SoraRabbit Short Hop 027: I Wish You a Lame Christmas

Christmas is upon us once again! It’s become a tradition for me to do Christmas-themed content for you here, and this year is no different. I actually have three posts planned. We’re starting with the easiest and quickest of them by revisiting an old familiar property.

If you’ve been reading my other holiday posts, you’ll know I’ve run afoul of the animated version of For Better or For Worse before. I’ve actually covered two of their other specials. You can find those here:

069: SoraRabbit Does a Christmas Special: Animated Comic Strip Marathon Part 1

080: SoraRabbit Does a Halloween Special

If you recall, when I watched the first Christmas special I found a second one had also been made and I suggested (threatened?) to cover it this year. Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I went ahead and did it. It went about as I expected. And so, without further ado, here’s our next (and likely last) foray into the groan-inducing world of the Patterson family!

Title Card. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

For Better or For Worse: A Christmas Angel originally aired on network TV in 1992 and was made by Lacewood Productions. This was the third of a block of six specials and was the follow up to the Halloween special I looked at last time.

As with the other specials, the copy I watched wasn’t the best, so expect some blurry, low-res screenshots. I tried to clean them up a bit, but there was only so much I could do. That’s okay… I think it adds to the experience. Another thing of note, this copy was taped off of television, and was uploaded with the commercials. So we’re trying something new this time— this post has commercial breaks! It is brought to you by no one, I got no money for this, but you have to sit through commercials anyway. Just a little public service from me to you!

This is weird. (Credit: Who knows?)

Commercial Break: The first commercials are about an ornamental bell engraved with the year this particular broadcast aired: 1994. Then there’s an odd jingle about a dairy farm where a poorly-animated family is riding in a sleigh driven by dairy cows. They lift off into the air and suddenly the family has morphed into Santa. I think the point of the commercial is that we’re all Santa inside and you should support your local cows, drinking whatever fluids come out of them. Words to live by.

This is precisely how I looked the entire time I watched this. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

As the special begins, John (the dad) and the two older kids (Michael and Elizabeth) are bringing home a freshly-cut Christmas tree. As they discuss the tree, we’re subjected to our first… I guess you’d call it a joke?

John: “Yessir, she’s a beauty.“

Elizabeth: “How can you tell it’s a she?“

Michael: “Easy. Big on the bottom and not much on top.“

Elizabeth then sticks her tongue out at him. Sigh. We’re in for a long one.

So dignified. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

We then watch the dog, Farley, sleep for awhile before he gets flung across the room after the family hits him with the tree. We’re led to believe this is an accident, but I suspect they’re still mad about all the shit he got up to on Halloween. (I know I’m still mad about it.)

Haha tree too tall. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

They set up the tree but it looks to be about three feet too tall for their living room because John’s spatial awareness is about as good as his ability to tell jokes or prevent his kids from fighting. Michael has been waiting for this moment and runs in with a saw and an axe to trim it and oh my god this is tedious.

“Yay we made a mess!” (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

The mom, Ellie, who didn’t know any of this was going on, walks in with baby April and looks traumatized. Or maybe stoned. It’s hard to tell with Ellie.

Are we laughing yet? (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

April puts pine needles in her hair because, as we established with the Halloween special, stuff in hair = funny/fetish. John goes on and on about how they’d never want a clean artificial tree. “This is tradition,“ he says. “This is what it’s all about.“ As if on cue, the tree promptly falls over, presumably crushing Farley, who yelps off screen. Ellie groans, “This… is Christmas.“

Uh, what? Is that a joke? What IS a joke? Maybe I’ve been misunderstanding humor all my life. And I’d like to point out that we’re now about 3 1/2 minutes into the special and it’s already making me question my perceptions. It had taken me about a half an hour to get to this point with my notes and screenshots. I steeled myself and forged onward.

