Review: 'Stax Christmas'

If Halloween is the super-cool kid sitting in the back row scowling and painting its nails black, Christmas is the one with the billion-watt smile, eager for everyone to be its friend. And because its lights and ornaments and aggressively cheery songs can come off as a bit desperate, not everyone necessarily wants to be Christmas' friend. Some people actively hate it and flick into kill-mode whenever they hear "Jingle Bells" or that Mariah Carey song.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 12

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Twilight Zone

Episode: “The Night of the Meek”, in which a drunken, skinny department store Santa crosses over into that dimension of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. Rod Serling writes one of his finest episodes, capturing the crushing sadness of a man who cannot deal with society’s endless ills, so he drinks his life away. Art Carney’s performance is raw with emotion, but also very funny and perfectly natural. Sadly, this was one of those Twilight Zones shot on video to save money during the second season, so it looks like crap. But despite the episode’s aesthetic deficiencies, its humanity and humor still manage to fight through the fuzz, and if it doesn’t reduce you to a blubbering blob, you might have a serious dose of Scrooge-itis. Happy holiday!

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 11

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Tales from the Crypt

Episode: “And All Through the House”, in which HBO’s adaptation of classic EC Comics debuts with its best-ever episode. This was not the first screen adaptation of Johnny Craig’s twisty tale of a murderer having to dispose of her husband’s corpse while also protecting herself and her child from a psycho Santa on Christmas Eve, but it is even better than the excellent one in the 1972 Tales from the Crypt feature film. Director Robert Zemeckis gets both the nerve-wracking suspense and the warm-and-wonderful X-Mas atmosphere absolutely perfect. The opening shot of Christmas decorations as Nat King Cole's “Christmas Song” plays on the soundtrack is as beautiful and nostalgia-stoking as a Currier and Ives print. The way Zemeckis shatters that visual with a sudden shock of violence is just as beautiful. A perfect half hour of holiday TV.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 10

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge

Episode: “Knowing Me, Knowing Yule”, in which dense BBC presenter Alan Partridge gets to return to TV after having accidentally shot and killed a guest on his regular series. He takes advantage of his second chance by repeatedly breaking the BBC’s no-advertising rule, insulting Christians and Muslims, insisting that God is a gas, incessantly asking the head of BBC programming if he has a second series, and punching said head in the face with a chicken over his fist when Partridge learns he will not be getting that second series. Partridge’s disastrous holiday special is without question the funniest installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes. Oops, pardon!

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 9

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Batman: The Animated Series

Episode: “Christmas with the Joker”, in which the cartoon many consider to be the ultimate screen adaptation of the Dark Knight saga layers on the silliness as assuredly as it delivers the darkness. The animators and voice actor Mark Hamill have a blast bringing The Joker to life for the first time in the series. The Clown Prince of Crime does some fucked up things like kidnapping Commissioner Gordon, reporter Summer Gleeson, and sleazy Detective Bullock and vowing to slaughter them if Batman does not intervene by midnight on Christmas. But he also perpetrates some serious silliness when he breaks into a chorus of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. I’ve always been fascinated with that song, which so tenaciously spread throughout the world without having an identifiable composer. A few years ago, Cracked.com attempted to ferret out the true origin of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. You can read the article here.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 8

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: The Monkees

Episode: “The Monkees’ Christmas Show”, in which The Monkees teach a poor little rich Scrooge the true meaning of blah, blah, blah. Honestly, this is not one of The Monkees’ finest half hours, veering too deeply into sappiness and subjecting viewers to a weird shopping fantasy sequence that goes on way too long. But there are some very nice things about “The Monkees’ Christmas Show”, such as the always welcome opportunity to see Mike get all serious and teach us all a valuable lesson, the casting of Butch “Eddie Munster” as the little Scrooge, which is sort of cool, the heartwarming closing credits sequence in which the guys invite all of their behind-the-scenes co-workers to say “happy holidays!” with them in front of the camera, and best of all, the performance of “Riu Chiu”. Destroying charges that Micky, Mike, Davy, and Peter lacked musical talent, they sing a complexly arranged Christmas carol in medieval Spanish effortlessly. It’ll send chills up your spine.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 7

