Merry Christmas! It's time once again for our annual "July at Christmas" episode, where we take a break from Christmas to discuss something equally near and dear to our hearts: Obnoxious jingoism! Also video games! Inspired by our discussion of Four Christmases, this year we turn our attention to one of our favorite sports documentaries.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters isn't just a film about competitive Donkey Kong. It examines what drives and obsesses men to lie, cheat and con their way to victory. Billy Mitchell can cling to a high score for twenty years through sheer cult of personality, but what happens when Steve Wiebe, a legitimate contender, emerges to challenge his record? How far will one clique go to keep potential newcomers away? And how can such an attitude rot a community from the inside out? Join us as we discuss these questions and more!
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Happy December to one and all! This week, we present to you a Stocking Stuffer we recorded back in August. J5 went digging around the Lost Media Wiki and turned up Cranberry Christmas! Sponsored and produced by the Ocean Spray cranberry juice company, this animated special features songs and narration from the one and only Barry Manilow! To our knowledge it has aired only once, and as this podcast bears out, there is probably a very good reason why. Enjoy!
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Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, and that can only mean one thing... It's time for our third annual Shane Black Friday!
Libby Cudmore joins us to help navigate all the bizarre twists and turns of Renny Harlin's 1996 action yarn The Long Kiss Goodnight. National treasure Geena Davis plays a recovering amnesiac who suddenly, violently discovers her former life as a trained assassin, and Samuel L. Jackson plays the low-rent detective helping her get to the bottom of things. There are explosions and gunfights and it's all very silly.
Also it's a Christmas movie. Shane Black wrote this, so of course it's a Christmas movie!
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This one has been a long time coming. Our celebration of all things Bob Clark—known around these parts as CLARKSGIVING—comes to an end with perhaps the greatest Christmas movie of them all: A CHRISTMAS STORY!
Our friends Booker and Jessie join us for a discussion of one of the true kings of holiday cinema. The adventures of Ralphie Parker and his quest for that elusive Red Ryder BB gun have become an American institution in the form of TV marathons, museums and, yes, a cash-in sequel or three. But what makes this film endure where so many other wannabe Christmas classics simply don't? When exactly does the film take place? Who would want to live down the street from that house? We dig into all of that and more!
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Happy November, friends! It's time to pack up Home for the Horrordays for another year. But fret not, because we have one last bit of horror goodness up our sleeves.
Ten years before A Christmas Story, Bob Clark directed a little horror movie called Black Christmas, which would inspire slasher cinema for decades to come. Halloween, My Bloody Valentine, Scream and countless others owe some sort of debt to Black Christmas. And with a brand new remake on the horizon, we thought it would be fun to dedicate an entire month to the Christmas offerings of Bob Clark. Welcome to CLARKSGIVING!
This week, our pal and horror expert Dr. Nick drops by to discuss all things Black Christmas, and why this film deserves its reputation as a bona fide horror classic!
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It's everyone's favorite time of year! No, it's not Christmas just yet. It's time to go Home for the HorrorDays!
This week, we're revisiting the saga of the Caldwell family with Silent Night Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! Somehow, Ricky "Santa Claus Killer" Caldwell survived the last film, and what's he got to show for it? Oh nothing much, just his EXPOSED BRAIN IN A JAR WHERE HIS SKULL USED TO BE. No biggie. This film also features a blind psychic who can sense Ricky's thoughts, and somehow never manages to do anything interesting with that. For real, SNDN3 is kinda the pits.
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It's finally here! We conclude Vaughn-a-thon this week with Vince Vaughn's other holiday offering: The $100 million comedy spectacle Fred Claus! What happens when St. Nick's deadbeat brother Fred gets arrested for grifting money away from Salvation Army Santas? Nick bails him out on the condition that he come work for him at the North Pole. And then there are some shenanigans involving Kevin Spacey. Yes, it's all very unpleasant.
Anywho, also in this week's episode, Joe breaks out some Fred Claus marketing material, Brad gives the Santa Talk to his dog Charles, and we ponder the difference between Santa Claus and his clan and your average pack of vampires.
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Welcome to Vaughn-a-thon! This month we're highlighting the two holiday features produced by and starring Vince Vaughn. We kick things off with Four Christmases, which we assumed would be the lesser of two evils. We assumed wrong. From the sheer volume of A-list stars with nothing to do, to the film's weirdly antagonistic tone, to the way it forces regressive notions about family upon a couple with more modern sensibilities, Four Christmases is a dire experience all the way around!
