The Star Wars Holiday Special!
If you’ve never seen The Star Wars Holiday Special, yes, its infamy is deserved. The 1978 TV special was an absolute fiasco in so many ways, but if all you’ve ever heard is BAD BAD BAD, know that it does have some highlights. Sorry, but you’re never gonna convince me that Bea Arthur singing in the Mos Eisley Cantina was a bad idea.
The truth is that there was a serviceable-if-cheesy special hiding in there, but the thing is just so long and so full of meandering bits that it’s hard to see anything but the… well, the BAD BAD BAD.
I wasn’t alive when the special aired, and never even heard of the thing until I had AOL almost two decades later. Homebrew VHS copies were commonly traded on ancient action figure newsgroups, and when I finally got mine, just seeing any “new” Star Wars footage blew my mind.
I won’t tell you not to make fun of it, because I guess making fun of it is part of the fun. But if you’re even a minor Star Wars fan, you really gotta see it once. It’s… it’s something.
The Smurfs Christmas Special!
The Smurfs Christmas Special is an old favorite of mine:
The special debuted back in ’82, and eventually found a second life on cable channels, with Cartoon Network in particular treating it with great reverence even decades after its premiere.
Weird note: The special has some surprisingly vicious moments!
The Snow Creature!
I’ve been feeding you guys a lot of cheesy cartoons lately, so I thought we’d dip back into horror to mix things up.
Here’s The Snow Creature, because abominable snowmen are so much better during Christmastime:
It’s from 1954, and boy does it ever look like it’s from 1954.
The Glo Friends Save Christmas!
1. Yes, there really was a Glo Friends Christmas special.
2. The title — The Glo Friends Save Christmas — kinda gives away the ending. 🙁
If you don’t remember Hasbro’s Glo Friends, they were a bunch of cute buggy action figures inspired by the much more famous Glo Worm plush toy.
We’ve had one of the figures sitting in a planter outside for like five years now. I don’t say hi when I go out there, but sometimes I think about it.
