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Top 12 Worst Christmas Specials

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(Sorry for the lack post; this is the last thing I'm posting)

Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. This will be the last thing I release in 2016, and it's the absolute WORST Christmas specials of all time. Whether it be a botched message, a blatant cashgrab, or just plain horrible, you'll find it on this Naughty List.

12- A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas- Personally, I really don't even hate this one. It's definitely the weakest of the Harold & Kumar trilogy, but I needed a #12 so here it is. Honestly, I don't even have much to say about this one except, if you liked the first two it's not worth watching this one. I mean, if you want to see a cokebaby fighting drug dealers, or Neil Patrick Harris pretend to be gay to sleep with women (yeah Neil Patrick Harris is in this one too and he's probably the only reason I'd recommend it), then be my guest. For everyone else, just watch Bad Santa or something this year.

11- The Night B4 X-mas- Do you like MadTV star Aries Spears and rapper Earthquake? Do you wanna see them in a christmas special? Of course not! The Night B4 Christmas is one of those movies that feels like it's both trying way too hard and not at all at the same time. The plot is that an elf named Elvin doesn't want to make toys. Not because he wants to be a dentist but because he wants to be a rapper, and meets up with another aspiring rapper (a dog named Pup Daddy--HA!), his girlfriend and a gnome for some reason. Honestly, the only reason I remember this after it aired on Cartoon Network years and years ago is because I've seen so many reviewers come back to it nd say just how bad this special is. I don't really think it's good but it's definitely not bad.  

10- The Christmas Orange- I've only heard of this one but it's always fascinated me for the longest time. When I finally got the chance to sit down and watch it though...it kinda perplexed me. It kinda feels like it tries to take bits and pieces of stuff like Miracle on 34th Street, The Town Santa Forgot (which I felt it was trying the hardest to be like for so much of this special), and abunch of other stuff, but unlike Christmas is Here Again, the sums of its parts never add up to a full project. The story is that a boy who was born on Christmas assumes that everyone in town is actually celebrating his birthday every year, but then when he finds out that EVERYONE gets presents because it's Christmas he decides to make a list over 90 pages long. Christmas morning, however, all he gets is an orange and he decides to actually SUE SANTA OVER THIS!!!! I honestly don't even know how to respond to this, guys. The animation is stiff and kinda cheap looking, the voice acting is far below professional, but I just think I have it in me to say that I hate this one. It's more like a seething, boiling over...meh. 

9- Dexter's Laboratory 'Dexter vs. Santa's Claws'- You could argue that this choice might feel a little too obvious or too predictable, but I honestly can't think of another Christmas special on Cartoon Network (not made associated with Teen Titans Go) that utterly missed the point this bad. Dexter wants to prove that Santa Claus isn't real, but when he's confronted with ACTUAL EVIDENCE OF A REAL SANTA CLAUS, He just tries to kill him!!! Okay, even after every episode of Dexter's Lab I can honestly say that this might be Dexter at his absolute most out of character ever--even more than Rude Removal, because at least that was an evil clone. This...this is just an affront; it's like one of the animator's story jams accidentally got made into an episode.

8- The Year Without a Santa Claus (Live-Action Remake)- let me be clear: I LOVE the original Rankin-Bass Year Without a Santa Claus, and I especially remember loving the Miser Brothers Heat Miser and Snow Miser. This movie, however, is just all wrong! John Goodman makes a surprisingly good Santa Claus, even if it feels like he doesn't have enough to do with the part. The rest of the cast, though...well, Snow Miser's actor is okay but casting Harvey Firestein to play Heat Miser JUST FOR THE PUN ALONE is simply unforgivable. It still falls into all the same traps that every bad adaptation does but I think this one actively goes out of its way to steer directly into them.

7- A Fairly Odd Christmas- Show of hands, who was asking for a LIVE-ACTION FAIRLY ODDPARENTS WITH DRAKE BELL OF ALL PEOPLE?!?!?!?! I'm honestly quite surprised that I never bothered to have a review for the shitty Live-Action Fairly OddParents movies, but I suppose I should give a brief summation of the last one: Drake Bell is the worst casting for Timmy Turner possible; this is like some kind of joke, like when Jack Black was going to play Green Lantern. Danielle Monet as Tootie just makes literally no sense and everyone else in the movie is equally miscast, the jokes are unfunny, and the story is fucking stupid (if Channel Chasers predicted that Timmy would have his fairies all the way through High School, why would he need to bother with the facade of staying 10-years-old forever--even though that's already the plot of ANOTHER, MUCH BETTER FOP special). Okay, the story here is that Timmy and his now girlfriend Danielle Monet (because I refuse to call her Tootie just because the script does; if they gave Drake Bell Timmy's signature pink hat and everything--as silly as it is--then the bare minimum they could've done is given Tootie her glasses or just ANYTHING) are now traveling around the world in a van granted kids wishes, which sounds more like a shitty spin-off. Turns out Timmy has unintentionally been doing more harm than good so he's confronted by Santa (who he's already met one at least three different occasions). Predictable Save Chrismas plot from there; it's just filler but I'd actually argue that Fairly Odd Summer is the worst by far.

