070: SoraRabbit Does a Christmas Special: Animated Comic Strip Marathon Part 2

Welcome back to Part 2 of the 2023 Christmas Special! It took a lot of work to get a two-parter done during the already-busy holiday season, but I managed it. Part 1 was uploaded on Christmas Eve and this one was released on Christmas Day.

If you missed the previous installment, you can find it here: SoraRabbit Does a Christmas Special: Animated Comic Strip Marathon Part 1. To give you a brief recap, this year I decided to watch six Christmas Specials based off of beloved (or at least familiar) comic strips. Rather than judge them in black and white as good or bad, I decided to take a more nuanced approach and used the creative format of a listicle! That’s right, I ranked these suckers from six to one, poor to good. Last time we reviewed Beetle Bailey: A Christmas Story, For Better or For Worse: The Bestest Present, and A Family Circus Christmas. Those were all somewhat enjoyable but fell short of what I would expect a Christmas Special to be.

See, the intention here is to judge how well these specials work as both a show and specifically as a Christmas show. So we’re judging them on Christmas imagery, skill of execution, quality, and clarity of message. We’re putting nostalgia aside as much as possible to view them objectively.

A flash from my childhood! (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

Which brings me to a brief reminder of my previous disclaimer. I understand these specials (especially the next one) are very close to people’s hearts and tied to their childhood. I promise I am not judging anyone’s tastes, shitting on anyone’s childhoods, or anything like that. Everything that follows is strictly my opinion based on who I am right now and the criteria I am viewing these specials with. You may not agree with my rankings, and that’s fine. Feel free to rerank them in the comments or on social media as per your own personal preferences. I would love to see other opinions! I know my wife Cocoashade and I differed in our own rankings, and that led to an interesting conversation. At the SoraRabbit Hole we want to uplift those things we love and celebrate both the good and the bad. As long as we’re all coming from a good place, disagreements don’t matter.

So now that that’s done, let’s get going on the list with number three!

Title card. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

#3: A Charlie Brown Christmas

A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired in 1965 and has been a staple of television ever since. I remember watching this year after year while growing up. A positive effect of this special is that it opened the door for many more specials and movies to be produced using the characters. (The 2015 Peanuts Movie was particularly good.) For the last few years this special been absent from broadcast television, since the streaming rights were sold to Apple+.

Peanuts was a highly popular and unquestionably influential comic strip that ran from 1950 until 2000, with the final Sunday strip running the day after creator Charles Schultz died. The characters (especially Charlie Brown and Snoopy) are widely recognizable and beloved. The comic dealt with some heavy topics, such as theology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy, but it became more simplistic as the decades went on. The characters in the strip were very well-defined and stable. Much of the humor was character-driven. I very much admire the fact that Schultz retired the comic rather than pass it on to others, as many of the comic strips I have talked about in these posts have done. There is dignity in ending something your own way rather than extending it beyond its lifespan. (Bloom County is proof of that, having ended its many iterations long before fans wanted them to end. Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes did the same.)

Peanuts was one of my favorite comic strips growing up and my heart is still full of fond memories of it. I still have a stack of paperback collections of the comic that I’ve had since I was a child. I hadn’t seen this special since I was a teenager, so I was looking forward to watching it again with grown-up eyes and with my wife by my side. Surprisingly, I did not find it too difficult to be objective while watching and discussing this special. Also surprisingly, it only made it to third place in the rankings. You may not agree with me (Cocoashade doesn’t) but read on and I will explain my reasonings.

Look at those punk kids. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

As the special starts, a Christmas song plays as the children skate around on the pond. Charlie Brown and Linus walk through the falling snow to the lake, with CB looking distressed. They stop at a brick wall (a common setting from the comic strip for deep discussions) and Charlie Brown laments that even though it’s Christmastime, he doesn’t feel happy. He wonders if he really understands Christmas at all. Linus gripes at him that he brings everyone down.

At the lake, Snoopy skates around, forming a chain with the kids. He snatches Linus’s security blanket and whips it around, flinging Charlie Brown into a tree.

RATS. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

There is an abrupt smash cut to Charlie Brown’s house where he’s putting on a coat to go out and check the mailbox. He complains about never getting any Christmas cards and gets all passive aggressive at Violet about it. It’s honestly kind of annoying. Does he ever send out any cards of his own? We never find out for sure. Probably not, considering what a mess he makes writing to his pen pal.

