Strange Lyrics To Christmas Classics

What with Christmas only days away I'm sure at some point during the week you'll hear one (if not all) of these Christmas staples in some shape or form as you celebrate! While all of these have become beloved Christmas classics there are still some head scratchingly weird lyrics that could easily be taken out of context...but then again that might just be me!

Baby It's Cold Outside

Strange Lyric: The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there/Say, what's in this drink - No cabs to be had out there

The entire charm of Baby It's Cold Outside is essentially about some guy trying to convince a girl that it's too bad outside to leave so they can...let's face it...do the deed or possibly make out. Out of all the playful lyrics in the song the one that sticks out as awkward to me is when she asks, "Say, what's in this drink", leading me to believe that the guy is using a bit more than charming lyrics to seduce said lady.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Strange Lyric: Oh what a laugh it would have been/If Daddy had only seen/Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night

Obviously I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus can be taken two ways:

1. Mommy is cheating on the kids father with Santa Claus

2. Daddy is Santa Claus and the kid is unwittingly witnessing some holiday role playing

Whatever the case may be if the lyric in question is number 1 I'm sure Daddy would be doing the opposite of laughing and would instead be beating the snot out of Santa for ruining his marriage.

Jingle Bells

Strange Lyric:

A day or two ago I thought I'd take a ride/And soon Miss Fanny Bright Was seated by my side/The horse was lean and lank/Misfortune seemed his lot/We ran into a drifted bank/And there we got upsot.

You may not be familiar with this line from one of the most popular Christmas songs, but it's in the original version. Perhaps it's been slowly phased out due to the fact that when you are singing an upbeat song like Jingle Bells the last thing to get you into the holiday spirit is you and your lady getting into some sort of sledding accident!

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Strange Lyric: As for me, my little brain/Isn't very bright/Choose for me, old Santa Claus/What you think is right.

I remember singing this one in grade school at a Christmas program. It has the standard asking Santa for various presents for various people lines, but then ends on a bit of a WTF note. You see the narrator basically admits that they are an idiot and don't have a clue what they want, so Santa should just bring them whatever.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Strange Lyric: There'll be scary ghost stories/And tales of the glories/Of Christmases long, long ago

Andy Williams is a holiday staple around my house and his celebration of all things Christmas is truly uplifting (in an over the top cheesy sort of way) as he points out all the things that make Christmas time magical. However the one bizarre line is when he talks about telling scary ghost stories, which doesn't really seem like typical yuletide tradition.

-Astroboy

Cool Things That Never Happened

Occasionally things get made that sound completely awesome but for whatever reason get scrapped or simply never get released due to various reasons. What follows are a handful of cool ideas that for some reason or another never took off...

Heatvision and Jack

What It Was: A TV show created by Ben Stiller and Rob Schrab featuring Jack Black as an astronaut who gets exposed to solar energy to gain super intelligence and teams up with a talking motorcycle voiced by Owen Wilson as they become outlaws and are chased by NASA and Ron Silver.

What Happened: Fox passed on the pilot no doubt because the premise was pretty out there and also due to the fact that Black or Wilson were not really household names yet.

Twilight of the Superheroes

What It Was: After the popularity of the Watchmen Alan Moore wrote a proposal for a 12 issue mini-series that focused on a future version of John Constantine and Rip Hunter coming to the present day DC Universe to avert a crisis that occurs in their future. The main gist of the story would've presented a darker futuristic version of DC characters.

What Happened: After Moore split with DC over creator rights the proposed mini-series was DOA. A few years ago Moore's proposal was leaked online, however by now DC has pulled it from any sites. Rumor has it that the Kingdom Come mini-series that came out in 1996 was loosely based on concepts from Twilight.

Destino

What It Was: Destino was an abandoned project started in 1945 by Walt Disney and Salvodor Dali that looked to animate Dali's surrealist style set to music similar to Fantasia.

What Happened: Basically finances fell through on the project due to the studio struggling financially during WWII. However in 1999 the studio attempted to bring the project back to life going as far to create a six minute short that was released in 2003.

