Okay.....so SpongeBob may seem a bit of an odd choice to talk about here....but after watching this Christmas Special, I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that this is going to be the stuff of Midnight Cinephile legend someday. It's got everything......a bizarre plot, robot monsters and one of the goddamned scariest Santa's this side of Silent Night, Deadly Night!
So first of all, this special is stop motion animated like the Rankin/Bass Xmas specials of yesteryear....this automatically makes it infinitely more amazing. It also lends it that extra little something that makes it that much stranger. It gives it an organic, ethereal feel that I could perfectly well see as frightening some poor kid who stumbles across it on a cold December night in the year 2043. I can picture it now.....little Timmy is stumbling around through his parent's digital archives....and comes across a strange file. He pulls it up on the holo-vision set and is greeted by this special. Little Timmy will never be the same again. What was this strange bit of holiday programming? Who lives in a Pineapple under the sea? Spongebob? WTF? Little Timmy would then spend the rest of his life hunting down the obscurities of the past.....and another retrophile is born.
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| It's Rankin/Bass SpongeBob! YES!!! |
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| HOLY SHIT! That is one fucked up Santa! Look at those eyes! |
So what is SpongeBob's Christmas about? Well, it's like this: Sheldon J. Plankton devises a plan to turn the rest of the denizen's of Bikini Bottom into complete jerks, putting them all on Santa's Naughty List. Then Sheldon will seem nice compared to them and finally get what he wants for Christmas: The secret recipe to Mr Krabs Krabby Patties! In order to do this, he decides that he will infuse the ultra rare element, Jerktonium into a special loaf of Fruit Cake and distribute it under the guise of spreading good cheer. The Jerktonium Fruitcake will then turn anyone who eats it into a complete jerk! Sheldon tries his creation out of SpongeBob first, but it doesn't work....possibly because SpongeBob's heart is so pure......or maybe because his brain is so small.
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| Ah, Jerktonium....where were you when I needed you in Chem Lab? |
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| Sheldon's Naughty List....... |
Well, seeing as it had no effect on ol' SpongeBob, Sheldon gives up that idea and goes on to Plan B....creating a mechanical SpongeBob to wreck havoc on Bikini Bottom! Meanwhile, the real SpongeBob takes the FruitCake Mobile that Sheldon was going to use and he himself starts to distribute the Fruit Cake, thinking he's spreading cheer. The whole town becomes a bunch of jerks and Bikini Bottom is in danger of not getting any Christmas presents! It's up to SpongeBob to save the day! Oh yeah....and Patrick is trying to set a trap to capture Santa so it can be Christmas all the time......
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| The FruitCake Mobile! |
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| Santa's a JERK! You can tell cause his beard is dirty...... |
I'm not a hunge SpongeBob fan.....I've seen some episodes and they were amusing, but I found this to be quite a charming special. It's got the trademark humor and it's pretty hilarious. If you like the show, then you will definitely like the special.....and even those who are not avid SpongeBob fans should find plenty to like in this interesting holiday offering. I hope that this paves the way for more specials like this. The stop motion animation adds a timeless feel to it, which I think is really what made this work. If it had been just another SpongeBob episode or regular cartoon animation, it would not have warrented a completel MC write-up and more than likely would have ended up just another episode on the SpongeBob DVD or Blu Ray Box Set.
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| Holy Giant Robo-SpongeBob, Batman! |
If you didn't get to see it this past Friday, you can either buy the DVD, or you can rent it and stream it on Amazon or Netflix streaming. I highly recommend that you check this one out!
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