Category Archives: Seasonal Fare

Holiday Horrors: Rudolph’s Shiny New Year

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I once again stand by my contention that the original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is “an unbridled triumph”. The same can not be said for the cheapy CGI sequel I shall not mention by (confusing) name again. But that wasn’t the first piece of Rudolphiana that failed to make the grade. Sadly, even some of the official Rankin-Bass follow-ups were not up to the bar set by their masterwork.

Witness Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, an odd duck of a holiday special produced by Rankin-Bass in 1976. Worst holiday special ever? No, not even close. It has much of the charm and spirit that made the original Rudolph so great. I hesitate to say it’s even bad. But it is weird. Really, really weird.

rudolphsnewyear.jpgIt starts out simple enough. Rudolph, just back from his triumphant sleigh ride around the world, is asked by Father Time (voiced by Red Skelton) to locate Baby New Year, who ran away after constant taunting about his big ears.* Unless Baby New Year can be found in time, it will remain December 31 forever!

* The guys at Rankin-Bass really had a thing for protagonists who were teased to the breaking point. I’m betting there were a lot of club foots and lazy eyes in their development department.

Anywhoozle, if you’re already on board for talking, flying reindeer and Baby New Year, this is all pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, the special takes a sharp left turn in to Crazy Town shortly thereafter.

Rudolph embarks on his quest, not accompanied by Hermey, but by General Ticker, a clock shaped military man who only speaks in rhyme. He searches for Baby New Year in The Archipelago of Last Years, which is where each year gets its own island once it’s ended. He winds up on a caveman island, a colonial America island, and a medieval island which, inexplicably, is filled with storybook characters. At some point, Rudolph is joined by a Ben Franklin lookalike (who’s called Sev, for some reason) and Big Ben, a whale with a huge clock in his tail.

Oh, and Rudolph is being pursued by a giant buzzard named Aeon who wants to capture Baby New Year so he won’t die when the year ends, because of some sort of not-well-explained time/space technicality. How’s that make you feel about the holidays, kids?

If my descriptions seem vague and not fleshed out, it’s because the same can be said of this special. It’s like Rankin-Bass took a million different ideas, put them in a blender, poured this goop out onto a piece of paper, and called it a script. I’ve seen Rudolph’s Shiny New Year several times, and I still don’t quite understand what it’s about. Or who it’s meant for. Or where I am, really, as I’m watching it.

Although I do applaud Rankin-Bass for their aggressive darkness. You might expect to a special called Rudolph’s Shiny New Year to be more festive and cheerful. Instead, you get a stop-motion version of Fellini’s Satyricon.

If you really want to delve deep into its nuances, Progressive Boink did an almost scene-for-scene deconstruction of its weirdness a few years back, which you can peep here. But be warned: THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN’T UNSEE, MAN!

Holiday Triumphs: More Adtacular! Halloween, 1985

Continuing my pointless quest to digitize every 80s ad I possess, I present this latest collection of commercials from The Vast and Dusty Scratchbomb VHS Archives. The latest batch comes from a tape with material recorded right around Halloween, 1985. Why am I presenting Halloween materials when we’re so close to Christmas? Because many of these ads have holiday relevance. And because I lump Halloween into that Drive To XMas Season. And because SHUT UP IT’S MY STUPID SITE OKAY?!

This first ad definitely has Christmas significance. In it, Alex Karras (aka Webster’s dad) informs parents that they better rush down to their local toy store NOW if they want to get some decent Transformers for the kiddies come December 25. This ad aired very close to Halloween, meaning there were at least seven weeks left until The Big Day. Just in case you thought retailers jumping the gun was a recent phenomenon.

It also features Webster’s dad lip syncing to “robots in disguise”, thus putting it in my top 10 favoritest ads ever.


Continue reading Holiday Triumphs: More Adtacular! Halloween, 1985

Holiday Horrors: 1980s Local News Teasers

For other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

UPDATE, 12.16.09: Video now working. Thanks for your patience.

I’ve written about this before, but I think it bears repeating: I was scarred for life by the news teasers I saw as a kid. There are two reasons for this.

1) I grew up in New York in the 1980s. In these post-Giuliani’s reich years, it’s hard to remember just how truly effed up NYC was in the 80s. The city was beset by all manner of horrifying things–drugs, murder, arson, poverty, Ed Koch…

2) The 1980s also marked the beginning of SCARE NEWS. Local stations couldn’t just entice you with actual news. They did SPECIAL REPORTS and INVESTIGATIONS on how everything in your house could murder you in your sleep.

The combination of these two phenomena made watching TV as a kid an exercise in terror. In my memories, the news was even worse during the holidays. Every news clip took place in a driving snowstorm, with squad car lights glinting off dirty road ice, and included at least three of the following:

  • A crumbling tenement stairwell
  • Cops draping a white sheet across a dead body
  • Blood spattered on wall/floor/window
  • A front door blackened by fire/explosion
  • Close up of a crack vial
  • Victim’s screaming relatives
  • Charred children’s toys
  • A sketch of the alleged perpetrator, making him look like maniac

If you weren’t there, it’s hard to convey just how frightening it was. But thanks to the Vast and Dusty Scratchbomb VHS Archives, I’ve compiled a bunch of these teasers into one handy-dandy YouTube clip.

Most of these are from CBS-2, but they’re pretty representative of news teasers for all local NYC stations back in the 1980s. Keep in mind, all of these teasers–all of them–aired during holiday specials intended for kids. “Manhunt in progress for the man police call The Face-Peeling Rapist. Is he in your town? We’ll tell you at 11. But now, back to A Charlie Brown Christmas!”