I originally compiled this image back in 2008, but it's time to bring it out of storage. Merry Christmas everyone!
Previously on Popped Culture...
Showing posts with label Santa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Santa. Show all posts
The Last Mythological Supper
Mickey Mouse betrays Christ in Cam Rackam's Now Accepting All Major Credit Cards, a commissioned painting from M Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold. It's quite the band of motley disciples, featuring L-R: A unicorn, leprechaun, the Headless Horseman, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, Jesus, an alien, the Easter Bummy, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Death and a jackalope. (Thanks Cam)
Previously on Popped Culture...
Viva The Pop Culture Revolution!
An unknown artist repainted a Soviet monument in Sofia, Bulgaria as the Joker, Santa Claus, Superman, Ronald Mcdonald, Captain America and more, captioning it "Moving with the times." Below, the unaltered version. Now that's fine graffiti! (Stoyan Nenov/Reuters; link via Daily Mail)
Popped Culture...
What Santa Really Does While You're Asleep
Santa is kind of a jerk. See more of what he does to you, wether you're bad or good, at The Oatmeal.
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Must Be Santas, Must Be Santas
Previously on Popped Culture...
Santa Cthulhu
O Christmas Tweet, O Christmas Tweet...
Who Watches Santa Claus?
Oh! You better watch out,
you better not cry,
you better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
Rorschach is coming to town!
He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Rorschach is coming to town!
He sees you when you're sleeping,
he knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
so be good for goodness sake!
How Rorschach Stole Christmas
Rorschach hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that his fedora wasn't screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that his trench was too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
Day 11 of the 12 Days of Popped Culture is brought to by your waking nightmares.
Previously on Popped Culture...
The True Face Of The Watchmen
Watchmen Last Supper
Watcharama: Who Watches the Futuramen?
O Christmas Tweet, O Christmas Tweet...
Your Christmas Tree is on Twitter and it is none too pleased about its fate. "Gah! I'm surrounded by ugly people in bathrobes. WTF?" Santa is also on Twitter, but he's kinda drunk. You can follow me too, but I'm not nearly as loaded.
The sixth day of the 12 Days of Popped Culture Christmas has been brought to you by Maxim (via Agent M Loves Tacos), which no longer seems to be all about semi-naked chicks. Just mostly.
Previously on Popped Culture...
I'm On Twitter! I'm On Facebook! La-La La La La La
Yelling At Anyone Who Will Listen
Yar, Pirates!
Santa Cthulhu
Next up on the 12 Days of Popped Culture Christmas is Neill Cameron, who is drawing a Santa-a-Day in an Advent-Calendar-of-Awesomeness that will show you some of the strangest Santas you'll have ever seen. Like Santa Cthulhu here. I must admit that I've never understood the web's fascination with Cthulhu, but judging by how often I see it show up I'm the only person who has never read H.P. Lovecraft.
Previously on Popped Culture....
Awesomness Times Infinity
My Little Pony Madness
100 Pop Culture Santas
Cult Classic Christmas TV
It's Jihad, Farley Towne
It's almost Christmas, so time to turn on the TV and bathe in its seasonal warmth. I've already introduced three-year-old to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (and instilled a life-long fear of dentists) and I'm ready to watch my annual favourites: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (animated, of course), A Christmas Story ("You'll shoot your eye out!") and Scrooged.
We all have regulars that we return to year after year, but Joanna Wilson thinks there is a better way. The author of The Christmas TV Companion has watched hundreds of Christmas specials to create a guide to unusual, overlooked and often bizarre Christmas-themed television episodes and film releases.
(Above: It's Jihad, Farley Towne, from Denis Leary's variety show, Merry F#%$in' Christmas. "It really isn't such a bad little bomb. It just needs a little hate.")
The Real Peanuts Christmas - watch more funny videos
Wilson's thorough book highlights many of the more offbeat seasonal offerings, especially if your tastes aren't exactly in line with White Christmas. Her section on animation (my favourite) digs up gems like Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse's take on A Charlie Brown Christmas.
