Christmas Shelf Reviews: Olive the Other Reindeer

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20th century fox, 2D animation, adventure, animated, animated special, animation, artwork, cgi, cgi animation, children’s book, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, christmas elves, Christmas review, christmas special, computer animation, dan castellaneta, drew barrymore, ed asner, elf, fox animation, futurama, j. otto seibold, jack russell terrier, james otto seibold, joe pantoliano, Matt Groening, michael stipe, north pole, olive, olive the other reindeer, penguin, reindeer, santa, santa claus, Simpsons, television animation, television review, television special, tv, tv review, tv special, underrated, vivian walsh

While I remember the hype for the FOX Christmas special Olive The Other Reindeer back in 1999 –

…

…

…Excuse me, I was suddenly struck by the realization that I’m old.

Anyway, while I remember the promotions for it before it premiered, I’m ashamed to say I never got around to watching it until several years ago. Shame, really, because it’s been among my personal favorites since. Olive The Other Reindeer is loosely based on a children’s book by Vivian Walsh and award-winning artist J. Otto Seibold, the main conceit being “Hey, doesn’t that one line from the Rudolph song sound like they’re saying Olive The Other Reindeer instead of ‘all of the other reindeer’? Wouldn’t it be funny if someone named Olive got confused over it and tried to become a reindeer?” The book is fairly straightforward with little-to-no stakes, though it has some wonderfully stylized and colorful artwork. Naturally the leap from page to screen meant the story had to be significantly fleshed out, but who could possibly step up to the task?

Eh, how about the guy behind the biggest animated adult show of all time?

To this day I have no idea why Matt Groening took the job but I sure as hell am grateful for it. He, along with Futurama co-creator David X. Cohen, took what could have been another simple Christmas special and injected it with the sly modern wit and cheeky sense of humor they’re known for (the fact that Olive premiered on the same night Futurama did couldn’t have been a coincidence either). They spice up the proceedings with wonderful touches exclusive to this adaptation: the other characters with mondegreen names; the snappy dialogue; the background sight gags that you have to watch multiple times to catch; the running joke with the cordless drill; the self-depreciating jabs at Fox, and more. The smart writing in addition to the unique animation gives this outing a strong sense of identity without losing the heart and charm that’s inherent to the story. It also marks Olive as the only “family-friendly” thing Groening’s made to date; an interesting designation to have, but not a bad one at all.

Vote for Your December Reviews!

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animated movie review, blog, Christmas, christmas carol, Christmas cartoon, christmas episode, Christmas movie, Christmas review, christmas special, christmas story, december, film review, holiday episode, holiday special, holiday tradition, movie, movie review, movie vote, pick a movie, vote, vote now

November’s just getting started but you know what that means – the floor is once again open to voting for Christmas-themed reviews! Visit the Christmas Shelf to see what shorts, specials and movies you can vote for. Pick one of each and let me know in the comments or by emailing me at upontheshelfshow@gmail.com before November 25th. The winners with the most votes will be reviewed all throughout December (never fear, the next Faerie Tale Theatre review will still be up on December 6th).

Can’t wait to see what you pick! Happy voting!

Christmas Shelf Reviews: Richard Williams’ A Christmas Carol (1971)

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A Christmas Carol, abe levitow, academy awards, adaptation, allistair sim, animated, animated cartoon, animated short, animated shorts, animated special, animation, animators, Bob Cratchit, charles dickens, Christmas, christmas carol, Christmas cartoon, Christmas review, christmas special, christmas story, chuck jones, drumpf, Ebenezer Scrooge, fuck trump, ghost, ghost of christmas future, ghost of christmas past, ghost of christmas present, ghosts, god rest ye merry gentlemen, hand drawn animation, Jacob Marley, ken harris, London, michael hordern, Mickey's Christmas Carol, oscar nominated, oscar winning, oscars, richard purdum, Richard Williams, short, Tiny Tim, traditional animation, troll

Surprise, we had a tie in the shorts category! As my way of making up for the lack of reviews this year, here’s a little Christmas bonus for you all.

