052: SoraRabbit Does a Christmas Special - Bad CGI Edition

As Christmas of 2021 approached, I realized that I had a bit of a dilemma. You see, I’ve had three Christmas posts in my blog’s short history. I started by covering my favorite Christmas special of all time, A Wish For Wings That Work. And then last year I reached the pinnacle of holiday content. I not only covered the darkest, most depressing Christmas special ever in ALF’s Special Christmas, but also the most entertaining and hairiest feature, The Star Wars Holiday Special. Those posts were so much fun to do and a surprising amount of people enjoyed them. I knew there was no way I could ever top last year’s offerings… so I didn’t even try.

I decided to go a different way for this year’s Christmas content. I’ve already covered the classic holiday slasher movie, Silent Night, Deadly Night and now, as a chaser to that wholesome content, I’m going to torture you all (but mostly me) with the absolute opposite of a classic. An obscure failure. The cinematic equivalent to coal in your stocking. A cursed abomination known as The Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa.

“Ho ho h-ohhh shit.” (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

I couldn’t possibly hope to cover this movie better than 1-900-Hotdog did, so I won’t try. They’re comedy experts, I’m just some guy with a blog. (Seriously, they are my favorites and they’ve given me so much joy over the past two years. Their Patreon starts at just a dollar and you get hundreds of hilarious articles for that. End free unsponsored plug.)

So if I can’t cover it better, why try? I really can’t help myself. This movie is a treasure trove of awkward and inexplicable moments, and any post about it practically writes itself. The “film” (as Wikipedia so generously describes it) itself is only 42 minutes, but it’s a hellish 42 minutes that crawls to a ponderously slow hell. And if you read the Christmas posts I linked to earlier, you may have seen mention that I watch the specials 3 or 4 times while working on the posts. Yes, I think you see where this is going. You’re about to see your buddy SoraRabbit slowly going insane over the course of this post. I may not come back from this one, folks.

I’m going to do something a little different with this post. Normally I talk about the origins and my history with something first before getting into the recap, but I think this one is a little more fitting to swap those around. I’m going to take you through this agonizing special and then talk about what went wrong with it. As for my history? I never would have known about this if it weren’t for the tireless work of Robert Brockway and the 1-900-Hotdog crew, so there’s not much to say there. After reading that post a year ago I was consumed with the need to see this special. I quickly found it online and Cocoashade valiantly agreed to suffer through it with me. And nothing was ever the same again.

All I will say for right now is that this special came out in 2002 and aired on network TV. Briefly. Then it disappeared until resurfacing in recent years.

With that said, here is The Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa! Strap in, it will be bumpy.

This ain’t South Park. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

We can tell we’re in for a treat right away as crude flat CGI snowflakes drift over a flat, sparse-looking town that is very much reminiscent of South Park.

Indistinct blobs exit what might be a school bus? (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

After a crappy bus lets off some crappy kids we’re treated to a very mild rap by the main character Ricky, who raps at us about Christmas and shopping with his Grandma. Yeah… it’s a musical.

All I want for Christmas is bad CGI. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Ricky walks down the street, continuing to rap about how he wants Santa to bring him presents. Well, I say he walks but really he slides… everyone has a weird sliding walk and they don’t actually touch the ground.

Let’s talk for a moment about how staggeringly bad the CGI is. Everyone moves stiffly and unnaturally. None of the characters match each other or their backgrounds. Ricky’s hair changes color from scene to scene between dark brown to orange. Everyone’s eyes pop out of their sockets, bulging sickeningly. It’s all so ugly and crude. Animation was better than this in 2002. We had the rise of Pixar, Shrek was around this time… and then we have this, which looks like it belongs in the 90s. But even Veggie Tales was advanced compared to this, and that was from the 90s.

Anyway, Ricky stops at a toy store but only has three… um… coins? I guess quarters, but even those are crudely rendered. He’s sad. Ricky returns to his sparsely decorated home to talk to a photo of his mother (who he says he “misses big”) and tells her that he’s going to give away the stuffed bear she gave him… for love.

This is all I see when I close my eyes. I might be broken now. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

We get a weird fantasy here of some gangly blonde girl who’s much taller than Ricky and the bear is floating around them and oh my god everything about this is terrible. They walk like it hurts them to exist!

