Christmas Specials are a fickle bunch…few of them really stand out, leaving most to be cheesy and hackneyed Christmas messages that end with an inexplicable snowfall. Since becoming a parent time around Christmas has become limited with spare time being used to hastily assemble playsets during nap time. In short, there isn’t time to watch a great number of Christmas specials that mostly act as filler. So if we’re going to watch one, it’ll be the 2012 episode from The Looney Tunes Show.
It carries a pretty similar theme as most Christmas specials – learning the true meaning of Christmas. During the episode we follow two different stories, both being kicked off by the unseasonably warm weather. Their city has been struck by a heatwave with temperatures hitting 100F (which is less than the average Australian Christmas) and nobody is feeling Christmassy. Quite the contrary, Daffy seems determined to suffocate himself rather than face the heat. Change comes in the form of Lola Bunny, determined to get everyone in the mood by staging a production of A Christmas Carol. After she does some rewriting the final script does little to resemble Dickon’s classic and is quickly derided as the worst play ever written.
Foghorn Leghorn, meanwhile, has his own plan. He decides to build a giant fan and transport it to the North Pole to blow the winter weather down to everyone else. Daffy gets caught up in the scheme and joins him in his pilgrimage but it quickly turns in to a survival situation.
Unlike usual Looney Tunes Show episodes the two plot threads don’t neatly coming together at the end. Daffy’s story is funnier, having a very amusing reveal in the conclusion, but Lola has the main narrative. Although her play is awful and funny it isn’t quite as terrible as it could be, and it resolves with the usual Santa ex Machina. It’s a solid episode with a couple of chuckles but it’s not the best the show has to offer.
So why am I writing about it? Because of the song.
During December it feels as though there’s no shortage of Christmas songs with pop bands producing covers for chart positions while the classics get recycled, but it’s been over fifty years since a new big hit joined the playlist. Seriously, ‘A Holly, Jolly Christmas’ came out in 1964 and it was the last big Christmas hit that has lasted beyond its debut season. New releases are all about the novelty value rather than lasting impression.
This song is not only catchy enough that you don’t mind it being stuck in your head for a week, and charming enough that it may put you in the Christmas spirit. You’ll no don’t get a laugh out of it, especially at the Christmas Wraith. So go and watch this special. Or watch this clip.