Starting Up the Holidays with The Small One and Snacks.

 

December is here. At last the curtain is about to drop on this profoundly lame year. What better way to send it packing than a month of cookies, killer Santa flicks, and a hefty layer of snow. Seriously though, where’s my snow? Anywho, what better way to ring in this strange and makeshift festive season than a grab bag of seasonal food, animated specials, and springtime soda? If you’d be so kind as to sit down by the glow of the screen we’ll talk Christmas.

I really wanted to step up my Christmas celebrations as much as possible this year, keeping in mind that big adventures and events are outta the question. One thing I knew heading into this month was that I could watch something seasonal every night leading up that grand moment of presents and eggnog. Unlike my Halloween viewing this doesn’t mean movies, just something holiday flavored each night be it an old cartoon, sitcom episode, whatever. As December 1^st was winding down so came the realization that I’d no clue what to start with. I aimed for something on the shorter side which is how a few items on Disney+ caught my eye. The Small One, animated, just over twenty minutes, should do the trick. Within the opening credits I witnessed a combination of words that any child of the 80s-90s learned to fear, directed by Don Bluth.

In case you’re too young to have ever experienced a Don Bluth movie here’s the breakdown. The guy’s a genius of animation who gave an entire generation of children crippling emotional issues. Guy looks at the sort of manipulative drivel companies like Pixar churn out and calls them sissies. Be it dead families, abandonment issues, childhood sickness, animal abuse, racism, even the damn end of the world, any trauma was a ripe subject for his movies. Since his films didn’t tend to talk down to their audience those traumatizing themes really hit their target. Given just a half-hour to work with he aims a bit small here by just focusing on a farm boy who is being forced to sell his beloved donkey. Just the thing to watch in a year with multiple pet deaths. I swear to god I kept it together.

To make things even weirder the majority of this special has little to do with Christmas. It clearly takes place in a biblical setting so you spend a good deal of time waiting for Jesus or somebody like that to show up. In the meantime you witness the kids friendship with the animal, the shock of learning the family can no longer afford to keep it, and their journey into town to find a new loving owner for the creature. Of course the town is ruled by greed and cruelty so people either laugh at the pair or offer to kill the poor beast. Finally; when all seems lost a smooth operator called Joseph shows up and is all like “yo I need a fresh ride for my babygirl” (not an accurate quotation). With that the small donkey marches off to biblical fame. Admittedly I’m skipping some details but it’s one of those everyone has a purpose stories. Honestly it was alright, and I’m always glad to add some animation history to my memory banks. Just wish someone had invented a Bluth alert.

Outside of emotionally debilitating animated specials I’ve spent some time catching up with seasonal foodstuffs. On that front there’s a very special post coming later this week about the two Christmas elf themed cereals. My recent samplings stretch across a wider span of time from autumnal breakfast items to springtime soda. Take Caramel Apple Jacks for example.

Clearly meant for Halloween, Caramel Apple Jacks took some time to show up around these parts. It’s just as well since the current weather is still in that post Thanksgiving mode of cold and brown that feels so right for candy coated fruit. Sadly the cereal ain’t all that hot on any front. The packaging is generic, neglecting any seasonal elements. The smell is grossly artificial, and the flavor isn’t much better. Regular Apple Jacks have that low key flavor which is easily overtaken by the addition of caramel. While I’m a caramel fan the flavor profile here is way too fake tasting. It’s not an outright failure but there’s no reason for anyone to worry about missing out on this one.

Now here’s an odd one. Mtn Dew Frostbite originally came out way back in March during the opening salvo of lockdowns and face-masks. For some reason not a single store in my whole damn metro area had this stuff. Suddenly, just a few days before Halloween I saw someone standing in a checkout line with a case. With all the speed an overweight mid-westerner can muster I lumbered to the back of the store and fell to my knees in front of two lingering cases. Was all the waiting, searching, and shortness of breath worth it? You bet your damn bippy it was.

Described as an icy cool melon flavor, Frostbite makes me think of what White Out could be if it were good. It’s got a nice bitey chill to it with a smooth fruit flavor throughout. Add to that the great packaging with a frosty shark bursting through the ice within a windy winter scene. The brains at Dew may not have intended it but this is a prime example of wintertime soda. Better yet this is apparently a permanent addition to the line, pending anyone ever restocks it. I’m in love and I highly recommend anyone take some quiet time to sip a can while staring at Christmas lights for a boost of holiday cheer.

It only seems fair during this opening bout of festive features that I actually talk about a Christmas treat of some kind. That’s where Sugar Cookie Hershey Kisses come in. First off I gotta give a hand to the team behind all these seasonal Kisses varieties. They don’t always hit a home run but they keep on swinging for those fences and that makes life just a wee bit more interesting. That’s not to saying anything bad about this Sugar Cookie edition which I’d rank a bit higher on the Kisses ladder. They’re white chocolate with crunchy cookie bits giving them a unique texture that satisfies the need for both sweet and crunchy and the flavor, while not an exact match to their namesake, is fairly solid. As always the packaging is on point with special wrappers for the candies. The downsides are the odd smell and that, let’s be honest, not everyone’s big on white chocolate. If you hate the white stuff then these won’t do anything to change your mind but for those of us who enjoy it these are good to keep handy.

