Category: NERDING DAY
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Nerding Day: Mega Man for DOS 🌭
I actually asked my parents for this garbage. I begged for this shit. And I got it: The worst Mega Man ever made.
As a kid, I considered myself one of the biggest Mega Man fans of all time. This was convenient for me, since I was a child during the time in which this couldn’t be verified by any means whatsoever. There were no YouTube videos of toddlers beating the entire series on Donkey Konga drums while wearing a blindfold and getting spun in a chair. It was a different time then. You used to be excited when you found out someone else liked the same video games as you. It’s not like today in which discovering a shared interest blossoms into a deep horror as the other person angrily tells you that the main character’s body is too woke now or some stupid thing that people online get mad about when they don’t have actual problems.
Anyway, I loved Mega Man with all my heart. Some of this might have been the fantastic music, amazing platforming, and incredible enemy designs. As I’ve said before, some of this might have also been that I was a little fat kid and Mega Man was a little fat guy, just bouncing along on his fat little metal legs. A lot of people talk about the importance of representation in the media, but you rarely hear about the way Mega Man inspired a generation of amorphous-looking man-children. Without his influence, who knows what I might have gone on to do? Had sex with someone who didn’t avoid eye contact? Maybe!
But Mega Man was my boy, so any time I saw some sort of new Mega Man game, I had to have it. I’d do anything I could to make sure that the game was on my parents’ radar. After that, it usually meant waiting for months until a holiday or my birthday or until my dad got so mad that he did something terrible that resulted in him buying us a toy out of guilt. That’s how we got the SimCity 2000 Urban Renewal Kit! Man, expansions used to be cool. Man, no they didn’t.
When I saw Mega Man for DOS in the store, I couldn’t stop asking for it. We’d just gotten our first computer a few months earlier and a handful of cheap shareware games to go with it. Bad card games. Worse Tetris knockoffs. A level of Wolfenstein 3D, which wasn’t bad at all, but also I didn’t respect how much I’d need to train to fight Nazis in the future. The computer was more or less a business purchase for my dad and the games were a way to show it off a little or prove that he hadn’t just bought it for himself. I do think he also bought a strip poker game on a floppy disk because I found one years later and my mom isn’t the type.
The box for Mega Man on DOS is odd in that it uses the same box art as Mega Man for Game Boy, which itself seems to have taken elements from the box art of Mega Man 3. And even though it’s simply billed as “Mega Man,” it’s not a remake of the first game in any way. In fact, it’s an entirely new game with three new robot bosses. Oh, I don’t mean three new robot bosses in addition to your favorites. I mean that there are three robot bosses period. And these aren’t Dr. Wily’s best work. These are the D-Team robots, some Roombas with legs attached.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have to talk about the exciting first level!
You know how in Mega Man X – a real Mega Man game – you’re dropped right into that crazy futuristic highway in the middle of a robot war? It’s cool, right? There’s pounding music. Wave after wave of creative, fascinating mechanical enemies. The level shifts and changes. Forget exposition, this game teaches you what’s going on by showing it! And when you die at the hardest part of the level, you’re actually shocked to discover this is the start of the real story! Wow!
Mega Man for DOS is similar to this in that you’re dropped right into the action. Except instead of it being a cyberpunk cityscape under robotic devastation, you’re on a brick walkway with little rope guardrails. When you start, you’re at a guard booth with a gate that they raise for you and you just walk by. Because, I think the guard already knows you? Mega Man doesn’t wave a pass or anything, but they let him right in. So he must’ve been called about coming over to help. As you walk down the straight path – and I literally mean there’s nothing but flat ground and one building you walk straight through on said flat ground – robot dogs attack you. If you kill the robot dog, another will come and attack you. If you ignore it, it’ll chase you and attack you. You can’t outrun or defeat them until they stop. No matter what you do, the robot dog will hit you for significant damage. The only way to get past this is to just keep running and jumping until you read a Dr. Wily-esque gate that leads to the robot boss selection screen.