Back to reality, Ricky sighs “Nicole” and wiggles uncomfortably on his bed while holding the bear. Thankfully the special cuts away here because lord knows what was about to happen.

Joke or shoddy work? We will never know! (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

We end up at the school where the sign is misspelled. This is where we meet most of the other characters.

Oh my lord what have I done? Abort blog post! Abort! (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Inside the school, Nicole (who, incidentally, does not look like she belongs in elementary school) is talking about how her mom scheduled her for a hair appointment so she had to dress cute. A new character named Smithy throws a dinosaur at her, I guess to get her attention. She’s mildly annoyed by this physical assault.

Okay, wait. Let’s break down what we’re seeing in this screengrab. Kids are milling around what appears to be a library with a lot of open floor space. The girls are clearly teenagers, except for the dark-haired one who is obviously a middle-aged suburban mom with bad posture and bags under her eyes. Nicole is wearing some sort of sequined ensemble, and most elementary schools, to my knowledge, do not allow bare midriffs. (Our high school didn’t anyway.) Also, what is with Smithy? His face is mostly covered by a scarf and we never see his mouth. He constantly carries around a sandwich except when they forget to animate it, at which point it disappears only to reappear later. (The sandwich actually becomes a plot point later, so you can look forward to that.)

I have no point to make with any of these observations, I’m just calling attention to the fact that this could be done with every scene of the special. So that’s what I’m going to do! From here on out I’ll include my thoughts under each screenshot.

Actually I do have one point to make. Smithy’s scarf makes me think of how the kids in South Park are always wearing their coats and gloves and now I’m starting to think that that’s what they were going for with this. South Park debuted in 1997 and this came out in 2002. My current theory is that they were trying to create the next South Park and failed. They failed so hard in so many directions.

Well, back to the “plot”. There are three bullies, but they don’t actually do much besides sort of making fun of everyone? The lead bully, Todd, sounds suspiciously like Ralph Wiggum from the Simpsons. (Coincidence? Maaaaybe…) They all watch Ricky decorate the tree by… juggling?

I… yeah… I don’t know what’s going on here. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: The juggling animation is as bad as everything else. And who are the three people standing behind Ricky? The female appears to be wearing a skintight body suit or leotard. Is she supposed to be a kid? An elementary school kid? No, couldn’t be! The perspectives in this room are way off. It goes from about five feet at the far end and slants to maybe 15 feet.

Ricky hurls the ornaments onto the tree and the girl with the glasses (who we later learn is named Lenee) laughs by bowing deeply. Ricky raps once again, claiming “I’m a decorating master, no one is faster. Don’t you know, I’m a Christmas tree blaster.“ Which sounds wrong. Very, very wrong.

Ricky trips over his shoelace and destroys the tree, which the bullies delight in. (How he stepped on his shoelace is beyond me, though, since he slides everywhere and seems to have no shins like Cotton on King of the Hill.) Smithy asks Ricky what’s up with the bear and Ricky explains he’s going to give it to Nicole. Smithy, who is carrying around an uncovered sandwich, thinks this is gross.

The teacher, Ms. Parmington, wants their attention, so I guess they were in a classroom this whole time? A huge cavernous classroom with strange adults creeping in the back. She tells them to go out for recess because she needs a break, which is odd because haven’t they been at school for about two minutes? I’m thinking the cut where they show a car going by the front of the school is supposed to indicate it’s later in the day? I don’t know. This movie is unclear about absolutely everything, especially the passage of time. The teacher acts like she’s all put-upon and like she’s had it with the kids, but this is her first interaction with them from what we’ve seen and she seems to have no real control over her class since they were all standing around talking and juggling ornaments and oh my god we’re only eight minutes into this thing.

There’s some clumsy dialog where Ricky tries to rhyme and Smithy claims he can skate “bigger and faster than my mom can make the biggest sandwich in the world.” Huh?

A strangely somber scene. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: This is an insanely massive window. The windows were not this big earlier. And I guess recess consists of standing around talking and jumping up and down on a frozen pond? That does not seem safe, but Ms. Parmington makes no move to protect the children in her charge. Her voice also does not match her model. She’s got a sassy voice and a blank expression.