MAD TV: Raging Rudolph
A devoted fan of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion features (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy) she gives high praise to MAD TV's excellent parodies, placing Rudolph into Goodfellas and The Godfather. That is my kind of Christmas tale.
Futurama: A Tale of Two Santas
In the Sci-Fi section Wilson declares Futurama's yuletide tales "hands down, the far most interesting projection of Christmases future." Mostly because Santa is now a robot in the year 3000 who is out to kill everyone seeing as his naughty/nice gauge is set too high.
South Park: Jesus & Santa Medley
Wilson says, and I agree, that the "most jaw-dropping Christmas episodes have to be those from the series notorious for its crude tastelessness, South Park. In 1997, the creators popularized a new holiday icon for modern audiences: Mr Hankey, the Christmas Poo. The yuletide turd becomes a symbol that everyone in the town can embrace without offending their individual religious of family traditions.
While not the edgiest of their offerings, Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics has become a seasonal tradition for me. The duet between Santa and Jesus gets me every time.
Star Wars Holiday Special
Not surprisingly Wilson devotes a significant amount of time to the 1978 television special, The Star Wars Holiday Special. As someone who was eight when he watched this two-hour travesty when it originally aired, I mostly recall being bored. It really wasn't about Star Wars at all. I tried to watch it again last night but just couldn't get through it. But there it is above if you've only heard about it and want to find out for yourself. Good luck with that.
Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life
The real joy of The Christmas TV Companion is flipping through the pages and being introduced to something bizarre that you never knew existed. For me that was Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life, which "dramatizes the anxiety-filled absurdist writer Franz Kafka's struggle to create the opening line of his novel Metamorphosis on Christmas Eve." It's truly odd.
So this Christmas, do yourself a favour: get this book and go watch something a little strange to get yourself into the holiday spirit.
Previously on Popped Culture...
100 Pop Culture Santas (Almost)
Full Metal Rudolph
It's a Hey Ya Christmas, Charlie Brown
When You Wish Upon A Star... Nothing Happens
Why just spoil movies when you can spoil the hopes and dreams of happy people and children? By the way, welcome back to school, kids! Wah Wah Wahhhhh, from Threadless designers Ivan Tarrazo Sanchez and Thomas De Santis.Previously on Popped Culture...
I Still Spoil Your Movie
Robocorn
The Rainbow Vomiting Pandas Of Interestingness
100 Pop Culture Santas (Almost)
Everyone has their favourite pop culture Santa, be it the kindly old gent from Miracle on 34th Street or the irascible Billy Bob Thorton in Bad Santa. In between these two extremes are a lot of Saint Nicks, some celebrated, some rightly forgotten.Here are 96 pop culture Santas, from Archie to Zanta — hopefully I found the one you love. Merry Christmas everyone, see you after the holidays. Ho ho ho. Click here or on the picture for a full-size version.
(Oh yes, it is 96 instead of 100 because the snazzy app that laid these pics out for me does them in lines of 8. Tell me four others you would have included.)
Full Metal Rudolph, The Reinfather & A Pack of Gifts Now
The stop animation of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas special always creeped me out Maybe it was the way they moved or the large, dead eyes. But what doesn't put me in the Christmas spirit does lend itself to parody.
Full Metal Rudolph is a wonderful mashup of one of my favourite films, Stanly Kuberick's Full Metal Jacket, with Rudolph. The scene has Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman tearing a new one for the elves.
Awhile back MAD TV aired a few Rudolph parodies, done by animator Corky Quakenbush. The Reinfather captures some of the best of The Godfather, with Rudolph as Brando, Hermey the Misfit Elf as his lieutenant. "This one time, Clarice, I'll let you ask about my business..."
A Pack of Gifts Now summarizes Apocalypse Now in a tidy four and a half minutes, with Rudolph as Captain Willard and Santa as Colonel Kurtz. Santa has gone mad and is giving toys away for free.