This made me chuckle. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

What follows are a few short wintery scenes: Pig-Pen makes a dirty snowman (literally), the kids catch snowflakes on their tongues, and knock down a tin can with snowballs. (Linus uses his blanket as a slingshot.) Although it isn’t winter-related, Snoopy is reading the paper and munching down on some cartoony bones.

A brutal statement on the mental healthcare system. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

Charlie Brown decides to seek psychiatric help at Lucy’s makeshift booth. Lucy spends some time listing out various phobias and they decide he has a fear of everything. Charlie Brown confides that when it comes to Christmas, he feels let down. Deciding that he needs to feel like he’s a part of things, Lucy nominates him as the director of their school play. (I’m not sure why she has the authority to nominate the director and hand out the roles… why aren’t the adults involved in this at all?)

You’d think Charlie Brown would have a better life. His dog is awesome. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

Snoopy decorates his doghouse in an attempt to win a decorating contest. This annoys Charlie Brown even more, as his dog is falling to the commercialism of the holiday. On the way to the auditorium, his little sister Sally dictates a letter to Santa to him. She starts it off with some small talk and then launches into her lengthy and specific demands. Charlie Brown cries out in frustration and runs away. Sally says all she wants is what’s coming to her.

Director CB. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

At the play everyone is dancing around. They’re all disappointed when they hear Charlie Brown is going to be the director, with Snoopy actively booing. (Snoopy is there because he was cast in the role of every animal in the play.) Charlie Brown lists out his complicated cues like he does in baseball. All the kids ignore him and dance chaotically to the Peanuts theme song. It’s kind of hypnotic, honestly.

I like the blush effect. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

Lucy hands out scripts and Snoopy mocks and licks her. Linus gets anxiety and is threatened by his sister, then glommed on by Sally, who has a crush on him. There were quite a bit of character moments and interaction between the kids and to be honest around this time I had to remind myself this special was about Christmas.

CB presents his tree. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

They send Charlie Brown and Linus off to get a Christmas tree. Amid all the cheap aluminum trees, CB finds one tiny stunted natural tree and decides it needs him. Back at the auditorium, the kids instantly rip into him for his choice of tree. Feeling worse than ever, Charlie Brown asks someone to tell him what Christmas is all about.

Linus’s big speech. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

In answer, Linus launches into a long bible reading that grinds the whole special to a halt. It’s some stuff about wise men and Jesus. Charlie Brown has nothing to say about this, but it appears to make him feel better. He smiles widely and quietly carries his tree off.

Reflecting on Christmas. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

He has a traumatic flashback to Linus’s bible reading… kidding, it’s just playing over in his head. It was only traumatic for me. CB holds his poor tree and looks at the twinkling cartoony stars.

Charlie Brown sees that Snoopy has won first place for his tacky decorations, but he is determined to not let his dog’s commercialism ruin his Christmas. Taking a ball from the doghouse, he tries to decorate the tree, but the ball is too heavy for it. He worries that he killed it, hangs his head, and walks off, feeling worse than ever. (Side note, I love that he’s as bent and burdened as his tree. It’s nice symbolism.)

Singin’. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

The other kids walk up, see the tree, and decide maybe it’s not such a bad tree after all. All it needs is some care. Using Snoopy’s decorations, they spruce up the little tree. Linus even wraps his beloved blanket around it. They all sing a song around it where the only lyric is “Loo loo loo”. Charlie Brown comes back and is happy about what they’ve done with his poor tree. They all wish him a Merry Christmas and sing more. The special abruptly ends.

I dunno, those trees look fine to me. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

Thoughts: That was, in brief, one of the most recognizable and beloved Christmas Specials. I promised earlier that I would be open-minded, so putting away my nostalgia-clouded perceptions for a bit, let’s start by going over the cons of the special.

First off, as would be expected from a special that first aired 58 years ago, some of the subject matter is dated. Notably: skating on a frozen pond, aluminum Christmas trees (which this special, incidentally did its part to de-popularize), and religious-themed Christmas plays. From today’s standards, the animation and voicework are a bit subpar. The smash cuts between scenes are jarring and breaks the flow. For example in the opening when Snoopy throws Charlie Brown into the tree and suddenly he’s in his living room putting his coat on. (Maybe that’s to indicate he just regained consciousness?)

