A Claymation Christmas Celebration

A CLAYMATION CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION
(1987)
Dir - Will Vinton
Overall: THE BEST

What the hell am I doing writing about a twenty-four minute Christmas special that originally debuted on CBS along with A Garfield Christmas on December 21st, 1987 that has absolutely nothing to do with horror movies?  Well shut up and I will tell you, you impatient, imaginary person you.

Two things right off of the bat.  One, today is the thirty-first anniversary of its televised debut and two, claymation visionary Will Vinton died two months ago, making this the very first Christmas since this special aired that he is no longer with us.  Thus as a fitting tribute, today seems an ideal time to use my blog's powers for good for a change and talk about my absolute favorite Christmas program of any kind that was ever on television.

Ralphie, eat, (shoot), your heart, (eye) out.

Unfortunately I cannot remember the exact year that I first saw A Claymation Christmas Celebration.  From what info I have been able to dig up, they ran it up until 1990 and it sounds about right to me that one of those three or four showings was the one that I decided to record on VHS on a total whim.  *Cue "back in my day" rant* You see, when we were kids in the 1980s and wanted to watch something more than once, we had to use a blank video cassette tape, wait for said program to be on, hit the record button, and if you were the skilled expert that six-to-nine year old me was, you would stop recording during the commercials and be able to accurately predict when to start recording again.  This made playback more user friendly as you did not have to fast-forward through the advertisements when you watched the tape five, ten, and twenty years later.

On this amusing note, once I got Claymation Christmas on DVD proper about a decade ago, I still cannot get used to watching it WITHOUT the few seconds of commercials that I still caught during my initial VHS recording.  Furthermore, it still seems unnatural to watch it WITH the full returns from the commercial breaks in, my original copy missing a few seconds of each.  It is also impossible to watch it now in a complete, digital form without remembering exactly where all of the volume dips occurred since the original tape that I had of this was played so many times that the white plastic inside actually changed color to dark yellow.  I had to turn the volume up so loud while watching it that more than half of the actual audio was well-earned tape hiss.  Ah, good times indeed.

Because the 80s amiright?

If any of you have never heard of this program that I speak of, it was not because you were living under a rock.  Its limited run of just a small handful of Yuletide seasons pretty much cemented it as having a cult status.  Most of the only people out there who know it and love it I reckon are the now grown kids or even older grown-ups who watched it, (and taped it if they were wise like I was), when CBS ran it after Garfield.  A soundtrack album was also released eleven months later, but it had omitted one of the songs while adding several others and you guessed it, has been out of print ever since.  So this is a bit of a hidden, forgotten gem that never got the syndicated play that say A Charlie Brown Christmas, Grinch, or Die Hard has continued to get.

Starting in the early 70s in what would become "claymation", Will Vinton made the Oscar winning short Closed Mondays and by 1976 established Will Vinton Studios in Portland.  Over the next several years, he did sequences for Michael Jackson, (the "Speed Demon" video and Captain EO film), created The California Raisins and the Domino's Pizza Noid, and also did the batshit crazy and disturbing The Adventures of Mark Twain film to name but a few.  Post Claymation Christmas he made two more still interesting though less stellar holiday specials, (The Claymation Comedy of Horrors and A Claymation Easter), the M&M animated characters, and Eddie Murphy's show The PJs.

As if Will Vinton could not be cooler, he also contributed to this part of my childhood.

He was eventually bought out of his own company by Nike owners Phil and Travis Knight, (long story there), but the guy kept busy up until his retirement in 2008.  A Claymation Christmas was commissioned by CBS in 1987 and was made quickly on a conservative budget.  The music was handled by Patric Miller, a Portland native who mainly did radio spots and commercial jingles.  As mentioned, it was ready for air that very December 21st and seemed to get unanimously likeable reviews before, (for whatever reason, maybe television politics or legal matters?), it was only show those couple of years.  Since I had my trusty ole Kodak VHS though, I was good.

What is this weird Claymation Christmas special that I keep blabbing about in the first place though?  Well, essentially it is a variety show spoof with two dinosaurs Rex and Herb, (don't ask), who are very vaguely stylized after Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, if the former was a no-nonsense tight-ass and the latter a borderline flamingly gay chubby fellow.  They proceed to set up two musical segments at a time before the commercials run, all of which showcase both the wildly inventive, trademark claymation of Will Vinton and his studio plus the music of Patric Miller.  Miller actually set up an entire website dedicated to delivering a detailed account of every process of how the exceptional soundtrack was made from when he was contacted, how minimally he was paid, (do not worry, he is only "mildly" bitter about that), and how he handled a near last minute addition of Vinton's very famous California Raisins to the fold.  Or as my cousins always called them, "The California Poo Men".

Now they are forever ruined/made better for you.

So to dive into spoilers I guess, there is a running gag around the song "Here We Come A-Wassailing", some of the songs are instrumental, one of them has a different style of animation utilizing sand, some are hilarious, some are just cool, and all of them are memorable.  Though a Scrooge I most certainly am not, I have also always been a steadfast believer that practically all Christmas music is the audio equivalent of prostate cancer, but I have to fully admit that not a single musical moment on Claymation Christmas disappoints my eardrums.  The California Raisins do The Temptations version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and it is as toe-tapping and awesome as any Motown single ever was, says me and I am right.

As a side-note, when I saw Home Alone in the theater during its initial release, they actually played the "Carol of the Bells" sequence before the movie.  At that point I had already committed every sound of this special to memory so I got rather giddy and hyper when this happened and could not believe that now a whole theater full of people were getting a chance to see how great at least one of its vignettes was.  I never saw a short before a film ever again in the theater and never had another person tell me a similar story when they saw Kevin McAllister try and kill Joe Pesci when said movie cam out so, right place, right time for that one I suppose.

Hooray for blind, dumb luck!

I will be the first to proudly admit that the allure and continued enjoyment that accompanies every viewing I ever have of A Claymation Christmas each and every year is based prominently on nostalgia.  Christmastime in general is something that I can never be a humbug about.  Yes, having kids and watching them wake up at the crack of dawn and go ape-shit over all of the presents that Santa gave them certainly contributes.  Yet even the several years that I spent as a grown-up before becoming a dad, I still got delighted as soon as Thanksgiving was over and I could properly get into the whole Christmas spirit.  I still dream of the house that I grew up in and the family room in it that I first watched A Claymation Christmas in too, so I logically reckon that I shall always hold such a holiday hot spot in my heart.

This particular special is just that; "special".  I still recall how I decided to keep recording on my VCR after Garfield was over just in case the next program was any good.  As me and my family laughed at all of the silly puns, the banter between the dinosaur hosts, and how utterly awesome all of the claymation was, I clearly made the wise choice.  Also because my family got as much if not more of a kick out of it that I, it is easy for me to recommend it to anyone out there of any age even if you have been totally ignorant of it until now.  You may not get the very real and very powerful nostalgic kick out of it that I and others who caught it long ago are forever destined to have, but unless you are a full-blown Scrooge, you will be hard-pressed to go any Christmas season forward without it.

Well played Mr. Vinton, well played.