Santa specials/movies

It's Christmas time and I figure I list all the Christmas stuff that stars Santa Claus.

The company known as Rankin-Bass did all those popular stop motion specials that everyone grew up with. Some aired on local stations, others aired elsewhere on cable(mainly Fox Family/Freeform).

First, I be talking about three Rainkin-Bass specials that has Santa as the main character.

There Santa Claus is Coming to Town

This explains the origin of Santa and how he became the famous gift deliverer as he deals with the evil Burgermeister Meisterburger.

I always got the song "Put One Foot in Front of the Other" messed up by saying putting the foot on top of the other and others who heard said, "And soon you be falling through the door."

There's also A Year without Santa Claus Saint Nick got a cold and wonder if it's worth delivering presents this year. 

Despite somehow that some kids doubt Santa is real, Santa quitting Christmas for a year got to be be front page news.

This special also gave us our two breakout stars, Heatmeister and Snowmeister. They're popular for their memorable songs.

Speaking about those two, this special got a direct sequel called, A Meister Brothers Christmas

I know I said I focus on Santa first but this is directly spin off the same movie.

The plot is they have to work together to help Santa. Their evil brother, The North Wind tries to ruin Christmas by causing the two brothers to bicker like no tomorrow and become the big man in red.

The last Santa special made by Rankin-Bass is The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

You can kinda pretend that all the Rankin-Bass specials are in the same universe but I seriously doubt this is.

It's an alternate origin story for Kris Kringle. This time, he is raised by loins and nymphs and they debate if he should be granted immorality.

This is noticeably more darker and serious than most stop motion specials(adult parodies not included) but it's still aimed for general audiences.

Santa Claus: The movie

I remember seeing this on Christmas Day after a few hours after opening my presents and saw again a few years ago. The film is like two separate stories. The 1st half is this magical tale of how Saint Nick encounters the elves and how he became the famous man himself and how he spent year after year delivering gifts.

The 2nd half takes place in modern day has an ashamed elf go in self-exile and made a deal with a greedy businessman who hams out his performance. "FOR FREE!!!", and "CHRISTMAS 2!"

The Santa Clause Trilogy

The 1st one is easily the best of the three. A comical film that has Tim Allen accidently kills Santa and ends up becoming the new Santa himself. He and his son goes out to delivers presents. After that night, Tim thinks his night delivering his gifts was all a dream goes in denial that happened. As time goes on, he ends up accepting his role.

2nd one was not bad, but not as good as the 1st. He on a quest to quickly find himself a wife and get married just before Christmas Eve night and deal with his son's angst issues. While out of town, a Toy Santa clone is set up to help run the place, however he becomes an evil A.I. unit and goes full dictator on North Pole.

3rd one is clearly the worse of the three. Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. However the "beginning" part overstays it's welcome as you see Santa dealing the problem with his muggle in-laws visiting, not knowing he's actually Santa. By the time the main villain's evil plans start rolling, the movie is way beyond halfway over. The middle and end parts are rushed through.

The 3rd film does have it's good parts. The villain known as Jack Frost. This mischievous troublemaker is fun to watch.

The film does go all "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jack Frost rewriting history becomes Santa and turning the North Pole into a tourist attraction and bribing parents to pay him, so he can put their kids on the nice list. Exactly like It's a Wonderful Life because all this what if timeline and the ending is in the last 30 minutes. However that classic is a great film that explains the life of Bailey while this is Claus complaining about his muggle in-laws. Also the villain is defeated by in a hug that warms his heart. This is cheesy, even by these films standards.

Arthur Christmas

Instead of a single man. Santa is a role that's passed down the family. After a Christmas Eve run, the current Santa is getting ready to retire and giving the title to his eldest son. However the younger son, Arthur notice that Santa missed one present but everyone in the family thinks it isn't a big deal but Arthur believes otherwise, so he tries to go on a trip to deliver the present before the night ends.

It's a fun enjoyable flick, also it has ninja gift-wrapping elves.

