RJ Writing Ink

Kneel Before Zim!

Do you remember this show? Invader Zim, the cult classic of Nickelodeon. Created by comic book writer Jhonen Vasquez and premiering in 2001, this show isn’t like other Nicktoons. It was extremely dark for a kids cartoon. Too dark, it seems, for some kids to watch, and it worried a lot of parents.

Me, I didn’t care one bit. I loved Invader Zim because it was dark and different from other Nicktoons. I did think some of the episodes were a little too scary (I don’t even remember the “Dark Harvest” one that well). But it holds a special place in my heart for the amazing use of CGI. It was one of the first times I had ever seen CGI in a kids show, so I was mesmerized by it!

All the love can’t help with bad ratings, though, and the show got pulled in the middle of its second season, with a bunch of episodes remaining unreleased or unfinished. The last episode I ever saw was its Christmas Special, which aired sixteen years ago tonight. In honor of that, I decided to rewatch it for my 25 days of Christmas. So without further ado, I give you The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever.

Zim Ruins Christmas Forever

The entire story takes place in flashback, being told by a robotic snow who is a clear parody of Frosty the Snowman. He explains that two million years ago, Zim discovered the concept of Christmas, and more importantly Santa. 

After seeing how much humanity loved and adored Santa, Zim got an idea. An awful idea. Zim got a wonderful, awful idea. *cue the evil Grinch smile*

Using alien nanotechnology, Zim creates a robotic Santa suit for him to control, then with a flourish, presents himself to the world as the real Santa Claus.

Humanity successfully fooled, he summons them to the North Pole for a huge rally. In hindsight, the decorations, chanting, and the sinister overtones of the song, reminds me of a cult rally. It does give us the most oppressive and tyrannical Christmas Song ever, though. And I loved it!

Zim’s master plan is to build a teleporter and beam humanity to the Irken Empire to use as slaves. The only one with enough sense to oppose him is Dib. But since humans in Zim are stupid, they don’t believe Dib and Zim throws him in Jingle-Jail.

Fortunately, Dib doesn’t have to do anything this time around. Zim made the Santa Suit too good, and it’s started to think it’s the real Santa. Anything Christmas-related makes it take over.

Despite his best efforts, the suit manages to overpower Zim, trapping him inside.

So Zim’s trapped forever and Santa is real. Happy ending for all! Until Dib shows up with a giant robot suit and causes the suit to go berserk. 

The Fight I Couldn’t Show You

After a giant monster fight, Dib weakens the suit enough for Zim to escape, shrink it down, and have Dib throw it into space. There might have been a moral behind all that, but for the life of me, I still don’t know.

But despite thinking him destroyed, the Santa Suit, in fact, survived to gather power in deep space. Now it comes back every year on Christmas and terrorizes the Earth, so everyone has to live inside domes and placate him with milk and cookies. Dark

Dark Show, But I Loved It

Yeah, Invader Zim was a dark and scary cartoon more often than not, but that’s what it was supposed to be. That’s why I liked it so much: it was different, and not seeing it canceled leaves a hole in my heart. I know it’s sounds sappy, but I wanted to see where the series would go. This Christmas Special was the last episode that ever aired; the rest were released years later by Nickelodeon.

In hindsight, maybe it would have been a good idea to just leave Zim trapped inside the suit. It would have been a good way to end the series: Earth saved, Santa is real, and Dib got what he wanted with Zim stopped. At least we still have the comics and the upcoming movie. And even after all these years, I still love this Christmas Special! Ho-ho-ho, Happy Holidays one and all!

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I may not have watched it as long as Nickelodeon, but once I found Cartoon Network, I loved it just as much. But after Ed Edd n’ Eddy came to an end in 2009, it was the end of an era. I mean that both literally and emotionally. It was the last of the 90s era cartoons to go off the air, and the one I loved most on that channel. There was Adventure Time next year, but that was it.

Then, I found Regular Show.

I may not have liked it much at first, but once I warmed up to it, I fell in love it. Watching the surreal adventures of these two slacker best friends, Mordecai and Rigby, something just clicked. It had a great mix of humor for both kids and adults. I loved it, especially the numerous holiday specials. 

Regular Show did a bunch of Halloween specials, and while those are my favorite, I have a great love for their three Christmas episodes. So, why not? Let’s look at a Regular Show Christmas special.

Full disclosure: this one is split into two segments, so I’m going to do each in a separate article. With that out of way, here’s White Elephant Gift Exchange.

The park gang is getting ready for their annual white elephant gift exchange, which everyone despises. Why? Because every years, Muscle Man steals all the good gifts and leaves them with prank ones. And not just used tissues or gum: we’re talking gloves made out of underwear and sweaters with itching powder.