Last year we said goodbye to a giant in the field of animation, the one and only Richard Williams. In honor of his memory, I added some of his work to the Shelf, including this, a retelling of A Christmas Carol produced by fellow legend Chuck Jones with animation by Abe Levitow, Ken Harris, Grim Natwick and Richard Purdum among others. Adding to this auspicious company is Allistair Sim and Michael Hordern returning to voice Scrooge and Marley twenty years after playing them in the iconic 1951 film adaptation; it’s not Christmas in my household until I watch it with my father, the tree glowing in the corner as we huddle together in the dark in front of the TV, so hearing these voices again is a special treat.

Of course, since this is a Richard Williams’ production, there was no shortage of drama behind the scenes. Williams was a man who expected nothing less than perfection from his employees, and his stringent standards nearly proved to be his downfall (not for the last time either, if you know what happened to The Thief and the Cobbler). Work fell so behind schedule that the animators were forced to pull 7-day 14-hour workweeks with unpaid overtime, and the final product still wasn’t ready until one hour before the deadline! The results, however, speak for themselves. This is a beautifully crafted feature. Though Williams and crew had to resort to some rotoscoping to finish the job, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where they did.

This short was originally made for television, but the high praise it received emboldened ABC to distribute it theatrically. It would go on to be nominated for and win the Oscar for Best Animated Short the following year. This also gives it the distinct honor of being the only version of A Christmas Carol to win an Academy Award. Imagine, 200+ versions of the same story made over a period of nearly a hundred years yet only one gets that kind of recognition! Members of the Academy chafed at the idea that a short first shown on television took home the gold, and would quickly change the rules so that any future works that premiered on TV would not qualify for a nomination.

Despite its accolades and the high-profile names attached, Richard Williams’ Christmas Carol is surprisingly hard to find on home video. The version I watched for this review came from Youtube via TheThiefArchive, where you can find all things related to Williams uploaded for posterity.

So, classic story, some of the greatest animators of the twentieth century, all brought together by a man whom I consider the definitive Mad Genius of animation. What’s the worst that could happen?

Christmas Shelf Reviews: Pluto’s Christmas Tree (1952)

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2D animation, animated, animated short, animated special, animation, candles, cartoon review, chip and dale, Christmas, christmas carol, Christmas cartoon, Christmas review, christmas special, christmas tree, classic disney, deck the halls, Disney, disney animated, disney animation, disney review, Donald Duck, goofy, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, snow, traditional animation, winter

When I made my list of favorite Mickey Mouse shorts, I had a hell of a time combing through his filmography for what I considered “real” Mickey cartoons. This is because a good many films in the mouse’s oeuvre have the supporting characters like Donald Duck and Goofy quickly steal the spotlight from him. And that’s not the only thing they took: as more characters were ingrained into the Disney canon and Mickey was reduced to being a bit player in his own features, the scrappy traits that once endeared him to the public were siphoned away to his costars. And what was left for him once the childlike curiosity, playfulness, brash temper, big heart and fierce determination were gone? What kind of personality could Mickey cultivate for himself into when there was no personality left?

Thanks a lot, Lisa.

By the late 40s and early 50s, everything that made Mickey enjoyable was scrubbed away into a bland, neighborly squeaky-clean corporate-friendly icon. He was good for selling merch, but his cartoons suffered severely for it. Mickey was paired up with his faithful dog Pluto to keep things more interesting, though that resulted in him getting far more to do than his master. I always thought Pluto worked better as a supporting role rather than the main star, so I’ve never been crazy about the Pluto shorts or these in particular because…well, let’s look at a comedic dog and master duo done right:

Wallace, for all his mechanical ingenuity and good nature, is more than a bit of an idiot. Gromit is vastly smarter and is capable of expressing a variety of relatable emotions despite never uttering a word (though that has less to do with him being a dog and more due to the fact that he has no mouth). Whenever there’s trouble (usually of Wallace’s own making), Gromit steps up to the plate and the two always manage to work past their shortcomings together to save the day. They may not always be on the same level as each other, but their camaraderie and the situations they get into certainly make for an entertaining time.