Just when I think it can’t get worse… flat snowmen. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: They’re making snowmen without wearing gloves. No one put on a coat to go outside in the snow. The snowmen are cartoony and flat and out of place with the grotesque children that are creating them. Nicole looks like she’s picking a fight with her snowman. Not pictured: Lenee’s elaborate Santa and reindeer snow sculpture. The pond keeps changing locations. And how long is recess anyway?

As a bland, boring Christmas song plays, the children “frolic”. Snowballs are thrown, Smithy slides around facedown, they walk on the ice without falling. Ricky even does a spinning jump. None of them are wearing ice skates for this. Smithy gets revenge on Todd for hitting him with a snowball by throwing one at him too. (The snowballs make awful wet noises when they hit.) Todd gets pissed and threatens to take his sandwich. So they acknowledge the sandwich… that’s weird, right? For a kid to carry a hoagie with him wherever he goes? Maybe it’s like, his emotional support sandwich?

This is hell. We’re in hell. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: This sequence goes on for way too long. One of the bullies is dragged behind Smithy. Note the famous sandwich you’ve heard so much about. And is Tug’s face dragging on the ice? That can’t be good for him. The fact that we’re not even ten minutes into this thing and it already needs padding is concerning.

Nicole skates on the ice (and again, skating is just sliding on their shoes) and is rude to Ricky, which makes him sad. So this “beautiful” girl that Ricky is enamored of is completely vain and full of herself and treats him like shit. Okay, that tracks. Just making sure we understand the romantic subplot of this. There’s a weird verbal blip here and I have no idea what Nicole says even though I rewound it multiple times. I think it was an editing error. I think this whole thing is an editing error.

The surfer bully (I think his name is Zeke?) walks onto the ice and then crashes. I think he was meant to have slipped and fell, but he really looks like he leapt up and tackled Todd, taking a header into the ice. The bully being dragged by Smithy is named Tug and they make a few weak attempts at a joke. (Get it? Because he’s tugging his scarf? Yuk yuk.)

Everyone is so lumpy. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: These are all supposed to be elementary school children and they’re all supposed to be in the same grade. Just think about that for a moment. Yes, even the adult woman in a bodysuit and the mom with poor posture. All kids. Why is everyone so lumpy? I think they just threw random 3D models into the room and called it a scene. They’re all just standing around again not learning. Clearly Ms. Parmington makes no attempt to supervise this class. Also Zeke is standing there with Tug and he’s perfectly fine, even though he took a running leap headfirst on the ice in the previous scene. So clearly the laws of this world we have found ourselves in are very different from our own.

Then we get a tense scene where Todd steals Smithy’s sandwich. Yes, it was foreshadowed before, but here it is, the plot point paying off! It’s almost like an actual movie! Smithy tackles him and the sandwich lands in his mouth. He makes eating noises so I guess he does eat it? When we see it later there are no bites taken out of it, so no. No he does not eat it. This is not the kind of sandwich you eat. This is the kind of sandwich you cherish.

The insidious Todd hatches his master plan to get Smithy’s sandwich. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: The windows are back to normal. The tree has regenerated itself. And it’s shrunk. And look at that beautiful sandwich. That is a fine specimen. I can see why Smithy loves it so much.

They appear to have a big Santa bag that they grab random presents out of. Lenee asks Nicole what she got. It’s a crappy plastic reindeer. Lenee says it looks cool, and Nicole drops it at her feet, saying she can have it. It’s cheap and “cheap isn’t cool”. This hurts Lenee’s feelings since she was the one who brought it and she thought it was a great reindeer.

Then we get a big shocker. Apparently the girl in the skintight bodysuit actually is a little girl. She has a squealy little girl voice as the surfer bully teases her. The teacher does nothing to stop this, chuckling and saying that he likes her. Smithy’s reaction is “Yeah yeah yeah,” which I think is supposed to be his catchphrase because he says it several times through the special.

I don’t know what’s real anymore. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: That’s supposed to be an elementary school student. That’s really all I can say about this. And were the kids in the back painted in? I don’t think they’re fully rendered. Look at all that empty space in the classroom. This room is huge.

The principal walks in and wishes everyone a merry Christmas. Ms. Parmington says she knows her family will spoil her because it’s been a good year at the Parmington house and the principal backs away nervously, which is incredibly strange.