My biggest criticism would be that for a Christmas Special, much of it didn’t have a lot to do with Christmas. Sure, you have lots of Christmas tropes and winter imagery: snow, skating, lists to Santa, snowmen and snowballs, Christmas cards, decorations, the tree… but then you have parts that feel out of place. Snoopy munching on a pile of bones, Lucy and Schroeder talking about Beethoven, the long sequence of Lucy listing out various phobias. It loses its focus here and there in an effort to adapt elements from the comic strips. Some of the jokes and scenes were directly recycled from strips I remember from childhood. (One that comes readily to mind is Snoopy pretending to be different animals and getting yelled at for pretending to be a vulture.) Other parts seem out of place but aren’t— like Lucy ragging on Linus about his blanket. This pays off at the end when Linus uses his blanket to wrap up the tree, giving up his security for his best friend’s happiness.

There is an attempt to make a statement about the commercialism of Christmas, but no real points are made. Commercialism is mentioned several times, but not why it’s a bad thing. It’s implied that Charlie Brown’s problem is that the true meaning of Christmas (something about wise men?) is lost in the decorations and presents, but they don’t really cross the finish line with it. The point is left vague and shapeless. The bible reading was positioned as the climax of the special and it felt jarring and dry. It was pretty much: “Won’t someone tell me the meaning of Christmas?” “Sure Charlie Brown. Blah blah wise men blah blah Jesus. And that’s the meaning of Christmas.“ Crickets.

This made me laugh the hardest. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

But enough complaining. The special had a lot of good points too. I did laugh out loud every time the Peanuts theme fired up and the kids started their flailing and repetitive dancing. Especially when Charlie Brown goes into his lengthy explanation of his directing style and halfway through the music comes back on. Finally it cuts back to the kids dancing and ignoring him. The comedic timing was on point there.

Although I listed the animation and voicework in the cons section, there have been much worse examples earlier in this list. When compared with the three specials I looked at in Part 1, this is a masterpiece. The animation and voicework do serve to make this special unique and give it its own particular feel. I especially like the on-brand drawings and the smudgy quality to the art. The music was great, accentuating each scene perfectly. It’s all very laid-back, jazzy, and low-key, calm and soothing. The colors overall are great and really pop. (Except for some reason Snoopy is gray instead of white.) It all combines to form something that is all its own… often imitated but never recaptured fully.

There are plenty of amusing moments and the whole thing is steeped in nostalgia and fond memories. The ending is super abrupt, as jarring as the scene transitions. Still, while sudden, the kids dressing up the tree at the end is cute and makes for a satisfying ending. While you know the next day they’ll just go right back to ragging on Charlie Brown, for that one night they’ve realized everyone and every tree has its worth… all they need is positive attention and to feel like they’re a part of something.

End card. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

So those were my observations on A Charlie Brown Christmas. It had its ups and downs, but I did like it and I promise I’m not bashing it by being critical. Like with all the specials I covered, I watched this one through twice and wholly enjoyed it both times. As I said earlier, I hadn’t seen it since I was a teenager and I remembered it being like much of the Peanuts stuff— dry, soft-spoken, mild, earnest, and somewhat amusing. These adjectives really sum up the franchise for me. And, really, this special is the pinnacle of all that Peanuts is. Charles Schultz created Peanuts to be a look at childhood— its joys, fears, failures, cruelty, successes, and wonder. There’s also a fair amount of Christian sensibilities permeating it, so what better holiday for the Peanuts than Christmas, a Pagan celebration co-opted and remolded to fit one of the biggest religions?

As with the comic strip, the Peanuts animations were a big part of my childhood. (Snoopy Come Home was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I remember watching A Boy Named Charlie Brown a lot too.) So it was nice revisiting this well-loved special as an adult. I also had a lot of fun sharing nostalgia with my wife as we watched it together. For these kinds of moments, it’s well deserving of its iconic status.

So with all that said… I do feel like it’s a good and enjoyable show, but was it a good Christmas show specifically? I have to say no, not entirely. Although it has a lot of good qualities and was decorated in Christmas the way Snoopy’s doghouse was, it keeps forgetting its point. All the character moments and nods to the comic strip are nice, but leaves the whole production feeling a bit disjointed and unfocused. I feel like more than anything it was a Christmas Special second. First and foremost it was a vehicle to get the Peanuts gang into animation. And that’s where it loses a few points.

But still, number three? Let’s look at the rest of the list.

