Podcast Christmas Creeps

Our pals Niall Flanagan and Dwayne Moloney, co-hosts of the Secret of the Sailor Madness podcast, join us this week to try and make sense of Rankin/Bass' 1967 Christmas special The Cricket on the Hearth! Based on Charles Dickens' other holiday novella, Cricket plays fast and loose with its source material to make it suitable for television. Certain…

When we discussed A Karate Christmas Miracle last year, we swore that we wouldn't touch its follow-up unless we had no other choice. Ladies and gentlemen, that day came far sooner than we expected. A Wrestling Christmas Miracle has the distinction of being the only Christmas movie to feature the late, great Gilbert Gottfried. Going into this, that …

Please enjoy this week's Stocking Stuffer to tide you over until our next full episode. This week we're taking a look at The Norm Show, Norm Macdonald's foray into the world of late-90s sitcoms. In this episode, "Norm vs Christmas", Norm tries to show his co-workers how magical Christmas can be, with a non-denominational holiday party, a Secret San…

This week we return to world of Jim Henson with the 1992 holiday classic The Muppet Christmas Carol! You know how this story goes: Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old turd who only loves his money. Three spirits show him the error of his ways, yadda yadda yadda Christmas is saved! But the Muppets put their own unique spin on this tale, with some help…

Happy New Year to one and all, and welcome to Season 8 of Christmas Creeps! We kick off the new year with the little-seen 1987 animated Christmas special Christmas Every Day. Based on an 1892 short story by William Dean Howells, this cartoon seeks to answer the question: What would happen if we celebrated Christmas every single day? Not only does t…

Last week we pit the original Home Alone against its 2021 remake. Of course the remake didn't hold a candle to the original, but there is still a bit of unfinished business we need to discuss. On this podcast, we attempt to rank all of the traps from both films. First we rank all the traps in the original Home Alone. Then we do the same for Home Sw…

Merry Christmas to one and all! We don't usually pit two films against one another, but since it is Christmas we thought we'd give you fine listeners a little holiday treat. Home Alone is one of our generation's unassailable holiday classics. We've covered a number of its sequels on the show before, but tonight we're finally digging into the 1990 o…

This week we discuss the nostalgia-fueled Nintendo frenzy of the film 8-Bit Christmas! Inspired in part by A Christmas Story, the film tells the tale of young Jake, a kid like any other in 1988 who just wanted a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas. As you can imagine, this week's podcast is going to be wall-to-wall Video Game Chat. We under…

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Or rather, Happy T-Hanksgiving! This week we dig deep into the Tom Hanks-filled 2004 animated feature The Polar Express, which somehow manages to turn Chris Van Allsburg's 32-page book into a feature-length adventure full of magical train-hopping hobos, swing-dancing elves, and one kid's quest to continue believing in …

On this week's episode, we attempt to explain the weirdo madness of the 1985 Rankin/Bass special The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus! Based on a story by "Wizard of Oz" author L. Frank Baum, this special features a council of immortal wood nymphs, an army of invisible trolls, and an elf that may or may not have inspired a character from The Legend…

We conclude Home For The Horrordays with James Wan's The Conjuring 2! Set against the chilly backdrop of Christmas, Conjuring 2 is based on the Enfield Poltergeist, a true haunting case from the late 1970s in which a ghost supposedly haunted a single mother and her four children living in the north of London. And joining us this week is our old pal…

The days are getting shorter... A chill is in the air... The smell of candy corn lingers... That can only mean one thing: It's time for HOME FOR THE HORRORDAYS! For this year's spookytimes, we're spotlighting a pair of holiday horror sequels. On this episode, our pal Stuart joins us to bear witness to the wanton police brutality of Maniac Cop 2! Th…

This week Bradford brings us an episode of the Viceland comedy series "Nirvanna The Band The Show". The episode, titled "The Bean", follows its stars' attempt to sneak a float into the Toronto Christmas parade as a means of promoting their rock band that may or may not actually exist. Christmas gags abound on this episode, including a surprisingly …