Possible Rapsittie lore: Ms. Parmington’s only outlet from dealing with her rotten and out of control class is to screw the principal during recess, which explains why she was in such a hurry to get the kids out of there. He’s nervous because he didn’t realize he had to get his side piece a Christmas present and now he’s worried about her reaction when she finds out he neglected to buy her anything.

It occurs to me that I may be putting too much thought into this show.

Ms. Parmington’s dead stare. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: See what I meant about Ms. Parmington? Look at those dead, dead eyes. This is not the face of a harassed, over-worked teacher. This is the face of someone who’s checked out years ago. (And is regularly getting it from the principal during recess. That’s happening. You can’t tell me otherwise.) Why does she need her name written on the board? Are they all meeting her for the first time? And we get close ups of some of the children. Just revel in the beauty of these models.

The bullies make fun of Ricky for his bear— and the spastic way he’s twitching. It’s like the movie became self-aware for a moment and made fun of itself. They leave once Nicole walks up… which is weird. You’d think if they were proper bullies they would have stayed to continue making fun of Ricky. They’re very considerate bullies.

He gives her the bear and she reacts as the earlier scene would suggest. She only values things that come from the mall and she thinks she’s perfect. How was he deluded enough to think she’d be happy with a ratty old stuffed bear? She takes one look at the bear and screams at Ricky for trying to embarrass her and for giving her something she can’t exchange for something better. Nice. Nice love interest you got there, Rhymemaster Ricky the Christmas tree blaster.

You know, Nicole’s kind of a bitch. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: These kids do not belong in the same world as these clip art trees. Actually, these kids don’t belong in any world I want to visit. Why did he arrange to meet her in a grove of trees? The screengrab doesn’t do it justice but she isn’t walking here… she’s lurching painfully. And Ricky darts in front of her at a full-bore sprint.

Nicole lurches towards the dumpster as Ricky sprints, calling her stupid. She flings the bear in the dumpster. Smithy tells her she’s a terrible person but makes no move to fetch his best friend’s most cherished possession from the dumpster. Good looking out, Smithy.

Nicole and Lenee walk home and Nicole heckles Ricky through his window for having a candle. Lenee then says that’s a really mean thing to say. None of this dialog makes sense.

This is the scene where we meet my second favorite character (after Smithy’s sandwich, of course) Ricky’s Great Grandma Rodgers. She talks like she’s laughing at the same time and you can hardly make out what she’s saying. I’m pretty sure she’s either very drunk or in a constant state of stroke. Ricky writes a letter to Santa, asking for a “VideoBox” which I assume is their equivalent of a GameCube, which came out the same year as this special. (Come to think of it, the Nintendo 64 had better graphics than this show.) He goes on to ask Santa to bring presents to all the kids in his class, even that bitch Nicole. (Sure, he doesn’t actually say bitch, but it’s implied. Read between the lines.) He explains unnecessarily to Santa that he gave her the special bear his momma gave him before the angels took her. (Yikes.) Great Grandma gives him more letters, which he takes to the mailbox. He doesn’t notice when his Santa letter flies off and hovers unnaturally in the air above his head before landing a few feet away from him and he walks by without even looking. (Ricky isn’t the brightest kid.)

This movie is rewiring my brain. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: They move like malfunctioning robots. I think Lenee’s face is melting. I feel pain on her behalf. Can you imagine what their skulls must look like? I do give them mild credit for choosing a different snowman clip art for this scene than the ones at the school. That shows at least a modicum of attention was given to the scene. Nicole’s pose, however makes no sense at all. Note Ricky’s letter in the background. Of course it landed in Nicole’s yard.

Nicole talks more about how great things are when they come from the mall and then mocks Lenee for believing in Santa Claus. Lenee is sad and wiggles away strangely as Nicole breaks into a full-on run to her house, cackling the whole way and I think I really have lost my mind at this point. This can’t actually be happening. What is this? What is life?

So much care went into this animation. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: Nicole’s mom is also in a full body suit. Mom is even more lumpy than Nicole. It looks like her eye is popped out and floating in midair. The three stockings show what we have already suspected. Nicole is an only child.

Nicole and her mom discuss how perfect a little girl she is. Then Nicole goes to her room and sings a horrible horrible song about how perfect a little girl she is and I bet you already forgot this was a musical. I wish I could forget.