#2: A Garfield Christmas Special

A Garfield Christmas Special first aired in 1987 as part of a series of primetime specials starring the cat. I remember seeing this special a few times growing up, but it was always overshadowed by the usual holiday juggernauts: Charlie Brown, Rudolph, Frosty, and the like. I believe I also had the book adaptation of it.

Garfield is a comic strip that has been running since 1978 and was created by Jim Davis. It started off as a simple comic about a cartoonist and his sarcastic, lazy cat but has grown into a multimedia giant and internet meme fuel. The strip focuses on Jon, his cat Garfield, and their dog Odie. (Who actually isn’t Jon’s dog, but his owner Lyman disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I’m not even joking about that. Look it up.) Much of the humor centers around Garfield’s gluttony, laziness, and dislike of Mondays. While I enjoyed the comic strip greatly as a child, my love for it has faded as I can see over the years it has become lazy, repetitive, and creatively bankrupt. I much preferred Davis’s short-lived and creative U.S. Acres comic strip, which has fallen somewhat into obscurity aside from its inclusion into the Garfield and Friends cartoon. My preference nowadays for cartoon cats falls to Heathcliff, which is deliciously bizarre and has its own surreal world and logic to it. That and Cyanide and Happiness are the only comics I read on a daily basis.

Jon is… um… wishing on his Santa throne. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

The Garfield special starts out aggressively festive. There are tacky decorations, manic Christmas music, a gaudy Santa throne with flashing lights, Jon dressed as an elf, the whole nine yards. The throne spits out presents which Garfield jumps into like Scrooge McDuck to a jaunty and inexplicably 70s-style Christmas song. It turns out to be a dream and Garfield wakes up, grumpy and disappointed. No breakfast lasagnas for him.

Jon announces that they’re going to the farm for Christmas Eve to see his family and Garfield is unenthused. And hungry. And lazy. And sarcastic. Basically, he’s extremely Garfield about the whole idea.

Jon is super excited and sappy about Christmas and sings a song about it that Garfield chimes in on every line. The cat does his best to bring down the mood, to no effect. I’m assuming in this one Jon can’t understand him? (Sometimes he seems to be able to in the comic strip, although I think canonically he reacts to Garfield’s actions, not his thoughts.)

They arrive at the farm and we meet Jon’s mom, dad, younger brother Doc Boy (a play on John-boy from the Waltons, I’m guessing), and Grandma.

Garfield is about to be hucked into the fire. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

Grandma is sitting by the window in her rocker and acts as bitter and aggravated as Garfield. She quickly proves to be a pistol, however, loud, cheerful and boisterous. She grabs Garfield and says “Well, I’ll be! I remember back when all we had were wood-burning cats.“ (I want to know more about that… is she threatening to put Garfield into the stove?)

That’s good gravy, (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

While Garfield walks in the snow, Grandma puts chili powder in the gravy. Odie digs around in the garage, finding wood and a garden claw, which seems pointless until later in the special. The gravy makes Garfield spit fire, which while cliché, was visually amusing.

Lord, that wallpaper. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

The family all sits around the table and eats, with Doc Boy saying grace and getting assaulted a couple times by Grandma and her gravy ladle. (This is the requisite reference to religion in the special, but it’s brief.) Mom has made an excessive number of pies and Grandma feeds the pets under the table until they’re comically bloated. When dad notices all the food disappearing, Grandma says she’s “eating for two now”, a joke I would’ve missed as a kid.

This is how my cat looks when I pick her up. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

As the family decorates the tree, Grandma and Garfield bond. Jon assigns Garfield the task of putting the star on the tree, a sequence that goes on for a bit. After the tree is done, they all gather around the piano and sing a drab Christmas song.

A touching moment. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

Garfield notices Grandma is alone in her rocker and jumps in her lap again, listening to her talk about her dead husband. It’s more touching than I make it sound, with Garfield curbing his sarcasm and enjoying some affection from a lonely old woman. (I found out later in my research that this scene was reanimated in re-release, and looking at the above screenshot you can tell the art style is a bit more crisp and updated with artistic shadows enhancing it.)

What is with the questionable sitting faces in this? (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

Then Dad has to read the traditional Christmas story— Binky the Clown That Saved Christmas. This part was very weird, with the dad being reluctant and the two grown men acting like little kids excited to hear their favorite childhood story. It would have been way better if they’d played it off as the boys messing with their dad, but they angle it instead as straight immaturity. Meanwhile Odie continues his scavenger hunt, finding wire and a plunger handle.