Now, if this doesn’t sound fun, I completely understand. That’s fair. However, what you need to understand is that this is really made even less fun by the fact that there’s no music whatsoever. No music. Zero songs. Not in this opening level. Not in any of the levels. This Mega Man game is dead silent outside of the jumping and shooting and dying sounds. Mega Man’s music might be one of the most universally beloved things about it, so having zero music at all is certainly a choice. I guess we’re in the year 20XX and we’re fighting to defend the town from Footloose.
This lack of music is fascinating to me. I used to hold a Talkboy up to the screen to record songs from the games. If I tried that now with Mega Man for DOS, I’d likely get silence or some slight static where you could almost detect a ghost begging to be heard and have their murder solved. There’s just nothing there. I tried putting on some Mega Man music from Spotify while playing, and it’s one of the few things that made this game more fun other than turning it off.
But then we get to the robot bosses screen. Just so you know: Still no music. You’re not getting any of that here ever. Your choices are Dyna Man, Sonic Man, and Volt Man. All of which are designed to look nothing like a Mega Man robot boss. They could’ve gone a bit cheap and did some knockoffs by adjusting a pixel here or there. Nope! Pure free hand digital drawing. Dyna Man looks like a mad scientist who did too many sit ups and he’s one of the highlights.
Even as I type this, the difference between boss’ levels are melting together in my mind. One is a sewer landscape that’s just a series of walkways and pits. One is an electric power plant landscape that’s just a series of walkways and pits. Another is a warehouse that’s just a series of walkways and pits. I know “walkways and pits” could describe a lot of platformers, but I genuinely mean that your first level in Super Mario Maker probably had more nuance than anything here. If you gave me a sheet of graph paper and told me I had 15 minutes to design three Mega Man levels, this is probably the level of quality I’d produce. They dedicated the same amount of effort to the enemies. For example, the manual tells you to watch out for: BIRD (not pictured).
The old Mega Man games were the pinnacle of platforming precision. Carefully placed jumps. Deaths were common, but rarely unfair. Great. Forget that. Mega Man can neither jump that high nor shoot that low. Which is great, because every single obstacle is slightly too high to reach and every enemy will fly just below your shot range. Killing anything – even itty bitty shitty insect robots – feels more like a game of chance than anything else. I’m serious when I say that this game can only be completed by bum rushing through levels, hoping that you don’t lose all your lives before reaching an equally awful boss fight. Besides choosing between EGA and VGA graphics, there is no point in which this game becomes fun.
Oh, and there are those fucking annoying little blocks that appear and disappear. I’m glad of the things they could get right about Mega Man, it was the worst part of any level. There may be no music, the level design may be terrible, but at least we can try to time jumping between disappearing ledges. Phew! Thank you, Dr. Light, for keeping us going until we had the chance to fall into a river of flames again and again and again and again. In fact, I’d say the greatest challenge in this game is just getting to the robot bosses themselves. God knows you probably won’t defeat them unless you actually try and – if the developers didn’t with this game, why should you?
And I do mean that they didn’t “try.” After doing some research (i.e., Googling), I discovered that this game steals some of its graphics from Duke Nukem. Not the 3D one with the boobs and stuff. The 2D one that came in CD-ROM value packs.
You don’t remember those games because they’re not really worth remembering. They’re not terrible by the standards of the day, which means they’re nightmarish by the standards of now. For a while, Duke Nukem was the best the PC had to offer on sidescrollers, which is probably why developers mostly focused on obtuse, un-fun role playing games instead.
To be fair, I can kind of see why the developer, Stephen Rozner, stole some assets. Also, yes, Stephen Rozner is just one guy. This was a game made by a single person. That tracks. And I don’t want to shit on someone who made a bad game 35 years ago. Because, look, far be it from me to criticize someone else’s work. I’ve definitely put my name on projects that were great and I’ve definitely put my name on projects that paid me money. It’s also a bit of a relief: Knowing this wasn’t made by a well-funded team feels like less of a waste. And, if I’m being upfront, I’d feel pretty proud of myself if I made this in 1990, especially considering I was six. And at six years old, I’d probably feel less morally against stealing art.
