Christmas/Chanukah/etc. cartoon special cliches?

[Anthonynotes]

This seemed like a fun subject last year, so here it is again: what cliches are in holiday-related specials?

I'll start:

- The notion that a holiday (Christmas) can be "cancelled", as seen in a lot of specials.

- Santa's elves are a disgruntled bunch one step away from going on strike and/or treat the workshop like a modern factory (talking about unions, benefits, etc. This cliche seems to show up in modern specials.

- A reference to a classic holiday special (for modern Christmas specials).

- The series' resident grouch/jerk/etc. has a "change of heart" thanks to the "magic of Christmas" by the end of the special, and enjoys being around the people he or she couldn't stand to be in the same time zone as the other 364 days of the year. Future episodes, however, will show the character going back to normal as if nothing had happened.

- Most series will only show snow on the ground/a wintry setting during the Christmas specials, and not in any other episode (even ones taking place during winter, such as the Simpsons' Super Bowl episodes)... stupid California-dwelling writers. ;-)

- The assumption that *everyone* celebrates Christmas; modern specials may include one (but not more than one) character who observes Chanukah or Kwanzaa.

- Santa's Christmas Eve ride showing that it's nighttime/Christmas Eve *everywhere* on Earth, despite stuff like time zones and whatnot (i.e. they're opening gifts in New Zealand when it's still firmly Christmas Eve here in the U.S.).

- *Somebody* has to "save Christmas", oftentimes via helping out jolly ol' St. Nick.

Any others?

-B.

[Daffy Dork]

- Everyone always sings a jolly christmas song

- One of the characters becomes a mall santa

And Brainatra pretty much covered everything else I would have thought of...

[mg_winxclub]

Jackie Chan Adventures and the new TMNT have all had Christmas episodes. There's also a He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special as well!

[Jave]

- The assumption that *everyone* celebrates Christmas; modern specials may include one (but not more than one) character who observes Chanukah or Kwanzaa.This cliché was broken in the Pac-man cartoon Xmas episode. It dealed with the Pac-family running into Santa, who explained to them what Xmas was and ended up celebrating it for the first time. It has almost every other cliché you mentioned, though.

One thing that has always bothered me, though: How can the Flintstones celebrate Xmas?

[Daffy Dork]

One thing that has always bothered me, though: How can the Flintstones celebrate Xmas?
How do they have a TV? How do they take One-a-day vitamins? How do they speak fluent English?

I don't think they were trying to be accurate and write accurate scripts on the real ways of Stone Age living as much as they were just trying to make an entertaining show.

[straw_hat]

One thing that has always bothered me, though: How can the Flintstones celebrate Xmas? The same way they can stage a play based on a story that's only 161 years old.

[DemonBoy]

Pac-Man may have broken a cliche in the exchange of making a new one. Remember the Mario cartoons based on the Super Mario World show and the Spongebob shows, a character tried to explain and celebrate Christmas for their first times. Also new cartoons parodying a classic Christmas tale, with an appropriate characters represent the role they're filling, and by appropriate characters, I mean a grouch of the show being a grouch in the story they're doing.

[Beat]

One thing that has always bothered me, though: How can the Flintstones celebrate Xmas?
If the Honeymooners can do it, the Flintstones can do it. That simple.

[HellCat]

Character A goes to hell and back to get Character B one special gift but still fails. Come Christmas morning, the item in question is sitting there under the tree, thanks to Santa.

In action comedy shows, the villains will try to capture Santa but find that for whatever reason their usual powers are completly ineffective in Santa's domain or will end up buying into the Christmas spirit.

[Anthonynotes]

This cliché was broken in the Pac-man cartoon Xmas episode. It dealed with the Pac-family running into Santa, who explained to them what Xmas was and ended up celebrating it for the first time. It has almost every other cliché you mentioned, though.

One thing that has always bothered me, though: How can the Flintstones celebrate Xmas?

Hmm... explanations besides the "just a cartoon" one I can think of:

Suggested explanation #1: Well, since they mostly celebrate the secular aspects of the holiday (gift-giving, etc.) and since some of those elements were in real life IIRC originally observed by the various winter solstice/pagan celebrations held in late December that predate by centuries the Christian holiday of Christmas (per Wikipedia, Christmas was officially declared by the church to be on December 25th in the 4th century AD, presumably in an attempt to match timing with or trounce said pagan celebrations---since no one knows what day Christ was really born on), therefore, our favorite cavemen can celebrate a secularized "prehistoric" version of "Christmas" (that coincidentially shares the name/superficial trappings in common with the modern-day thing)... ;-)

Suggested explanation #2: some hapless time-traveller left a book on 20th century culture behind in the Stone Age, and the cavemen of the era tried to emulate the stuff they saw in it (Christmas, TV sets and all) using the primitive technology of the time---thus, the "modern Stone Age" is born. (It worked on an episode of the original "Star Trek" series where the Enterprise crew found a planet of people who were living a life similar to 1920s Chicago, gangsters and all, thanks to some hapless space traveller leaving a book on said time-era behind...)

[Rover_Wow]

Character A goes to hell and back to get Character B one special gift but still fails. Come Christmas morning, the item in question is sitting there under the tree, thanks to Santa.

