A Flintstone Christmas

A standard Christmas special plotline in cartoons is that Santa needs help, so the familiar characters help, and it’s the best Christmas ever.  That’s pretty much what happens here.  Santa sprains his ankle on Fred’s roof, so Fred and Barney are called into action to save Christmas.  Turns out it’s pretty easy to do: the reindeer know where to go, the sleigh is magic, the toy bag is magic.  They have a mishap and accidentally dump all the toys out over China, so they radio Santa (of course his sleigh has a CB, in prehistoric times, as does the Flintstones’ house, apparently) who tells them to just hit the North Pole and get a toy refill.  They drop by and the elves just whip up a whole new batch of toys without complaint so the journey can continue.  Then they wrap up their route by just dumping the toys at the houses for the rest of the night, rather than actually entering the houses and leaving them under the trees, the animators and producers wanting to get this turkey over with as fast as Fred and Barney.  Oops!  They’re late for the work thing where Fred was playing Santa and the boss and wives will be mad!  Warning: extremely dated wives being mad at oafish husbands humor.  Oh, don’t worry, they make it.  I’m getting bored just recapping this.  Overall: really bland and boring and adding nothing to the Christmas specials canon. Skip it.

Olive, the Other Reindeer

Hadn’t seen this one before.  Turned out to be a lot of fun.  The story is about Olive the dog, who hears on the radio that Blitzen is injured and won’t be able to fly, possibly meaning that Santa will have to cancel his trip, unless he can make it with “all of the other reindeer.”  Mishearing this as “Olive the other reindeer,” she undertakes a journey to the North Pole to help out.  She makes a friend–Martini, the somewhat crooked sales-penguin–and an enemy, an evil mailman bent on getting Christmas canceled so he can be relieved of his annual holiday catalog burden.  The show was consistently funny and imaginative.  Really interesting animation.  Lots of great voices: tons of people from Futurama, Michael Stipe as Blitzen.  Overall: a good one that seems underrated, keep an eye out for it.

Yo Gabba Gabba!

If you were to tell me I am too old for a TV show, particularly a holiday special, I would tell you to guess again.  Though once in a while you would be right, and this is one of those times.  I’ve only seen a few episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba! because I am most definitely too old for it.  It’s worth a laugh though, anyway.  For a while.  It gets a little tedious unless you are four and dancing along, I think.  From a 33-year-old eye, it’s just pretty crazy.  Lots of colors and bizarre songs and stories that feel like they were made up on the spot by kids (wait–they probably were).  The holiday special is only sort of a holiday special.  It’s the usual YGG! fare but with some winter and gift-giving stories.  The creatures all apparently like both of these things.  Well, to be clear, the robot didn’t like winter at first, but his friends’ song convinced him it was all good.  Overall: pass.  Unless you are four.