The good news is you can play Mega Man for DOS right now! For free! The bad news is that, by playing the game, you’re using up some of the few, brief minutes you’ve got left on this planet. There is no music. Almost no enemies. Stolen artwork. Bosses that don’t make sense. And gameplay in which Mega Man can neither reach high or low enough to accomplish things. Mega Man may be a robot, but this is the first game to show us what would have happened if Dr. Light had a box of bricks fall on his head while designing a new creation. If I have anything positive to say, it’s that now – and when I was a kid – Mega Man for DOS made me respect how hard it must’ve been to create a fun game in the series. I can’t wait to play it again in another 35 years when I’m in my 70s.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Josh S, who was responsible for the music, but nobody told him.
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Nerding Day: Every Day Magic🌭
The sinkhole swallowing mankind has an easy fix: magic. Magic can fix it all. I’m rededicating my life to magic.
Exciting! Per island tradition, I haven’t taken a day off since preschool. Why should sorcery be different? Burnout‘s for angry villagers. I’d rather be memorable kindling.
Past statements, actions, and core beliefs paint me as a skeptic. Ignore them. I love and respect wizards like adults. More importantly, I’m not waiting for my foxhole to find a divine sponsor. Starting now, I’m throwing shit at the cosmic wall and seeing what glows. Every Day Magic can change my spiritual life, by giving me one. It’s January, so calendar books are at their strongest.
Save me, Gaia! Or Ra, I don’t give a shit! Buddha! LeBron! Articuno! Help.
Fuck.
Another psychic life coach, enriching their spirit and IRA. Thanks for nothing, Articuno. Calendar books start with their best shot, to ensure a strong Target harvest. Yet our opening reads like paper mache made from Gaiman tweets. Is this just a holiday DIY Magic?
I’m wrong! It’s a crowdsourced DIY Magic. Or, more generously, a tandem-written spellbook. Teamwork wafts from each page. A reminder that TheftGPT just added dead rivers to old habits. Freshwater was sweet, but I’ll adapt to purified urine in time. I’ll never get calendar books.
Except today! I already loved calendar books and magic alone. Together, they make…what do you compare magic to? Love? Hextech? Organic Chemistry? Together, they make a premed filter course.
Besides, Every Day Magic is much more, in the parlance of broken ankles, core. Authentic. Culty. While DIY magic brought arcana to glurge, Every Day Magic brings glurge to arcana.
Finally, Earth Day’s full power at my fingertips. Alongside real Incan filler holidays. The contents of Every Day Magic have annoyed mankind for millenia. As they said in Atlantis: “I‘d rather drown than hear one more fish poem.”
All up front, so I can’t call Every Day Magic misleading. And I never would. If 366 icebreaker games hide one real Cenobite, we’re saved. I’ll bet my soul on those odds. Something here can save January.
Resolutions with less action and more condescension. Sweet. We can keep the anxious navel-gazing and miss all the gym sales. Sun spirits hate all that type-A doing, but talking honors Apollo. Real G’s move in silence like magick. Wait, shit–
Justitia can have candles when she starts showing up for work.
Her pantheon shouldn’t be anyone’s first choice. We didn’t invent dickier gods until Lovecraft. Family court’s rough, but Justitia’s coworkers turn people into animals for crimes like being hot or weaving. Imagine missing a sacrifice. The thunderbolt would land before the warning.
Maybe I’m being too picky. You know what they say: “the age of misrule is upon us.” Sorry, I meant “any port in a storm.” If we look deeper than orgies and aesthetics, there’s plenty of cantrips to learn from Rome.
This entry’s mesmerizing. Mélusine Realname jumps in, praises mythic dong, and leaves. It’s all worldbuilding should be. She even suggests trying spells, which tracks. It’s why this book exists. To teach me spells. Unlike this entry. But Mélusine has places to be and dicks to sculpt, so I’ll move on.
“No ill fortune” is close, really. I’m willing to grade the god of dick protection–and by extension, dick pain–on my curve.
The cauldron’s bubbling: we just scored Devil Triggers. I hope. Otherwise, our unresolved angst might produce fewer super modes, and more premature balding. I’ll belt some Devil May Cry lyrics from the roof, and see if anything changes.
It did! I have a week to move out.
