Jim Hensons The Christmas Toy
Presented in 5 parts:
(featuring Try the Impossible song)
(alternate version of Toy Story 2’s When Somebody Loved Me)
The Christmas Toy is a 1986 made-for-TV movie by The Jim Henson Company. It originally aired on ABC on December 6, 1986, and was originally sponsored by Kraft Foods. As with all Jim Henson creations at the time, I loved it.
When no people are around, the toys still play in the playroom. But since a toy will be frozen forever if a person catches it out of position, they have to be very careful. It’s Christmas Eve, and Rugby the Tiger remembers how he was the Christmas Toy last year, and thinks he’s going to be unwrapped again. And it’s up to Apple the Doll, whom Rugby supplanted as favorite toy, to tell him what’s in store. But Rugby won’t believe her, and tries to get into the Christmas package and lets Meteora, Queen of the Asteroids loose. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know she’s a toy, and thinks she’s landed among aliens. And it’s up to Apple, Mew (the Cat’s toy mouse), and the other toys to get Rugby out of the box and Meteora back in it before they’re found and frozen forever!
This spawned the Secret Life of Toys on the Disney Channel in 1996.
The motives of the characters are suspiciously similar to Disney/Pixar’s computer-animated feature film Toy Story, released in 1995. These similarities include (but are not exclusive to):
* Rugby, Jesse’s old toy, is jealous and feels threatened by Meteora (who is a newer, space-themed action figure) and tries to get rid of her. In Toy Story, Woody, Andy’s old toy, is jealous and feels threatened by Buzz Lightyear (who is a newer, space-themed action figure) and tries to get rid of him.
* Meteora, like Buzz Lightyear, does not understand that she is, in fact, a toy and not “Queen of the Asteroids”. Rugby must teach her that being a toy is not inferior to her assumed role, as Woody must convince Buzz.
* As the voice of reason (and practically the only main female character in the cast), Apple the Doll serves the same purpose as Bo Peep.
* The toys revert to their inanimate form the moment a human nears. (Although The Christmas Toy includes the plot device that a toy is frozen forever if seen by human eyes.)
Batman Forever Music Video. Seal. Kiss from the Rose
Reminds me of the summer of 95 every time.
Wizard of Oz Mistakes
I’m happy to report that I had noticed and lectured about every one of these bloopers, with the exception of the hair length (which also occurs later in the movie).
Charlie Chaplin’s End Speech from the Great Dictator
The film ends with the barber, having been mistaken for the dictator, delivering an address in front of a great audience and over the radio to the nation, following the Tomainian take-over of Osterlich (an obvious reference to the German Anschluss of Austria on March 12, 1938). The address is widely interpreted as an out-of-character personal plea from Chaplin. Chaplin’s controversial speech, seen as an overtly political speech, may have contributed to the litany of reasons he was ultimately denied reentry in the United States during the McCarthy era (see the article on Charlie Chaplin for further detail). The speech was also denounced by the American Communist movement as Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler before the release of the film.
Whats happening here?: General Schultz and the barber escape from the camp wearing Tomainian uniforms (featuring the double cross in parody of the Nazi swastika). Border guards mistake the barber for Hynkel (with whom he shares a remarkable resemblance, to the point that, if not for his clothes, he would be an absolute duplicate). Conversely, Hynkel, on a duck-hunting trip so that people will not expect an invasion, is mistaken for the barber and is arrested by his own soldiers. The barber, who has assumed Hynkel’s identity, is taken to the Tomainian capital to make a victory speech. Garbitsch, in introducing “Hynkel” to the throngs, decries free speech and other supposedly traitorous and outdated ideas. In contrast, the barber then makes a rousing speech, reverting Hynkel’s anti-Semitic policies and welcoming in a new era of democracy. The text of the speech can be read at Wikiquote.
Hannah, despondent over the recent events, hears the barber’s speech on the radio, and is amazed when “Hynkel” addresses her directly: “Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up! Look up, Hannah! The clouds are lifting, the sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness and into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kindlier world, where men will rise above their greed, their hate, and their brutality. Look up, Hannah!” The film concludes with Hannah indeed looking up, with a renewed sense of optimism.
Harley & Ivy go on a shopping spree
From the Christmas episode of Batman Gotham Knights.
End Song and Credits of the Claymation Christmas
here we learn that its wassailing, not waffling, though they don’t explain further.
The practice has its roots in the middle ages as a reciprocal exchange between the feudal lords and their peasants as a form of recipient initiated charitable giving, to be distinguished from begging. This point is made in the song “Here We Come A-Wassailing”, when the wassailers inform the lord of the house that
“we are not daily beggars that beg from door to door but we are friendly neighbors whom you have seen before.”
Claymantion Christmas. California Raisins sing Rudolf the Red nosed reindeer
(intro)
I tried this when I missed the last bus once.
It didn’t work.
And I got arrested.