I lay in front of my space heater like this. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

The animals sleep by the fire and Odie sneaks off to the barn, Garfield stealthily following. The dog puts his treasures together and covers it with a paper bag. While Garfield is spying on him, he finds some old letters. Back in the house, Jon and Doc Boy continue acting immature, which quickly gets old. They pester their dad to wake up at 1 am to open presents because it’s “technically Christmas now”. Doc Boy is wearing footy pajamas with a fluffy bunny tail on it. (I have a feeling Doc Boy isn’t visiting and is one of those guys who never left home.)

I can’t get over Doc Boy’s jammies. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

Morning comes and everyone opens their presents. Garfield gives the letters to Grandma who realizes they’re love letters from her departed husband. She reads some of them aloud, at least the safe for work parts. She stops when the letter gets dirty. (It’s implied, but obvious from her chuckle.)

In the final payoff to the Odie subplot, he presents his present to Garfield. It’s a home-made back scratcher using all the pieces he scavenged. In a rare moment of peace between them, Garfield thanks and hugs him. Finally he’s found his Christmas spirit. He gives a little speech that presumably none of them can understand. (“It’s not the giving, it’s not the getting, it’s the loving.“)

It’s a festive hoedown! (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

Then they all have a spirited hoedown, which is a very odd way to end a Christmas Special.

Thoughts: This special was way better than I expected it to be. I hadn’t seen this in years and couldn’t recall any of it, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m no longer necessarily a fan of the Garfield property anymore. Sure, some of it is okay… Garfield’s Nine Lives is especially creative… I haven’t seen the animation but I had a hardcover and I really liked it. So my expectation was that this would fall much lower in the list, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable. It had heart, it had touching moments, some amusing moments, and the animation was good. It had a lot of energy and was upbeat but not over the top with it. It knew what it wanted to be and it reveled in it. It was tinged wit sentiment, but not in a groan-inducing way.

It wasn’t all good. Some of the humor was flat and the Odie subplot was clumsily done and initially confusing. The choice of music was eclectic and weird, running the spectrum from a cheesy and drab Christmas carol, to pseudo-disco, to twanging country music. Seriously, what was up with the music in this? Cocoa’s theory is that they were trying for a variety show feel like the John Denver Muppet Christmas. Very possible.

It always makes me laugh when one character is silently shocked. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

As I expected, many of the jokes didn’t hit, and the only part I laughed out loud at was the wood-burning cat comment. But I did smile at some of Grandma’s lines. She was a solid character, more fleshed out than the rest of the family, and her bond with Garfield made this somewhat memorable.

As a Christmas Special, it ticked all the requisite boxes: Christmas imagery, family, togetherness, gifts, food, singing, memories, nostalgia, heartwarming sentiment. Clowns. (Okay, that last one isn’t specifically Christmas, but whatever.) If you took away the Christmas, there would be no show left… that’s how rooted it was in its subject matter. Which, ultimately, is why it edged out Charlie Brown for the number two spot. As mentioned in that section, Charlie Brown felt more about the characters than the season, which cost it some points. Garfield managed to walk the edge between touching and sappy and managed to pull off something enjoyable in the process. And it surprised me, which is not something I thought Garfield was capable of doing anymore.

Title card. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

#1: Ziggy’s Gift

Ziggy’s Gift first aired in 1982 and although it won an Emmy award the following year, it is not nearly as well-known as the previous two specials in the list. This one was a recommendation from Cocoashade and this marks the first time I had been exposed to this special. I had no idea it existed until she brought it up.

Ziggy is a comic strip created in 1968 by Tom Wilson, who wrote and drew the comic until his retirement in 1987. After that it was continued by Wilson’s son, Tom Wilson II, who works on it to this day. Ziggy tells the story of a bald fellow with a big nose who never wears pants and lives a life of misfortunes and setbacks with his many pets. While Ziggy does talk in the comic, he doesn’t have any dialogue in the special, which is an interesting choice.

Ziggy in the morning. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy’s Gift starts Christmas-themed straight out of the gate with a wreath, snow, and a peaceful Christmas song about joy and giving. Ziggy wakes up and turns on the news, hearing a report about needy families, charity money being stolen, and donations being down.

