RJ Writing Ink

Writing About All Things Pop Culture

December 6, 2018 | Roderick J "Jay" Friz

J’s 25 Days of Christmas: War on Christmas, Supermansion

Hi!

This is one of the stranger Christmas Specials that I’ve seen. I actually found it by complete accident one day. Supermansion is this show that is done in the style of Robot Chicken: with action figures for the characters. It’s got a lot of good talent on it, with Bryan Cranston playing the lead, and Matthew Seinrich and Seth Green from Robot Chicken working on it as well, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Plus, Jim Parsons is in it, and I like him from The Big Bang Theory. So here is Supermansion: War on Christmas. Lets see some Santa!

I did say War on Christmas

Evil Santa is Born

After Cooch the talking cat learns from Titanium Rex that Santa Claus isn’t real, she stumbles into his hall of confiscated villain weapons and meets a magic alien doll thing, voiced by Jim Parsons. I wish I could show you the video of his song and dance, but Sony won’t let me.

Mr. Skibumpers

Bottom line, Mr. Skibumpers grants a person a wish in exchange for his freedom, and Cooch wishes for Santa to be real. It’s awesome at first, but Santa is quickly freaked out by all the job entails and goes crazy!

Santa’s gone blood crazy with power

Honestly, I think this special is supposed to be a commentary about how scary it would if Santa were real. I don’t really know. The good news is the heroes resolve everything and turn Santa sane again using his magic bag to give him peace of mind. He moves to the North Pole and promises to come back every Christmas like the legends say.

Not your normal Holiday.

This is not your normal holiday special, but it pretty much admits that at the end, courtesy of Mr. Skibumpers… who says that if he gets out of being wood (he got tricked by Titanium Rex), he’s gonna kill everyone. It’s still a laugh riot, though. I thought this was one of the most original holiday specials I had seen in a while, hence why I came back to it. If you haven’t seen it, you can buy it on YouTube or watch it if you have Sony Crackle. Just make sure no one under 17 (16 at the least) watches it. Happy Holidays!

All will be revealed soon.

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December 3, 2018 | Roderick J "Jay" Friz

J’s 25 Days of Christmas: The Christmas Tree of Might

Deadpool Christmas with Team Four Star
Time for an unorthodox Christmas Special

Now I know what you’re thinking: this is not a Christmas Special, it’s DragonBall Z. Normally, that would be correct, but this is DragonBall Z Abridged, a popular, fan-based parody done by a group of fans in Texas. Known as Team Four Star, they do a hilarious re-dub of the original DBZ, keeping the story intact. The characters and even some of the events, though, are greatly changed. Goku’s even dumber, Krillin has his own “own’d counter”, and Vegeta’s ego is bigger than ever. Oh, and Nappa comes back as a ghost.

DBZ Abridged Is Awesome

Fans love DBZ Abridged, and even the cast of the official dub like the show. They even managed to sneak themselves onto the Abridged series in guest roles. The cast has even been invited to provide voices for official DBZ games, plus this.

But then they couldn’t air it, because of legal reasons. And some companies don’t understand the concept of “fan-based” parody.

So, they retooled the movie The Tree of Might into a Christmas Special. Here, you can watch it for yourself, and then come back afterwards. One more thing: they have these captions called “English “Canada”” which are way funnier than normal captions. Turn them on:

I really liked how they made Shenron incredibly frustrated with the Z-Warriors. Not only with the fact that they’re the only ones who usually summon him, and the ridiculous wish. And that song: “Yamcha The Scar-Faced Bandit” is so hilarious. A running gag is that they always make fun of Yamcha for how weak he is. He doesn’t deserve it, though. At any rate, here’s part two:

Happy Freezer Day

A Team Four Star Christmas

That wasn’t a traditional Christmas Special, but I like it because I think it shows just how creative people can be with abridged series. All it takes is the use of old clips and new voice acting and Team Four Star was able to make this fun re-imagining of a DBZ film. 

The jokes were pretty spot-on, too. Remember Icarus, that little dragon that is sometimes Gohan’s pet? Team Four Star hates him apparently, as they keep killing him in the films he’s in. Same with Maron. 