Let's try that whole Dog Days of Summer thing again, huh? Santa Stole Our Dog! absolutely has a dog in it, and this time it might even be important to the plot! Why on earth would Santa steal someone's dog, anyway? Well friends, this is not the first time a little critter has followed Ed Asner home... And in order the tell the full story of Santa S…

Welcome, dear listeners, to the Dog Days of Summer! The season is winding down, but it's hotter than ever out there, so what better time to stay indoors with a cool holiday treat featuring some cute little puppers? Well there's a problem... This week's film, 12 Christmas Wishes for My Dog, was sold to us as exactly the kind of holiday/dog shenaniga…

Happy Christmas in July, superfriends! You didn't think we'd be doing one, but guess what? We're doing one! And wow is this one a doozy... A Karate Christmas Miracle is one of those movies that defies explanation. A kid sets out to teach himself enough karate to reach black belt by Christmas in order for his missing father to come home after a year…

Welcome back, friends! We're officially halfway to Christmas, so we figured what better way to round the corner on 2021 than with some toasty, heartwarming Muppet goodness! A Muppet Family Christmas first aired in 1987 with a whole host of musical numbers, and due to copyright issues the special has appeared in a truncated form ever since. Unless y…

And now, we bring you the thrilling conclusion to the Let It Snow trilogy! This week's film is a romantic comedy from the late 90s, when indie cinema was all the rage and bucking Hollywood trends was a surefire way to get yourself noticed! That's a fancy way of saying this movie doesn't know what the hell its doing. James and Sarah meet on a snow d…

Memorial Day has come and gone! Summer is unofficially here! It's freakin' hot outside! Since we're all sweating our butts off, we decided one good Let It Snow deserved another. That's right, this week we're discussing another film titled Let It Snow. This one is a horror film out of Ukraine, about a pair of dumb American tourists who find themselv…

We're finally back in the saddle this week with a Christmas movie that made all of us feel extremely old. It's the Netflix original film Let It Snow, which follows three sets of teens on Christmas Eve, each in search of love in one form or another. Naturally, all of these stories converge, and we have a real Love, Actually situation on our hands. T…

Last year, in the middle of COVID lockdown, Joe and Bradford got good and drunk one night and recorded three episodes of a brand new podcast all about The Adventures of Pete & Pete. What you're about to hear is the first episode, in which we discuss Season 1, Episode 1: "King of the Road". Topics of discussion include: Our own adventures at the Hoo…

This week we remember the late, great Christopher Plummer with a look at the 1978 heist thriller The Silent Partner. Plummer plays a bank robber disguised as a mall Santa; Elliot Gould plays the bank teller who sees him coming and pulls a heist of his own. The cat and mouse game that ensues is as chilling as it is entertaining. Also in this episode…

Kurt Russell is back as everyone's favorite Santa for another wacky holiday adventure! It's Christmas Chronicles 2, a film that opens up the world of Santa and the North Pole, but in the process squanders practically everything that made the first film so charming. Also in this episode, we get into the proliferation of the dead parent trope, the fu…

Happy New Year, everyone! We're back in the saddle after a long winter's nap, and after this week's episode we may be rethinking that... This week we unravel the baffling existence of Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa! This computer-animated special aired in 2002 on the now-defunct WB channel. It was lost to history for years until internet s…

Merry Christmas to one and all! The big day is finally here! This time every year, we like to celebrate July At Christmas with an obnoxiously patriotic action film! This year, we're dipping back into one of our favorite series with Live Free or Die Hard! It's a Die Hard! It's a 4th of July movie! It's got everything! Okay, so maybe that last part i…

The twinkling of tiny LED Christmas lights can only mean one thing: The holiday season is officially upon us. That means home cooked meals and dysfunctional family visits and traumatic memories suppressed with copious amounts of egg nog. With that in mind, this week's episode is about all of those things! On this episode we're talking about the 200…