Or in the case of Hey Arnold!, Helga Pataki ;)

Speaking of presents: When Santa tells you that Christmas is all about the gifts you get, you know this isn't your ordinary Xmas show. (Dexter's Lab)

The "Life Day"-esque substitute. The only one I've seen first hand was "Ditzmas" from an ep of Lloyd in Space (and they even cloned Hannukah as "Threelap").

[Gokou Ruri]

There's also the "not-as-common" version where Christmas becomes every-day of the year and the characters get sick of it.

[AJW73]

The cliche's I can think of is where the main character tries to prove that Santa is real or not as evidenced in Jimmy Neutron and tonight's Foster's.


The "Life Day"-esque substitute. The only one I've seen first hand was "Ditzmas" from an ep of Lloyd in Space (and they even cloned Hannukah as "Threelap").
There was also an episode of the ALF cartoon where they celebrate a strange Christmas-like holiday. It's been a long time since I've seen that, so I've forgotten about it by now. I'm not sure, but I think one of ALF's friends was the Melmac equivalent of jewish and celebrated a Hannukkah-like holiday. maybe not.

[straw_hat]

There's also episodes based on "It's A Wonderful Life". Tiny Toon Adventures and Beavis and Butthead come to mind and even in live action shows like Married...With Children.

[DanniB]

cliche's I can think of include:

1) After the main character's adventure, the silloette of Santa's sleigh can be seen flying over the moon, usually accompanied by jingling and a "HO HO HO, Merry christmas"

2) the characters partisipate in an obligiatory snowball fight.

3) a group that lives in a location too warm for snow suddenly get snow thanks to some "chirstmas miracle"

4) although this is similar to the "grouch learns the X-mas spirit" cliche, there's also the "Selfish brat learns the spirit of giving" cliche

5) "Gift of the Magi" references (in case you don't know, Gift of the Magi is about a someone who sells their most personal possession to buy a gift for thier significant other to occompany that person's prized possession only to discover that person did the very same thing for them, rendering both gifts useless)

6) a poor family learns that love is more important then gifts (usually followed by a surprise visit from santa)

7) a group of superheroes discover there are poor people living in thier city and spend chirstmas eve doing charitable things like working in an orphanage or soup kitchen.

[Tea]

Most of the time, Santa is "out of commission" and one of the main characters has to play Santa for Christmas Eve.

[Anyone00]

-Santa is held hostage by terrorists at the North Pole and only Lee Majors can save him

-Santa turns a killer Martian robot into a mere-toy.

-Santa learns Zui Quan (Drunken Boxing) and becomes the Egg Nog Avenger

-Samuel L. Jackson plays Santa's Sidekick Pete (they have a Kato and Green Hornet type relationship) and beats the back-side of some annoying spoiled rich kid

-Santa ate way too many oatmeal cookie and uses a 4Kids exec's chimney as a toilet

-Santa stands before a massive assembled crowd of elves:
[raises a crysknife] "LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS!"


O.K. there not actual cliches they just should be.

[Dark Fact]

I laugh my ass off whenever there is any reference of Santa delivering toys "all around the world". Give me a break. When was the last time you ever saw Santa in the heart of Africa? Or how about Pakistan? Or the Norse countries?

One Christmas special that really doesn't touch up on any cliche is the Martin Mystery special. Instead of celebrating the day, Martin, Diana, and Java have to fight their way out of it by taking on zombie Santas, elves, and prevent themselves by being made into a giant fruitcake! Now that's what I call the special! :)

[Space Chief]

This cliché was broken in the Pac-man cartoon Xmas episode. It dealed with the Pac-family running into Santa, who explained to them what Xmas was and ended up celebrating it for the first time. It has almost every other cliché you mentioned, though.

One thing that has always bothered me, though: How can the Flintstones celebrate Xmas?
Oh, yeah. This. (http://www.svamcentral.org/MSTings/pacman.txt)

One thing that I've noticed is that the characters always realize that Christmas is about love and that gifts don't matter. If that happened in reality, the entire US economy would collapse.

And there needs to be more of Santa fighting demons. (http://www.jabootu.com/acolytes/brandiweed/santa.htm)

[DanniB]

Oops almost forgot this one:

two characters with an angsty "will they/won't they" relationship get caught under the missletoe.

[Planeteer]

Anyone see last night's Stroker & Hoop? Love how they twisted the cliches...

[Anthonynotes]

To add to this thread, albeit after-the-holiday:

The "Air Drop": Someone (often the character helping to "save Christmas") releases a truckload of presents from Santa's sleigh a la an airplane dropping a bomb, with the presents all falling to the ground and dropping into their targeted chimneys. An infrequently-seen alternative to the "bombs away" approach is someone throwing presents over the side of the sleigh, but with the same results. Presumably, this cliche is meant as a partial explanation for how St. Nick can deliver all his gifts in one night (by dropping most of them overboard and reducing the number of trips down chimneys he makes).

Shows I've seen do this: Two Flintstones Christmas specials, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (tossing the gifts overboard), "Fairly Oddparents Christmas special" (tossing the gifts overboard).

Wonder if "Rudolph" is the one to start this cliche?

[Antiyonder]

Danny Phantom and Powerpuff Girls seems to have started a trend (I think).

All enemies save one (Princess and Ghost Writer) put aside their crimes to enjoy the holidays or have a truce. Though I'll take Ghost Writer over Princess anyday.

Though I suppose Kim Possible does the same. As Shego was more interested in resting during the holidays and Drakken being the only one to still pull off a crime.