I’ve made no secret concerning my love for Disney’s Epic Mickey. I mean, if for no better reason than it’s a sweet, sweet serenade to Disney fans of all ages. See the now unintelligible trailer below…

As far as I can tell, it was a “success” in the states, selling over a million copies following its release last December (yet the Junction Point development team was met with pink slips anyway?)

One of my favorite levels features a Matterhorn made of discarded Mickey merch, including nods to his old games!

Admittedly, it Epic Mickey was a tough sell. Taking into account the sub-PS360 visuals, as well as the waning interest in traditional games on the Wii and motion controls in general, I’m surprised it sold as well as it did.

Meet Pete Pan!

Since then Nintendo’s announced a new console, so I’d imagined Epic Mickey’s day was all but done… But I’m happy to report that Nintendo itself has enough faith in the title, it’s picking up publishing duties in Japan! This is kind of a rare thing for a game developed by a Western third-party, but it speaks to the quality of the title. Plus, judging by the success of Kingdom Hearts, Disneyana is far more ingrained into the culture of the Japanese, so it should be met with open arms.

If you haven’t tried it yet, DO IT, especially since you can get Epic Mickey on the cheap right now. I can’t recommend the game enough, especially the Collector’s Edition, which in addition to a kickass Mickey figure, contains the only DVD currently in print with classic, uncut Mickey Mouse cartoons on it.

Oh, Disney… Hopefully the Japanese are forgiving (of this screen from “Commando Duck“)

SONIC’S CHRISTMAS BLAST
Original Air Date: December 24, 1996

The buffoonishly evil Dr. Robotnik takes over the Holidays, and only one Hedgehog can stop him…

BACKSTORY:

Designed as an edgier antidote to Mario, Sonic’s stardom began right from his very first game, released in 1991 exclusively on the Sega Genesis. The Hedgehog’s success not only kicked off the “mascot craze” of the mid 90s, he single-handedly made Sega a fierce competitor to Nintendo for the first time since the console gaming  market crashed in 1983.

While it’s not uncommon for popular animated videogame icons to get their own animated show, Sega and DIC Entertainment embarked on creating an unprecedented two shows, simultaneously, in September of 1993.

Sonic 2, which introduced Miles “Tails” Prower, was the last game to come out before the series aired

First-run episodes of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog ran for one season in daily syndication, while ABC bagged the rights to air the darker, more dramatic Sonic the Hedgehog (also known as SoH: The Animated Series) for two successful seasons.

BREAKDOWN:

Good God… do I really have to do this?! This is a mind-numbingly stupid Christmas special starring Sega’s restless rodent at his most irritating. Please don’t think me cruel: I was a massive Sonic fan at the time, and even woke up at the ungodly hour of 6AM everyday to watch the idiocy, even as puberty demanded my time would be better spent tricking girls into lewd situations.

Perhaps the first Xmas special star with Down’s Syndrome

I don’t blame Sonic for that, plus this Christmas Special aired more than three years after the last episode of the daily syndicated cartoon had stopped producing shows. (Although, I should mention that, during that time, I did lose my virginity… coincidence?!)

What the fuck is going on?!

But back in 1993 I greatly preferred the oblong, slapstick shenanigans of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog over his more serious Saturday morning counterpart, which actually about a year longer. Now I can see why…

“I, the real Santa Claus, am announcing my replacement!”

Not that this is Sonic’s fault, actually. Looking back, Jaleel White’s (yes, Urkel) personification is far less grating and obnoxious than he’s depicted today; easily more tolerable and humanizing than the Hedgehog has appeared in games over the last decade.

Honestly, the greatest Sonic voice in history

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of the characters. One of my favorite character, Tails, sounds like a helpless, often nagging girlfriend, and Robotnik’s two minions, Scratch and Grounder… They’re pretty much an insult to the medium of animation. If your parents or older sibling ever mockingly impersonated the cartoon characters you loved but they don’t understand, they may as well’ve been reciting Scratch and Grounder dialog verbatim.