On my second viewing, I realized that Ellie’s reactions and spaced-out expressions are maybe not caused by drugs… at least not entirely. No, she seems to be acting this way because of the mess her well-intentioned family made and their apparent non-interest in cleaning any of it up. I missed this the first time because it was executed in a very half-assed way, like all of Ellie’s parts. She complains later about how much she has to get done, but then she’s not shown really doing much of it. Poor execution all around, which is the standard for this special, just as it was for their Halloween offering.

Ow. (Credit: Nintendo)

Commercial Break: I actually remember this commercial. It’s for the Super GameBoy peripheral that allows you to play Gen 1 GameBoy and GameBoy Color games on the Super Nintendo. I loved this thing. My brothers loaned it to me while they were preoccupied with their N64. It let me play Pokémon on my TV, which resulted in much more Pokémon playing than I otherwise would have indulged in. The commercial depicts a teen playing his GameBoy and the Super GameBoy magically flies in through his window, enlarges his TV and hurtles a GameBoy cartridge right into his thick skull. He doesn’t die, but is very impressed and steam comes from his ears. It’s kinda awesome, in an over-the-top 90’s sort of way.

Um… (Credit: Fisher-Price)

Next is a pair of commercials for Fisher-Price. They have separated boy and girl toys like they did back in the day. The first is a boy child’s tool workbench where the gag is that the kid is working “just like dad” but the dad is napping on the couch. Specifically, this is called the Action Workshop With Portable Caddy. This is followed by a girl’s dress-up vanity. Because, you know, boys are rugged and handy and girls need to be pretty. Sigh.

After that is a quick promo for a VC Children’s Hospital charity tree voting event. I have no jokes for that because it’s a good cause. In the commercial the announcer lady kept morphing between adulthood and being a kid, since she said Christmas trees make her feel like a little kid. The editing was terrible and I am less merry for having seen it.

Is this foreshadowing? (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Back to the show! Elizabeth is carrying around a box because she wants to decorate the tree. Ellie, sweeping up pine needles, is too busy bitching about all the stuff she has to do, like cleaning and baking and wrapping presents. “I don’t know why they call it the holiday season. It’s certainly no holiday for me!“ she declares. Another of those smug parental moments I mentioned in a previous post, where it feels like it was carefully crafted to make mom and dad nod at each other with self-satisfied smirks.

While they’re talking, April gets into the box and finds a glass Christmas angel tree topper, which startles Ellie. April totally would have smashed that thing in roughly two more seconds if she hadn’t noticed. She scoops it up, which upsets April, and scolds Elizabeth for not paying attention. She says she’s had the angel for years and it’s her favorite ornament.

Hello doomed plot point. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Let’s pause here for a moment. Can you predict what will happen? Think about the subtle foreshadowing and plot seeds they’ve planted here. Got your answer? I had mine, not even five minutes into the special, and I was certain, absolutely certain that I knew how the rest of it would play out. Okay, let’s continue on and see if we were all correct.

Michael is a jerk. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Elizabeth then tries to get Michael to help her decorate but he wants to make big money shoveling driveways. He won’t let her help because she’s too young and girls can’t handle shovels? Anyway, he’s being a dick and belches in her face and it’s all quite hilarious and not boring and unfunny at all. He’s really more of an ass on this one… besting his bully on Halloween and the repeated savage beatings that surely followed must have completely changed his character. Now he’s the bully. The circle of life continues.

John won’t help her either. He’s too busy hiding something behind his back. I only mention this because it comes back at the end and I had entirely forgotten it. He says she can decorate the tree herself as long as she has help. Immediately, Ellie dumps April on her. See where this is going? Yes, Elizabeth, ignored middle child of the family, now has a destructive toddler henchgirl. Christmas is doooomed!

No seriously, any laughs at all? (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

The next part was awful. Michael messes with the snow blower, “hilariously” covering Farley with snow. Then he sings a terrible, off-key song about making money plowing driveways to the tune of Jingle Bells. Trust me, it’s bad. The chorus is “Jingle Dough” if that’s any indication. His friends arrive. His friends— who are always, always shown together, by the way— want him to go sledding but Michael is unswayed because he has to get that Jingle Dough. Damn it, now I’m doing it.