Ziggy should seek psychiatric help. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy goes into the bathroom where he appears to have a psychotic break where his reflection doesn’t match him and toothpaste gets everywhere. After this he sees an ad in the paper advertising for charity Santas.

Ziggy gets dressed but doesn’t put on pants since he never wears pants. We do learn, however, that he wears boxers with hearts on them. Weird. He pulls on socks and when he falls over they seem to cover his butt for some reason. But that’s enough time spent talking about Ziggy’s scandalous attire. He uses his scarf as a leash for his dog, Fuzz, which is adorable.

Ziggy has a run-in with a stereotype while a creepy man lurks in a trashcan. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy heads out to get a little Christmas tree, putting it on his sled. He is soon threatened by a stereotypical Irish cop named Officer O’Conner. The cop’s main problem seems to be that he doesn’t want Ziggy to park his sled on the curb. A gruesome gray-skinned thief in a trashcan steals the cop’s wallet, unnoticed by everyone but Fuzz.

I wonder if this guy is trustworthy? (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy arrives at the address to apply for the Santa job. He’s greeted by a very loud and exaggerated guy. The interview is understandably one-sided as Ziggy doesn’t talk. He instantly gets the “job” and the man dresses him as Santa, handing him a donation pot and bell. He tells Ziggy to bring all the money back to him so he can count it and give it to the needy. It’s pretty obvious the job is a front to steal money from the poor as referenced by the news report.

While Ziggy is inside, the sign falls off the door showing it’s a loan office. Officer O’Conner strolls by, seeing Fuzz and the sign and gets suspicious.

That thief looks rough. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy sets off to be Santa and comes across people playing music on a street corner. He can’t find money to give them, but the pot glows and he pulls a fat stack from it. He donates the money and the thief (now hiding in a fire hydrant) sees this.

Walking down the street we see a bit of Christmas commercialism in the gaudy storefront displays. There is a frankly horrifying mechanical Santa in one window. Ziggy gets some donations and another Santa camps out in his spot. (Fuzz pees on him.) The thief steals the other Santas clothes and tries to sneak up on Ziggy to steal the magical pot. Ziggy just thinks he’s another Santa and they have a bell fight, each trying to get the attention of the passersby. When the thief tries to snatch the pot, he’s chased off by Fuzz.

Aww kitty. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy and Fuzz come across a shivering stray cat. Ziggy ties his hanky around the cat’s head like a scarf and gives him a pat. The cat follows them and rides on the sled, becoming friends with Fuzz.

Mmmm, turkeys. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

The next stop is Meat Mart where Ziggy becomes concerned by all the turkeys kept in cages. (I would totally shop at a place called Meat Mart.) The butcher is another stereotype, this time Jewish. The thief reaches into the pot but finds it’s empty. Ziggy silently indicates to the butcher that he wants to buy all the turkeys. The butcher sets a price of $175. The pot glows again and exact change comes out of it. Ziggy immediately sets all the turkeys free and they chase off the thief. The birds go on to presumably rampage throughout the city. (Nothing more Christmassy than destroying a city’s ecosystem!)

After Ziggy and his pets leave, the cop talks with the butcher and what follows is a lengthy and dated dialog of wacky accents.

Ziggy’s a good guy. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Meanwhile Ziggy comes across a homeless man rendered in a more detailed art style. Ziggy gives him his hat and coat. Ziggy is thoughtful and selfless.

So many dated things in one scene. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

The cop has suddenly arrested the loan guy and all his fake Santas. (I have no idea how he caught them so fast. It happened in between scenes.) They’re all crammed in the back of his paddy wagon as the Irish Cop calls the department on a police call box. (See, these are all things that existed back in the olden days like aluminum trees and Jesus plays.) O’Conner’s job isn’t done yet… he still thinks Ziggy is in on it.

The final battle commences. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

The thief still hasn’t given up and this time he’s attacked by both the dog and cat. Ziggy finally notices him as he tries to pry the donation pot away from him. The cop tries to arrest Ziggy and as they’re all struggling in the street, some orphans come to the window and see them.

Was orphans on your bingo card? (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

They pretend to be carolers and the woman who runs the foster home invites them in for hot chocolate. Ziggy invites the pets in and the kids go nuts over the cat.

Cute. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy brings in his Christmas tree and puts it in the donation pot. With the cat’s help they decorate it with yarn.

