It's A Wonderful Repeat

I hate to do this but I had to drag an old cartoon out of Raging Pencils vaults today, from December 27th of 2010, to be exact. The reason for this is stupidly simple: the Stanfill Fambly Xmas is this Saturday, for reasons best left for another rant, and I've suddenly found myself desperately short of time.

Yes, I knew this event was coming and, yes, I planned ahead but when a client arrives out of the blue at the 11th hour waving semi-lurid amounts of money in your face, plans change.

To complete the sloth I'm also pasting in a portion of the Rant from that illustrious epoch, mainly because I enjoyed writing it. And here it is.

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This cartoon stems, as most of you have guessed, from the bizarre "misfit toys" segment in the beloved animated Xmas special, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Every time I watch it I wonder to myself exactly what were the writers smoking when they contemplated a toy cowboy riding an ostrich? That's not a toy in any sense of the word, not even a misfit one. That's the sort of thing Jack Skellington would drop down your chimney.

A real misfit toy might be Scoliosis Barbie, a '59 Rambler American station-wagon Hot Wheels car, a Care Bear crafted from smallpox blankets, or a Star Wars Jawa character with a vinyl cape instead of a cloth one.

(What? They did? Really? Damn!)

In fact, if you think about it, there's hardly a single toy in the entire production. When you look closely at the elve's workshop you see a cart and a wagon and a ... oh my GOD! What the hell is THAT thing?



Yes, there was a doll on Misfit Island but she was probably some sort of sex slave meant to keep the other captives happy. (To this day the Moonracer government have never apologized for this atrocity.)

Overall, I'm just glad Rankin-Bass got into the animation industry rather than trying to put Mattel out of business.

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Bonush Cartoon Alert: Nope. Uh-uh. Nyet. Nein.

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Because I lurve you all here's the sixth 20-minute chunk of Glenn Mitchell's twelve-hour Xmas Blockbuster, circa 2001, featuring, well, all kindsa good stuff. (Please let me know if you're enjoying Mr. Mitchell's approach to the holiday season. For me, it wouldn't be Saturnalia without Glenn.)



=Lefty=