So, Benson and the others decide to rig the game this year to make sure Muscle Man won’t steal their gifts and instead open their prank gift. 

It seems like they went overboard, though, with the prank. Especially when Muscle Man reveals he got them a flat-screen TV to make up for being a jerk.

The gang gets banished to the temple of the White Elephant, who chastises them for not getting the spirit of the game: you give gifts you hate, which makes it fun. So, lesson learned about the spirit of the Holidays, they go home and have a fun time, the end.

PSYCH! Muscle Man pranked them again. Sympathy gone, they go ahead with the plan, leading to what has to be one of the funniest moments I have ever seen in a cartoon:

When I first saw this on TV, I couldn’t stop laughing at how funny it was. Seeing Muscle Man’s reaction to one prank after another in slow motion while everyone laughs at payback was funny enough. But doing it over “Holly Jolly Christmas” sung by Burl Ives had me in stitches! By the time the elf elbows him, I was practically rolling on the floor laughing.

This was comedy gold to me. The pacing, everyone’s reactions to the events, the choice to play it over a classic Christmas song was perfect. Some may say it was still pretty mean, but Muscle Man never knew when to stop pranking others. He needed to be taught a lesson for a while, and I doubt he’d hold any ill will over it. This is one of my favorite Christmas episodes, and I hope you like it as well.

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Growing up, A Charlie Brown Christmas had always been a staple of Christmastime, as it was with many kids in America. This special, alongside It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, is what introduced me to the Peanuts. I actually went through a phase in my childhood where I read, watched, and played anything related to the Peanuts. But I think I like their Christmas Specials the most out of all of them. There are, in fact, more than one, like Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tales.

I actually missed most of this year’s broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas, but I was able to watch the follow up, Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tales. It’s not as classic as the first Peanuts Christmas Special, being released in 2002, but it’s still a fun little special to watch. 

There is no overarching plot to the special: it’s just the kids and animals preparing for Christmas. But I think this actually works to its advantage. It hearkens back to the comic strip from which Peanuts was born. It’s Peanuts at its simplest, but also it’s most entertaining.

Peanuts Are the Best

I will always like Peanuts, and I hope that they manage to stick around for a long, long time. This is a brief blog, but that is because I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t already been said about the Peanuts. I like Charlie Brown, and no matter how many times I may see his specials, I will always want to watch them once more when the holidays come around. They are timeless classics and staples of the American Holiday Season.

I hope that Charlie Brown and his friends stay popular well into the future, as they help to tie generations of people together through a common interest. And if The Peanuts Movie proved anything, its that the gang still has some stories left to spare. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

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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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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There are plenty of Christmas specials out the wazoo, but there are more holidays in December than just Christmas. Coincidentally, as a kid the only specials I remember watching that had anything to do with Chanukah or Kwanzaa were made by the same show, Rugrats on Nickelodeon.

Rugrats was a personal favorite show of mine growing up, and with the revival of the series announced earlier this year, I’d thought now would be a good time to look back at their holiday specials. I’m not actually Jewish, so I don’t celebrate Hanukkah. But ever since I learned about the story behind the holiday, I’ve had a mild fascination with the holiday. Plus, I think driedels look like a lot of fun! So, here’s my look back at the Rugrats Chanukkah.

The babies, being babies, don’t really understand the meaning behind Chanukah. They take one look at the Menorah, how Tommy get’s presents every night, and their conclusion: it’s HIS BIRTHDAY! To be fair, that does have some logic to it from a kid’s point of view. 

The whole special is about the kids learning the meaning of Chanukah, though they are, at first distracted. So is Grandpa Boris: his childhood rival, Shlomo is playing the role of King Antioch, and when the Rugrats hear Boris complain about him, they decide they need to beat the “meany of Hanukkah”

As for Angelica… I don’t really care about Angelica. I never really liked her, because she’s mean and bossy all the time. She also personifies the kid at Christmas: she doesn’t give two cents about Hanukkah, she just wants to watch a dumb Christmas special. Then she enlists the Babies in order to do that at the Synagogue.

Eventually, all the plots come together as Boris and Shlomo resolve their rivalry and the babies (and Angelica) learn about the meaning of Hanukkah.

I honestly liked this special as a kid. It was different from the other Holiday Specials that I had been seeing, it was about something new, and I appreciated it for it. For the life of me, I cannot think of any other Hanukkah Special that was on for me as a kid to watch. As an adult, I can appreciate even more, because, and this sounds really corny, the holidays are universal. No matter what religion you are, this should be the time of year when we together and celebrate and have fun. So, to all my readers, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays.

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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:

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!

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