As for Mickey, he may have been a lot of things in his prime, but he certainly wasn’t stupid. So seeing the resilient rodent who sailed steamships, conducted his way through storms, battled giants, saved kingdoms, slayed dragons and controlled the very cosmos have his IQ substantially lowered just so he could play second fiddle to his pet…well, it feels downright insulting. Pluto’s Christmas Tree was the second-to-last short made before Mickey’s thirty year-long retirement, and it’s a prime showcase for all the problems that come with his extreme flanderization, right down to the fact that his name isn’t even the one that’s in the title.

Rankin-Bass Month: The Little Drummer Boy (Review)

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aaron, animated, animated special, animation, anthropomorphic animals, Balthasar, ben haramed, Bethlehem, camel, caravan, Caspar, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, christmas episode, Christmas miracle, Christmas review, christmas special, Christmas star, christmas story, donkey, drum, drummer, Greer Garson, Jerusalem, Jesus, jose ferrer, Joseph, june foray, lamb, little drummer boy, manger, Mary, Melchior, nativity, nativity story, One Star in the Night, Paul Frees, performers, Rankin Bass, Romeo Muller, stable, star, Star of Bethlehem, stop motion animation, stop-motion, the goose is hanging high, three kings, three wise men, we three kinds of orient are, we three kings, when the goose is hanging high, why can't the animals smile

The Little Drummer Boy began as a Christmas carol written under the title “Carol of the Drum” and was first recorded in 1951 by the Von Trapp Family Singers. Maybe you’ve heard of ’em. It was inspired by a long-lost Czech carol, and the French legend of a poor juggler who performs for a statue of the Virgin Mary. The idea of a performer humbly offering their own talents as a gift to a holy figure has been revised and retold in many ways throughout the years (the Tomie De Paola book The Clown Of God is a beautiful example), and has resonated so much in its current form that it’s brought together singers as diverse as Bing Crosby and David Bowie.

I’m willing to bet the song’s popularity is what attracted Rankin-Bass to it, but it still strikes me as an unusual choice for their first stop-motion special made following Rudolph. The R-B roster mainly consists of secular Christmas stories. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town and Cricket On The Hearth barely touched on the Nativity in their tales. Little Drummer Boy, though? He doesn’t give a figgy pudding for Santa and wholly embraces the biblical side of Christmas. It’s only one of a handful Rankin-Bass specials that do – which means it’s buried beneath the more popular non-Jesusy Rudolph and Frosty outings. Heck, just look at the cover for Little Drummer Boy. Compare the covers for the other Rankin-Bass specials which advertise its celebrity narrator, or that they’re based on some “classic” story by a beloved author. There are TWO Academy-Award winning actors in the cast of Little Drummer Boy, and it’s partly based on what millions of people consider a true story, but instead of playing on that, there’s a cute tagline. Now I may be a tad prejudiced, but I find this to deliberate slighting of this particular Rankin-Bass special a bit unfair. Allow me to elucidate:

Rankin-Bass Month: Cricket On The Hearth (Review)

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2D animation, A Christmas Carol, animated, animated musical, animated special, animation, bertha, blind, blind girl, blindness, Britain, caleb, cartoon review, cat, charles dickens, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, christmas episode, Christmas review, christmas shopping, christmas special, christmas story, christmas toys, cricket, cricket crockett, Cricket On The Hearth, Danny Thomas, Dickens, dolls, England, green, green guy, hand drawn animation, Hans Conreid, holiday special, irish animation, London, magic toy, magic toys, Marlo Thomas, musical review, Paul Frees, Phelous, Rankin Bass, review, Roddy McDowell, Romeo Muller, tackleton, television review, the danny thomas hour, toy factory, toy shop, toymaker, toys come to life, toys coming to life, traditional animation, tv review, tv special, uriah, voice actor

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found it.

The lowest of the low.

The Rankin-Bass special that even Rankin-Bass fans despise.

Call it a hunch, but I think Charles Dickens really had a thing for Christmas. His most popular novel has the holiday in the title and has been adapted for the screen and stage at least over 200 times. Dickens set a few other tales at Christmastime, no doubt to recapture the magic and spirit of the holiday in the same way A Christmas Carol did, but those were met with less success. Does anyone here remember that classic “The Haunted Man”? That one was a ghost story that also took place at Christmas. Where are the hundreds of versions of that tale? Or “The Chimes” for that matter? Or “The Battle of Life”?