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Xena: Warrior Princess

Episode: “A Solstice Carol”, in which the magnificently goofy Xena: Warrior Princess reaches new heights of goofdom as all of the essential Christmas myths fall into place for the first time in history. Xena pretends to be a ghost to convince an ancient Scrooge to amend his ways (her plan B: “The plan fails, we punch faces”) and Xena’s chakram becomes the star atop the very first Christmas tree. Xena and Gabrielle also meet a bearded toymaker named Senticles (say it out loud), create a fake snowstorm with feathers, and even encounter wee baby Jesus. Xena resists the urge to do her battle cry thingy in his face.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 6

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Wonder Woman

Episode: “The Deadly Toys”, in which Diana Prince has an unusually disturbing holiday as the faces of man-droids keep melting. Most unsettling of all is when she comes face to face with Wonder Woman, increasing the possibility that she will be spending December 25 watching her own lovely face reduced to a pool of blecch. Turns out these uncanny-valley machines are the work of a toy maker with a weird concept of stocking stuffers. The guy’s animatronic mama dolls, chattering monkeys, and giant jack-in-the-boxes will also guarantee that visions of terror will be dancing in your head tonight. Christmas bonus: Frank “The Riddler” Gorshin plays the terrible toy maker!

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 5

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: NewsRadio

Episode: “Christmas”, in which Dave Nelson gets stuck doing the entire WNYX staff’s work as they take advantage of his offer to leave work early on Christmas Eve. Matthew Brock takes off to spend Christmas with his aunt after helping billionaire station owner Jimmy James buy the perfect gifts for his rich friends (For Bruce Springsteen: mittens. For David Geffen: CDs. For Ted Turner: a gold-plated monkey hand puppet). Bill McNeal and Beth ditch work to tape an ad for a garage door opener. I could watch the montage of Beth trying to sabotage the ad by doing a series of marvelously annoying voices on a loop all Christmas day. But I probably won’t.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 4

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: Amazing Stories

Episode: “Santa 85”, in which the essential premise of this anthology series gets flipped as reality encroaches on fantasy instead of vice versa. In the mid-eighties, Santa Claus is arrested for breaking and entering, dumped in a police wagon with a bunch of other schmoes in red suits, and locked up. Fortunately, things brighten up before this episode becomes a full-on Miracle on 34^th Street/Oz cross over. Amazing Stories could get a bit saccharine, so it’s nice to see that their episode devoted to the most syrupy of holidays is fairly tough on St. Nick. Take that, Kringle! And Hingle. Pat Hingle’s in this one too.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 3

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: The Addams Family

Episode: “Christmas with the Addams Family”, in which the Addamses prepare weird gifts of severed heads and poison perfume; decorate a dead tree; jam out on “Deck the Halls” (Lurch on harpsichord! Morticia on lute thingy! Thing on sleigh bells!); scheme to convince Wednesday and Pugsley that Santa exists by dressing Gomez, Uncle Fester, and Lurch in red suits; and otherwise refuse to engage with the concept of plot.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 2

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: The X-Files

Episode: “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas”, in which Mulder does a totally Muldery thing by dragging Scully to an alleged haunted house on Christmas Eve. There the shows’ heroes encounter a pair of goofy ghosts played by Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner who scheme to manipulate Mulder and Scully into reenacting their own Yuletide murder-suicide. Merry! Tomlin comes close to upstaging the series’ main characters, but the real stars are the ingenious special effects and haunted house setting with its neat trick rooms.

Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes: Day 1

Does the mere idea of stepping into another mall, watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the zillionth time, or talking to your loved ones make you throw up? Then settle your bowlful of jelly into the La-Z-Boy® and deck your hall with today’s installment of Psychobabble’s 12 Days of X-Mas Episodes instead! Merry vegetating!

Series: The Simpsons

Episode: “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”, in which the residents of 742 Evergreen Terrace make their full-length debut and acquire a family dog after Scroogey Mr. Burns denies Homer his Christmas bonus. It took The Simpsons a year or so to reach peak hilarity (by my estimation, it really kicked in with “Brush with Greatness”, and not just because I love Ringo), so don’t expect to crap yourself laughing. But the early Simpsons episodes still pack a primitive charm and the tattooist who takes Bart’s word when the kid says he’s 21 is an early hint that the show could be really funny.