premise. I guess I gotta admire creators coming with something different, but like everything else Christmas related it’s been done to DEATH at this point. Are any of these good? Let’s check them out. And one rule here is that the Santa in the movie has to be the “real” Santa.







Fred Claus

This wasn’t the first, by any means, but I figured since it was one of the few that wasn’t made for TV I would mention it first. There are these two brothers, Fred is the troublemaker and Nicholas is the saint. And, well, hijinks. This isn’t considered a great movie, although Paul Giamatti does a fair job as Santa, and I’d be lying if I said I’d even seen it. From what I’ve heard I think I’ll keep it that way.

12 Favorite Product Placements in “Friends”

So I talked last time about how movies use product placements. Some worst than others. But with TV shows, this is not as common. Usually if you see a familiar product creators will block out a part of the product name so that they don’t have to pay royalties to anyone. One show that did not do this was…








Yeah Friends was awful with their product placements. Somethings are easy to ignore, like the characters drinking Poland Springs water. Others are more, obvious. I’d be here all day if I did a run down of all of them, so instead here are some of the more obnoxious one’s.






Operation (The One with the Candy Hearts)

An early but still worth a mention I think. They never even play the game.

10 Favorite Product Placements in Movies

I’ve said before that I don’t mind product placement so much. It makes sense, the product pays money for an appearance so why not? If it’s used wisely and not overdone. For example there is a scene in Santa Clause 2 where the family comes home with McDonald’s. Ok that’s clearly product placement, but I can believe they stopped for McDonald’s on the way home and it doesn’t hurt the scene so..who cares? How about Reese’s Pieces in E.T.? That was so subtle that M&M’s tried to insist that it was really there candy (it should have been, they blew it) but the bag is clearly seen in one shot. Not only it is used to advance the plot it’s done very simply.

 

 

 

 

I really don’t get why it bothers people so much, to me it makes the movie more real to have someone drinking a can of Coke rather than a can that just says “Soda” or something. Can it be used badly? Sure. For example in the movie Garfield not only was there a ton of it but they put the product placement in stupid places that made no sense. Like a toy train set with ads for Pepsi on it. Huh?

And I could be wrong but I think Petco was a sponsor too. To much! But if it’s used right, I have no problem with it. So here are some of my favorite examples of product placements in movies, because they are just so obvious!







Mac & Me

I never understood why this movie has such a close connection with McDonald’s. At first I thought it was part of the story. But no, it’s just there. I mean it’s not as if E.T. stopped for five minutes for a Reese’s Pieces song so why is going on here? Someone explain this to me!

A Look at Star Wars Merchandise & Memorabilia

I’ve done a few articles going over carious merchandise that has spawned from popular franchises. One franchise I haven’t talked about is one of the merchandise monsters, Star Wars!

You cold argue Star Wars is what really started the memorabilia craze, or at the very least is one of the first to make adult’s just as excited as kids for toys, games, etc. Unlike others I talked about here, I didn’t have a tremendous amount of Star Wars stuff, so this is just an overview of what’s been out there. Star Wars merchandise is so huge it gets down right insane at times



Yeah, good example. WTF??







TOYS
  OK OK…I’ve talked abut the Kenner action figures and toys I had growing up to death, we all know there is nothing more profitable from this franchise than toys and action figures. So we’ll cover some other items of interest

Five Animated Adaptations Focused on Humans

Well I looked at the Sonic trailer, with the improved effects, and it looks like they did it again. Rather than a movie about Sonic and his universe, he’s going to be tossed into the real world for hi jinks. Why does this keep happening? What makes people think we want to see a movie about a franchise we love where the focus is on humans on Earth? It wouldn’t be so bad, maybe, if they took the characters out of their world but it gets worst when the focus goes from the characters we love to humans who couldn’t care less about.

 

Human-Focused Adaptation is a TV Trope where an adapation of an animated series inexplicably becomes focused on humans. Usually the animated characters are transported to Earth and for some inexplicable reason the focus of the movie becomes the humans rather than the characters we wanted to see. This is a strange phenomenon in movies which I will never understand. And these are almost always awful. Oh sometimes it’s not so bad. Alvin and the Chipmunks was focus on Alvin, Simon and Theodore. Fat Albert had the characters coming into the real world but the focus stayed on them. And as bad as the Scooby Doo movies were at least the focus was on our five heroes. And of course we had The Muppets where Jason Segel  and Amy Adams took some of the spotlight, but not enough to ruin the movie or take attention of the Muppets.


Most however, are not so lucky. Here are some examples :






The Smurfs

Tell me if you’ve heard this one..classic cartoon characters are transported to modern day New York City where hilarious hi jinks ensue. Groan! The plot becomes about Neil Patrick Harris and his worrying about being a father. Who cares?? Why New York? Like we never see that city in movies. Especially when The Smurfs world was fleshed out really well. But that isn’t the worst part. They actually had a sequel. A real chance to stay in the Smurf’s world and explore it. And you know what the sequel did? THE SAME DAMN THING AS THE FIRST!