Horrible

Of course, it’s not like they had a proper antagonistic role model to look up to. Dr. Robotnik is a horrible, by-the-numbers foil. His evil only extends as far as each self-contained plot allows (“Is Sonic playing tennis? Then I must become THE EMPEROR OF TENNIS!”), and his villainous deeds are all but fruitless, that is, unless his primary goal had been to rehash poorly animated Bugs Bunny gags. So, what are his intentions in Sonic’s Christmas Blast? To be Santa Claus! AHAHAHAH!

Too fat for a Santa suit? That’s just sad

How? He kidnaps and creates a robot of Claus, who then anoints Robotnik the new Santa by way of a closed-circuit Big Brother channel. Why? So he can turn the tables on the Holidays, forcing the people of wherever-the-hell-this-is-cause-it’s-not-Earth to donate and deliver presents down his chimney! AHAHHHAHA… wait, what?

Sad Fact: No one cares about a Santa who doesn’t bring gifts

It’s hardly even whimsical. I don’t know how much I should go into the logistics of something so moronic, but let’s just say that people put up with a helluva lot less from tyrants who depose political leaders, let alone mythical figures who work one day a year. Plus, it’s only gonna get stupider from here, folks. Robotnik’s plan works, and there’s only one hero that can save the day: A really fast porcupine!

“Can you just say what you really mean, woman?!”

We first see Sonic and Sally Acorn discussing how they promise they won’t be getting each other presents this Christmas, and following a slightly sexist discussion with Tails about how all women are basically greedy liars, it’s on to the see what’s happening with Christmas.

Chirpa-Derp-Derp

But lo! Not before a retarded bird halts the action to admire Sonic’s ring. No, not as in the rings Sonic accumulates in his games, but a piece of goddamned jewelry.

Gamers will be as familiar with Sonic’s ring as they are with Mario’s Whip

Where does it come from? What does it mean? Nobody seems to know even though they discuss it at length, possibly in hopes that this thing Sonic’s been wearing for at least a year will be crucial to the plot later.

A courtesy visit

Scratch and Grounder go door-to-door demanding pittance from civilians now under the rule of the new Claus regime. When one guy, whom I believe is a former member of the Burger King Kids Club Gang, can’t donate anything to Robotnik’s Christmas, they take his whole goddamned house!

Why’d you even ask then?

Meanwhile, Sonic sees that major retailers have been completely cleared of their stock.

Blue Friday

That idiot kid with the overbite miraculously appears from behind a dumpster (or perhaps his twin because that kid from the beginning got kidnapped in the previous scene) to inform Sonic and Tails about the plot they missed when it was broadcast over national airwaves.

“You’ve got some special needs, kid”

There’s an evil plot afoot involving immortal robots and towering construction equipment, and their deadly dials are cranked all the way to 11.

This can’t really be part of the “plan”

How do theese two animals gifted with speech, flight, and speed tackle the dilemma? With Bugs Bunny gags, of course!

“Don’t let the mustache throw you, I’m honestly a blue janitor.”

Odd thought it may seem for Robotnik’s primary henchmen to reveal the plan to a minimum wage-making custodial worker, it was pretty common in the series for Sonic to ignore his incredible super powers in favor of more vaudevillian methods of interrogation.

And then everybody dies

My guess is that it was easier to animate. Plus, it’s important to remember that these robots can’t really die, so why not resort to a little slapstick to subvert their programming.

A hideout made of chimneys virtually guarantees an unbalanced Xmas

The location of the real Santa is revealed to be no more than a Spin Dash-wipe away, and Sonic and Tails roar off to the wintery prison. That said, I loved the enemy design in the Sonic games, and the same goes for the tertiary FAIL-bots in the cartoon.

Bad villains, great designs

They don’t do much, but hey, I wouldn’t mind owning an action figure or two.

“Get out here, ya fat bastard!”

A few gags later, Santa is liberated! Yet, in a fowl twist pretty much mirroring the events in the Super Mario Bros. Christmas Special, the Holidays are far from saved saved! Oh, If only there was a series of easily surmountable obstacles built for our heroes to tackle in the remaining five minutes?

Totally feeling like Tails looks right now

It turns out Sonic’s ring is part of a fucking prophecy that unlocks the ability to save Christmas of ’96. They don’t make it clear as to whys and hows, but rest assured the writers fully intended the macguffin ring to save the day by establishing it as far back as ten minutes ago.