Klaus is about a spoiled rich kid whose father is fed up with him and send him to a far away North on a Scandinavian island. It's also the worse place to live since there is an ancient rivalry between two clans. The spoiled man known as Jesper is trying to mail 6000 letters so he can get back to his life at home. He meets a mysterious man named Klaus and they work together.

Imagine if Santa was basically a real guy with no connections to elves or magic. It's completely realistic...Or is it?

You may think it's 3D but everything here is 2D hand-drawn. This animation here really stands out.

Christmas Chronicles 1 and 2.

The 1st one is two trouble siblings discover Santa's sled and accidently crashed it and they have to work together to get it together. It is a cute film and all. The 2nd one shows alot more of (Mrs)Claus' village and you learn that he started as Saint Nick and how he ended up as he is. There's is a bad elf who is trying to ruined Christmas. Also, Santa goes all Mario 64 on a giant cat.(Whose the Iceland version of Krampus)

A Boy called Christmas is a tale of Nicolas who is sometimes nicknamed Christmas, whose father disappeared to find the mythical elves. He cared by the worse aunt ever who seriously needs a visit from Krampus. Fed up with her and wanting to find his dad and the elves, he goes out to find them and would end up becoming the famous man in red.

Super Mario Snow White

This is part 3 of 3 of the Amada Anime Series where popular fairy tales been reimagined with Mario characters. If you want to see my previous entries of this series, here's part 1 and here's part 2.

Unlike the previous two which is based on Japanese fairy tales, this one is based on a popular one in the Western world. Story now begins

I'm not going to take Bowser's castle that seriously with that goofy grin.

That's right, Bowser in drag.

Decades before everyone did there Bowsette fanart, we had a crossdressing Bowser from a officially licensed Mario material.

The King..I mean Queen of the Koopas asked the mirror.

Seriously, this ugly turtle monster thing?

Some time later, the queen hears about Princess Peach.

Different from the other versions of Bowser. Normally he wants to kidnap her and marry her.

They all replied by making a noise and their mouths don't move.

Yep, the animation is that cheap.

They attack the Princess

Then Mario appears.

He scares them away and hides Peach at a cabin. 

And oh boy, Peach's voice is high pitch but that's tolerable but what comes after is a billion times more annoying.

The anime short's version of the dwarfs and they shout in unison with their screeching voices.

Mario is friends with them and he goes off to maybe stop Bowser.

Don't you guys remember when the prince saves Snow White and let her stay hidden at the Dwarfs cabin? I sure don't.

Then Bowser hears the news Peach survives.

Is that how speak to your own kids?

Or adopted kids maybe. I don't know. Mario's canon lore likes to retcon everything once a year.

Then we have the scene where Queen Koopa does the whole witch scene and feed a poison apple.

Peach got to be a dumb idiot to randomly bite into an apple from a creepy looking person she never met and didn't even bother to wash before eating.

What about Daisy or Rosalina?

Somehow Bowser has flying powers.

 So why does he need his flying clown car or use a cape/racoon tail/bunny ears power up if he always had the power to fly?

The toads found her and scream in unison that she's dead. Way to ruin the mood.

And their screaming ruins the mood of the funeral.

Then Mario shows up and you know what that means. The games usually end with Peach giving Mario(sometimes Luigi) and peck on the check. But if they're following the famous fairy tail, that means Mario is going to give a on the mouth kiss.

But instead, he gives a magic potion. This anime short dupe you on seeing a mouth on the mouth kiss. You have better luck with Luigi and Daisy's live-action counterparts.

Will you just shut up!!!

Now the story goes way off the rails with the gang charging to the evil queen's castle.

Punching Goombas years before the RPG games and 3D started doing it.

Gee Mario, your a little extreme for being a kids icon

The Koopalings zap him.

The Toads give Mario a power up by somehow fuzing into Mario or something.

Then he kicks their butt.

Geez, Bowser with a knife and Mario cursing. Here I thought all the Smash trailers with Sephiroth stabbing Mario or the Grim Reaper turning Luigi into a ghost was a little extreme for Mario.