Good lord. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: That wallpaper scrapes across the inside of my eyeballs. There’s something not quite right about that reflection, but I can’t figure out what.

Nicole’s singing voice is competent (and weirdly familiar… hmm… ) but the song itself is awful. She sings about how perfect she is and references Santa Claus several times in the lyrics even though she just told Lenee she doesn’t believe in him. Worse is her… I guess you’d call it a dance? Her movements are jerky, stiff, and without rhythm. She stays rooted to one spot when she’s not floating into the air. I guess it was too hard to properly animate dancing so they just made her flail around slowly and occasionally break the law of gravity.

We cut to Lenee’s house where we learn that she’s now doubting her belief in Santa because of what Nicole said. (Never mind the fact that Nicole just got done singing a song about how great she is and how special Santa makes her feel. Hypocrite.) The next day Nicole finds Ricky’s letter and feels bad. Who could have possibly seen that coming?

Great Grandma Rodgers is terrifying. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: Great Grandma looks like an evil old woman in a horror movie. Is she wearing ballet slippers? Ricky’s hair is several shades too light in this scene. It appears his only possessions are a poster of New York and a basketball. Would Nicole have appreciated the bear more if he’d told her it was 33% of his worldly possessions?

Ricky and Great Grandma have… I guess you’d call it a conversation? She babbles incoherently and he seems to understand her perfectly. (Someone on IMDB claims that her audio file was corrupted and no one bothered to fix it. This seems plausible, but I don’t think so. Now and then a word comes through clearly like “hurry” and “Christmas”. No, I think they did this on purpose. Why, I couldn’t even begin to imagine.)

Nicole goes to get the bear out of the dumpster and find Lenee and Smithy are already there, digging around happily in the garbage. Todd, Tug, and Zeke come up to mock them. Nicole tells them to help and Lenee tells Smithy to help too, even though he was clearly throwing trash around moments ago.

No, the trash goes IN the dumpster. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: They couldn’t be bothered to draw in the trash the kids were throwing around. What are they looking at? And Smithy is holding his sandwich with the same hand that was in the dumpster moments before.

Since the bear isn’t in the dumpster, Smithy suggests they go down to the school’s basement because the “cleaning man” (I guess he doesn’t know the words janitor or custodian) sometimes takes trash down there. Why? Why on earth would the… er, “cleaning man” take the trash out of the dumpster and put it in the school basement? Also, why is the school not locked? They’re clearly not attending school that day and the only reason I know it’s a new day is because it was dark while Nicole was singing. Which also means the letter was lying in the snow all night but was still legible the next day and holy crap I’m trying to analyze this dumpster fire again. Okay, fine— the school is never locked. The cleaning man hoards trash in the basement. This is reality now. Got it.

There was nothing in the basement (no seriously, nothing. Just a few empty boxes) so they decide to go to the junkyard. (I guess they also don’t know the name for dump.) As they emerge from the basement the bullies jump out and scare them, causing Smithy to throw his sandwich. Luckily the physics in Rapsittie Street are so fucked up that the tubby little kid is able to shuffle ahead of the sailing sandwich and catch it. I should mention that the sandwich was not in his hand the whole time they were in the basement. Does he store it in his pocket? Also note that I don’t believe this is a fresh sandwich. I’m certain it’s the same sandwich he carried around yesterday, because he says “Yes! I saved you again, my friend!“ Smithy referring to it as his friend lends credence to my theory about it being emotional support food. (Damn it I’m going in too deep again. Moving on…)

A festive visit to the junkyard. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: Notice how the cars are covered with snow and the toilet is clean. No, notice it. There ya go. You’re welcome.

The kids travel to the junk yard on their epic quest to find Ricky’s bear. (For being the star, Ricky sure is absent for long stretches of the special.) Somehow the bullies got there ahead of them and Todd’s plan is to wait for them to find the best trash so they can steal it. These bullies have no focus. I think the problem is Todd’s leadership, really. Zeke should be the leader. Todd is a dumbass and Tug would buckle under the pressure, so really Zeke is the only one left.

The guard dogs chase the kids and they seriously look like poorly drawn wiener dogs. Oh no, how will they ever escape these blood-thirsty tiny dogs? Smithy hatches a brilliant plan and announces that he’s smart.

Nooooo! Sandwich come back! (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: Yeah… yeah. I got nothin’.