Whatever

I can’t tell whether the next part infuriates me, or stays true to the games. Turns out the only way to fix Christmas and get presents out to everyone involves two obstacles taken almost directly from the Genesis. First off, Santa can’t do his job unless someone gets to the top of a mountain. Shouldn’t be too hard to animate, and one blue blur later:

“Anything up there? No? Okay, head down so we can finish the fucking cartoon.”

That’s one meaningless prophecy conquered in less than a second, so what could be the next challenge foretold by the ancients? If you guessed “snowboarding” you’re clearly more versed on Christmas folklore than I.

Chilidogs for every boy and girl!

Apparently, fate dictates Sonic get from Point A to Point B using numerous methods of XTREME conveyance. Doesn’t matter that all of them make Sonic slower – the Hedgehog is a slave to tradition.

Goddammit…

Evidently the day is still not won. The prophesied decathlon has put Santa way behind schedule… God, if only there was someone fast around to do the job.

This is not the ending to Superman, it just looks like it

Sonic nabs all the loot Robotnik lifted and redistributed it around the rest of the world.

D’OOOH, Blasted Hog of Hedge!

Yes, even to Down Syndormed Tiny Tim.

All the boxes contain helmets

Santa is blown away by Sonic’s ability to do his job… so after centuries of work and 20 minutes worth of plotting his rescue while risking life and limb over an omen so idiotic it had to be misinterpreted… Santa fucking quits.

Behold: Sonic Claus!

Huzzah, Sonic is given the full time position as Santa Claus, and from that day forward his games would diminish in quality and not a single episode of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog would ever be made again! Talk about a backhanded miracle.

Merry Christmas, indeed

Nope. The only savior who appears in Sonic’s Christmas Blast is Sega’s alone

Some sort of Santa Claus appears in almost every frame of Sonic’s Christmas Blast, albeit as either an impostor or an exceedingly dimwitted variation. I think I count four Clauses in all: Santa, Sonic Claus, Robotnik Claus, which is most certainly not to be confused with Robot Santa Claus.

Eyeballs or glasses – building both on a robot is a waste of time

Much like our other video game Xmas specials – Koopa Klaus or Christmas Comes to PacLand – Sonic’s Christmas Blast is not meant for normal Christmas consumption. Diehard gamers might get a kick out of it, but only if they’re looking for a reason to get mad and/or something to mock mercilessly. Sonic’s Xmas disaster is just another example of how TV producers assume a coherent script or logic can take a backseat to any sort of Christmas imagery or theme, thus the average viewer will only end up more cynical about the Holidays as a result of watching this horseshit.

PRODUCT INFORMATION (Shop Amazon through us – it helps!)

Sonic’s Christmas Blast is available on a standalone DVD with a bevy of unrelated episodes and as part of Sonic the Hedgehog: The Complete Series. However, for Sonic fans who would like to revisit the Hedgehog’s true glory, I’d strongly recommend Sonic Colors for the Nintendo DS, as it’s far more representative of what made the icon amazing in the first place.

Yesterday’s Christmas Special
A CARTOON CHRISTMAS IPHONE WALLPAPERS

2009′s Dec. 5th Christmas Special
THE GREAT SANTA CAPER STARRING RAGGEDY ANN

CHRISTMAS COMES TO PACLAND
Original Air Date: December 16, 1982

Through some undisclosed dimensional gateway, Santa Claus crash lands in Pac-Land. It’s up to the entire Pac-gang to find his toy sack, fix his sleigh, and drug his reindeer before the Ghost Gang can ruin Christmas!

BACKSTORY:
Immediately following his introduction to the world as a Japanese arcade game character in 1980, Pac-Man could do no wrong.

The original game and a Christmas album completely unrelated to the the cartoon

It didn’t matter that his character and design were attributable solely to the graphical limitations of the day – during the early 80s, Namco’s insatiable circle was the basis for more video game sequels and spin-offs than Mario, with toys, a breakfast cereal, a chart-topping album and – you guessed it – an animated Christmas special.

For a time, Pac-Man’s show was so popular that Tengen based their NES cover art on its design

Hanna-Barbera added Pac-Man to its stable of awful cartoon series in 1982, and according to legend the number of advertisers dying to hock their wares during the premiere necessitated commercial breaks that were twice as long. A single Christmas episode aired during primetime that winter and continues to be shown on Cartoon Network’s Boomerang network every year, even though the show ceased production in 1984.

