Well friends, we did it. This week we cross Home Alone 4 off our list, a film we've honestly been dreading for quite some time. It took us nine years, but we finally watched every Home Alone film.
Home Alone 4 was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a Home Alone TV series, ultimately never picked up for a full season. And thank goodness, because this is far and away the worst thing the franchise has ever produced. With the wholly unrelated Home Alone 3 a distant memory, we return to the McCallister clan and an all-new adventure in which Wet/Sticky Bandit Marv once again tries to burgle a home occupied by young Kevin.
Hijinks—if you want to call them that—ensue. We're sorry. Feel our pain.
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The summer heat is oppressive. The school year is about to begin. These are the Dog Days of Summer.
So of course we watched another talking dog movie! This episode Joe and Bradford experience A Doggone Christmas, a movie about a telepathic talking dog and the children he befriends as he escapes the government agents hellbent on sending him off for experiments, which isn't at all similar to a Steven Spielberg movie about a friendly space alien...
Also along the way, Bradford winds up explaining more about train culture, Video Game Chat finds us discussing Pikmin 4, and somehow we wind up talking about Day of the Dolphin.
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On this episode we've got Pac-Man Fever and it's driving us crazy! Just two short years after the debut of the arcade hit Pac-Man, Hanna Barbera produced a Saturday morning cartoon all about the denizens of Pac-Land. And, naturally, a Christmas episode was soon to follow!
Joe and Bradford spend a good portion of this episode on video game chat, as you can imagine. But also we explain our original plans for this episode and why we had to scuttle them, as well as our nostalgia for defunct TV channels, and our own experiences with haunted hotels. And somewhere in all that we talk about how Pac-Man saves Santa!
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This one's been a long time coming. On this episode we discuss a cult classic among holiday specials: Will Vinton's 1987 Claymation Christmas Celebration! And to help us break it all down is special guest Gerry Davila, host of the Totally Rad Christmas podcast!
Claymation Christmas has a certain reputation in the pantheon of holiday specials. You either love it for its handcrafted stop-motion and off kilter sense of humor, or you hate it for being a half hour barrage of dad jokes. (At least, that's how my own parents think of it.) Either way, if you lived through the 80s, chances are Claymation Christmas has a special place in your heart. So grab a frosty beverage and let's get a-wassailin'!
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Ani-May strikes back for one last hurrah this week! Our pal Dr. Nick returns for this double-length episode to explain the myriad ins and outs of the Mobile Suit Gundam universe as we discuss the 1998 feature film Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz!
Earth is about to be invaded by one of its colonies on Christmas Eve, right after the planet decided to rid itself of its protecting force of giant mech suits. Our intrepid team must retrieve the suits before they crash into the sun, and hope they're not to late to save Queen Relena and the planet (and Christmas!) before it can be conquered by pint-sized dictator Mariemaia.
If none of that made any sense to you, don't worry! Nick brought charts and graphs (which can be found at christmascreeps.com) to explain everything—and I do mean EVERYTHING—you need to know. And if that's not enough, well then there's more than enough Gundam media out there to help you out. So strap yourselves in for one last blast of Ani-May madness!
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And we're back! Ani-May continues with the Christmas episode of Mr. Osomatsu, which as far as this dumb American can tell is an animated sketch comedy series? Bradford referred to this one as being "no chill", but it turned out to be more this guy's speed than the previous episode.
Also in this episode, Bradford gives us the skinny on the long history of this series, which dates all the way back to the 60s. Look, I can't promise any of what transpires here is going to make a whole lot of sense, but we're doing our best this week!
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It's Ani-May once again, the time of year when Bradford takes the reins and forces us to watch a bunch of anime! Like moths returning to the flame, am I right?
This week we look at the Christmas episode of Laid Back Camp, fittingly titled "Campmas". How do a bunch of anime girls camping at the foot of Mt. Fuji celebrate Christmas? By day-drinking and cooking good food over a campfire, of course! What more does one need out of life?
Also in this episode, Joe and Bradford reminisce about their own childhood camping experiences, indulge in some video game chat, and get real hungry at the mention of s'mores...
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Noirch Madness continues! This week we take a look at the 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Lady in the Lake! And to help us break it down, we welcome back our resident detective fiction expert Libby Cudmore!
Lady in the Lake is the first feature film to be shot and staged entirely in the first person. The posters emphasized that the film's hero, detective Philip Marlowe, is played by "Robert Montgomery and you!" It's a fascinating gimmick, for sure, but how well does it help translate the novel? And what does changing the novel's setting to Christmas have to do with anything? Those are the very questions we aim to answer this week!
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Film noir is a genre we've only barely scratched the surface of here on Christmas Creeps. But that ends today! This March, we're highlighting some classic film noirs that also happen to be Christmas films. And what would we call such an event? NOIR-CH MADNESS!