In his most self-sacrificing move ever, Smithy throws his sandwich like a football right at Todd, coating him with sandwich makings and causing the dogs to chase the bullies straight out of the movie. This was twist I couldn’t possibly have seen coming! They’d built up the sandwich like it was a character and in the blink of an eye, it’s gone. After we’ve invested so much time and consideration to just what the sandwich means, it turns out to be the catalyst for the entire movie. Without the sandwich, they would have been eaten by those tiny dogs, or frozen to death in that junkyard, unable to escape. The sandwich— and Smithy— gave all they had to rescue them and drive the movie towards its satisfying climax. Fantastic writing! Excellent character development! I am moved to tears. I almost cannot continue… it’s just that beautiful.

But since I’m a professional, I will work through the emotions to finish this out.

They find Ricky’s bear just laying on a car for some reason. Then to escape they have to climb a tree and go over a wall. They don’t explain why they have to do this and the dogs were waiting for them on the other side so it’s all just more nonsense. After this Nicole tries to give the bear back to Ricky and apologizes. But he refuses to take it, since he gave it to her. It means a lot to him, but so does friendship.

What a charming and sloppily rendered family. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: Lenee’s mom’s arms are disturbingly long. What is Jenna standing on? Her dad’s feet extend into the floor. And her mom has no feet at all.

We meet the rest of Lenee’s family as her Nana visits. They all talk about Santa and Lenee’s mom tells a boring story about how one year she had no presents but wait no she did, a bike. And Santa brought it. (It’s all been downhill since the sandwich died.) Lenee’s little sister Jenna wants a pony and says it can live in the backyard and be tied to the apple tree. She has a horrible annoying little kids voice. Horrible. In a sea of shit, she is a turd that stands out. Sorry, that was harsh. Harsh but true. I hate you Jenna and I hope you choke on that pony.

Lenee is still filled with angst about Santa and so she sulks upstairs to her room. Her dad comes in and he sounds vaguely familiar too. He shows her clouds, asking if she sees Santa. She says he’s there because she believes in him. So, basically, she consciously chose to delude herself to maintain her father’s lie and so she doesn’t ruin everyone else’s fun with her moodiness. Christmas! Now, of course, she gets her own song and thankfully it’s short. (And hey, her singing voice also sounds strangely familiar. What is up with all these familiar voices? Maybe I’m gearing up for a big reveal later? Nahh.) Her song is all about how she believes in Santa and he only exists because she believes in him. Faith restored! Then her dad is suddenly walking away and she’s sleeping soundly in bed with zero transition. This movie is so disorienting.

Ooo, plot point. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: What are Nicole’s parents looking at? Is that brown blotch at the top of the screen supposed to be the ceiling? No one ever changes their clothes and all the men wear business suits at all times.

We cut to Christmas morning. Nicole’s parents are just as vain and materialistic as her, so now we see where she gets it. Her grandmother gave her a VideoBox, which is what Ricky wants. Remember that she only knows this because she illegally read Ricky’s mail. She leaves her family’s Christmas celebration to regift her grandmother’s present to Ricky… who she hated a couple of days before. She also brags about how she’s the perfect little girl. Sigh. She’s learned nothing.

We have to watch every step of her journey because the movie wasn’t quite long enough and even though she walks slowly the entire way, she arrives out of breath. She claims that Santa made a mistake and delivered Ricky’s present to her house. He opens it with the creepiest smile. She then claims to believe in Santa and there’s really no reason for her to have come to this conclusion out of nowhere. God this is shitty writing.

And Jenna gets a fucking horse. What?

What. The. Hell. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: Are they fucking serious with this shit? A horse within city limits at a residence? With no shelter? Not even tied to the apple tree. Why is this thing not running wild? This bratty kid demanded a pony and she got one. What the hell is she going to do with it? Is she responsible enough to care for a living thing? She’s, what, four? And just look at its brain dead stare and that stupid bow… This makes me irrationally angry. So angry. Oh my lord I just can’t anymore with this shit.

Deep breath.

They waddle out to see the horse, which Jenna shrieks is “too cool” and they suddenly warp back into the living room as the doorbell rings and there was zero transition and I think it’s finally happened. I’ve finally lost my mind. I don’t know what’s real anymore and what’s Rapsittie Street Kids. Is everything Rapsittie Street Kids? Was it always? What was life like outside the confines of this movie? Help me. Please. I’m lost on Rapsittie Street.