Michael says things like “big bucks baby“ and calls everyone “man” because that’s how Lynn Johnston thought typical 90s kids talked. Close, but we were really more bodacious and cowabunga than that. Turtle Power, man. According to one of Michael’s friends, Dead Man’s Hill is “wicked”. “Yeah,“ agrees the other friend. “We wax this baby and she goes like stink.“ I… I guess that’s good for a sled?

We’ll never know because Michael’s far too busy making money for sledding. He’s close to raising a hundred bucks! He wants clothes and CDs. What, no Super GameBoy? No Fisher-Price dress-up vanity? Oh, no wait, those are for girls. No Action Workshop With Portable Caddy? Nope… clothes and CDs. And maybe, if he has any money left over, he’ll get some “Christmas junk”.

Hmm, wonder where this is heading? (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Meanwhile, the two girl Pattersons are decorating the tree. Well, Elizabeth is. While she hangs stuff on the tree and chatters on about Santa Claus, April is tied with a rope like a dog. But regardless, the baby wants that precious angel. Nothing can stop her, not even a rope. Elizabeth turns her back on her baby sister and this is what happens:

No one could have predicted this outcome. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Yep, April flies across the room, obliterates the angel, and Elizabeth is powerless to prevent the disaster. Ellie walks in right at that moment to yell at Elizabeth for letting her sister help decorate the tree, which is an odd thing to complain about.

Festively sad. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

And then she sees the broken angel and is devastated. Then angry. Ellie rips into Elizabeth for not paying enough attention to her sister and that she should have known better and now her favorite ornament is nothing but tantalizing shards of broken glass which April was moments away from rolling around in.

Festive gloom. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

She leaves her eldest daughter drowning in guilt. Merry Christmas! Elizabeth, for her part, really doesn’t take responsibility for what happened. She says she was watching her sister… kind of. It was all April, not her but no one will listen.

And we leave her wallowing in her guilt and pointing fingers for now because it’s time for a…

MS Paint but the MS stands for Mario and sucks, respectively. (Credit: Nintendo.)

Commercial Break: The first commercial in this block are the winners of the Mario Paint Christmas art contest! (Sponsored by Fisher-Price.) The announcer pronounces it Mare-ee-o, which has always irritated me. I’m not gonna make fun of the art because it’s done by kids on the horribly restrictive medium of Mario Paint. (Which, if you don’t know, was a Super Nintendo game that was basically MS Paint on your TV.)

Next up is an ad for Christmas ornaments that electronically rotate. Then another two ads I remembered. The first was for Walmart where the prices were literally falling off the signs. Get it? Falling prices! Beh. The second was a kid telling a story about aliens and it turned out to be a drawing he made in Mario Paint. They were really pushing that “game”, huh? The block ends with a news promo where I had absolutely no clue what she was talking about. Apparently things happened in 1994 and they were newsworthy. Now you know.

Michael about to spend his moolah, man. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Back to the show, and Elizabeth is still filled with self-pity. She appears to be suffering from acute middle-child syndrome (undiagnosed). She complains to Farley that Michael says she’s too young to do stuff, mom says she’s old enough to know better. April gets away with everything. She’s too little to be big, too big to be little. Blah blah blah.

April, who somehow she was saddled with again, knocks more shit over and Elizabeth wonders if there’s a way to replace mom’s angel. She decides to make one, and yeah, so far this is exactly where I thought this was going. So predictable. (Of course, the bumper after the first commercial break did show a paper angel, so they kind of spoiled it.)

Michael is at the mall with his hard-earned cash. He finds a shirt he likes and his friends wander up to tell him he should get it, green is his color. He says he still needs to buy gifts and they tell him to just get everyone cheap stuff. Great influences there. After they leave, he finds a necklace he thinks would be perfect for his mom. But it’s really pricey. The store manager says that if it’s for someone special, the decision shouldn’t be too hard.