Ads gave minimalism a bad name, but consider simplifying your psyche. You might enjoy cutting things down to the light. Darkness is a shameless freeloader, flashing pictures of dead pets when you’re trying to write. So I hear.
We’ve inched pretty close to the deadline. Hopefully Lucya has a special minion ready. Someone to spice up this magic book with some magic.
Big Grandma wrote this. According to the academic libraries of “Bing,” Baba Yaga has a real, non-filler feast in November. Which doesn’t matter, since you already know who Baba Yaga is if you’d trade money or bandwidth for this. I get that she’s a folklore tweener, but you can’t eat kids and guilt me into anything. I’m not even sure my grandmother’s alive. No one’s forged my signature for a while, so I might need a funeral suit.
Increasing my powers sounds dope. Sidebar: how do I use my powers? I’ve increased and amplified and tuned for years, without summoning one cat. Comics say I’m owed a talking cat. Otherwise I’m tolerating mythology trivia questions for nothing.
Does January have anything for us? Earth’s heating up quickly, and sanity magick in December will mean even less than the average gift.
Man, I’m never learning firebending, am I? Is this a curse? Did I ghost a necromancer? I thought they’d be used to that.
Granted, this witch sounds dope. I’d pay to learn to heal people, or get a quipping cat. While the church sounds like a pain, it’s a lateral move if you like stem cells or too much penis or not enough penis. But I’m a visual-auditory learner, so it’d have to be a book. Preferably one with an organizing gimmick, to focus what’s left of my mind.
Ronin Shaman sneaks a few more semi-poems in here. They don’t improve. Each reads like poetry by someone called Ronin Shaman.
Before you ask: it’s okay. Some ingredients don’t pull their weight. Vegan butter may be the main reason Earth dies.
I shouldn’t get mad. I look insane every time I give grifter scrolls more rage than Junior Klan Adventures. But without one fireball/force cage combo, we’ve already sunk to baking as magic. What spell gets my money back?
Stay poor, strawberry peasants. Apple eaters earn more than the company, and harvest twice the data. My proof? I need it to be true. Apple wealth cakes are my retirement strategy.
Avoid taking food cues from con men. E. Coli’s survivable, but you leave some of your soul behind in the stall. Most recipe spells are Summon Monster IV.
See what making retirement a dream does to people? Pairing human desires with random Easy-Bake recipes is a full career’s worth of graft. Impressive, as long as you can live with yourself afterwards. I suggest hiding mirrors.
Morgana. Mélusine. Ronin. This is the empire’s last free month. Give me something.
Fuck it.
Goddess and/or self-delusion! Hear me!
Hecate, the land is in peril. We are besieged by flame, diamond miners, and our own IQs. Is there a way through the mist? Lend us your wisdom. Or sweet fireballs. Per the terms of Every Day Magic, I’ll take wisdom. What’s the path?
Thank you, goddess.
I’m spoiled. My upbringing said that dishonesty, sloth, or breathing earned sudden and decisive violence. And witchcraft got a talking-to. What is a Moon Books author, but someone missing that lesson? I’m certain every byline in Every Day Magic now has fifteen AI books to their name.
January’s a bust. Let’s salvage the future.
Let this be a lesson on compromise. Mélusine tried throwing haters like me a bone with normie holidays. The result’s twice as annoying. I’d rather see ten more Ronin Shaman poems. Or twenty by a real poet. Or thirty more dick festivals. This move hints at more confidence in your font than your premise or worldview.
Love yourselves. Your stupid, stupid selves.
Nice, this one’s easy. Most photos of me were taken by me to promote me. Whenever I take myself for granted, I report myself to me for punishment.
And now we know divination works: Irisanya saw jesters coming, and wrote a decoy target for vaseline jokes. And this pep talk’s fine, if you have a dying ego. If your ego’s average or better, it’s a one-way ticket to fighting Batman in an abandoned carnival. Can the Dark Knight defeat the Mirror Maniac? Yes. It’s always yes. No amount of self-love can protect your fibula.
Spell? Spell! We’re at Magic Defcon One. This could be the biggest witch news since bathroom panic.
A defense of this couplet as art: I thought I wanted something, went on a character-driven journey, and found the truth. Why me?