Then there’s today’s tale, “Cricket On the Hearth”, which only received two silent film adaptations (the first directed by D.W. Griffith) and a long-forgotten stage play. For yet-to-be-fathomed reasons, Rankin-Bass deemed it the perfect material to follow up their smash hit Rudolph three years prior. Instead of stop-motion animation, however, we get hand-drawn animation. While that would normally be a plus in my book, I’m not kidding when I say this is some of the cheapest, most unpleasant animation I’ve set my eyes on. It’s heavily recycled, the character designs are unappealing, and it cheats numerous times by just showing long periods of still images with nothing happening. I also had to be careful grabbing screenshots because the far-right side of the video flickered and was several frames off for some reason. And it wasn’t a corrupted file issue either, this is straight from the dvd. They aired this special on national television, how could they not be bothered to fix that?

And those are just the issues I have with the visuals.

The characters are one-dimensional tools, the songs are at best forgettable and at worst unbearable, and the story manages to be both devastatingly bleak and disgustingly saccharine while also insulting to its audience. Now, Charles Dickens was a talented writer knew how to properly mix those elements to tell a compelling and resonant story. In his Christmas tales, the sentimentality and darkness complement each other and ring true.

But guess who did such a bang-up job encumbering a song about ableist reindeer with a meandering hour-long plot that he was given free rein over the story?

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Deny thy special and refuse thy Writer’s Guild card. Or if not, throw thyself into the roaring cauldron of the sea and let the sirens peck at thy swollen flesh…sexist pig.

Well, this preamble has gone on long enough. Grab your insect repellent, folks, let’s look at Cricket On The Hearth.

Rankin-Bass Month: Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (Review)

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animated, animated musical, animated special, animation, anthropomorphic animals, be prepared to pay, burgermeister, burgermeister meisterburger, chimney, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, Christmas review, christmas shopping, christmas special, christmas story, classic, dictator, elves, fight fascism, fight oppression, fight tyranny, first toymakers to the king, Fred Astaire, giving toys, holiday special, hope, jessica, Joan Gardner, Keenan Wynn, kringle, kringles, kris kringle, mailman, Mickey Rooney, my world is beginnning today, no more toymakers to the king, north pole, one foot in front of the other, Paul Frees, penguin, put one foot in front of the other, Rankin Bass, red suit, reindeer, Robie Lester, rudolph, s.d. kluger, santa claus, Santa Claus is Comin' To Town, santa claus is coming to town, santa mythos, santa origins, santa suit, santa tale, snow, somber town, sombertown, stop motion animation, stop-motion, tanta kringle, teacher, the life and adventures of santa claus, topper, toys, trippy animation, tv special, villain, vive la resistance, what better way to tell you, winter, winter warlock

Ah, back to stop-motion animation. After dealing with Frosty’s nonsense I’m unsure as to whether or not I missed it.

Like most iconic fictional characters, Santa’s been the subject of many origin stories. My personal favorite is The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn, which combines his saintly origins with interesting tidbits about his modern portrayal and a ton of fun historical fiction (he’s helped shape events like Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, and instead of elves he has a boatload of historical figures gain immortality to help him including Leonardo Da Vinci, Theodore Roosevelt and Attila The freaking Hun! It had me at hello!) Of course, Rankin-Bass had to do their own spin on the Santa mythos (not for the last time either as one of their final specials was based on L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus) and they did it by combining it with their tried-and-true method of basing it off a holiday standard.

Rankin-Bass Month: Frosty the Snowman (Review)

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1970's, 2D animation, animals, animated, animated cartoon, animated special, animation, barney, billy dewolf, campfire, cartoon, cartoon review, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, Christmas review, christmas snow, christmas song, christmas special, cop, frosty, frosty the snowman, global warming, hand drawn animation, hocus pocus, holiday special, Jackie Vernon, Jimmy Durante, june foray, karen, kids, mad magazine, magic hat, magician, melting, paul coker jr, Paul Frees, pointsettas, professor hinkel, rabbit, Rankin Bass, santa, santa claus, school, sled, sliding, snow, snowflakes, snowman, snowy, television review, television special, traditional animation, train, tv review, tv special

Well…this is awkward.