This was made early in the series’ run, and in hindsight, it shows how imaginative TeamFourStar is able to get with such a beloved anime. Now, they have connections to FUNimation, Screwattack, and RoosterTeeth, among others things. They even got Kyle Herbert to play Santa. How awesome is that?

Yeah, this wasn’t a regular Christmas special, but I liked it nonetheless. TeamFourStar, I hope you guys keep making amazing stories! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Deadpool Christmas with Team Four Star
All will make sense come Christmas Day.

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December 3, 2018 | Roderick J "Jay" Friz

J’s 25 Days of Christmas: It’s A SpongeBob Christmas!

This is a running gag

Before we start, I would just like to say that I do not, repeat, DO NOT consider Nickelodeon’s idea of “Spongebob Merrypants” to be a Christmas Special. Including Santa Claus in an episode does not make it a Christmas Special by default.

Don’t believe it!

Now, today as a tribute to Stephen Hillenburg, the man who created their most popular cartoon, Nickelodeon ran an 8-hour marathon of SpongeBob. Some of the best episodes from the first three seasons of SpongeBob (AKA what fans call “The Golden Age”) running from noon to 8. Since I hadn’t watched a holiday special yet today, I decided to cap off the night with a SpongeBob Christmas special. 

I was tempted to do the first special, “Christmas Who?”, but I wanted to save that for another day. So instead, I did the more recent one, “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!”

Spongebob Christmas
Season’s greetings!

I had always loved SpongeBob, but once I reached a certain age, I moved on to new shows. Plus I had to worry about school more. I kept up with the show, but it didn’t entertain me as much as before. Then I saw the stop-motion SpongeBob Christmas Special and fell in love all over again!

Just Like The Old Days

This special has all the trappings of the legendary stop-motion Christmas Specials of the 1960s and 70s. Several songs about Christmas? Check. A problem that threatened to ruin Christmas? Check. An appearance by Santa Claus himself as Christmas is saved? Check! And as an added bonus, Patchy the Pirate even plays a mailman delivering mail to Santa. Well, more like he steals a mailman’s truck to get his letter to Santa

Just like that mail guy from the Santa Claus special
Nice nod to the Rankin Bass special here.

The whole special revolves around Plankton’s attempts to ensure that he finally gets on Santa’s nice list. Rather than be nice, though, he decides to turn everyone else in Bikini Bottom into jerks using a convenient new element called Jerktonium. It turns everyone who ingests it into jerks, so he laces fruitcake with it, and tricks SpongeBob into feeding it to everyone in Bikini Bottom.

Spongebob spreads Christmas joy wherever he goes
Our hero unwittingly dooms everyone to naughtiness

Pretty soon everyone in town is mean and grumpy. Except for SpongeBob, whose love of the holidays makes him immune. It also means he’s the only one who can save Christmas. One Christmas Song later…

It works, though Santa nearly writes off the whole town as naughty. Thankfully, Plankton’s Plan B (release a robot SpongeBob to ruin his good name) backfires when tries to kill Santa.

SpongeBob ends up saving Santa and everyone gets back on their rightful place on Santa’s list, but I’m confused at how Plankton thought this would work. It was two days before Christmas. How could everyone being jerks in two days put them on the naughty list so easily, or get Plankton off it? 

Plankton tries to ruin Spongebob's Christmas
The evil mastermind coming up with a convoluted scheme.

Thank You, Spongebob Christmas

Well, it doesn’t really matter. I liked this special. It was original, it captures the spirit of the original SpongeBob Christmas Special, and it hearkens back to some of the specials that my parents grew up on. It was an excellent way to cap off a day dedicated to the memory of the man who helped make my childhood. RIP Stephen Hillenburg! And to all of my readers, happy holidays!

Deadpool Christmas
I’m doing this for a reason

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December 2, 2018 | Roderick J "Jay" Friz

J’s 25 Days of Christmas: Last Christmas! Ducktales

Deadpool Christmas
I’m actually J, but I wanted to use this gif.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, everyone! It’s time to kick off my 25 days of Christmas. I watch a new Christmas Special every day and talk about it with you guys. And it just so happens that a new one came on this morning. So, here’s my first special, Last Christmas from Disney’s Ducktales!

