Day Three Hundred and Fifty-nine - Phineas and Ferb: Season 2, Episode 21, "It's CHRISTMAS! But where's Vanessa?"

Yup, Phineas and Ferb's Christmas Vacation special (a whopping eleven minutes longer than their regular episodes) is one of my favorite holiday episodes along with Futurama's "Xmas Story." It and a third completely awesome episode from another series... that I will talk about in a bit... make up my Triumvirate of Holiday Cheer!

Set atypically for the series during Winter Vacation, Phineas and his step-brother Ferb set out to organize the town of Danville in a giant undertaking to thank Santa for all the cool presents he's given them over the years. In a giant montage of industriousness, the whole town (minus Candace) decorate the Tri-State area with all the trimmings and the boys, themselves, create a full-service rest stop for Santa to enjoy up on their roof.

Meanwhile, Agent P is snooping after Dr.Doofenshmirtz in the B-story. It seems Doof just can't get up enough apathy to ruin Christmas with his brand new Naughty-inator and has a grand musical number to relay that fact to the typically entrapped Perry. Some annoyingly persistent carolers push him over the edge, though, and he turns on the Naughty-inator, which tells the elves at the North Pole that the entire city shouldn't get any prezzies.

Booooo.

The third act of the special is all about Phineas and the gang rallying together with the help of two elves to save Christmas by creating, wrapping, and delivering every present... in a giant rocket sleigh! In the end, everybody's happy, even Doof, and things return to normal just in time for the kids' parents to arrive home with the grandparents who were flying in.

First, I should acknowledge that Phineas and Ferb is always, always cheesy, but it's a forgivable cheese. Their universe of flexible physics and convenient plot devices is so earnest and innocent, something that can't really be said in other, more Whovian universes that I've become familiar with. There's also really good comedic timing with all of the bits and musical sequences. Even if they stretch and break their own rules, it all snaps back in the end and is done in a spirit that makes the breaks not only forgivable, but hilarious.

Second, while I like the special, I do have to admit that it's not the strongest episode of Phineas and Ferb ever. For one thing, there's no Vanessa, and if you remember our previous visits to P&F for Couchbound, Vanessa is one of the main draws for me (played by Olivia Olsen who also voices Marceline on Adventure Time). For another, both the Doof story and Candace's freakouts over gifting for her boyfriend are boring as all get out, even if some of the accompanying gags (like Candace's metaphor explanations and the carolers) are fun.

I want to give a quick shoutout to Clancy Brown, who guests as Santa Claus and another hearty "I miss you" to Olivia Olsen whom was absent from this episode. Almost everyone else makes an appearance, though, from from Meep to P&F's stalker. I just wish I could've heard Olsen's beguiling tones. Oh, well. Make sure you stick around for the credits. Like Futurama before them, the P&F crew homages A Charlie Brown Christmas in a very cute way.

Now, since it's not on Netflix (at least, this year), I think I should mention what my favorite Christmas Special of all... Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas from Community. A stop-motion favorite reminiscent of Rankin and Bass animated classics like Rudolf. It's hilarious, but also poignant, as it covers a major character's holiday nervous breakdown and his friends' attempts to snap him out of his partial psychotic break with reality. It's cute, it's funny, it's animated... and darn near perfect. Too bad I have to rely on my DVDs and can't share it with you. Still, I have all my ornaments from the episode sitting next to my TV, so it sort of works.

Happy Holidays, Potatoes~

6!

Day Two Hundred and Seventy-two - The Emperor's New Groove, "Kronk, your antics make life worth living sometimes."

When The Emperor's New Groove came out, I remember a lot of folks lambasting it as just another example of the decline of Disney's animation studio from its heyday in the late 80's/early 90's after the Second Renaissance that included The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. Maybe it was a hostility towards all the fourth wall breaking, or just David Spade in particular... or, perhaps, it was just the general lack of awe-inspiring visuals or catchy musical sequences.

In any case, The Emperor's New Groove was a break from Disney's typical routine and, for that, got a lot of criticism. Personally, though, while I can see the validity of their complaints, there's just this bouncy humor that pervades the entirety of the film that really, really makes me happy... mostly coming at the hands of Chaotic Neutral henchmen, Kronk (Patrick Warburton).

That's not to say that David Spade, the intended star of the show as the Emperor Kuzco, isn't funny... but there are times that his self-absorbed sarcasm rubs the wrong way, whereas pretty much everything that comes out of Kronk's mouth (or, from his kitchen) is delicious.

While co-star John Goodman never really distinguishes himself as a voice actor here, playing the goody two-shoes Pacha (I think Wendi Malick does a much more interesting turn as his wife, Chicha), Eartha Kitt actually does a bangup job as the villainous Yzma, a wretched crone of an enchantress with eyes on the throne. It's actually rather sad that they didn't have her do a musical number as her voice just screams sultry and wicked.

