The bizarre and wonderful world of Christmas specials (Christmas post!)

     Merry Christmas, everyone! I'm Jonathan, and today I'll be touching on an extremely important topic from my childhood, Christmas TV specials. As a kid, there was nothing that I liked more than December, not just because of Christmas, but also my birthday. People always asked if I hated having my birthday a week before Christmas because it would always be overshadowed, but I never thought of it that way. It's the only birthday I've ever had, and it certainly seems fine to me. Christmas has always been an incredibly special time for me, even if I'm not completely capable of telling you why that is. There's something just so warm and sentimental about spending the season with family, relaxing, and waking up on Christmas morning at 5 A.M. and rushing down the stairs. My parents were never too fond of that time, so my brother and I would watch the Christmas specials on Nickelodeon that would typically start really early that morning while we waited for them to wake up.

Christmas TV is weird, but amazing.

    If you were a kid in the late 90's and early 2000's, you probably already know what I'm about to talk about. It seemed like every cartoon worth its salt had to have a Christmas special, with my favorites being Jimmy Neutron, Fairly Odd Parents, and Spongebob Squarepants. First of all, Christmas specials were interesting in one way above many others, they were all musical episodes, which certainly didn't happen a lot on any of these three shows. The songs were fine, really nothing special, though it was always interesting when I was younger to see Jimmy Neutron or his dad singing about the magic of Christmas. These episodes were all basically Christmas movies, even though I'm pretty sure that they were only the same length as normal episodes, about 30 minutes with commercials.

    The Jimmy Neutron special had a really cynical feel to it, which definitely made me feel weird about it as a kid. Jimmy doesn't believe in Santa's existence because it doesn't make any sense for a super fat guy to be able to fit down a chimney and live at the North Pole. Fair points, Jimmy, but I have to take points away for being such a killjoy for everyone else. To prove that he's right, Jimmy flies the gang to the North Pole where they discover Santa's Workshop. Jimmy only sees the elves and not Santa, so he assumes that he really isn't real, a laser goes off and hits Santa who is off in another room, putting him out of commission, and the elves tell Jimmy and his friends that they have to deliver all of the presents in Jimmy's rocket. Jimmy accepts because if he can deliver all of the presents in one night, then it means that Santa either doesn't exist, or he's just not that special. Long story short, Jimmy is close to delivering all of the presents and he's so excited that he forgets to deliver to his hometown of Retroville. Luckily, Santa (voiced by Mel Brooks in a shocking revelation) shows up and proves he's real by using his light speed delivery drive to deliver all of the presents to the town. It turns out the reason that Jimmy doesn't believe in Santa is because as a younger kid, he wished for a dwarf star, but didn't get one. Santa tells Jimmy that his present had to cool for years before delivering it, and Jimmy is fine with that once he finally receives his present. The special ends with a little musical number that Jimmy sings with his parents, as he now believes in Santa and thinks he's a cool guy. It turns out Jimmy and Santa aren't too terribly different with both of them being inventors. That couldn't be farther from accurate for our next special though.

    The Fairly Odd Parents special is really interesting though I feel it's ground that many other shows have tread before. Timmy Turner loves Christmas and sings a whole song about how wonderful it is compared to the other lame months and holidays (also because he can't get a girlfriend as his dad and Cosmo continually point out). Timmy wishes that every day could be Christmas at the end of the day and wakes up to more Christmas. The days pass quickly, and Timmy loves it for the first few, but it becomes more and more repetitive and the present pile quickly dies down to only three or four on the fifth or sixth day. I can't remember exactly why, but for some reason, when Timmy wishes everything back to normal, Cosmo and Wanda can't do it. I think it was because in order to make Christmas every day, Santa had to use all of the fairy magic to create more toys, though it's been a while since I last saw it. Timmy catches wind of a bunch of other holiday mascots looking to beat up Santa because he's hogging all of the spotlight, and he decides to catch a ride with them by dressing as the "birthday boy," which none of the other holidays have heard of, but they let him tag along. Once they finally arrive at the North Pole, they find Santa and Timmy apologizes to him and the other holidays for all of the mess that he's made. The fairies find a way to reverse the wish and put the calendar back to normal, and the special ends with another song. It's a fun special, especially with Timmy's dad's obsession with Egg Nog, constantly showing up with it or holding a carton in almost every scene in this episode. It's also funny to see the annoyed holidays, especially the gruff Easter Bunny with a 5-o-clock shadow.

    Spongebob is the simplest of the bunch, certainly the one with the lowest stakes, though perhaps with the best song. Sandy tells the people of Bikini Bottom about Christmas, as Santa has never visited anyone under the sea apparently, and the entire town gets super excited about the prospect of a magical man delivering presents. Well, everyone except Squidward, that is. Squidward wants none of this, and actively makes fun of everyone else for falling for a stupid charade like this. The entire town is all decorated for Christmas, and everyone sings this song about how excited they are, but when the day finally comes, nothing has happened. Santa didn't come, and Spongebob's spirit is broken. Squidward hates Spongebob and everything else, but he doesn't want everyone to be sad, so he dresses up like Santa and ends up giving away all of his stuff to make the people of Bikini Bottom feel better. After this, Squidward recieves a letter from the sky, and it's from Santa! Santa thanks Squidward for helping him out because he's been running late apparently. Squidward then looks in the sky and sees a human man riding through the sky being all crazy dressed as Santa, and that's where it ends. The song from this episode is a definite bop that I still think of today when the Christmas season rolls around, and the special as a whole just holds a special place in my memories.

    I know I said that I would just focus on those three, but there's one more special that I have to talk about. This is a special so relevant to my life that I actually still watch every year with my family, even though it definitely skews to a younger audience. The movie I'm talking about is, of course, Arthur's Perfect Christmas. If you're not familiar with the TV show, Arthur, it's a show about an aardvark kid in a world of anthropomorphic animals as he lives his normal life. Arthur's Perfect Christmas is a joy to watch every year, because it really isn't just about Christmas, it is also about respecting the traditions and cultural heritage of others, which seems to be an especially relevant lesson during these times when people can sometimes be looking for a fight. I can't even tell you what happens in this movie as it's really just kind of a normal Christmas, but it follows the norm of this being a musical episode in a show not known for having a lot of music (other than Crazy Bus). This special is all about showing how Christmas and the holiday season as a whole can be messy depending on your circumstances, but it can still be considered a "Perfect Christmas" if you're together with people that you care about. It's a great message for such a little kid's show. There are a lot of funny and quotable moments in this movie, and when there are burnt pancakes in our house, we always say, "That's alright, Mom! I like my pancakes brown... or black...." Trust me, it's a really funny movie on top of being genuinely heartwarming. 

    I originally set out to talk about TV specials and full Christmas movies here, but I realize now that I have so many different thoughts on Christmas movies that it would be best to just split this long post into two pretty good sized ones. Tune in again next year for Christmas Post 2: Electric Christmas Boogaloo! To give a slight preview for the next Christmas post however, I'll say that I just watched the Jim Carey How the Grinch Stole Christmas the other night for the first time in a while, and it's still fantastic. While I think I still prefer the Boris Karloff version that Chuck Jones directed, it's a fantastic movie with one of my favorite Jim Carey performances. Elf will always have a special place in my heart as well, it's a great movie all around, but to read my thoughts about some of these movies, you'll have to read my next Christmas post for next year!

    Thanks so much for reading this, friends! I know the last two posts have been different from what I normally write about, but I hope I've been able to convey my love of the holiday season, and hopefully put you into a more festive mood! I hope you're all doing well, and I'll talk to you next Friday for the first post of 2021!