This week Joe and Bradford discuss the 1953 film I, The Jury, the film debut of Mickey Spillane's hard-nosed detective character Mike Hammer. In this film, Hammer vows to hunt down his best friend's killer, which leads him on a wild goose chase through the snow-covered streets of New York City.
Also, Joe and Brad spend a good chunk of the back end of this episode on Video Game Chat, so if you like hearing us not talk about Christmas and movies, we got ya covered!
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Greetings and salutations on this NINTH season of Christmas Creeps! On our inaugural episode of 2023, we take a trip to our local Redbox to catch up with VIOLENT NIGHT!
What if the hero in a hard-R Die Hard riff were San/ta Claus? And not just any Santa Claus. This Santa Claus is played by Stranger Things' David Harbour! That's the gimmick at the heart of 2022's hit holiday action flick. We were dubious of this one, but each of us found ourselves won over by the sheer absurdity of it all. It's hard to go wrong with bad guys getting their just desserts.
Also in this episode: Joe eats gross gummies on purpose, Twitter continues to burn itself out, and the guys try to convince themselves they're not mellowing out.
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Merry Christmas, Creepazoids!
This Christmas Day we bring you an episode all about A Christmas Story Christmas! Yet another attempt at an ‘official’ sequel to Bob Clark’s holiday classic, this one finds Peter Billingsley returning as a middle-aged Ralphie, now tasked with giving his family the fabled Perfect Christmas.
Is this a brazen attempt to cash in on our nostalgia? Or is it a genuine, warm-hearted plea to…er…cash in on our nostalgia? You may be surprised to hear where we land on this one! We'll dig into the original Jean Shepard stories, the nostalgia of assorted casseroles, and a whole lot more!
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Home for the Horrordays enters extra innings this week as we finally tackle a little film called SANTA JAWS!
You see, it's Jaws, but the shark wears a fun little Santa hat. Not surprisingly, this comes from the Syfy Channel stable of original movies, but somewhat surprisingly, this actually looks and feels like a real movie. Granted, that's not much to hang our hats on, but we'll take what we can get!
Come join us as we discuss gross Mountain Dew flavors, how Santa Jaws stacks up to Regular Jaws, the shenanigans going on over at Twitter, and more!
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Home for the Horrordays continues with one of the more bizarre films we've ever covered: Blood Beat!
A family hunting trip in the Wisconsin wilderness is interrupted by the vengeful spirit of a dead samurai, and it's up to the two psychic women of the house to stop him. Or at least, that's what we think is going on here... Blood Beat is a bunch of loosely interpreted ends in search of a movie and it's our job to twist those ends into some kind of narrative sense.
We also spend some time discussing apple picking, mellowcrème candies for old people, waterbeds, the films of Jim Wynorski and James Cameron, and so much more!
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Grab your pumpkins and pour your ciders, kids, because the most wonderful time of the year is finally upon us: HOME FOR THE HORRORDAYS!
Home For The Horrordays is our annual tradition of watching Christmas-themed horror flicks. There are more of them than you'd imagine, and this year we've picked some real oddballs! On this episode, we dig into the 1984 cult classic Night of the Comet!
It's 11 days until Christmas and a passing comet has vaporized most of Los Angeles. Survivors Regina and Sam find themselves besieged by mutant stockboys, nefarious scientists, and zombified cops. Will they escape with their lives? Can they find a way to save Christmas? There's only one way to find out...
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For years, internet sleuths have tried to identify a cartoon based on nothing but an old family Christmas photo. In an amazing turn of events, not only was the cartoon identified, but it turned out to be an obscure Christmas special titled The Christmas Gift of Light. So you know we had to watch that thing ASAP!
And watch it we did. On this Stocking Stuffer, Joe and Johnny-5 break down this odd little relic, spending entirely too long looking into the IMDb profiles of most of the voice cast, pondering the cartoon's purpose, and asking the big questions like "Why did we even want to watch this in the first place?"
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There's a reason we don't often go to the made-for-TV well, and it's because we fear falling into that abyss never to be seen again. But sometimes a project intrigues you so much that you can't help but gaze into it anyway.
This week we discuss the 1990 made-for-TV Disney film A Mom For Christmas! Directed by George Miller—"Zeus & Roxanne" George Miller, not "Happy Feet" George Miller—this film frequently verges on becoming a weird bit of body horror involving mannequins, alive and otherwise.
We weren't sure what to expect here, but we wound up talking about soup for breakfast, mannequins on film, speculation on the forthcoming Christmas Story sequel, and a whole lot more!