How did I cram so much terror into one screengrab? Practice. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Thoughts: Who stands like this? It’s like on a sitcom when everyone sits on one side of a table so the camera can see them all at once.

Anyway, at the door are Nicole, Ricky, Smithy, Smithy’s new (clearly inferior) sandwich, and Great Grandma Rodgers. Nicole almost apologizes for ruining Lenee’s belief in Santa, but Lenee interrupts her, saying it’s okay. Ricky attempts to rap about how believing in Santa is important and oh my god reality is shifting again because somehow Nicole’s parents teleported into the room. They were not there when the doorbell rang. Ricky says Santa believes in us and Nicole gives a demonic little giggle.

Great Grandma speaks perfect English, saying that she never stopped believing in Santa and Nicole doesn’t have to stop either. I’m so disoriented. Just when I was starting to entertain the corrupted audio file theory, Ricky says “Grandma, you always know just what to say!“ and she babbles incoherently again. So yeah, they were doing it on purpose and we will never know why. They all talk about how they believe in Santa (and Nicole’s dad is proud of her for this for some reason?) and Smithy hears sleigh bells. We actually see his mouth for a second, and it’s super red. He has to be wearing lipstick. Or his scarf has dyed his lips? A crude silhouette of Santa and his sleigh is superimposed over the houses. (Shouldn’t he be back at the North Pole by now? Was he spying on them?) Someone yells “Shut that door!” and I’m not sure who because no one’s mouth moves and the door shuts by itself.

We then pan out to see the city again like we did in the beginning and then we see a shot of Nicole sleeping with the bear and reindeer showing that she’s finally learned to appreciate cheap crap that didn’t come from the mall. Thank all the gods, it’s finally over.

But the movie has more shocks in store for us. You may recall me making a few references to how familiar some of the voices sounded…

Yup. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Yeah, you read that right. Let’s break this down. Ricky was played by Zach, the black Power Ranger. Nicole was voiced by the woman who also voiced Belle from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Lenee? The Little Mermaid. Two of the bullies were Clint Howard and Nancy Cartwright, better known as many many voices on the Simpsons. (Including Bart and Ralph Wiggum.) Lenee’s father was a well known voice actor from the 80s and 90s who did stuff like Transformers and G.I. Joe. (Although my favorite of his acting credits is from a Dragon Ball Z movie where he played “Screaming Man”.) And as Nicole’s wacky and stuck-up father… Mark Hamill. Seeing the voice cast is like the movie kicking us when we’re down. These are some well-known names. This shouldn’t be possible. But it is.

Well, at least it’s over. The horrible sedating song (something about seeing things through a child’s eyes) fades out and… oh. Oh no.

Oh god no. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

Lenee’s little sister Jenna screeches that she’ll be back with the Easter Bunny. Then Great Grandma Rodgers babbles incoherently at the end of the credits, assuring us that the movie is over. Don’t worry… they never returned with the Easter Bunny. You don’t have to worry about a terrible Easter post covering another terrible special. Due to the universally poor reception this one got, any possible sequels (this was planned to be a series of specials) were cancelled. Try to contain your disappointment. (Seriously though, I would like to see the grotesque monstrosity of the Easter Bunny in this twisted world.)

So, yeah. That was the special. And it truly was… special.

Terrifying. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

You may be asking yourselves, what went wrong? The producers clearly had the urge to create a classic and touching Christmas special, hoping to build an entire franchise off of it. And they had top level voice talent attached… somehow. (Freaking Mark Hamill. I can’t get over that. Word is that he can’t even remember doing this movie, although he could be faking so he doesn’t have to own up to it. That’s what I would do.) So, if they wanted this to succeed, how did it all crash and burn? Well, that’s where it gets interesting.