Buffy The Animated Series

What It Was: A cartoon based on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series.

What Happened: For some reason no networks were interested in it. A 3-4 minute promo was made to show networks, but perhaps due to the high cost of making each episode along with the worry that it was too adult oriented for a kids show it was never picked up.

Zack De La Rocha Solo Albums

What It Was: After splitting with Rage Against The Machine the vocalist allegedly started working on solo material with a project that had tracks rumored to be produced by DJ Shadow, DJ Premier and Dan the Automater to name a few. Another solo project saw a collaboration with Trent Reznor of NIN fame.

What Happened: In a nutshell Rage Against the Machine got back together and the projects were abandoned. Though in 2003 he did release a track with DJ Shadow to protest the invasion of Iraq giving a taste of what could have been.

-Astroboy

Christmas Conundrum

The holidays can be pretty stressful! What with all the finding presents, sending out cards, traveling etc. Everyone knows what the hardest part of the holidays is though right? Of course I'm talking about decorating the Christmas tree...I mean Ugh what a pain! If only there was some poorly made video to give us holiday tips on how to properly decorate a Christmas Tree...

So what exactly did we learn:

-Artificial trees have no odor.

-They make great investments, so make sure to buy at least a dozen and then sell them off next year at a higher price.

-Remember to always check for spiders living in your tree.

-Some trees have a theme to them like pets, favorite hobbies or gay movie icons.

-When finished the tree should resemble a tacky bloated ball gown with glittery shit all over it.

-Often times Christmas trees can lead to arguments. Instead of getting a divorce, simply buy a tree that can spin around. That way you can both have the tree you want without coming to blows!

-Another advantage of having a Christmas tree that spins around is so guests don't get bored of your crappy non-moving Christmas tree.

Well those tips were quite helpful! Now excuse me I have to plan my Christmas tree that is victorian traditional and also dedicated to my love of Christopher Walken...

-Astroboy

The Reason For The Season

It's easy to forget with the presents, Christmas carols, cookies, lights, wrapping paper, decorations, Christmas cards, and eggnog; the true reason for Christmas. Of course I'm talking about Jesus's Birthday...right? It seems that every year the ongoing argument pops up around what the real reason for Christmas is: crass consumerism, celebration of a holy day, blatant reason to get presents. Like clock work the media likes to trot out the "war on Christmas" news stories followed closely by the hard hitting look at holiday travel. Why here is a website dedicated to keeping track of "Christmas friendly stores" such as uh, Bass Pro Shops!?

It's always interesting (and yes slightly amusing) to me to see people get up in arms about something as relatively harmless and enjoyable as Christmas. I mean Christmas should be the last thing people should get huffy about. It doesn't matter if you are celebrating the big guys B-Day or simply spending time with loved ones sharing gifts with them; Christmas means different things to different people. Why did you know some folks don't even celebrate Christmas (shocking I know!)?

Of course there are also folks who try to cover all their bases when it comes to Christmas like so! I guess what I'm saying is no matter what your reason for the season...whether it's baking cookies for people, wrapping presents, watching that favorite holiday movie, sitting in front of a fire with a glass of wine, or going to a service...as long as you enjoy it and it makes you happy that should be all the reason you need!

With all that out of the way...

-Astroboy

Blast From The Past: Christmas Specials

A few nights ago I came home from work out of the brutal cold and flipped on the TV to find A Charlie Brown Christmas was on, afterwards I was scrolling through the channels only to stumble across How The Grinch Stole Christmas. For me these are the two cornerstones of Christmas specials (the other two being Rudolph and my all time favorite Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas which I own on DVD). Anyway this got me thinking about some more obscure Christmas specials that I enjoyed as a kid that I haven't seen in a long time that I love dearly, so without further ado here they are:

Twas The Night Before Christmas: By now Rankin Bass are well known for their stop motion holiday classics, but for me personally this cartoon that focuses on a family of mice who live in a clock makers house is a true classic. The plot revolves around a letter to Santa that is published doubting his existence by one of the mice. Obviously Santa is not happy about this and returns all the letters to the children, leading the clock maker to make a clock that plays a song for Santa at the stroke of midnight. When one of the mice children breaks the clock he must scramble to fix it and find his belief in Santa.

