Tag: television

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This Just In

Your First Vampire, The Count, Dead at 78

If ever there was a vampire whose death we should mourn, it is The Count from Sesame Street. Jerry Nelson, the talented muppeteer who portrayed numerous characters over the years, including the Count, is dead at age 78. For many, this character was the introduction to numeracy as well as to word play (The Count, get it? Get it?) I can’t help but think that this link between vampires and a near obsession with numeration is the subtext for the vampire on that episode of the X-Files that Mulder distracts by spilling a box of matches which the OCD blood-sucker must stop to count before attacking. A stretch? Perhaps. But ponder for a moment the poetic fittingness of numbers which go ever on and on with the notion of immortal life represented by the undead. The Count was a cuddly monster, a near contradiction in terms. Though Jerry Nelson be dead, let the Count live on.

One. One heart-felt tribute. Two…

http://www.sesameworkshop.org/our-blog/2012/08/24/in-memoriam-jerry-nelson/

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Christmas Movies

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #9 — The Martians

Mars might need women but it also needs Santa, at least according to the 1964 special Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. To be fair, the martians in this classic tale aren’t really all that monstrous, though a case could be made for the mean spirited Volmar. Second string bad-guys include a polar bear that looks like a reanimated rug, and maybe Torg, the martians’ robot that appears to be made of paint cans and cardboard boxes spray-painted silver. The real reason why they collectively appear on this list of the Ten Best Christmas Monsters is because “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” is quite likely the most horrifyingly weird Xmas special there is– simply a must see.

Too many snobs misread SCCTM as being simply “bad.” It is rated obscenely low on the IMDB and frequently makes lists of the worst films of all time. Mystery Science Theatre mocked it – an honor of it own, sort of. Yet, and I say this as a snob myself, many of these same critics ooo and ahhh over the style of Mad Men and camp of the Pee Wee Herman’s Christmas Special. “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” should be seen squarely in the context of those two works.

But make no mistake, there’s something seriously weird about SCCTM. Certain elements of society are extrapolated as in normal speculative fiction but here, they’re just strange. For instance there is a critique of automation that now some fifty years later appears quaint if not bizarre. The low budget production for the most part enhances this effect from the curious face paint of the martians to the set dressing of the martian spaceship. What the HECK is a “radar box???” Sure, you could go insane while contemplating the words of Lovecraft’s forbidden tomes — or you could pop in a video of SCCTM for a similar brain scramble.

But for the record we should go through the checklist. Are they monsters? Well, they’re definitely not human. And since they kidnap Santa Claus, the martians can be considered antagonists of Christmas, even though I suppose they’re more concerned with importing than eradicating the practice. But it’s mostly the work as a whole that earned the martians from “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” slot 9 on the DailyNightmare’s Ten Best Christmas Monsters.

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Christmas

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #10 – Heat Miser and Snow Miser

What would the holidays be without familial discord? The patron monsters for dysfunctional families are perhaps best represented by Heat Miser and Snow Miser from the 1974 Rankin and Bass animated special The Year Without a Santa Claus. The bone of contention between these brothers, as I recall is the classic assertion that Momma loved you best — in this case Mother Nature. The pair get points just for raising the suspicion that family get-togethers might not be the best prototype of peace on earth.

Be they monsters? They’re not human at least. Heat Miser and Snow Miser are elemental forces, lightly personified and given quaint powers representative of those elements.

But granted, they’re among the lowest sorts of monster for a couple reasons, hence their low standing on this list. First, the havoc they wreck for the most part is mostly directed at each other. They aren’t primarily concerned with general mayhem – they’re maybe more “gothic” than “horrific.” Furthermore, they seem all too eager to set aside the differences that made them monstrous in the first place. For that matter, it’s a bit difficult for me to believe that such a primal disagreement could be resolved so handily within the context of a 48 minute TV show. I’m to believe that Christmas is the time of miracles, I guess.

Still for presenting a plausible depiction of sibling rivalry writ larger than (human) life, we at the DailyNightmare.com salute Heat Miser and Snow Miser as the #10 Best Xmas Monsters–if they can share the spot without fighting.