BREAKDOWN:
Hope you weren’t looking for Christmas Comes to Pac-Land to stray from the Hanna-Barbera formula of weakly animated, asinine storytelling with a lethal dose of catchphrase-spewing stupidity.  Even the Christmas Spirit has its limits.

Those responsible

In case you don’t know, what separates PacLand from our world is its spherical (well, rounded) appearance and an inability to celebrate Christmas.  So Pac-Man, Pepper Pac, and Baby-Pac open the special by minding their own business outside in the snow.

Pac-Man and the fam, rapt in heathen Holiday delights

But there’s definitely something in the air… Not only do we see no sign of the series’ villain, Mezmaron, but even the Ghosts Gang doesn’t seem all that concerned with Power Pellets, the accumulation of which had been one of the series’ primary themes.

In a simpler time, characters fought with their faces

It’s the time of year for B-grade motivation, and if you’re unfamiliar with the only thing Pac-Man can really do, that would be…chomping. Yes, biting each other.  But whereas Pac-Man and his wife “Pepper” bite back only in self-defense (and with the necessary aid of Power Pellets), ghosts Clyde, Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Sue seem hellbent merely on sinking their teeth into something.

Power Pellets are in such short abundance, they’re stored in unlocked roadside boxes and grow on trees.

Once the Pac-Family swallows the pill-like Pellets, they’re momentarily endowed with super powers and can fend off their supernatural attackers.

Wakkawakkawakka

And the Bitees become the Bitten.

Purple is the new blue

Nevermind that nothing really happens after getting chomped…

One of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen

No sustenance is gained, and the figures eventually go back to normal. Pac-Man just falls down and looks dizzy, but the ghosts lost their clothing and must brave the chilly Pac-night to get home for a wardrobe change…

CANON!

Unfortunately, though, their wayward amphibious eyes just so happen to startle Santa’s reindeer this time!

Oh no!

Santa has fallen to earth (er, PacLand) all because of a literally translated plot device!

A warm Christmas image

Santa’s in bad shape, so Mr. Man and the family haul the fat man and his reindeer back to their house for a little TLC.

The precursor to the interrogation scene in Basic Instinct

Santa informs Pac-Man that if he can’t find his sack of ancient toys,  Christmas is fucked beyond all repair.

Even while inside what is basically a video game, Santa is committed to bringing children toys from 1945

There’s no way Pac-Man’s going to disappoint every boy and girl out there on this cultural occasion. And he’d never even seen a human until a few minutes ago, so that’s pretty damned heroic! Or just fantastic writing.

After a brief interlude that sees the ghosts changing into new outfits and going all self-referential…

I know I’m supposed to be taking the piss out of this thing, but this brief aside to the original Pac-Man design was years ahead of its time

…Pac-Man ventures out into the Pac-Wilderness with his trusty pup, Chomp-Chomp (are you noticing a theme yet?!), to find Claus’ misplaced sack.

Pac-Man’s never heard of Christmas, but Nature clearly has

Unfortunately, it’s the ghosts who find it first.

The ghosts develop a rare third interest

In another act of valiant scripting, Pac-Man concocts a plot to dig a tunnel under the snow and grab the bag out from under the preoccupied ghosts.

The reality is that this is one of two actions Hanna-Barbera could animate in less than an hour

And of course, when you’re scripting action based solely in the economic interest of drawing the bare minimum of movement, it doesn’t work:

Durrrrrrr

Chomp-Chomp hides with the bag that’s carrying an entire planet’s worth of gifts, while Pac-Man runs away from the bite-mad ghosts.

I was going to make fun of this until I realized it’s actually extremely authentic to the game

Sadly, he trips and falls, allowing the Ghosts to catch up to him!

The stuff of 1980′s nightmares

Pac is surely a dead man…or perhaps this is a Saturday Morning Cartoon-based special not brazen enough to depict a violent group-gnashing? Yeah, it’s the latter.

One life left

Turns out being attacked by the Ghosts Gang – the lone threat to Pac during the entire series – results in nothing more than a light daze. Nevertheless, Pac-man has failed.  But in the Hanna-Barbera style of moving things along, this somehow resolves the conflict completely and he succeeds anyway.