6- The Christmas Tree- how could I NOT talk about this one? This is a film that needs to be studied for how legendarily bad it is: literally every single thing is wrong from the acting (or lack thereof), to the writing, the animation, the characters, every possible thing is wrong and the movie doesn't evn make much sense anyway. Okay, so there's this lady who runs an orphanage and scams money out of the mayor to keep it open, then this woman shows up with her husband and daughter looking for work, and then at the very end Santa Claus shows up because...I don't even know how this thing was conceived but it's almost become a punchline, a self-parody of every bad Christmas special in a single film.

5- Elf Bowling The Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike- WHY?!?!?!?! Why is this a thing that exists??? Elf Bowling is exactly what it was always meant to be: a stupid little Flash game on the prehistoric age of the Internet that's mildly amusing for about 10 minutes before you go back to playing Minesweeper or worrying that your computer will try to kill you when the new Millennium rolls over or whatever. This...look, I could just start and end this entire thing with "Santa is a pirate" and move on, but Elf Bowling seems to be the most unique form of bad I've ever encountered. It's not even like this is incompetently made as much as it's like it was intentionally made to be the worst Christmas movie of all time and make an adaptation that makes The Last Airbender look like The Peanuts Movie in terms of faith in the source material. Aside from my #2, this is probably the absolute worst (stand-alone) Christmas thing that exists.

4- Christmas With the Kranks- Is there really ANYONE who's ever given this movie any positives? I saw this thing in theaters (y'know, cuz I'm an idiot) but I can't tell you thing one about it except I don't think there was anyone who found it at all funny. Basically, Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis's (a couple who make ABSOLUTELY no sense and couldn't be more random together) daughter goes away for the holiday to help with the Peace Corps, so Luthor (Allen) decides that it would be much easier and cheaper for them to just skip Christmas this year and go on a tropical cruise for themselves. This is apparently some type of heinous, unforgivable sin as everyone in the neighborhood (led by block captain Dan Aykroyd) tries to force them back into conformity and does everything short of outright assault. I'm not sure this was intended as a comedy, even if it's labelled as such, but if it is, this has to be one of the worst comedies I've ever seen. There's not a single joke that lands, not a moment of any actual comedy or humor, and it's clear that the script was TRYING to make this funny but absolutely none of it works and no one acts like a normal person. I'd say this was like something out of a Dan Schneider series but it doesn't go far enough for that.

3- Deck the Halls- I don't know how you could make a movie like this, but I feel like this entire thing just doesn't know what it is: it's not a light-hearted family comedy because of all the raunchy humor, it's not a dark comedy because it doesn't go far enough and its characters aren't shitty enough people, but it's definitely earned its place in the top 5 of everyone's Naughty List for a reason. Matthew Broderick (an actor I should hate far more than I do) is a family man who is absolutely OBSESSED with Christmas to the point of mapping out the entire family traditions. However, his new neighbor Buddy (played by Danny DeVito) quickly begins an all-out Civil War with him when he decides to try and make his house visible from space. The characters are extremely mean-spirited, the acting is awful, and--like I said with I Didn't do it a LONG time ago--just because your characters are backstabbing, horrible little shits adding a laughtrack doesn't make these antics cute, funny, or enjoyable. I can't help but feel there was a massive disconnect between DeVito and Broderick: Danny thought he was doing a dark comedy like in Death to Smoochy or War of the Roses, but Broderick just thought this was a regular comedy and the two just kept fighting over it back and forth. 

2- Rap Sitti Street Kids: Believe in Santa Claus- Originally, I had Deck the Halls here...but then I found Rapsittie Street Kids and INSTANTLY knew that I couldn't leave this off the list. The animation is LEGENDARY for how awful it is (this is what The Christmas Tree would look like in 3D), the character models range from slipshod to fucking horrifying, and the actors they conned into making this piece of shit should feel so ashamed for having their name on this thing. I tried watching through it but my eyes started bleeding after 5 minutes and I had to stop; just check out RebelTaxi or Bobsheaux's reviews if you want to see just how bad this one really is.

1- Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas- I couldn't put anything else at #1. Even calling this a movie feels too generous. This has got to be the biggest, most disastrous lump of horseshit I've ever seen when it should've just been aired on TV once or been direct to On Demand at best. This has to be one of the least professional, least...just least. it's over an hour of two guys sitting in a car, Kirk Cameron preaching his bizarre, alien theories, and the director playing the audience expy to his mad ramblings going "Wow, that's so amazing! You're just the smartiest smarty-smart pants and everyone should be listending to you!" then it ends with a dance number. Honestly, I don't think I need to talk about Kirk Cameron's attempts to try and fight the scores it got because I feel like he took the wrong approach: he should've went the Sharknado or Birdemic route and EMBRACED the fact that people were watching his movie as an unintentional comedy. This movie, for as awful as it is on a filmmaking level alone, truly deserves it's title as the worst Christmas Special of all time, and I would highly recommend seeing it as a So Bad It's Good experience; this is the "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" of this decade.
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13mcjunkinm's avatar

I don’t put Harold and Kumar 3 on the list. Personally I would’ve put on the list:


Christmas…Again?! (DCOM)

Regular Show: white elephant gift exchange.

Home Alone 4 to 5.


That’s all I could think of.