"Saskatchewan. Shoot. I'm still in Saskatchewan... the ho ho horror!"
Full Metal Rudolph is a wonderful mashup of one of my favourite films, Stanly Kuberick's Full Metal Jacket, with Rudolph. The scene has Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman tearing a new one for the elves.
Awhile back MAD TV aired a few Rudolph parodies, done by animator Corky Quakenbush. The Reinfather captures some of the best of The Godfather, with Rudolph as Brando, Hermey the Misfit Elf as his lieutenant. "This one time, Clarice, I'll let you ask about my business..."
A Pack of Gifts Now summarizes Apocalypse Now in a tidy four and a half minutes, with Rudolph as Captain Willard and Santa as Colonel Kurtz. Santa has gone mad and is giving toys away for free.
"Saskatchewan. Shoot. I'm still in Saskatchewan... the ho ho horror!"
A Pop Culture Christmas
I know it is the Christmas season, not by the ever-growing forest of lights on the neighbours houses, or the fact that advertisers have been pushing holiday shopping since the first of November, but by the specials on TV. There are a few that I just have to see to make me feel the seasonal spirit.Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics has become a recent favourite, with the profane denizens of South Park remaking various Christmas classics and creating some of their own along the way. It is often blasphemous and likely offensive to many, but somehow it still manages to be sweet at the core. It also speaks to the eight-year-old in me who thought singing fake lyrics to We Three Kings was the height of hilarity:
We three kings of Orient are,So when Cartman sings O Holy Night, I know where he’s coming from:
Puffing on a rubber cigar.
It was loaded, it exploded
Now we’re on yonder star
And, O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth.
O holy night! The something something distant
It is the night with the Christmas trees and pie.
Jesus was born and so I get presents.
Thank you, Jesus for being born.
My favourite though has to be the lounge act duet of Jesus and Santa, singing carols and songs in the first person – a brilliant concept. Who hasn’t wondered what these two would be like singing at a piano bar?
Jesus: He he hoo, get away!Another modern-day classic (ok, ‘80s classic) is Scrooged, Bill Murray’s greed is good interpretation of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. Murray plays the Scrooge-lik Frank Cross, a driven and cynical TV exec who torments his employees and keeps the entire network working to produce a live show on Christmas Eve.
Santa: Go away?
Jesus: Get away.
Santa: Where away?
Jesus: Away in a manger, no crib for My bed
That's where cute little old Me lay down My sweet head.
The stars in the sky
Both: Looked down where I lay.
Jesus: Cute little eight-pound me (Santa: Oo-oo)
Both: asleep in (Santa: on) the hay.
Much like Groundhog Day, I can watch this film over and over again even though I know exactly how it’s going to turn out. I just can’t get enough of that smarmy Murray charm – plus, Bobcat Goldthwait!
Clearly I like my holiday fare with some edge and A Christmas Story walks it quite nicely. “You’ll shoot your eye out!” is all Ralphie ever hears in his relentless quest to get "an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and 'this thing', which tells time."
Ralphie is such a sweet little geek, I’ve always imagined he grew up to be Zach Braff’s Scrubs character Dr. J.D. Dorian – the only other person I could see dressed up in a pink bunny sleeper with feet. There are so many great childhood scenes that ring true as real kid moments and not what adults think kids act like. What kid hasn’t thought about sticking their tongue to cold metal? Or realizes that the way you deal with a bully is to run away? Forget the film? Than catch up with the 30 Second Bunnies.
But my ultimate Christmas fave, the one I cannot make it through the season without is Dr. Suess’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas – the animated version, of course. It is such an amazing piece of work, whose sum is better than it’s already amazing parts: the tremendous wit and words of Dr. Suess; the stellar animation work by Chuck Jones (director of multiple classic Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons); and the dulcet tones of Boris Karloff as the narrator. It’s as good as it gets.
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