When I first wrote this review, it opened with Cynicism saying “Bad news, Shelf. Since you shat on Rudolph last week, Patreon’s taking money AWAY from you. If you don’t say more nice things about this week’s special, we’re going to have to file for bankruptcy.” Just a fun little way of letting you know today’s post is going to be a bit less harsh than the previous one.

But then I checked my Patreon hours after the Rudolph review went up, and the numbers had shrunk substantially.

It actually happened.

A silly one-off joke I wrote to ease you, the reader, into the review, accidentally came true.

It’s like the universe itself is punishing me for daring to not like Rudolph.

Okay, the truth of the matter is a bit more complicated than that, but nobody actually quit being a patron based on my feelings towards Rudolph, for which I am relieved and grateful for. It’s already been sorted out and I certainly don’t hold this mishap against anyone because of events beyond their control.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. If you can’t already tell, today’s holiday outing is Frosty The Snowman.

Frosty, Frosty, Frosty…yeah, not a big fan of this one either.

“YOU HATE FROSTY TOO, YOU MONSTER?!”

“I didn’t say THAT!”

Frosty, like Rudolph, was another Rankin-Bass special I lost my taste for due to forced overexposure. It’s light on story and character, the animation is nothing to write home over, and we trade a bunch of subpar songs for one song dragged across the entire affair. But I’ll give it this over Rudolph:

1. It’s shorter. Slashed right down the middle of Rudolph’s runtime, Frosty’s only twenty-five minutes of schmaltzy bland holiday fare instead of nearly an hour.
2. The only jerk in the special is the clear-cut villain, who’s the most fun character in this thing.
3. The cheap stop-motion has been replaced by cheap traditional animation. Not much of an exchange, I’ll take any crumbs of hand-drawn goodness I can get these days.

If I may elaborate on the latter, the designs for the characters and backgrounds are kind of interesting. The man behind them is Paul Coker Jr., who also created comics for MAD Magazine, hence why the characters have a bit of a unique geometric aesthetic but are still kind of…weird-looking. Alfred E. Neuman wouldn’t feel out of place among this cast.

Rankin-Bass Month: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Review)

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1960's, abominable snowman, animagic, anti-bullying, Billie Mae Richards, bullying, bumble, burl ives, charlie in the box, Christmas, christmas elves, Christmas Eve, christmas special, christmas town, Clarice, coach, comet, dentist, dentistry, Donner, elf, elves, fame and fortune, flying lion, gay, groupthink, Hays Code, Hermey, hermey the misfit elf, holiday special, holly jolly christmas, island of misfit toys, isle of misfit toys, king moonracer, kris kringle, misfit, misfits, mrs. claus, music, musical, nightmare before christmas, north pole, nostalgia, outdated, racist, Rankin Bass, real time fandub, reindeer, reindeer games, Romeo Muller, rudolph, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, rudolph's dad, rudolph's dad is the worst, sam the snowman, santa claus, sexist, silver and gold, snowman, song, songs, spotted elephant, stop motion animation, stop-motion, talking snowman, the bumble, the worst, there's always tomorrow, toys, tv review, tv special, unpopular opinion, we are santa's elves, we're a couple of misfits, winged lion, Yukon Cornelius

Hi! If this is your first time here, I highly recommend checking out my other movie/tv/holiday special reviews before this one, just to get a more positive idea of what to expect from my writing. Usually, I’m not this…well, you clicked on this review, didn’t you?

I suppose I should begin this month with a little bit of Rankin-Bass’ history. It was founded in 1960 by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass under the name Videocraft International. They began by producing animated television series for children, alternating between stop-motion and traditional cel animation before combining both with a process they called “Animagic” (which sounds more like a fireworks show at Disney World than an actual animation technique if you ask me). All the animation for these shows and the holiday specials and films that they would later branch out into were outsourced to Japan. Throughout the studio’s existence, work rotated between five different Japanese animation houses: MOM Production, Toei Animation, TCJ (Television Corporation of Japan), Mushi Production, and Topcraft. Chances are if you’re into anime, then these names ring a few bells. These studios have produced hit after hit on the big and small screen, with some of them continuing to do so today, and many of Topcraft’s animators went on to bigger and better things at Studio Ghibli.