Ducktales Christmas Special
A Duck Family Christmas

A Dr. Scrooge Christmas

Next to Ducktales, Scrooge McDuck is probably most famous for playing his namesake in Mickey’s A Christmas Carol. When this special starts, he also seems to hate Christmas as much as Ebeneezer Scrooge did. He scoffs at everything Christmas related, and even goes “Bah, humbug!” It looks like he’s set for another Christmas Ghost visit. And he gets it… though not in the way you’d think!

Ducktales celebrates the holidays in style.
I love the nod to The Christmas Carol, both the Disney version and the classic one. It’d be even cooler if they could have used Pete, Willy, and Jiminy Cricket, though

Turns out the Ghosts of Christmas met him years ago after mistaking him for Ebeneezer, and every year they go back in time to party for Christmas. Scrooge’s just faking hating Christmas… except for Santa, he hates him.

Scrooge really hates Santa Claus
I am very curious about what Santa did to make Scrooge hate him so much!

Things Get Crazy

Long story short, Scrooge goes off to party, only for the Ghost of Christmas Past to get upset at the idea of Scrooge leaving them to spend Christmas with his family. Fight ensues, and Past (played by Jack McBrayer) gets stranded in the past.

Wander is now a cricket
So much for Jiminy Cricket. Plus side, we get Wander back for an episode!

The second half… okay, I didn’t pay attention as much as I should have. But Dewey ends up back in the past where he meets his Uncle Donald as a kid. He also manages to meet his mom as a kid. Considering how hard he tried to find out what happened to their mom last season, this was a very emotional moment for him. It doesn’t take long for Donald and Della to figure out he’s a relative from the future (Duck Family after all) and then Scrooge comes to get him, along with Past.

Ducktales Christmas
With a family like this, time travel is not that strange

Oh, yeah! Past got stuck in the past and got turned into a monster because he was so lonely missing Scrooge. So to make up to him, Scrooge invites the Ghosts to a Christmas Party with his family.

I Love This!

I loved this special overall. The “Christmas Carol” premise has been repeated a lot in the annals of Pop Culture, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it subverted and then tossed like this! There were also plenty of references to Mickey’s A Christmas Carol, and even a reference to Scrooge’s first appearance! But the best part is that we get a look at Della in the present day. The Season One finale revealed that she’s still alive and stuck on the Moon (how is she breathing, though?), and from the looks of things, she’s working on making a new spaceship to get her home. I really hope we get to see that play out to the end. Ducktales is one of the best cartoons Disney has right now, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Ducktales Christmas
She’ll be home soon. I hope

Overall, this was a memorable Christmas special and the perfect way to start my countdown. Happy Holidays Everyone! I love Ducktales Christmas!

Deadpool Christmas

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November 30, 2018 | Roderick J "Jay" Friz

My 25 Days of Christmas!

25 Days of Christmas
I wonder if this can cause seizures?

Ho-ho-ho, Internet!! Tomorrow marks the start of the Christmas Season. For me. I don’t count the days after Thanksgiving until December 1st. It’s a quirk. It’s the 25 Days of Christmas!

But that’s not why I am here. I’m here for Holiday traditions. It’s a tradition of mine during this time of year where I watch at least one holiday special or movie a day to get me jazzed for Christmas. This year, I have a blog, so I thought “why not make this a theme?” So that’s my plan.

Check back every day leading up to Christmas to see what special I’ve watched. I’ll be giving you my honest thoughts and what I liked and hated about it, all leading up to Christmas Day. If you’ve got a good holiday special that I haven’t seen, let me know in the comments below! If I watch it, I’ll give you a shout out.

Until tomorrow, Happy Holidays, no matter what religion you follow!

25 Days of Christmas

Now, let’s watch a clown ride a christmas tree. Take it away, Joker

Click here to see my other animation stuff. Or here to see all holiday related posts!

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