My Christmas Carol Countdown -- clearly the most ambitious Christmas project in the history of Christmas -- has gone a bit slower than I anticipated. With school still in session for another week, I've yet to really dive into my DVDs of Christmas classics, and as such, I haven't gotten to review the best versions of A Christmas Carol in my collection. Still, today I've got two more to look at with you.
Well... let's call 'em one and a half.
Politically Correct Holiday Stories (1995)
Author James Finn Garner managed to create a small cottage industry for himself in the 90s with a few books taking classic fairy tales and fables and rewriting them to be "politically correct." Sadly, this seems more pertinent than ever as stupid buzzwords and meaningless catch-phrases keep invading our language. In this book, which also included such stories as "'Twas the Night Before Solstice," "Frosty the Persun of Snow" and "Rudolph the Nasally Empowered Reindeer," Garner reimagined the classic with an Ebenezer Scrooge whose encounter with the "post-live representative" of his late partner was only the beginning of his problems.
In the politically correct version of the tale, the "Ghost of Christmas Retrospective" shows up with a camera crew ready to interview Scrooge on his unkind ways. Christmas Present takes him around to watch assorted families watching It's a Wonderful Life (on laserdisc!) before dropping in on his employee, Roberto "Bob" Cratchit, and his son, Diminutive Timon. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come sends him to his own grave, only to have Scrooge utterly reject him! Yep -- looks like I was wrong back in Part I of this project when I said "all" Scrooges are redeemed. this Scrooge denies his redemption, only to lose everything when it turns out he was given the "wrong spiritual therapy." He was never supposed to get ghostly visits at all, but instead is to be rapidly deprived of all his worldly possessions. And, as is the case in parodies like this one, he fails to learn a thing.
This version of the story, as well as the other stories in the book, is worth reading for people who get tired of repeated attempts at "sanitizing" the language, replacing words in an attempt to get less "offensive" and overall just try to whitewash the past (am I allowed to say that?) in a desperate attempt at proving that they're somehow better than people were a hundred years ago. A cynical Scrooge, to be sure.
The PVP Christmas Special (2002/2007)
Back in 2002, when he was still with Dork Storm Press, Scott Kurtz did a Christmas special of his webcomic (and one of my favorites),
PVP. This wasn't actually a Christmas Carol spoof, to be technical about it. The story involved the staff of PVP magazine going to the mall to do some last-minute Christmas shopping, when the beloved Skull the troll gets his hands on an Orange Julius from a machine that hasn't been cleaned in a while. The tainted beverage knocks Skull for a loop and causes him to believe he is, in fact, Santa Claus. This delusion is made even worse since, just earlier that day, Skull realized the truth about Santa Claus. A guy who lives at the north pole? Can travel the world at super-speed? Knows who's been bad and who's been good? Obviously, Santa is really Superman.
Kurtz launched an
online animated version of PVP earlier this year, and the last three episodes of the first "season" are adapting this Christmas special, including the scene that makes this qualify for the Christmas Carol Countdown. Brent Sienna, the coffee-swilling Mac enthusiast in the office, has rejected the offer to shop with his co-workers, instead preferring to spend the holidays at home. When his best friend, Cole, stumbles upon the in-store display of a lifetime (watch the cartoon and you'll know what I man), he wishes Brent was here -- prompting Brent and the Ghost of Christmas Present to appear in the midst of what appears to be the second act of Brent's personal attempt at Christmas redemption? Brent's classic response?
"It didn't work last year and it's not gonna work this year."
Both the comic strip and the cartoon are really good fun and well worth checking out.
Where will the Christmas Carol Countdown take us next? Heck if I know.