Most of Rankin-Bass’ Christmas specials, particularly the ones I’ll be looking at, follow a simple formula – take a well-known holiday song and build a story around it. It’s not a bad concept if a bit overutilized. Their first outing, and most beloved in the eyes of many, is Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, based on the tune of the same name written by Johnny Marks (who would also write the other songs in the special) and popularized by Gene Autry in 1949. The song itself was taken from a children’s book created a decade prior to promote the Montgomery Ward department store, and the special was sponsored by General Electric, who, by a stunning coincidence, were selling Christmas lights that holiday season which happened to resemble Rudolph’s nose.

In short, this special originated as a commercial, and always was one through and through.

In spite of its original intent, Rudolph has become a holiday staple and icon as big as Santa Claus himself. And if you are one of the millions of people on this planet who loves this special, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing so, and you are not wrong for enjoying it. After all, this is just one person expressing their opinion. If this person’s opinion differs from yours, that doesn’t invalidate how you feel nor should you feel as if you absolutely must agree with them –

“Hey…you’re making it sound like you’re about to say something bad about Rudolph!”

“Well, I-“

“Nobody dislikes Rudolph! Everyone in the entire world loves it! It’s a classic! The perfect Christmas special! You like Rudolph too, right? RIGHT?!”

“Well…”

Christmas Shelf Reviews: Toy Story That Time Forgot (2014)

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80s toys, Andy, angel kitty, animated, animated special, animation, Battlesaur Cleric, battlesaurs, Bonnie, Buzz, Buzz Lightyear, cgi animation, Christmas, Christmas review, christmas special, dinosaur toy, dinosaur toys, dinosaurs, Disney, Don Rickles, gladiator, holiday special, Jessie, Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl, John Lasetter, Kevin McKidd, kristen schaal, Mr. Potato Head, Mr. Pricklepants, Pixar, playset, playtime, presents, pterodactyl, Reptillus, Rex, Sheriff Woody, Steve Purcell, Studio Trigger, t rex, Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, Toy Story, Toy Story of Terror, Toy Story That Time Forgot, triceratops, Trixie, Wallace Shawn, Woody

I’m not sure which astounds me more – that it took me this long to finally talk about Pixar, or that the first Pixar thing I’ll be reviewing isn’t one of their movies.

Toy Story is a series that I’d say had its highs and lows if it wasn’t for the general opinion that it’s been nothing but highs – and I can see where that would stem from. No one expected the first fully computer animated film to be more than a novelty, let alone a box-office success, and especially not a cultural phenomenon that put Pixar on the map. The whole story of Toy Story’s genesis is worth an analysis of its own, but I’m saving that for when I look into one of the actual movies themselves. For now, the special.

Despite every plot point and character arc of the Toy Story saga being nicely wrapped up at the end of the third movie, that didn’t stop the Pixar crew from playing around with their toys; if anything, a new locale and characters meant even more storytelling possibilities. So when they weren’t twiddling their thumbs debating whether it was too soon to make Toy Story 4, they began releasing Toy Story shorts in front of select movies. They were fast, funny, and always in the spirit of the trilogy. Then in October 2013 came their very first television special, Toy Story of Terror, which I consider one of the most perfect half-hour holiday themed pieces of programming to grace the airwaves (suck it, Great Pumpkin). It was a dark adventure that cleverly paid homage to classic horror tropes without losing that trademark Pixar humor and heart. But perhaps what I love most about it is how it expanded upon one of my favorite characters from the series, Jessie, and elevated her to the spotlight. I know I’m not alone in noticing how Pixar is something of a boys club when it comes to their features, so having the ladies take the field is a nice change.

Ehhhhhhh….

That’s better.

It should come as no surprise that after Toy Story of Terror’s success, another special was greenlit. Originally pitched as a short, some nobody at Pixar named John Lasseter expanded upon it until it became Toy Story That Time Forgot (though apparently he was so busy expanding that he forgot to put a “The” in front of it, thus driving all grammatical sticklers insane). But does the lightning strike twice or does it…something…toy metaphor for failing…

“Look, writing three whole reviews during the busiest month of the year is hard, ok?”