A little cocoa soothes even the most savage plot hole

With the toy sack secured and the sleigh fixed, it looks like Christmas is fully on the mend. Suddenly, however, we’re then informed that Santa’s reindeer are too sick to fly. Somehow these majestic beasts, who hail from the North Pole and travel the entire world – a good portion of which is experiencing some form of winter – in a single night, have caught cold after crashing in snowy Pac-Land.

Christ, is this thing being animated LIVE?!

Pac-Man leaps into his mid-sized sedan and tugs Santa to a place sure to reinvigorate the reindeer.

Incidentally, Pac-Man’s car sounds exactly like The Jetson‘s

But – wouldn’t you know it – the ghosts are still on the prowl. On the prowl for what? To get Pac-Man, I guess! Sure, they already seemed to have gotten what they wanted, having bitten the guy just moments ago, but this is the motiveless give-and-take standard synonymous with thinly veiled 80’s cartoon shows meant to sell more than commercials.

Kill me later, please?

Now here’s a weird one. The barely articulate “Packy” (as his wife refers to him, with no thought to how offensive that term is to Pakistani people) manages to convince the ghosts to give him and Santa a pass on their pending shenanigans in the interest of preserving the timeliness of a Holiday they’ve never heard of.

Pac-Diplomacy in action

Thus our action starved heroes move along to an orchard where the entire cartoon series’ central object of struggle literally grows on trees?

A foot-high fence ensures that no flying ghosts gain entry

The reindeer feast on the anabolic Deus ex Machina…

No need to test its effects on earth mammals – EAT!

…until the radioactive glow of Holiday performance enhancement lets Santa know that the Power Pellets have indeed kicked in.

“Dude, you look so Pac-ed up right now!”

Mission accomplished, Kringle gets the hell out of dodge at Mach 10, and the gang returns home.

“Goodbye! Side effects may include erectile dysfunction, bone deterioration and loss of the will to live!”

But somebody’s left a surprise that neither the events of the “plot” nor Santa’s trans-dimensional break-out can account for…that must mean Christmas!

A Christmas Tree with all the trimminz

And even after the ghosts have a second change of heart and barge into Pac’s house looking for a fight, we find that Santa didn’t forget about them either.

No, seriously. You shouldn’t have.

Zilch. Two intertwined dimensions was probably one too many. There’s no way the Pac-Man writers were going to leave autopilot long enough to shoehorn Christ into this story.

Plenty. The big guy’s a central character, so why the middling score? If his innate power to shower the world in gifts during a single night can’t get him out of Pac-Land – Fine. If he doesn’t want to lift a finger to help ward off a roving gang of savage ghosts – I can accept that, too. But something about seeing Santa’s calves is all kinds of wrong, thus it’s docked two cookies

Dude, you’re scaring the children…even more than usual!

At the expense of the series’ (debatably) established premise, Christmas Comes to PacLand enjoys a heaping dollop of obligatory Christmas feelin’…which is exponentially stupider than usual and that’s saying a lot. I can only recommend the thing to lifelong gamers like myself, who somehow get a kick out of seeing the medium done a profound disservice.

PRODUCT INFORMATION (Support the site!)

Neither Pac-Man, the cartoon series, nor Christmas Comes to Pac-Land are available on DVD. There are plenty of episodes available on YouTube, some even in an official capacity, but I wouldn’t recommend them. Pac-Man’s magic lies solely within the games he sprang from, and I wanted to link folks to numerous means of getting a fix because I absolutely love the original game, and hey, I write about video games for a living. This will always be my idea of A Pac-Man Christmas:

Pac-Man Collection for the GameBoy Advance contains only the finest Pac-Man games still worth playing, at a super-low price. The GBA game still works on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite, although NOT the Nintendo DSi. Pac-Man Championship Edition is the most worthy update to the original Pac-Man EVER! Fast, fun, and optimized for High-Def, widescreen televisions. And the table top arcade unit we all remember from many a pizza parlor growing up? Super-expensive, but awesome nonetheless. I know I’ve always wanted one, and up until now I had no idea Namco was legitimately selling new ones to the public.

Yesterday’s Christmas Special
THE GREAT SANTA CAPER