Then randomly out of nowhere, Luigi showed up and they pwned the beast. 

Out of these three shorts. Luigi was no where to be seen and he just decides to appear at the very last minute. Seriously, you could cut him out and you wouldn't notice.

The End

What to say about this short. It was ok. Animation is very cheap. Toads were annoying. I did had a few laughs like Bowser in drag, him/her somehow the "fairest", how they duped up of Mario kissing, or Mario getting a extreme in this family friendly franchise.

Let's Play Mario: Call of Cthulhu part 2

View Part 1

Level 4's gimmick is that you have to look at the bottom of the screen, because the top view has invisible platforms and invisible pits, so look what the bottom view is showing.

Like you can safely land in midair ahead.

And avoid things like those spikes.

You have to find a P-switch to cross this.

Next room is oh boy, the black and white room. I hated this place.

You got these slimes monsters. I think their reskin of the boos. They can corner you where you can barely move through the area. Also, why you can see the transparent boos in the original game, you cannot see these Parasyte-X looking monsters within the walls till it's too late.

You got these platforms that keep vanishing. Keep your eye out where they appear visible so you know where to land.

Hitting that block will cause the colors of the room to switch, causing some of the platforms to appear in different positions. Oh boy, there was one platform raised way too high to the spiky ceilling.

 You have to backtrack to the beginning of the room to find a P-switch you were unable to grab earlier and hold on to it to the very end.

The next room leaves us above ground. The blocks with the eyes will cause the light green pieces in the background to be the actual background while the black areas will end up becoming the background itself till you till find the next eye block.

I should point out this is the area that has the missing cat if you have the glitch version of the hack.

This area can be trickly. You have to switch between the black and light green alot. There was one time you have to throw a P-switch into a block, quickly jump above, and quickly grab the P-switch. Otherwise you either lose the P-switch or fall into the pit.

You arrive in a different area with a block that gives you the only time this hack gives you a power star.

However you need to hurry, because this rainbow bridge is only available while your in star mode. You could pop the star our of the block and watch it slowly bounce till your ready to run the bridge.

Passing this bridge leads to level 5

Level 5 starts with this blood red area like you inside someone's guts.

Those weird things between Mario and statues are things are sudden death.

Mario is swimming in blood I guess. There are these bubbles that attach itself to Mario and drain his coins. It it reaches 0, you get hit and lose your power-up. So don't let your coins go too low or get above 100 coins. You can shake the thing off by jumps a few times.

Those coins are hinting that you need to use the A button(spin jump) to break the blocks below.

Don't even think of touching them, it will drag you below to the abyss.

We reach the end of the room.

Next room is a very dark place. One of those blocks give you a balloon which would lead to the next painful part.

You have to avoid those tentacles because if you touch it, you lose you power-up/life. You have to follow the coin trail as it leads you to the next block with a balloon and another. You navigate through these tight little areas while trying to avoid the tentacles. Finally you reach normal ground.

There are still tentalces you have to avoid but it's no longer using a balloon. You just use normal platforming and using ropes.

Suddenly the game crashes and goes back to the emulator's main menu...

(Wait a minute, I'm not using this type of emulator)

Well the game is suppose to trick you on thinking your game has crashed. You wait a few minutes and it goes to the next section.

No enemies and no dangerous platforms. Just a straight run to the final bosses.

The evil cultist is the 2nd final boss.

The fight is challenging. You have to throw the blocks or enemies he throws at you while avoiding the purple fireballs and oh boy, you barely have room to avoid them all.

He has three phases which requires three hits each. After you whoop him...

Mario dies because I didn't have all 25 cats due to a glitch. I looked up online how the game continued. The final boss is a spawn of the monster.

During the final, the woman grants Mario the cape power-up. You have to let yourself get hurt and during that breif time your invinicle, you have to throw a block upwards at the spawn. The woman will quickly give another cape to Mario and repeat.

The game ends with Mario waking up.