A Very Monty Christmas!

A couple of years ago, just to break the monotony, I turned Xmas morning into an episode of "Let's Make a Deal". I forced Beloved Girlfriend to don a pirate costume and made her choose from what was behind the curtain or what was under various boxes, etc., accompanied by MP3's of the show's theme song and appropriate audience response. It was all a farce, of course, as she won everything that was under the box or behind the curtain. It was a lot of fun even though I had a raging case of laryngitis and could barely croak out the advertising shpiel.

This year I secretly hid her gifts all around the house and forced her to decipher clues, in poem form, in order to determine the whereabouts of each gift. Lots of ascending and descending of stairs was to be had, much to my demented delight.

She didn't mind the poetic clues but I don't she'll ever forgive me for having to convert them from binary.

Heh.

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This cartoon stems, as most of you have guessed, from the bizarre "misfit toys" segment in the beloved animated Xmas special, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Every time I watch it I wonder to myself exactly what were the writers smoking when they contemplated a toy cowboy riding an ostrich? That's not a toy in any sense of the word, not even a misfit one. That's the sort of thing Jack Skellington would drop down your chimney.

A real misfit toy might be a Barbie with inverted nipples, a '73 Buick LeSabre Hot Wheels car, a Care Bear stuffed with asbestos or a Star Wars Jawa character with a vinyl cape instead of a cloth one.

(What? They did? Really? Damn!)

In fact, if you think about it, there's hardly a single toy in the entire production. When you look closely at the elves making toys you see a cart and a wagon and a ... oh my GOD! What the hell is THAT?



Yes, there was a doll on Misfit Island but unless she was possessed by Satan, and who's to say she wasn't, she seemed pretty normal to me.

Overall, I'm just glad Rankin-Bass got into the animation industry rather than trying to put Mattel out of business.

=Lefty=