And thus begins my weird Christmas season. Gonna do my best to bring you all some fun items throughout the month. In fact, the only thing in my way is this last week of my final class. Yes; yours truly will finally have upgraded to a bachelors degree. And you’d best believe I’ll be indulging properly in the season before next year brings a fresh search for employment. For now just keep an eye out for that cereal post coming sometime this week between a paper and an exam.

Rambo: Force of Freedom. Return of the Count

 

    Obviously it’s been a few weeks since yours truly has done anything on this site. Well readers; my cat, Forrest sadly didn't pull through from his leg-injury so we had to do the merciful thing and put him down. As you can probably guess I’ve been damn depressed ever since and am only now getting back into the flow of things. I miss my little buddy like mad, and we’re gonna do a tribute to him making him the embodiment of how to enjoy this upcoming holiday season. That’s actually how I wanted to begin this years Halloween coverage but doing justice to my friend is a tough challenge. Today we can do our best by beginning our celebrations the way he would want, with silly television.

    Everyone has something, usually a specific event or date that more or less marks the passage from summer into full Halloween madness. Around here that was the final hometown event just after labor day. Problem is that didn’t happen this year so it’s entirely up to me to decide if it’s time to cover the house in pumpkins and bats. To mark this transition we deserve something that takes a little from both camps, the rollicking sweaty action of summertime and the spooky comforts of autumn. Turns out we can pick right up where we left off last Christmas with America’s favorite mentally scared super-soldier, John Rambo.

    Rambo: The Force of Freedom is an extraordinary oddity in TV history, marking a strange choice of converting an R rated action film series into a regular adventure series for kids. Parents complained and the show didn’t last all that long but man is it ever entertaining. We’ve seen Rambo rescue Santa Clause, actually a former military scientist, from evil organization S.A.V.A.G.E. Much as Argyle wished to see Nakatomi’s take on New Years I just gotta see how the force of freedom hands out candy.

    We begin at the pentagon where the whole crew surrounds a desk making vague threats. Rambo reports that “it’s a messy job but somebody’s gotta do it” right before jamming his giant knife into a poor defenseless pumpkin.

    Across town we meet two young boys wrapping up a full night of trick-or-treating, one of which in a costume that would get him reprimanded for cultural insensitivity these days. We soon learn that the elder of this brotherly pair has a reputation for tall-tales as he convinces the younger one to investigate a strange light inside a spooky old mansion. Wouldn’t ya know the kid is immediately snatched up by some Dracula lookalike. Suppose I should note that this is the count, a returning villain and descendant of Vlad the Impaler.

    After some drama with the kid telling his mom and them calling the cops we get to something more important. Turns out these boys are Colonel Trautman’s nephews so unlike every poor sap that ends up on a milk-carton these kids get a government-sanctioned murder-squad for a search party. Trautman hangs back at the house, the sidekicks hit the streets, and Rambo decides to investigate the haunted mansion solo.

     The next few minutes of the episode play-out like a mix of Scooby-Doo and Commando as our hero navigates the dark halls of the mansion avoiding booby-traps and battling ghost dogs. Ok, so they aren’t actual ghosts, they’re just coated in glitter or something which seems like a bad idea. Imagine the shiny poops after they lick themselves. Anyway; Rambo gets captured and shackled to a wall in a flooding room only to bust out and break through a brick wall like a badass.

    Now the episode totally shifts gears. The lightning intensifies as Rambo does his gear-up montage in preparation for the battle to come. The reason the count was at some D. C. suburb was to initiate a crazy scheme involving the use of kits to attrac lightning and overload the power grid. Why would they do this you ask? So S.A.V.A.G.E. can kidnap the president under the cover of darkness.

    From here on out it’s just one action scene after another. Rambo takes on the count and his thugs, Trautman and the others blow-up bikers on the street, Rambo fights a ninja atop a moving semi-truck before taking on a helicopter full of baddies. As a reminder this is a Halloween episode involving ninjas, and a plot to kidnap world leaders. If the novelty factor alone isn’t good enough for you then you’re just too far gone. In the end the oldest boy decides he wants to grow up to be just like Rambo, poor bastard doesn’t know what he’s in for. Rambo responds with the moral of the story that you shouldn’t tell crazy stories since you need trust to be a leader, yowza.

    Even as a massive horror nut I’ve often bemoaned a lack of alternative Halloween viewing. Sure there’s the amazing Cowboy Bebop movie, and a few family flicks, but I’m always pleased to see different genres like action or comedy mixed with this season, more so if they do it well. This isn’t the absolute best Halloween episode out there but it’s a good change of pace that can be found pretty easily online.

    And with that we are officially started on Halloween goodness. It’s gonna be a rough season for a lot of us, lord knows mine isn’t starting on the best note. Just remember to enjoy the little things in life. Camp out in the living room to watch some cartoons with your pets. Play a board game while fueled-up on pumpkin ale. We may not be able to do the big stuff like haunted houses or going to the theater for the newest movie. What we can do is be like Forrest and hang out in the garage as we watch the spooky weather drift by.