The executive producers Chris Rose and James Deluca (who was working for an air conditioning company at the time) put together a production company to work on a film based around two songs Deluca wrote. Getting the voice talent and the WB to sign on was just good old fashioned Hollywood razzle dazzle. They hired a little-known animation company called Wolf Tracer Studio to do the animation. The producers trusted Wolf Tracer implicitly, gave them $650,000 and never checked their work. They didn’t see the animation until the special aired on television. And why was the animation so bad? Colin Slater, the head of Wolf Tracer who was also the director of the film, insisted on using an outdated (and cheap) program called 3D Choreographer, which none of them knew how to properly use. Plus they only had 4 months to animate the whole thing and near the end of the process Slater fired one of the animators, causing the remaining two animators to work day and night. Yes, this whole thing was animated by three people who didn’t know how to use the archaic program their boss insisted on. Which actually explains a lot. Many of the things I made fun of in this post was due to the limitations of the software. They actually had to have the program’s developers custom design some models for them. Theories were that Slater was a scam artist and pocketed most of the money, or used it to fund his next project, Dinosaur Island. There’s a lot more to the story, and it really is interesting stuff, so if you want to know more, the info is out there.

The Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe In Santa aired on WB affiliates across the country for most of December 2002 before disappearing. Critics described it in such glowing terms as “ugly” and “hideous”. Due to the abysmal reception, it never got a home video release, was never shown again on television, and the sequel was scrapped. The franchise died before it started. It was only through the tireless work of the heroes at the Lost Media Wiki that the special was located and uploaded so that everyone could enjoy and suffer through it.

This is what they chose to end the movie on. But Lenee was right: that is a great reindeer. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

So what did I think? I’ve made that blatantly clear throughout this post. I know I always try my best to find the good in everything. It’s pretty much my trademark. And I did try with this. I found it… impossible. This movie was baffling to me. It walks the fine line between “so bad it’s good” and “so bad it’s unwatchable”. It actually jumped back and forth between those lines during its entire runtime. The only movie I can think of that does that just as well is an awful CGI movie called “The Misty Green Sky” or, as I think of it, “Boob Physics: The Movie”.

Well, obviously it was bad. Really bad. I think their hearts were in the right place… but the writing was clumsy, the CGI was nightmarish, and the songs were bland and forgettable. It was lazy and sloppy and the whole thing feels thrown together. The only thing that redeemed it at all was how unrelentingly bizarre and awkward it was.

As for the story, no one really learned anything. Lenee ended up right back where she was to begin with. Nicole learned a thing or two, but she still thinks she’s perfect and never really had to face any consequences for her actions despite feeling kinda bad for a little bit. Was regifting the VideoBox really a selfless act? She gave no indication she wanted it to begin with, and she declared how perfect she was for giving it away. So, no. It was a selfish act, meant to bolster her own ridiculously high opinion of herself.

You may think that Nicole had the biggest character arc in this film, but you would be wrong. I argue that it was Smithy. He learned that there are more important things in life than food and teasing girls: escaping getting eaten by dogs and getting revenge on bullies. He had to do the unthinkable and he did it without a second thought… he gave up his most cherished possession aside from that stupid scarf. He gave up his sandwich. Yes, Smithy made the ultimate sacrifice by offering up his beloved emotional support sandwich to save two gross girls that he barely tolerated. Plus he learned where trash goes.

And in the last scene he ended up with a new sandwich, so yeah I guess that is all invalidated because the animators couldn’t bother to change his character model. Oh well. It was still the emotional high point of the movie.

Moments before they teleport back into the house. And I’m still angry about that damned pony. (Credit: J Rose Productions, Wolf Tracer Studios)

The Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa is a truly unique work. The combination of a talented voice cast, shoddy writing, and juvenile out-dated CGI creates a disorienting, confusing chimera of a Christmas special. To watch it is to watch something that shouldn’t exist but somehow does. So many bad decisions coalesced to make something that could have been just another forgettable Christmas movie into something you can’t forget if you tried. And that is actually a pretty impressive accomplishment.

And that is the closest I am going to come to complimenting this movie.

I watched this special once a year ago and three times in the writing of this post. This means that I have watched The Rapsittie Street Kids four times more than anyone should. I exceeded the recommended dose. It has effected me deeply and permanently. My brain now works like the Rapsittie Street Kids walk. Slowly, stiffly, and disconnected from anything around it. But it was worth it to be able to share this pain with you. Thank you so much for suffering through this movie with me. I appreciate you all and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and demand that you believe in Santa Claus forever because I said so and he can’t exist without you and after all he believes in you too.

Everything is Rapsittie Street Kids. There is no escape. I live here now. Me and Smithy’s sandwich, which died to save us all.