The Christmas Toy: Much like Emmet Otter, Jim Henson made this special in the mid-80's focusing on a stuffed toy tiger named Rugby who comes to life along with the other toys when people are not around. On Christmas Eve Rugby decides to sneak downstairs to see what new toys will arrive and attempts to package himself up so he does not become old and forgotten. Unfortunately this one seems to have gotten overlooked on network television over the years.

The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas: I actually owned the book to this as a kid and probably made my Mom read it to the point where she had it almost memorized. Theodore Edward Bear (or Ted E. Bear) decides to skip all that hibernation that most bears spend the winter doing so he can meet Santa Claus and experience Christmas. Alas, this seems to be another Christmas special that is no longer shown.

A Walt Disney Christmas: Before the cookie cutter tween TV shows littered the Disney Channel they use to show actual Disney cartoons (amazing I know!). A Walt Disney Christmas was simply 6 animated Disney shorts cobbled together in a special. They ranged from old Silly Symphonies (The Night Before Christmas) to shorts with popular Disney characters. One of my favorites is Donald's Snow Fight which you can see below.

A Muppet Family Christmas: The cool thing about A Muppet Family Christmas is that it combines Muppet characters from all of Jim Henson's shows (Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock even The Muppet Babies!) as they are snowed in at Fozzie Bears Mom's house. Being a complete Muppet fan as a kid I'm surprised my 7 year old head did not explode with sheer delight. Sadly this is yet another Christmas special that is no longer aired anymore.

So there you have it! After all that my question to you is what's your personal favorite Christmas/holiday special that gets you in the proper holiday spirit?

-Astroboy

OMG LOL WTF PSA!?

PSA's have been around forever telling us everything from not sticking forks in electrical sockets to not start forest fires to crack being wack. Usually these were delivered in numerous ways:

1. An animated character singing/explaining why you shouldn't do something

2. A famous person soberly telling you not to do something

3. A poorly acted conversation between adults and teens

4. Using an egg as a metaphor for something

However with new generations come new problems like...texting! Not only is it adding unnecessary acronyms into the everyday vocabulary of our youth, even worse it is promoting poor/lazy spelling and grammar. Also texting can be used to spread vicious evil lies similar to gossip, except with more punctuation used to convey emotions!

And don't get me started on the dangers of sexting!

Luckily someone thought to make some PSA's to get through to the youth of today in the only way that makes sense...utter absurdity:

That's right the only person to get through to the youth of today about taking pictures of your junk to email to your girlfriend is apparently James Lipton...or more specifically his beard. As someone who currently has a beard let me just say that having a beard definitely helps a person ponder. Why I probably field 30% more questions due to my beard and my ability to thoughtfully utilize it to ponder asked question!

Anyway I must say that as surreal as the PSA's are I quite like them in an odd sort of way! Even more bizarre is the website which involves James Liptons disembodied beard talking to you and giving you advice on texting etiquette.

With all that out of the way James Liptons Disembodied Beard would make a great band name!

-Astroboy

Wishing You A Smeary Christmas

Last year CBS gave some...uhhh....unique holiday gift advice. While that's all fine and good what do you get the women in your life? Or better yet how about a Hanukkah gift for your Jewish friends? Well never fear because this year CBS has got all those bases covered when it comes to gift ideas!

Goddammit CBS I wish you would stop caring! OK let me just state once again: Any present that you get someone involving something foreign going inside their body for a medical purpose is not a good present! I'm all for getting checked out and caring about loved ones, but you know what save the pap smear for a non-holiday related gift/discussion. I mean the holidays can sometimes be awkward enough right? Why make them more comically awkward.

Oh and double bonus points for not only presenting the topic with a straight face, but also including a Jewish pun at the end! *Sigh* They also made a Christmas version:

Good God..."Give her the gift even Santa can't deliver"?! Do we really have to bring Santa into this? Way to make the holidays more creepy and uncomfortable CBS...

-Astroboy