Humbling. When I’m in the ER lobby, for myself or someone else but probably myself, “my readers will love this” isn’t my first or fortieth thought. And that’s a weakness. For a student of the old world, Lucya’s almost perfect for the new. Or lying. Then she’s perfect.
Mélusine, the rest of the class is trying. You can’t pass/fail the weave. Your output has declined from “Thoth, God of Magic” to “the apple guy from picture books.” While slightly realer, knowledge of Johnny Appleseed generally follows Paul Bunyan and mom’s tablet password (try your birthday).
I’m down for this one. It’s a contextual magic rite in our contextual magic book. In my eyes, Jenny’s the first witch here to fucking play. With the best lesson so far: while you’re fucking around, Jenny’s in the lab, summoning hobgoblins with old socks. While you sleep in, Jenny’s appropriating cultures you’ve never heard of. While you doomscroll, Jenny glues South African toenails to a doll.
Time for my rebirth.
The new me just feels cold. I guess it has to be March.
Another trap. A lazier cyberbully would mock Calantirniel for memorizing The Silmarillion. I’m shocked she retained nothing. Elven lives suck. Impossibly. It’s seven hundred pages of death, addiction, and incest. Not even leering HBO incest. Antigone incest. This is a cosmic “kick me” sign. Fuck. That.
No.
Right, the zen version of a Cool S. Maybe this works, and breaking the cycle of rebirth just takes a preschool sketch of someone else’s faith. If so, I’m still not doing it. I’ll be reborn as a gerbil, dignity intact. Until I wander into a drain pipe.
The picture’s getting clearer. Lucya’s plan to create an unfocused, agendaless book has produced an unfocused, agendaless book. She’s trying to focus on appropriation and Wikipedia sidebar holidays, but faces twenty competing visions for not teaching me magic.
Jenny’s got competition for best witch. While Su’s further from anything that’d ever work, she’s also stopped caring. This bunt made me smile through my penury. I’m shocked more spells don’t request yachts and harems.
We know.
I know.
Imagine building a technicolor altar to rhyme “hour” with “power.” Or telling a second person it cures anything. Nervous students get thirsty, but they tend to skip kettles and meterless poetry. Unless Twisted Tea comes in chamomile.
Jenny no longer has competition for best witch. While I thought Su was punting these, we’re at the outer limits of her ability. That’s what I get for trusting a Windsong. Maybe our powers will be stronger in the summer. Or exist at all.
That’s a no. I’m halfway through the year, and less magic than I started. Time for emergency measures. Which is where we started, but moreso. What’s Friday the 13th got?
At this point, I’d settle for some poser action. Instead, this pagan guide celebrates Spooky Day by mourning crusaders and praying indoors. We’re inches away from Communion and abstinence. I don’t expect Morgan Le Fay—too much sibling rivalry—but can we reach the arcane heights of a tattoo parlor? Last year, you could get flash of a chibi witch for ten bucks. I hear.
Jenny, everyone else has failed me. Forget the world. Forget the nation. Forget the year. Can magic make one day of human life less shit?!
I want to believe. This is almost “White Christmas,” one of the three least grating winter standards. And when the time comes, I’ll try it. But my siblings get moody when fire sprinklers power-wash everything they own. And I’ve already lost one home to magic.
I guess this is a wash.
Or not! I’ve seen this spell in art school, and it’s entertaining. Mostly. Sometimes, mages call you well-spoken or say your kids would look like Drake. Then you should bail.
It’s not a total waste. We didn’t find power, hope, or copy editing in Every Day Magic. But we did summon a ten-minute diversion from the flames. Alakazam.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Lucas Keen, a warlock in Crocs casting spells and dodging responsibilities.
What does Christmas mean to you? It’s a question that’s plagued the opening of articles about Christmas for years. Some say Christmas is about family. Others might say giving. And, of course, there’s a handful of people who believe the holiday is about the birth of Christ. But what if I told you that there was a Christmas special that covered all of that. But instead of doing it in a calm, noble way like A Charlie Brown Christmas, what if it was made by a team that seems to be suffering from a waking cocaine nightmare?
