Cartoon holiday specials

I mostly love them.

But I am also mostly suspicious of any new special that claims "destined to be a classic" or somesuch. Things become "classics" because they are well-made and/or touch something in people that people respond to. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is a classic, I think because people respond to a lot of themes in that. (And it's probably the only "mainline" Christmas special to actually quote one of the Gospels extensively).

Well, last night was two Nickelodeon Christmas specials. The SpongeBob one is several years old, and while it's entertaining and all, it's kind of silly and not very meaningful.

The Penguins of Madagascar one - I was a little surprised by the final conclusion, I thought it was actually a surprisingly "grown-up" sentiment and I kind of liked it:

"It's not perfect, but it's Christmas!"

Meaning: things rarely live up to our expectations but we should relax and enjoy anyway. And that maybe, just maybe, pushing to be "too" perfect can lead to things getting ruined. (Or, perhaps more likely: changing up the "jobs" people do because one spoiled person decides they want a "more important" job than they had in the past leads to inefficiency and problems. Heh.)

But there was one line in the special that made me laugh for - I'm serious - three solid minutes.

The lead penguin (Skipper) got the job of playing Santa. ("Private" was his elf). Skipper decided to look up pointers on how to be Santa, using the Internet*

But he winds up having the experience that I think just about everyone looking for serious information on short notice using a search engine did.

And he exclaims: "Curse you, Internet! Twenty-eight thousand cat videos and zero useful information!"

(it's probably funnier "hearing" it in Skipper's voice. I'm not quite sure who he's supposed to sound like - it's a bit like Captain Kirk, but also at times a bit like a more-restrained Kirk Douglas.)

I can foresee using that line myself someday.


(*Again, like a lot of cartoons, there are some holes here. Several times the comment is made that the penguins cannot read, yet they use the Internet to research things. And they also use a Speak-and-Spell like device as a translator on the rare cases where they actually have to communicate with humans in English - and that would presuppose knowledge of spelling and words....)