Why are stars always mystically-charged? (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

One of the orphans points at the cop’s badge and it starts to glow with the same Christmas magic we saw with the donation pot. The cop puts his badge on top of the tree.

More magic, I guess. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Even the thief gets into the spirit, giving his stolen items to the orphans as gifts. The bag starts to glow too and it’s suddenly full of presents for the children. Ziggy makes him check it again and he finds the cop’s wallet that he stole in the beginning. Nervously, the thief returns the wallet to Officer O’Conner. The cop decides not to arrest Ziggy and apologizes for the misunderstanding. They all share a hot chocolate toast to “the little guy and his generous Santa friend”.

Bye everyone! (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Ziggy gives the cat to the grateful orphans and heads off, everyone waving to him. He and Fuzz walk down the street for home and the ending credits play with a reprise of the song from the intro.

I guess they were out of beards? (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Thoughts: I really liked this special. The animation was smooth and well-done, the art stylized, the music soothing and unobtrusive. The title song, while placid and sedate, was enjoyable too. Everything about this was mild and cute. (Except the thief, who was purposefully ugly and made to clash with everything else.) The animation and subdued colors reminds me of my very favorite Christmas Special which I watch every year, Opus and Bill: A Wish For Wings that Work.

Sure, some of it was dated, like the voicework and the things I mentioned in the arrest scene, but it added to the charm, making it feel like an artifact from the past. I would have liked more payoff for the turkey rampage, although they were mentioned a couple more times. After a certain point they seemed to have forgotten about them.

Mostly, though, everything about this was cheerful, optimistic, chill, and pleasant. It stayed focused on its message of charity, selflessness, and good will. And best of all, it didn’t get sappy about it or cram it down your throat. You would think the sight of a homeless man being given a Santa hat or a little orphan girl hugging a stray cat would be dripping with sap, but somehow Ziggy’s Gift made it all work.

Kitty hugs. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

So why did this one get first place on my list? All the reasons stated above, and it had Christmas all through its DNA, woven through every second. There were decorations, holiday symbolism, charity, turkeys, hot chocolate, commercialism, snow, even orphans. It was all about giving and having pure intentions (which is why the magic didn’t work for the thief until the end), making people feel accepted and cared for, and putting aside your grudges and greed to give of yourself to others.

It was surprisingly well done. While it doesn’t have the same clout or recognition as the previous two specials (heck, I didn’t even know it existed when I was a kid) I feel out of all the specials on the list, this is the one that best conveys its message and the spirit of the season. It should get more attention and it’s definitely worth a watch if you’ve never seen it.

The magical Santa throne. (Credit: Jim Davis, CBS)

We made it! Those were the six Christmas Specials I chose for this year. All of them were based off of well-known comic strip properties, most of which are still going on to this day. One common theme I noticed is that things that work well in comic strips don’t necessarily translate well to full-length animations. For Better or For Worse and Family Circus especially felt bloated and off the mark. Beetle Bailey was just weird. The three in Part 2 were very well-done and didn’t feel like they had much filler to speak of. They all conveyed their characters well… FBoFW didn’t do such a good job, at least with Elly. I think they were going for stressed and busy mom but she seemed negligent and thoughtless. Charlie Brown seemed more about the characters and did especially well at explaining who they all were and what they were all about. Except for Charlie Brown himself that is… if you weren’t already familiar with the character you may wonder why everyone treats him so poorly. The short timeframe of the special didn’t allow for much time to get across just why he’s always dumped on. Later Peanuts animations did a better job at getting this across, showing Charlie Brown as unlucky, unfairly persecuted, and crippled by low self esteem. Caught in an endless cycle of misfortune, depression, and hope. One of the main points of the Ziggy comic is how rough life can be and things going wrong for the titular character. While some of this was shown in the Ziggy special, he seemed to shrug it off and just keep going, not letting any minor setback (like toothpaste malfunction or police harassment) get him down for long.

Sigh. (Credit: King Features Syndicate, Paramount Cartoon Studios)

The quality was up and down on these, as were the years of release. The only things consistent were the origins as comic strips and the attempts at injecting humor and sentiment into the stories. How well they accomplished this feat drove the placement of my list. And as I mentioned in the beginning, maybe you disagree and think some of the specials deserved a fairer shake in my assessment. That’s fine, my perception and observations are my own. They all tried, in their own ways, and succeed or fail on their own merits. I found something to like about all of them: the nostalgia of Charlie Brown, the weirdness of Beetle Bailey, the inadvertent morbidity of Family Circus, even the dull toothless writing of FBoFW. I watched them each twice and they didn’t feel like a slog. Except Beetle Bailey. I swear those six minutes took an hour.

