PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*
HAPPY HOLIDAYS was the second of six half-hour DTV specials, and the first of the six I've watched. I'm sorry I didn't see this one sooner, because it suggests how good the original SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU might have been, given the more advanced computer animation techniques later available.
I wasn't a huge fan of Original Scooby. I thought it had well designed monsters and locales, but the limited animation undermined all the alleged hilarity of the slapstick sequences with the talking Great Dane and his human buddies. With HOLIDAYS, I didn't laugh out loud, but I found myself watching the action sequences far more attentively than I usually watch any Scooby Doos from any period. Long-time animation director Victor Cook deserves the lion's share of credit here, though to be sure, I've seen other works directed by Cook that weren't so interesting.
Given that HOLIDAYS is a Christmas episode, it's noteworthy that the director and writer manage to work in some creepy moments even when the story's rampaging monster, the Sinister Snowman, isn't on screen. Mister Menkle appeals to Mystery Inc to exorcise the snow-demon menacing his already failing toy superstore, and Menkle's nephew Fabian spins a fairly eerie story about an old Scrooge-type, Vladimir Harstokor, who hated the store and human feeling generally. Fabian puts forth the possibility that when Vladimir went missing, he actually became the Sinister Snowman, able to morph into a variety of shapes (including that of a snow-spider) and to issue blasts of freezing vapor from his mouth. But there are also moments of subtle tension while Mystery Inc prowls around the empty toy store, topped with a clock tower with a frozen glockenspiel.
Is there a jot of originality about how the mystery winds up? No, but I still liked that all the Scoobies were the "classic" type, without any phony hang-ups or fatuous character conflicts. I also liked that the script avoids the most obvious Christmas-story tropes. There's no Scrooge to be saved here. But when a mysterious jolly old elf brings the glockenspiel back to life, there's a sense that the town of Wherever This Is gets a small redemption from past travails.
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