Top 8 Everybody Loves Raymond Thanksgiving Episodes

Every year as Thanksgiving rolls around I do a special sitcom article. Either a review of a single Thanksgiving episode, or an overview on an entire run of Thanksgiving episodes from a specific series. This year I decided to focus on Everybody Loves Raymond since they had a Thanksgiving show almost every year. Just like my Friends article last year, since I already reviewed the series there is no need for an in depth look at these episodes. This is a ranking. ELR Thanksgiving episodes were usually special, but which episode was better?

#8.”No Thanks”

This is actually a classic episode, when Debra tries to one up Marie by showing that her little insults don’t bother her. Leading to one of the best Marie/Debra scenes in the series. So if it’s so classic why so high? Because it’s a Thanksgiving episode for maybe three minutes.

Top 10 Favorite “Post-Diane” Cheers Episodes (and Five I Hate)

For a lot of people, Cheers ended the time that Shelly Long left for the final time. And that’s fair, but for me the show didn’t really get started until Kirstie Alley walked through the door. No, I’m not saying Alley is so amazing that she saved the show. But when the Sam/Diane stuff was gone it meant that the rest of the cast were brought up and used more. I love the episodes after Diane left.

As an experiment of sorts I went back and watched every episode from that first one that began Season six. I wanted to catch up on what I had missed (I never watched regularly) and see what I had forgotten. And I discovered on simple thing–man this show is funny! And well written! It’s no shock it lasted as long as it did. So here are my ten favorite episodes from that era on the show. And since no show is perfect, we’ll do a few I hated also.



#10.One for the Road

The series finale and I did a whole article on it so feel free to find out mote there. I think the series finale, while not perfect, went out on a high note.

Five Things I Liked in “Galaxy Quest”

20 years ago a little movie called Galaxy Quest came out, and wasn’t a big hit. But over the years it had developed a bit of a following. And I gotta be honest, I love this movie. I’ve seen it a bunch of times. What is it about this movie that works so well? Let’s see!

 

If you don’t know, Galaxy Quest was a take on “Star Trek”. And in the movie, real aliens seek out he “crew” because they foolishly believe the footage they intercepted was actual footage and not just entertainment. Usually I find things to pick on good movies,  but since it’s the 20th anniversary let’s share a little love instead.


Quotable

There are some great lines in this movie, like my favorite “Never give up! Never surrender!” Then of course we have the line that Alan Rickman’s character has had to live with whether he wanted to or not. “By Grabthar’s hammer, by the suns of Worvan, you shall be avenged”. It’s no “Live Long and Prosper” but still…..

A Look at Filmation Classic Cartoon’s

Well I discussed Hannah Barbera it’s only fair to finally give some love to Filmation.

Founded in 1962 by Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland, and Norm Prescott the company produced some great, and not so great, cartoons for over thirty years. Before they went defunct in 1989. I mentioned one a few weeks ago, The Tarzan, Lone Rangers, Zorro Adventure Hour was three Filmation productions mashed into one. What else did they produce? A LOT!!!

 

This is not a “top 10” or a “favorite” list, just an overview. The reason for that is while Filmation was a great company, it never really rose Hannah Barbera levels and most its cartoons are remembered for being, silly. Well animated perhaps, but silly. This is because they were more interested in turning out material than they were making quality. So you’ll notice similar animation styles and stock animation used in a LOT in their programs. And speaking of those programs, here are some noteworthy examples:




The New Adventures of Superman

One of the first Superman cartoons after the Fleischer days and they borrowed heavily from them. There was a Superboy cartoon also.

Top 10 Favorite Looney Tunes Characters

If you’ve read my stuff you may have noticed one franchise I hardly talk about. Looney Tunes! Not that I didn’t watch these growing up, but for some reason I was never crazy about them like others. Nevertheless, these characters (animated by legend Chuck Jones and mostly voiced by Mel Blanc) are so popular and so beloved that even if you never watched the cartoons, you know who they are. So since I did my ten favorite Hanna Barbera characters a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to give a little love to another animation legend.

 

Of course ten doesn’t even scratch the surface, so don’t think if I leave off your favorite it means I don’t like them.



#10.Michigan J Frog

As I said I didn’t watch Looney Tunes exclusively, but one of my favorite cartoons ever has to be One Froggy Evening, which is the one and only appearance of Michigan J Frog. It’s a brilliant cartoon with no dialogue, aside from the ragtime music, and a wonderful payoff. The character may have only appeared once, but he endures. So much so he was made the mascot of the WB network back in the day.