As far as the story goes, it's just your typical buddy/chase flick as Kuzco and Pacha try and get back to civilization whilst bonding with each other and trying to avoid/thwart Yzma and Kronk. No real big surprise there. I was actually hoping that, in the absence of BOTH Kuzco and Yzma, that the people of the empire would attempt some sort of "majority rule" collective, but nope... civilization operates normally while the dueling heads of state, well, duel.

It's weird, The Emperor's New Groove really doesn't have your standard Disney polish and signaled a temporary halt to the trope of every entry being a romantic musical (a halt which led directly to the pulp adventure Atlantis: The Lost Empire), but it also wasn't "nails on the chalkboard" bad like the straight-to-DVD features that Disney was pumping out in the 90's, either. It's quaint and mostly fun... just not a grand Disney Epic, like most folks were used to back then.

I particularly loved (along with Kronk) all the tiny jokes like the Jaguar cub, the rollercoaster voice over, and the map lines... but really, the star of the show was Kronk. I don't think that the movie would've survived without his offbeat humor (and metahumor). Whether it was his obsessive homemaking, arguing with his dueling consciences, or squirrel translation, Patrick Warburton created a character that transcending the possible mediocrity of the film.

The main draw was him... everything else was just a supporting bonus. I mean, they turned Earth Kitt into a freaking cat and didn't even have her purr! Sacrilege!

I can definitely recommend The Emperor's New Groove, just be advised that it's all about the humor... the story, art, and music are all just meh.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hunded and Sixty-eight - Disney Animated Classics, Vol. 2: Three Little Pigs, "LAMBERT!"

Having watched The Muppet Movie, my childhood nostalgia button has been pressed, most assuredly. I'm afraid that means a lot of this week's blogs will be similar romps backwards in my personal entertainment timeline. Hopefully, said romps won't be boring or too self-indulgent.

Today, I was in the mood for old timey cartoons... the kind of toons that I used to see only on vacation at my grandparents' place down in Florida because they had premium cable channels like Disney and HBO. Since my parents didn't think I was old enough for HBO's programming back in the 80's (and I'd probably have agreed with them), Disney Channel it was.

But it wasn't the Disney Channel of today, filled to the brim with modern cartoons and tween oriented sitcoms made from their ever-flowing stable of child actors. No, back then, The Disney Channel was mostly long blocks of Magical World of Disney made-for-tv movies and classic cartoons from the era of Silly Symphonies (not to be confused with the Warners' Merry Melodies) on to the afternoons of Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears (among the very few modern shows produced in that era).

In this collection, I recognize really rather few, the main standout being Lambert the Sheepish Lion. Sure, everyone knows the story of The Three Little Pigs and Chicken Little, but these versions aren't all that interesting.

That's not to say that there aren't the occasional bits of subversive content that sneak in as static background jokes, like the Three Pigs' family portraits that portray their father as a string of sausages and their uncle as a football ("pigskin," get it?), but all in all the first three shorts of the collection, all staring the Three Pigs, is boring as all get out... and random to boot.

I mean, take the last of their three episodes of the collection, for instance, where The Big Bad Wolf, in a state of parentage not hinted at in previous shorts, has his wolf pups masquerade as lambs while he dresses up as Bo Peep. This manages to fool Wood and Straw who weren't at all snookered by the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing in the first short.

Then there's the "Wolf Pacifier" that saves the day, a giant Rube Goldberg machine that is improbable, impractical, and entire hinged on getting the wolf to chase the third pig, Brick, who is in disguise as a stereotyped Italian produce vendor.

That it's silly, as in the series' moniker "Silly Symphonies," is true... but it's also very uninspired.

The story of Lambert makes me a bit happier. It has little in the way of an actual story, just a lion cub mistakenly delivered by a stork (cause we were still perpetuating that myth to children back then) to a ewe without a lamb of her own. He grows up in typical Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer fashion, as an outcast... who only shines when his mother is in danger and he gains the courage of his bloodright... the power to roar as a lion should.

Of all the feelings brought back by seeing this familiar favorite, it's the plaintive calls of the mother ewe for her son that hit me the most. Those wails instantly take me back in time... even though it makes no sense that she calls in English as none of the other sheep have spoken so far, but still... we forgive a little to take in a lot.

As for the rest, well, Chicken Little has a tremendously pleasing ending that is so very dark. No way in hell Disney would pull that kind of twist nowadays. A decent end to an otherwise worthless short. The Three Blind Mouseketeers was also meh, as it tried to capture more Goldbergian antics and compete with Tom and Jerry for cat/mouse gold.

There was also a weird short about jungle animals at a birthday party and a bullied elephant who eventually saves the day and get's the girl. A decent enough moral, but you'd think the villains of the story would get some comeuppance. Sadly, no.

I think Lambert is the only true gem of the series of shorts. You can watch them all together in a row with the first track of the series on Netflix, but also pick them out individually if you were so inclined. If I were to go back again in the near future, it would only be for Lambert, so I'm glad of that option.

Still, I can think of worse ways to entertain myself with old remembrances (MacGyver, anyone?).

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~