No way you say? Nay, I say today! Because Will Vinton’s A Claymation Celebration is exactly what would happen if you took every Christmas memory, dream, and idea anybody has ever had and then put the whole thing into a blender and poured out the sloppy mess all over the counter. It’s existed since 1987, but there’s a reason it doesn’t pop up much next to older fare like The Grinch or Frosty: It’s weird and vaguely disturbing.
And also because their big headlining attraction – the piece of the puzzle that definitely cost the most money – was the California Raisins, a phenomenon that none of us know how to feel about. Was it racist? Are we racist for wondering if it’s racist? I mean, they make them sing a Temptations-style cover of Rudolph, so – I mean – I just – I don’t know. Far be it from me to say anything! I think there might be a reason we don’t really go to the California Raisins well as much as we used to.
The special aired almost 40 years ago, but it holds up just as well now as it did back then. That is to say, it was weird then and it is still weird now. But good news: You can watch the whole thing on the Internet Archive. Brace yourself.
The most important thing you need to know is that this Christmas special celebrating the birth of Christ is set in London with two American-accented dinosaurs named Herb (a triceratops) and Rex (a – and you won’t believe this – T. Rex). They have a vibe best described as “co-workers who dated, broke up, but are still trying to stay professional.” They bicker and argue throughout the special about each others’ appearances and minor personal flaws while introducing songs. Rex is stuffy and mean, Herb is fat and stupid. They’ve got no jokes beyond that! These are your hosts, ladies and gentlemen!
Oh, and as part of Herb and Rex’s whole deal is that they’re dealing with a series of animals and people who misunderstand the song “Here We Come A-wassailing” and sing it incorrectly. So, for example, a group of birds sing, “Here we come a-waddling” and then they waddle down the street. Another group sings, “Here we come a-waffling” and passes out free breakfast foods. Herb, as you’d expect, loves this. But Rex? He does not approve! This is one of the throughlines of the entire special and it makes next to no sense. Especially when they finally explain the meaning of “wassailing” and it’s kind of what everyone else was already saying.
Not important. I want to break down the segments, piece by piece.
“We Three Kings”
I’m going to be really honest: This is the best part of the entire special. If you stopped watching the special after this song, you’d think, “Weird, but great.” This should be the only performance of “We Three Kings” ever recorded. Every other version of “We Three Kings” can suck itself off while looking into the mirror.
Ignoring the last sentence, you probably know the Bible story of little baby Jesus getting visited by Three Wise Men who, in honor of his birth to save our souls, gave him three gift cards to Target or something. Anyway, it’s a story that is a little historically tricky but kind of fun if you want your nativity display to have more than two broke parents and a bunch of zoo animals.
This rendition, however, adds a twist. You see, while the kings themselves bravely sing about their wonder and hope for the messiah, the chorus is sung by the camels. The camels! That’s who sings. So right in the middle of this song about Jesus being born, we get camels – oh, and they’re wearing sneakers – doo-wopping half of the lyrics.
Like almost everything in this special, it makes no sense. And the human singing part is inexplicably ominous. But at least it’s cool? I will say that this part of the special kicks off an issue that will come up a few times in the rest of the special: Casual bigotry. Not, like, total racism. Nobody’s getting excluded from a country club. But, yeeahhhhh, there’s some stereotypes and designs of characters that don’t always hold up.
Still! Camels singing doo-wop? Great work. It also ends with the light of God shining into a village, so if that was one of your concerns, don’t worry: It’s all good!
“Carol of the Bells”
And we’re back to Herb and Rex! They hate each other! It’s fun. Herb keeps ringing a bell in Rex’s ear as they explain that Christmas often involves aforementioned bells, a fact most of us wouldn’t have known otherwise. They thus introduce the “Carol of the Bells.”
Now, this one’s a little different. The music is as Carol of the Bells as you can get. Imagine Carol. Imagine Bells. You’ve got this segment. This one’s not about the music. It’s about the conflict the bells are having. You see, in the horrifying world of this segment, each bell is a sentient being conducted by Quasimodo. If you remember, Quasimodo is a disfigured man who dies lonely and heartbroken in a Victor Hugo book.
