The Massive Attack Podcast

We've made it to the end of our 12 Days of a Cartoon Christmas, so why not go back to the idea that started it all, Inappropriate Source Material, although "A Very Troma Christmas - A Whole Toxic Affair" from 2015 is very much aimed at adults, and very much NSFW.

Think South Park, but not as clever, this is the story of how Toxie and his religious friends save Christmas from the evil corporations.

It's a little bit ironic that today is Festivus, yet we are watching the most religious of our Christmas specials, the 1977 Rankin/Bass claymation "Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey".

It's your classic underdog story of how a ridiculed misfit becomes an unlikely hero, but was it any good? And does it still have a place in 2020?

We jump forward to 1995 today to watch this strange story of Wolverine, Jubilee and Storm breaking from their Christmas shopping trip in New York City to help a sick Morlock, as we watched Season 4 Episode 12 of X-Men: The Animated Series, titled "Have Yourself A Morlock Little X-Mas."

Not only does it have Gambit cooking Christmas dinner and Beast working out the chemical formula for the best cranberry glaze, it scores much higher than yesterday's effort purely by not featuring any crappy songs or Smurfs!

We thought we were scraping the bottom of the cartoon Christmas barrel yesterday with The Chipmunks, but that was until today when we hit a new low.

Back in the early 80's Smurfs were a cool thing to collect when your parents filled up with petrol, unfortunately watching the 1982 "The Smurfs Christmas Special" in 2020 was in no way cool, and pretty much not enjoyable either.

We're really sorry, but think of it as us watching it so you don't have to.

Casper the Friendly Ghost is one of those cartoon characters that both Mitch and Joe know, but can't recall if they ever watched the cartoon before.

Today we fix that by watching the 1979 special "Casper's First Christmas", which not only features Casper and his ghost pal, Hairy Scary, but a slew of popular Hanna-Barbera favourites too, but is that enough to make it good?

Sometimes in our search for Christmas Gold during our 12 Days countdowns we find it, like "The Junky's Christmas" way back in our 2014 countdown, other times not so much.

Unfortunately today was one of those duds, as we look at the 1981 special "A Chipmunk Christmas". This O Henry-esque tale of woe is made just that more annoying by adding a bizarre fever dream, and of course the actual voices of the Chipmunks themselves.

And don't get us started on the songs!

On day 1 we looked at Rambo, which was a bit of a GI Joe rip-off, but today we go with the original.

Going back to 1985 for Season 1 Episode 39 "Cobra Claws are Coming To Town", this has everything you'd expect from a kids cartoon...bad guys shrinking themselves to hide in a Trojan rocking horse, dogs eating turkey legs, and a sailor humping a side of beef!

Back in the late 80's Garfield was a phenomenon, there was a stuff cat suction cupped to the window of every second car, and his books were everywhere. Then in 1987 "A Garfield Christmas Special" even aired on prime time TV.

Joe and Mitch have very different opinions on this one, with one of us loving it, and the other really not. Can you guess which one of is is which?

On our first every 12 Days countdown we looked at the original Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978, so seems fitting that when Disney Plus dropped the new Lego version of the Star Wars Holiday Special we would choose to watch that too.

Although it doesn't have the charm that was strange Wookiee porn or alien cooking shows that the original does, it still got some laughs and pushed the right Star Wars buttons.

 

It wouldn't be a 12 Days countdown within Joe somehow managing to shoehorn an episode of "The Simpsons" into our list, and this year is no exception.

 

Today we look at Season 23 Episode 9 "Holidays of Future Passed", which just so happened to be the 495th episode of "The Simpsons" and a pretty good one too!

 

For Day 2 we go back to the 80's with the special "Christmas Comes To Pacland".

A lot of people love this special from 1982...

A lot of people are wrong!

It's Christmas time, and as we like to do every year at this time, we count down the 12 Days of Christmas in our own special Massive Attack way.

This year, it's 12 Days of A Cartoon Christmas, looking at a dozen Christmas themed animated shows, starting today with every kids favourite war vet, John Rambo, as he, a runaway orphan and the Force for Freedom help save "Santa" from evil terrorists.

Just what every kid dreams of!