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This edition of Stocking Stuffers is unique, in that the episode of TV we're covering is only 7 minutes long. "All Through The House" is the lone Christmas episode of Netflix's animated anthology series Love Death & Robots. It's also a perfect fit for our show's often macabre and off-kilter grasp of the holidays.
But since the episode is so short, Joe and Bradford take the opportunity to discuss a wide array of subjects. Bradford's experiments with DIY salsa, Brach's latest attempt to ruin candy corn forever, and the recent news of HBO Max's impending demise. We cover a lot of ground on this episode, and we hope you're okay with that!
(The actual show discussion begins at 17:00)
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Happy Christmas in July! On this episode, we're still knee deep in summer action season as we take a look at the Wesley Snipes/Woody Harrelson buddy cop flick Money Train!
They're two cops who also happen to be brothers, or is it two brothers who also happen to be cops? Either way, it's Christmastime in the Big Apple and Charlie owes a large gambling debt to a local mobster. What's a transit cop in need of cash to do? Why rob the money train, of course!
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We're back with more holiday action hijinks! This week, in honor of the recently departed Ray Liotta, we take a look at his 1997 airplane thriller Turbulence!
It's Christmas Eve and the feds need to escort a number of criminals, including the Lonely Hearts Strangler, from New York to Los Angeles. When all hell breaks loose and every officer and pilot onboard have been killed, it's up to flight attendant Lauren Holly to fend off the killer and safely land the plane.
Turbulence is more of a Christmas movie that we honestly expected. Join us as we examine all of its holiday trappings, as well as how it relates to It's A Wonderful Life, the other 1997 "criminals take over a plane" movie Con Air, basic cable programming of yesteryear, and more!
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This Memorial Day, we're kicking off our Summer Holiday Movie Season! All summer long we'll be highlighting ridiculous summer action movies with a holiday bent!
On this episode we're taking the modern surveillance state to task with Tony Scott's 1998 mistaken identity thriller Enemy of the State! Will Smith is on the run from the NSA, who believe he's in possession of a videotape with incriminating evidence on it. In a shocking twist, he actually does have the tape, but he's still completely innocent. And all this because the guy just wanted to buy some Christmas gifts for his wife...
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Our pals Niall Flanagan and Dwayne Moloney, co-hosts of the Secret of the Sailor Madness podcast, join us this week to try and make sense of Rankin/Bass' 1967 Christmas special The Cricket on the Hearth!
Based on Charles Dickens' other holiday novella, Cricket plays fast and loose with its source material to make it suitable for television. Certain characters get cut out, new ones invented out of whole cloth, and no less than NINE musical numbers to fill up an hour of your valuable holiday viewing time.
It's nonsensical, it's absurd, but it's pure-strain Rankin/Bass. There's certainly a charm to the madness on display here, and honestly? We wouldn't have it any other way.
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When we discussed A Karate Christmas Miracle last year, we swore that we wouldn't touch its follow-up unless we had no other choice. Ladies and gentlemen, that day came far sooner than we expected.
A Wrestling Christmas Miracle has the distinction of being the only Christmas movie to feature the late, great Gilbert Gottfried. Going into this, that was all we knew. Only now can we say that we have been well and truly snookered. Gottfried is only in this movie because it recycles footage from a completely different movie, one that actually does feature Gilbert Gottfried. It's all very ridiculous, and we'll do our best to explain it all on this week's episode!
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Please enjoy this week's Stocking Stuffer to tide you over until our next full episode. This week we're taking a look at The Norm Show, Norm Macdonald's foray into the world of late-90s sitcoms.
In this episode, "Norm vs Christmas", Norm tries to show his co-workers how magical Christmas can be, with a non-denominational holiday party, a Secret Santa gift exchange, and surprise decorations at home. This inevitably ends with everyone visiting the hospital, where even more shenanigans ensue.
Also on this podcast, we briefly discuss the film we originally meant to cover, Joe eats a disgusting flavor of marshmallow peeps, and Jonathan takes any opportunity to talk about Elden Ring.
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This week we return to world of Jim Henson with the 1992 holiday classic The Muppet Christmas Carol! You know how this story goes: Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old turd who only loves his money. Three spirits show him the error of his ways, yadda yadda yadda Christmas is saved!
But the Muppets put their own unique spin on this tale, with some help from Jaws: The Revenge star Michael Caine! Is it enough to overcome what an often dark and tragic story A Christmas Carol can be? Or do the Muppets take things too far in the sillier direction? Join us as we answer these questions and more!
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We kick off the new year with the little-seen 1987 animated Christmas special Christmas Every Day. Based on an 1892 short story by William Dean Howells, this cartoon seeks to answer the question: What would happen if we celebrated Christmas every single day?
Not only does the situation send one family into crisis, but it also puts a huge strain on the global supply chain, and sends this very podcast into an existential spiral from which we only barely manage to recover!
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