Anyhoo, rather than being part of a musical instrument, these bells are in a sort of choir where they have to hit themselves in the head with a hammer to make a sound. Really. Unfortunately, one of the bells is a complete idiot – which I guess you can tell from his poor dental hygiene? – so he misses his notes and loses his hammer and generally annoys everyone.
That’s the bit. It’s an idiot bell messing with other bells that just want to hit themselves with a mallet to make the most depressing instrumental Christmas song ever written.
My question remains: How do Quasimodo and the idiot bell’s bowtie exist in the same time period? It doesn’t make any sense. Stick around after the bit for Rex and Herb’s whining, because they are about to lay out an all-time champion pun.
“O, Christmas Tree”
Back from the commercial, Herb and Rex spend precious airtime explaining the Christmas tree, another concept foreign to most people. As we all know, a Christmas tree is a pine that people decorate with expensive Hallmark video game ornaments to remind themselves of a youth that’s never coming back.
But buckle up, because this isn’t your dad’s “O, Christmas Tree.” Well, it is. But it’s also Christmas Tree Inception. Rather than having some kooky lead claymation character bashing themselves in the head until their concussions make classical music, the whole thing is focused on the tree and the room it’s in.
At first it’s just some loser kids. Boring, right? They’re kids made of clay. Any of us could take them out if we wanted to. It would be so easy. You ever see that commercial for the board game Grape Escape where they just smash that little PlayDoh grape? Imagine doing that to an unfeeling clay child. Nobody would even know it was you.
But then we zoom into the tree, through an ornament meant to look like a door or a window or something. And suddenly, inside the first tree, we’re in another Christmas room with another tree. This time it’s all candy people who look both pleased and terrifying in equal measure. Imagine how small they are inside that first tree! Little, tiny candy people. Another throughline of this special is how everything is joyful with a strange sense of horror and loss behind it.
But then we zoom further into their tree! And we get Santa’s workshop. Here elves seem to be doing all the work themselves – including endlessly riding a bicycle to power these grave factories of avarice. We don’t spend a lot of time here, but one elf does manage to test a toy and then accidentally decapitate himself, so that’s fun.
After that we zoom in again and now we’re in Santa’s house. Because, I guess he lives inside the tree in his workshop? Because, I guess he can switch to any size he wants? Because, that’s how he gets in and out of fireplaces? But, either way, it’s creepy to imagine your boss literally having his home – complete with elderly wife – in the middle of your open floor plan office.
“Angels We Have Heard On High”
Remember how a few songs have incorporated Christ and sweet moments with children? Well, that is over! We’ve now got two figure skating walruses that love nothing more than killing penguins. Full stop.
Yes, that is what this segment is. There’s no singing of the carol. Just music. And that’s fine. This is an interpretation of the song that we all had to repeat endlessly in CCD but with different lyrics because Catholics gotta Catholic! No words, though, so who cares? Angels We Have Heard On High.
Again, you’d assume that because this special has ridden the line between goofy and religious with a dash of fun, they’d do that here. Maybe have a fun angel do a rock and roll version of the song! But still sweet and nice because you don’t want to make God angry. He’s still out there waiting to strike. The holidays are when the veil between reality and the beyond becomes frayed, allowing God to enter our world and wreak havoc among the believers and nonbelievers alike. Fun fact: The only other time God can enter our world is if he wins ten martial arts championships in a row.
So. Back to the walruses. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just a running fat joke with the walruses skating into the penguins who, I should add, are not having fun. The walruses love each other, too, I think, but can only express it through ice skating tricks. It still just feels oddly depressing, though. It’s all at sunset, almost as if this is the highlight of these sad people’s lives. Maybe writing this is the highlight of mine.
And it’s a little funny at first, I admit. But here’s another problem, and you’re already way ahead of me on this one. Walruses and penguins are native to literally polar opposite ends of the globe! Walruses can’t ice skate, and they don’t even live near penguins either!
You would think that this would be the biggest crowd pleaser, but even as a child, I thought this was by far the most boring segment of the special.
“Joy to the World”
Wait, I spoke too soon.
Joy to the World is the official bathroom break of Will Vinton’s A Claymation Christmas Celebration.
