I have never seen this special before. When I was a kid, I thought the song was the funniest thing I had ever heard. Now, I'm not sure why I thought that. The song was meant to be a novelty song, poking fun at Christmas songs, but the fact that there is now an animated special indicates the song has lost sight of its goals. Let's find out together.
The narrator is actually voiced by the guy who sang the song! That surprises me. In the opening, we see Grandma be run down by the reindeer. Scary. Then the narrator says "let's go back to the beginning" and we learn that Grandma has a store. A sort of old-fashioned general store. We meet Cousin Mel, who was mentioned briefly in the song. I always pictured a nerdy guy, but here Cousin Mel is a woman. A woman colored like Daphne from Scooby Doo and shaped like Pamela Anderson. She disapproves of Grandma's business practices, which apparently include just letting people take things and "come back on your next payday." I can see how Cousin Mel would have trouble with that.
The family has just purchased an inflatable Christmas tree. That's dumb. A businessman dresses up as a troll to offer to buy Grandma's store. That's even dumber. Said troll-man (with his insane troll logic) wants to open a new store that will deliver gifts on Christmas Even in a sleigh-mobile. I don't like where this is going. Neither does Grandma, but for different reasons.
Grandma is making fruitcakes, which brings about a stupid song. Cousin Mel diabolically plots to sabotage the fruitcake, thereby driving customers away and forcing Grandma to sell the store. I'm serious, that's what is happening on my TV right now.
Our narrator is questioning Santa's existence. Cousin Mel is very mean about this.
Grandma leaves to take some cookies somewhere or another. The title song begins to play, just as it plays out on screen. Line by line-- sung: She'd been drinking too much eggnog, spoken: "You've been drinking too much eggnog!" sung: And we begged her not to go... spoken: "Please don't go!" You get the idea. I'm beginning to think this special was made ironically.
Grandma goes down. Narrator sees it from his window. No one believes him. Police are called anyway. Female cop sounds like Sarah Palin. Unlike in the song, they do not find Grandma's corpse-- just the outline of her body surrounded by sleigh tracks and hoofprints. I have a feeling Grandma may pull through after all. Just a hunch.
Just like in the song, everyone's dressed in black. Grandma's gifts remain unopened. Grandpa plays cards with Cousin Mel. Then he stupidly gives Cousin Mel power of attorney. Our narrator's world is about to crumble.
The rest of the family seems strangely unconcerned about what might have happened to Grandma. Our narrator emails Santa, because apparently you can do that, I guess? Why didn't he do that sooner, to say, hey, Santa, are you real or what? Cut to the North Pole, where Santa is whining that no one believes in him. You know, if you took all Christmas specials as truth, you'd think Santa was just a whiny bitch, always looking for an excuse to cancel Christmas.
This special is starting to get really weird. Santa has a stash of missing Grandmas. In a circle of beds surrounding a Christmas tree. He sees Grandma's picture in the email and proclaims, "The mystery of Grandma X is solved!" Unfortunately, Grandma has amnesia and has no memory of her grandson. So an elf breaks elf code and goes to get our narrator, who takes the obligatory wonder-filled big-eyed sleigh ride to the North Pole, where he is reunited with the grandma who doesn't remember him. Yet she agrees to go home with him and try to save the store, because she thinks Cousin Mel sounds like a bitch. Santa comes along for the ride, for no apparent reason. Santa ends up going to the businessman (the one who dressed up like a troll earlier) to plead the case for saving the store, except he doesn't plead, he just sort of rambles. And the businessman just gives in and accepts Santa's story, like, "Well, okay, you're obviously the real Santa who moments ago I didn't believe in. I guess the deal's off."
But- uh-oh. Grandma's missing again. I think Cousin Mel hired a hitman. This is the most cracked-out Christmas special I have ever watched. Cousins taking out Grandmas? Who thought this up?
Santa's in jail for running over Grandma. Sleigh-hicular hit and run. Cousin Mel just wants Santa's money. Does Santa have money? How does his business turn a profit?
I looked away for a minute, and suddenly Cousin Mel and her partner in crime are doing a flamenco dance and singing "Grandpa's Gonna Sue the Pants Off Of Santa." What the fuck is going on with this Christmas special??? Good thing it's almost over. I can't take much more.
Cousin Mel is actually keeping Grandma in a mountain cabin. Narrator finds her, through some plot contrivance that I don't care about. He revives Grandma's memory with fruitcake, and then they use fruitcake to win the trial, which makes no sense. Apparently Narrator somehow figured out that Cousin Mel sabotaged the fruitcake, and that is why the reindeer went off course? Because the secret ingredient she used is the chemical equivalent of reindeer nip. How the hell would anyone ever know that?? Anyway, even though Santa did in fact run over Grandma, he is still Santa and people love him and apparently have no problem believing in him anymore-- there's no Miracle on 34th St "is he or isn't he?" here-- everyone just accepts that Santa is on trial, and they don't want Santa to go to jail, because that will mean no more Christmas. This isn't Who-Ville, bitches.
Cousin Mel makes full confession, having not learned a thing, because she's a one-dimensional villain. Santa is free and Grandma is back in business! Everyone is happy. The troll-businessman no longer wants to buy the store, he just wants to franchise it, which Grandma appears to be okay with. Although, wouldn't he have to own the store in order to franchise it? That isn't addressed.
The Narrator wraps things up with "And that's the story, exactly as it happened." And I'm all, "Narrator, you're an asshole. You have sullied the good name of novelty songs. For shame."
Visuals: 1 out of 5
Spirit: 1 out of 5
Nostalgia: 0 out of 5
Humor: 2 out of 5
Music: 1 out of 5
overall: 1 out of 5
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