What a crappy angel. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Elizabeth makes a paper angel to replace the priceless memory-laden glass one. But then John comes in to complain that while she was distracted, April made another mess. Elizabeth complains that she can’t do anything right. And, yeah, I pretty much agree. You’re a failure, kid. Do better.

This can’t possibly go wrong. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Outside, at Dead Man’s Hill, some weirdly off-model kids go sledding. (Dead Man’s Hill, the Dead Zone… why does their town have so many dangerous-sounding locations?) Elizabeth is pissed because some kid won’t let her sled with them, so she goes down a different hill, which she doesn’t notice has a sign posted on it specifically stating that no one is allowed to sled there. It makes you wonder how many kids had to be injured that they made a sign for it. Anyway, Elizabeth goes down the hill and instantly dies. The end.

Wouldn’t it be funny if the special just ended here? (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Sigh, not really. She has a great time and scares some squirrels. It’s a blast, up until she crashes through a bush, loses her hat, slides across ice— breaking it so she can’t go back that way— and knocks herself solidly unconscious against a tree.

This kid is up to something. (Credit: Fisher-Price)

Commercial Break: We’ll leave Elizabeth’s fate a mystery as we watch more ads! First is a dull car ad about crashing cars to test them. It didn’t even have any crash test dummies in it. Next is another Fisher-Price ad about an “action garage” where a kid maniacally drilled cars and the garage itself. Following this is a kid’s camera, also by Fisher-Price. Man, FP was really counting on that cold hard For Better or For Worse moolah for Christmas of 1994. And finally there was an ad for the live-action Flintstones movie, on video cassette for only $22.95. Truly a relic of the times.

A very merry Mario to you all. (Credit: Nintendo)

The ad break finished with a repeat of the Mario Paint commercial and a lady saying this special is brought to you by Mario Paint and Fisher-Price. (Because they’d gone almost two minutes without mentioning their main sponsor.)

Mmm, poison. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

The cliffhanger ends as soon as the commercials do… Elizabeth is not as dead as we thought! (Not yet, anyway.) She comes to, but has no idea where she is. Or where her hat went. Back at home, everyone has finally noticed she’s gone and starts to get worried. I wonder how long she was unconscious… it’s starting to get dark when she recovers. John and Michael rush off to Dead Man’s Hill to search for her while Ellie makes calls. Farley is forced to stay home, even though he saved Michael’s life two months before and could probably lead them right to her..

Elizabeth finds a log cabin in the woods where an old lady with an Irish accent is feeding some birds. She is getting sniffly from the cold and the old woman invites her in. Elizabeth resists, saying she’s not allowed to go with strangers. And she’s also not sure if she wants to go home. The old woman asks for her name and says her name is Grace and there, they’re not strangers anymore. “Every good friend was once a stranger,“ Grace says, following up this statement with a creepy pause while smiling broadly. The girl goes home with the old woman and is never seen again.

Dancey dance. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Sigh, kidding again. I’m desperately trying to write better (and darker) endings. The old woman serves her non-poisoned cocoa inside her house. Grace listens to Elizabeth bitch about being the middle child and then, with no provocation, bursts into a jaunty Irish jig about what it means to be a middle child. They dance together and I was so confused. Wasn’t this, once, long ago, about Christmas and an angel decoration? Now it’s about sledding into unknown territory, going home with a stranger, and dancing in her cabin in the woods while her family thinks she’s dead.

Why does this look like a crime scene? (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Speaking of, John and Michael are searching and screaming Elizabeth’s name. They find her hat and preemptively mourn her untimely passing.

Farley uses Lick. It’s super effective. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Grace takes Elizabeth home and teaches her that the middle is the most important. Peanut butter and jelly, the string of a yo-yo, nonsense like that. Elizabeth eats it up. Grace tells her that home is where she belongs, and she shouldn’t be forgetting it. And also warns her not to go to places where she doesn’t belong. (Like the houses of strangers, is the implication here.)

