Full Metal Mashup

Cool! Another YouTube mashup joining two of my all-time favorites. This time it's Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket and Rankin & Bass's Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. They cut together perfectly the audio from the first time the drill sergeant meets his new class with the video from when the Elf Boss gets after Hermey for not being a good toy maker. Enjoy, but be careful for goodness' sake....this language is NOT even CLOSE to being appropriate for work.

Christmas Leary Style

From Dennis Leary's Comedy Central Christmas Special. If you like Rankin/Bass, you'll LOVE this intro.

Slanted Listmania 3 - Christmas Specials

So, you know I'm a big kid at heart. I like the Christmas Specials on TV more than my daughter does. Even if we own the special on VHS or DVD, I still try to make it a special occasion by anticipating it and sitting down and watching it with her when it's on TV - and reminding her that I used to watch the same shows when I was her age. These aren't movies, I'll save that for later. Here are my favorites and a few reasons why:

5. Santa Claus is Coming To Town - I like the dude that rules the town, Burgermeister Meisterburger. He cracks me up. Also, Jessica is a BABE! And I was NOT afraid of the wizard when I was young.

4. A Charlie Brown Christmas - How could you not love the special that brought us the music of the Vince Guaraldi Trio? It's one of my favorite Christmas albums (and I realize I'm dating myself by calling it an album) of all-time. My favorite parts? When Snoopy gets embarrassed dancing on Schroeder's piano, when Snoopy cries after Lucy flips on him over the smooch and the dance scene at the practice.

3. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - Some great characters! Another Rankin & Bass slam dunk. I love Yukon COrnelius and not just because he reminds me of Bill Cowher! I love the scene where the elf boss makes everyone sing. In fact, I think the elf boss is my favorite character in the entire show and they don't even name him! And how genius is the island of misfit toys? I must say "I'm a Charlie-in-the-box" 20 times a year. And WHAT IS wrong with the little girl on the island?

2. Dr. Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas - "He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore"....sounds like me trying to balance my checkbook! I'll tell you one thing - Seuss's family made a HUGE mistake when they let Ron Howard make this film. It SUCKED. Only one person could have made it right - and that person is Tim Burton. But then, Johnny Depp would have been the Grinch and he's far too slight.....well, nevermind.....

1. The Year Without A Santa Claus - Not even close. The Miser brothers bring this one home. I just realized Big Bad Voodoo Daddy covered their song and dubbed it Mr. Heat Miser. I heard it while walking around a bookstore on Saturday. Someone posted the dance on YouTube cut to the new song. Cool. The mayor is good here as well.

Bad Casting For Classic Christmas Remake

When I read 6 months ago that a live action version of "The Year Without A Santa Claus" was being worked on, I got very excited. The original is my favorite Christmas special of all-time. In fact, before the retro toys came out for this show and the VHS and DVD weren't even available - I had most of the dialogue and the song lyrics memorized from an old VHS copy that I made soon after we got our very first VCR (which was a big deal way back when!). I always thought a live action movie would be cool, but the wrong people got the rights to it. it should have been the South Park guys or the Beavis and Butthead guys. You need a "hip factor" to make this movie the right way so everyone that was young in 1974 when it debuted would tune in and make it a new classic. Instead, they had a boring script with boring actors and no edge whatsoever. I thought about who should play the roles years ago and came up with Ryan Stiles from Drew Carry for Snow Miser and Jerry Stiller for Heat Miser. I broke out our official copy 2 nights ago with my daughter and we watched it again this time paying particular attention to faces. I came up with Albert Brooks for Jingle and Jason Mewes for Jangle. Can you see Jangle walking around stoned saying "Snoothie Bootchies"? I also think Dr. Phil would make a great mayor for South Town. They really screwed this attempt up. They should have called me in for casting. In my version, David Spade would have been Iggy and Sam Elliot the dog catcher. The only character they got right was Carol Cane playing Mother Nature. Oh well, I'll just keep watching the classic version every year.

It's The Great Outkast, Charlie Brown

This is totally cool. Good job by the creators who beg "please don't sue us" at the end of the credits. If you know the song "Hey Yeah" (or even if you don't) you should enjoy this Smash Up / Mash Up of the popular Outkast song with Charlie Brown's Christmas Special. Too cool. One question: Where the hell is Franklin? Damn, he gets no respect. Freida and Violet are there jamming, Violet is either doing the Vogue or an early Macarena, and there are a set of twins that never had a speaking part - why the hell can't Franklin break it down? Man, I love me some Charlie Brown.

These People Cave Way Too Easy

This annoys me. They gave up way too early. BTW, like how I threw CAVE into a story title that mentions Rudolph? Huh? Huh? Yeah, let's drop a boulder on "Bumble" when he comes to eat fresh meat in the cave. And they wonder where these kids get the idea to drop rocks off of overpasses. They blame Beavis & Butthead and the bowling ball episode when it actually burst onto the scene in this Rankin & Bass Christmas Classic. There are a few really cool web pages that I've read about this show. One went into great debate about why the little girl doll was on the Island Of Misfit Toys. She didn't have anything wrong with her. Do some Googling on Rankin Bass Rudolph. It's good stuff if you're a Christmas special geek like I am. OOOOOOOOOH good topic for a new Slanted Listmania. Coming Soon. I wonder what number 1 will be? Clue? I'm Too Much!