Inviting a grumpy old stranger for dinner. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, CTV Television Network)

The specials all tried in their own way to capture the feelings and emotions of Christmas, whether through the lens of childhood, cynical cats, gruff military types, or big-nosed pants-less gents. Whatever your own opinion and feeling of Christmas: if it’s a sweet and loving holiday to spend with your family, or corporate-driven commercial meaninglessness to sell cheap toys, or somewhere in between… it’s part of our culture. And so are comic strips. So it makes sense to combine them and see what happens. (That’s a lot of what culture is, if you think about it.) How well they succeeded at this really came down to how willing they were to embrace the iconography and symbolism of Christmas, how good the writing was in balancing characterization, sappiness, and genuine emotion, and how pure their intentions were. Most of these felt like attempts at branching out from the printed page to animation, and it really shows. The theme song tacked onto FBoFW, cashing in on multiple holidays like Garfield and Family Circus, focusing more on the characters and recycled jokes like Charlie Brown… these all hint at ulterior motives for the special. Beetle Bailey already had a series and this was just the Christmas episode. Ziggy seemed the most pure in intention to me… there was little time spent on setting up who Ziggy is, no other specials were produced… he didn’t even talk, letting his actions speak for him. It stands on its own as a cute little vignette set during Christmastime.

One thing I found very strange (in a nod to last year’s post) is that Santa did not actually exist in any of these specials. He is seemingly allowed to exist in the live-action sitcoms, but not in animation where he would be more likely to fit in? Very odd choice. I mean, he existed in the Opus special, so why not in these? The symbol of Santa makes an appearance in all but the Charlie Brown special… which makes sense considering Linus’s bible reading. But never as an actual person. (Heck he was a robotic throne in Garfield.) Of course, if Family Circus is any indication, this is because Santa is dead and lives on as a disapproving ghost who hangs out in children’s rooms and on telephone lines. (I wonder if the Easter Bunny is also a ghost in the next special. I may have to watch it to find out.)

Dancey dancey. (Credits: Charles M. Schulz, CBS.)

When I first set out to do this project, all I intended to watch were the three that ended up on Part 2. I had a preconception of the rankings. I figured Charlie Brown would wind up first or second, and Garfield would be third place. But I kept an open mind and ranked them honestly according to my opinions, observations, and how the specials made me feel.

And for all my jokes and criticism, I did enjoy watching these. Charlie Brown brought me back to my childhood when I loved the comic so much I named my first dog Charlie and carried around a little Snoopy plushie everywhere I went. Garfield has become a meme in recent years due to the comic’s recycled gags, perceived lack of point, and forced extension beyond relevance. But this was a nice reminder of what it used to be and how much I used to like the comic strip and cartoons. The others reminded me of countless hours reading the funnies pages, clipping comics that made me laugh, getting to know and love these iconic characters and the medium of cartooning. The funnies page formed the basis of much of my humor and creativity.

Whether your memories or experiences of the holidays are good or bad, we all have a yearning within us to spend time with those who accept and care for us. Maybe this time takes the form of giving and receiving presents, sitting around talking and watching festive things on TV, decorating our homes with bright colors and lights, making a big meal and sharing treats with each other… or just cuddling on the couch enjoying each other’s company. Whatever form it takes, we all deserve to have a holiday that works for us and fills us with happy memories and warmth. In their own ways, these specials tried to capture those feelings and that yearning all while celebrating comic strip characters and worlds that have lived and will live on for generations.

This is honestly horrifying. (Credit: Tom Wilson, Welcome Productions)

Good or bad, these specials are a part of our pop culture surrounding Christmas. There are many more I’d like to explore in the future SoraRabbit Christmas Specials, but I’m very pleased with how this two-parter came out. In a way, these Christmas posts have become an important part of how I celebrate the holiday. Thank you, as always, for sharing this holiday with me and for reading my posts this year. I appreciate you all more than I can say. I hope you all have a great Christmas or whichever holiday you celebrate, if any.

But be careful… Santa is always watching. And his ghost is probably up near your ceiling right now.