I’m not even saying that because it’s the most religious. I’m not religious but I’ll certainly admit there are ways to do religious stuff so it slaps. There’s a cathedral in Montreal that has a laser light show. It’s cool! But this? It’s just so… There’s nothing. First of all, “Joy to the World” is already one of the worst Christmas songs. I know it’s a fun musical cue for movies when something good or ironically bad happens. I know that with a full choir, it can certainly be a song that people hear. But, come on. It’s the most generic, who-gives-a-crap carol in the missalette. It’s like if you wanted to write a song about Jesus but kept it so repetitive that Jesus sent you to Hell anyway.
Now take that same song and have it done in slow jazz. Right? Not elevator music! This wouldn’t be good as an ambient shopping tune. It’s too distracting. It’s not fun. It’s not comforting. Slow jazz. Almost smooth, but with just enough rough edges to irritate you like the tag on a new shirt. They should play this on a loop in the Navy when trying to prepare sailors who might get captured and tortured in a war.
There’s nothing even fun about the animation of it. Is this clay? Or is it paint? I don’t know. They’re not talking. But I’m not seeing lovable camels taking the chorus of other songs. Nothing. The visual aesthetic is meant to look like those chunky, crappy 1980s-1990s stained glass walls you’d see in newer churches. Why did we make stained glass suck for a while? What was the purpose behind that? Anyway, there’s nothing even remotely interesting in this part of the special. It makes you miss walruses killing penguins despite their vast geographical divide.
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
Alright! Here we are! The big headlining segment! Woo!
It’s the California Raisins singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”! I think I already mentioned this is just a Temptations-ish version of the song. It’s a good cover of the song! But also, it’s not something new for the kids of that era. Back then. God, sometimes I think about the fact that, biologically, I’m old enough to be a grandfather. If only I’d made a few more mistakes.
So, in this segment, the California Raisins are stuck because they missed the last bus after their concert. Which, already, they’re famous. They don’t have a tour bus? Or a manager who can hook them up with something? There’s no pay phone? I’m just saying, the California Raisins start this bit in some weirdly dire straits. Even as a child, I was like, “Are they okay?”
Fortunately, they have the idea to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while turning one of their bandmates into the reindeer by shining his nose so hard that it turns bright red. They then build a throne of trash for one of the raisins and tie a rope around themselves to drag the trash throne like a sleigh. It’s an odd image. Like, even the idea of tying a rope to your friends to drag you on a sleigh is weird. But there’s the visual aspect of – you know – like – history hasn’t – that is to say – when you talk about certain topics – the thing is – it’s just a different time now. I don’t know. Is it my right to be uncomfortable? I didn’t make this! I did have California Raisin sheets, but I didn’t know! I was three!
Anyway, they drag their friend into heaven because – being magic – they can fly, so I understand why the entire crew seems in favor of the plan.
Still… Uh… I mean, it’s fun? I don’t know what to say about the California Raisins. I forgot they were in this when I pitched the assignment and now it’s like I’ve got to make a judgement call that I do not have the authority to make. It’s a fun segment, and maybe problematic? I don’t know. Things don’t matter anymore. But at least the California Raisins had a good time after they missed their bus home to… the vineyard?
And that’s the special! We go back to Herb and Rex, who learn the true meaning of “wassailing,” which the show basically paints as being merry and sharing with the community which is technically true but was not always the case historically. Christmas used to be oddly violent, folks! Also, I should add – because why not – it was leprechauns who had the right answer. Then we go to a commercial for no reason and come back and all the characters sing “Here We Come A-Wassailing” together! You know, that top ten all-time Christmas banger.
Will Vinton’s A Claymation Christmas Celebration is disturbing on a level that’s hard to describe. Because it’s very fun! Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved this since I was a kid. The DVD of this I own is scratched up from decades of use. But it’s always struck me as weirdly dark in some ways. The mood turns from festive to somber on a dime. It’s almost like there’s a dark pall over it. It’s like a Christmas where a divorced dad pretends to be extra jolly and cheerful for the kids but stares into the distance half the time. Let it bring a dark, mournful merriness into your life.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: David Shull, the owner of the world’s largest collection of California Raisins memorabilia.
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