Category Archives: Seasonal Fare

Holiday Triumphs 2009

Holiday Triumphs: Christmas Ads from 1985, Pt. 1

Let the record show I don’t hate everything about the holidays. When I was a kid, I had a VHS tape of holiday specials and other stuff recorded around Christmastime, 1985. I rediscovered it years later and loved to watch it over and over for the old ads, plus a truly awesome special about the 50th Anniversary of Loony Tunes.

This special featured various celebrities speaking about the beloved cartoon characters as if they were real people with whom they’d worked. It’s a bizarre panoply of famous folks, from Chevy Chase to Danny Thomas to David Bowie, who pretends to not know Bugs Bunny, then admits “we might be doing an album together”.

But the best clips come from Bill Murray, who, as always, was pure genius. I’ve actually made mp3s of some of his improv dialogue and put it on my iPod; whenever it pops up on shuffle, I am always delighted. You can view this special, in chunks, on the Loony Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2, but I just had to share a few of Mr. Murray’s best bits, even if it’s not the best quality video. In this first bit, Murray reveals a few behind the scene glimpses of the working relationship between Friz Freleng and Yosemite Sam.

In this second clip, Murray talks about the Loony Tunes characters he does and does not respect.

Billy Dee Williams also knows how to bring the funny. Here, he reveals the music he puts on when he wants to get a lady in just the right mood: Carl Stalling. His little gestures, as if saying, “ah yes, that’s lovely” as cacophanous cartoon music plays, are priceless.


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Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: “Last Christmas”

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George Michael has much to answer for. When I was a kid, I recall his Faith album being a hot item amongst the sixth grade set for its SHOCKING videos, and providing much preteen giggle fodder with songs like “I Want Your Sex”. Who let him write a song with that title? Has anyone whose first language is English ever said that out loud? Was the alternate title “I Am Liking to Make Fuck Party”?

Last_Christmas.jpgBut one of his biggest crimes is the execrable “Last Christmas”, a horrible little tune that, much like “Wonderful Christmastime”, has received an unwelcome revival in the last few years. I blame those 24-hour holiday radio stations that pop up right after Thanksgiving. Even they can’t play “Jingle Bell Rock” every hour, so they had to dig up semi-forgotten Yuletide songs to fill up the spaces between “Blue Christmas” and Ronnie Spector’s “Winter Wonderland”.

Maybe it’s just me. I associate Christmas with being with my family. I don’t associate it looking for luv. But in the world of George Michael, Christmas is the day he gives his heart away. Unfortunately, the object of his affection regifted it the day after.

Here’s my question, George: What exactly did you expect from someone you met on Christmas? That’s not exactly the best day to forge a lasting, loving relationship. “I can’t believe someone I met while hanging out at a bar by myself on the biggest family holiday of the year turned out to be a skeeze!”

The original recording of “Last Christmas” is extremely fey and bloodless and full of wimpy synths. But Wham! sounds like the MC5 compared to its cover versions. Just peep the song’s Wikipedia page to see some of the winners who’ve taken on this tune. I defy you to defend any more than three people listed there.

Two stand out: 1) Crazy Frog, because apparently the demon-spawn who created him owned the rights to every song on the planet. 2) Carrie Underwood, because she performed it at the White House. “Merry Christmas, Mr. President! Here’s an uplifting song about getting railed during the holidays!”

Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: “Christmas Shoes”

For other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

Have you never heard “Christmas Shoes”? If so, I envy you. I remember a time when that song didn’t exist. Things seemed so simple. People seemed to laugh more back then.

This song was crafted from an aggressively dumb, particularly American take on spirituality. Namely, that other people’s tragedies exist for the sole purpose of making other more fortunate people realize how good they have it. And there is a loving, caring god who steers us toward these moments–even though He doesn’t see fit to steer the victims away from their gruesome fates.

What kind of passive aggressive deity would do that? Seriously, if you take five seconds to think through the true implications of such a God ruling and directing the universe, how on earth could you believe in Him? Unless you prescribe to some weird sort of spiritual masochism. It’s a variation on the Jack T. Chick brand of Christianity, in which God doesn’t do anything to quell the misery and want found on Earth, but can’t wait to throw sinners into Hell the second they die.

There are literally thousands of things wrong with this song, on so many levels: musically, philosophically, and theologically. It would take a novel to run through them all. Luckily, Patton Oswalt has done that in less than eight minutes in the video below, accompanied by some excellent animation. (Thanks to TheWhiteBoomBoom for pointing me toward this.)