Also in this episode we discuss Freeform's Halloween TV schedule, ponder how seasonal creep operates in the Southern hemisphere, and Joe and Bradford gets a chance to gush about one of their favorite films! Check it out!
(NB: Movie chat begins at 23:50)
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Summer is winding down, and since we've been in the superhero mood lately, we thought it would be fun to look at a film from earlier this summer. Shazam! not only takes place around the holidays, but makes particularly good use of it in service of its themes of family and togetherness. It's also a pretty damn fun movie, with a positive streak a mile wide.
Why would a studio produce a movie set at Christmas, only to turn around and release it in April? Why would a wizard tell anyone they weren't worthy of magic directly to their face? Why does one of the monsters in this movie strongly resemble Venom? We get into all of that and more!
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Happy August, everybody! Have you spotted any signs of Christmas Creep out and about? It'll be here before you know it! Anywho, on this week's show, Joe & Johnny-5 take a look at "Christmas with the Joker", the first of two holiday episodes produced for Batman: The Animated Series! Batman and Robin's quiet Christmas Eve is interrupted by The Joker, who's kidnapped Commissioner Gordon and set up all sorts of holiday havoc.
Where did "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" come from? What did Batman think of It's A Wonderful Life? What is it about Batman that always seems to work so well with Christmas? Just a few of the questions raised in this episode. Come join us!
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Every once in a while you hit a brick wall, and your only options are to give up or to power straight through it. That's the situation we found ourselves in this week, as we finally subjected ourselves to the astoundingly brain-dead children's comedy SANTA WITH MUSCLES.
Hulk Hogan basically plays himself as a do-gooder fitness guru who gets conked on the head just hard enough to believe he's Santa Claus while defending a beleaguered orphanage from a wacky mad scientist played by Ed Begley, Jr. That is the saddest sentence I have ever written.
Questions/Comments?
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Every once in a while you hit a brick wall, and your only options are to give up or to power straight through it. That's the situation we found ourselves in this week, as we finally subjected ourselves to the astoundingly brain-dead children's comedy SANTA WITH MUSCLES.
Hulk Hogan basically plays himself as a do-gooder fitness guru who gets conked on the head just hard enough to believe he's Santa Claus while defending a beleaguered orphanage from a wacky mad scientist played by Ed Begley, Jr. That is the saddest sentence I have ever written.
Questions/Comments?
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For show notes, visit us at ChristmasCreeps.com!
It's six months til Christmas, the 4th of July is right around the corner, so what better time to discuss a Jaws movie?! Jaws: The Revenge, to be specific, the movie that IMDb's users have declared the 27th worst movie ever made. It's also the one Jaws movie that actually takes place around the holidays, so like it or not, here we come!
Also in this episode, the guys take a stab at writing their own Jaws sequel, Joe and Bradford actually learn something about foreign culture from this movie, and a Winnie The Pooh meme short circuits J-5's brain...
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With a brand new X-Men film currently in theaters, Joe & J-5 take it upon themselves to discuss "Have Yourself a Morlock Little X-Mas," the Christmas episode from season 4 of X-Men: The Animated Series.
The Morlocks have lured the X-Men into their lair in the hopes of delivering an X-Mas miracle. Can Jubilee, Wolverine and Storm save a young mutant's life and get back home in time for Gambit's X-Mas dinner? In 22 minutes, you'd better believe it!
Also in this episode, Joe waxes on about Dark Phoenix, the guys commiserate about the state of streaming television, and what constitutes a miracle in a world where everyone has mutant powers.
Questions/Comments?
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We're wrapping up Ani-May this week with one of the finest holiday films we've ever featured! Satoshi Kon's 2003 holiday opus Tokyo Godfathers is a fairy tale about redemption, miracle babies, and all the good stuff you would hope a Christmas movie would be about, all wrapped in the guise of a quest narrative that's slightly comedic and slightly melodramatic, but it all works out in the end.
Joining us this week are Niall Flanagan and Dwayne Moloney of the Secret of the Sailor Madness podcast. Niall and Dwayne are the finest animation experts we know, leading us through the finer points of Satoshi Kon's catalog, mid-2000s Japanese culture, and more!
Questions/Comments?
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We're back with another Stocking Stuffer, this week tackling "Christmas at Tiffany's", a Christmas episode from stalwart anime Lupin the Third's second series.
Lupin & Co. spend the holiday in New York City when they're offered the chance to rob the world famous Tiffany's for fun and profit. Will the heist go off without a hitch? Or will the gang find themselves behind bars for Christmas? We break it all down this week! There's holiday heists, there's lightsabers, there's even a cameo from a certain Home Alone 2 hotel. It's all here!
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Welcome to Ani-May, everybody! Bradford is taking the reins this month and programming the next few episodes. Kicking things off, we're dipping into the Netflix anime series Aggretsuko, and its season-capping holiday special "We Wish You a Metal Christmas". It's a little bit The Office, a little bit Dethklok, and 1000x more adorable than that description might suggest.
Will this month's first anime be the one that melts Joe's icy gaijin heart? Or will Bradford's anime goodwill tour have to soldier onward? The answers to those questions may surprise you! (Or maybe not. I don't know you.)
Questions/Comments?
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Join us this week as we discuss the direct-to-video Looney Tunes film Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas. In this shameless rehash of "A Christmas Carol", Daffy Duck is an evil department store owner visited by three spirits to teach him the True Meaning of Christmas! Or at least, that's what the last ten minutes is about. The rest is your usual Looney Tunes shenanigans executed on a shoestring budget.
Also in this episode, J-5 remembers the plot of "A Christmas Carol" through cultural osmosis, Bradford narcs on his neighbors, and we discover the one thing this cartoon has in common with Silent Night Deadly Night.
Questions/Comments?
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Can you believe it's been four years and we haven't discussed a single Rankin/Bass special yet? (That live-action remake of The Year Without a Santa Claus doesn't count. It'll never count. Fight me.)
Anyway, this week we're diving deeeeeeeep into the Rankin/Bass catalog to discuss the 1981 special The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold! It's about leprechauns trying to stop a banshee from stealing their gold before Christmas morning. Why leprechauns? Why Christmas? Why anything?
Later, we move on to discussing Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. That's right, you're getting two Rankin/Bass specials for the price of one. Looks like the luck of the Irish is on your side this week!
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Happy Redboxing Day, everybody!
Last year's holiday hits are finally available to rent, so this week we're digging into one Joe has been looking forward to for quite some time: the Scottish high school zombie musical Anna and the Apocalypse! The trailers describe it as "Shaun of the Dead meets La La Land" and you would be surprised to find out which half of that equation fares better. Oh, and also there's a bunch of Christmas stuff in the movie too for some reason.
Anywho, come join Joe & Bradford as we break down which aspects of this film work, which ones don't, and why Search Engine Optimization is such an important factor now in the holiday film industrial complex. Fun!
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Now, I know what you're thinking. "The Christmas podcast that does swears is gonna do a Bible movie?!?" Let me state right up front that there are absolutely ways to make religious movies with the artistry to back up the message. And then there are ways to make religious movies that exclusively preach to the choir. Guess which category The Star falls into...
We spend a lot of time discussing what makes this goofy little donkey film so uninspired. But fair warning: We also spend a lot of that time dropping f-bombs. If you're not cool with that, we'll see you next time. If you ARE cool with that, then I think you're in for a treat.
In this episode, we discuss the possibility of gorillas at the Nativity, what a remake of The Crow starring Oprah Winfrey might look like and, of course, where The Star fits into the Winslowverse.
Questions/Comments?
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The office Christmas party is such a cliche at this point that every workplace comedy inevitably has to make that episode. I mean, there's even a whole movie built around the idea. (We reviewed it once; it's terrible.)
This week, the guys take a look at the Christmas special from the original UK version of The Office. Is David Brent a sympathetic figure? How easy is it to separate the Brent persona from Ricky Gervais himself? Does this special undermine the tone of the rest of the series? These are the questions we wrestle with in this episode. Come join us!
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If you've listened to our show for any length of time, you'll know that we don't plan things like this. The fact that this week's film is eerily similar to the last film we covered is 100% accidental.
Anyway, this week we're taking our third trip into the Air Bud Cinematic Universe with Santa Paws 2, a film whose plot bears a striking resemblance to The Christmas Chronicles, and which fundamentally skews our understanding of Buddies canon, the Winslowverse, and life as we know it.
Also it's a musical. So that's fun.
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AND WE'RE BACK! Join us as we kick off SEASON FIVE of Christmas Creeps with our new January tradition: Netflix originals! Last year we got things started with the drunken sasquatch escapades of Pottersville. This year, we hitch a ride on Santa's sleigh to discuss The Christmas Chronicles, starring Kurt Russell as the world's coolest Santa/stepdad/rockstar/car thief.
Also in this episode we get into found footage movies, our favorite cinematic Santas, and how this is the Chris Columbus movie to end all Chris Columbus movies.
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