The old woman opens the door like she owns the place, but when Elizabeth turns to invite her in, Grace is gone. She was just a head trauma-induced delusion. I KNEW it! Farley (whose voice is obviously some guy trying to sound like a dog) is happy to see her.

There’s an unintentionally hilarious part where Elizabeth wonders where everyone is and they cut to John screaming “ELIZABETH!“ High-tension music plays as Michael says, “She must be in the river, dad.“ I laughed way too hard at the timing of those lines. As I laughed, John continued having his nervous breakdown, saying Michael needs to come with him because he can’t lose both of them. Yeah, he’s already written off his daughter as lost forever. Things like this happen on Dead Man’s Hill. Michael repents his bullying ways, wishing he’d let her help him and hadn’t treated money as more important than his little sister.

I have no idea what Farley’s expression here means. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Back at home, Ellie is also freaking out, having run out with April to look for her. They all converge and start to call the police, certain that she’s dead. Elizabeth walks in, having fallen asleep, and is confused. Everyone is grateful that she’s still alive. She tells them about how Grace helped her and Michael insists that there’s no log cabin in the woods. So yeah, she’s nuts. They don’t, by the way, take her to the doctor for her concussion.

Hey they remembered it’s Christmas. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

And then suddenly it’s Christmas morning. (Did all that happen on Christmas Eve? The show is unconcerned with letting us know how much time has passed.) Everyone opens their presents.

He looks way too smug here. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Michael got his mom that fancy necklace and thoughtful gifts for everyone else too. He says he’s learned that giving is better than getting. April eats a tie. Farley eats a candy cane. Ellie got Michael the shirt he wanted. John made Elizabeth a handmade wooden box, which is what he was hiding behind his back that one time that I had seriously already forgotten about by this point. “So THAT’S what you were making!“ Elizabeth says, like it’s a big reveal or something.

“Let me just file under T for trash.” (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Elizabeth gives her mom the paper angel and of course she loves it. Or at least pretends to. Hell, she’s probably stoned again.

Elizabeth: “I wanted to give you an angel.“

Ellie: “You are my angel.“

SoraRabbit: *snorts*

No one’s living room is this clean immediately after opening presents. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

John puts the angel on top of the tree, saying, “There. She’ll be one of our family treasures.“ Ellie says “Some treasures you can replace. Others are irreplaceable.” Elizabeth asks her if there’s such a thing as real angels. Ellie says there are, and we see Grace’s face superimposed over the paper angel’s blank face. She was the Christmas Angel all along! And there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Or something. God damn it. The end.

Diagonal elves prohibited? (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Thoughts: What the hell was that? Earlier when I told you all to predict how the episode would play out, did you anticipate that Elizabeth throws a hissy fit, almost dies, is lured into a stranger’s cabin, hallucinates an entire woman and dance number, and nearly has the police called on her? Because I didn’t see ANY of that coming. When I wrote that part, it was because I was certain the glass angel would break, Elizabeth would spend the rest of the episode making a paper one, and her mom would realize that was the superior angel because her daughter made it for her. Elementary-school crafts beat out beloved keepsakes, all is forgiven, we learn the true meaning of Christmas, and maybe Santa Claus is real? I dunno. I thought that would be the entire special. I was very wrong.

This took so many twists and I honestly think they forgot it was a Christmas special for about ten minutes of the total runtime. It was more about Elizabeth’s middle child blues and struggling to find her place in the world. Oh, and Michael randomly deciding to spend all his money on his family for no concrete reason that was given. We don’t even know how he arrived at that decision. He didn’t go back and buy the gifts after thinking his sister was dead. He was shown bringing in the bags as Ellie realized she was missing a kid.

It tried. I can give it that much. As a Christmas special it had the tree, decorating, presents, sledding, Farley ate a candy cane, a baby almost played in broken glass… all fun holiday stuff. I can see what they were going for, but it really did lose focus and go off on a strange tangent about Elizabeth feeling like her family doesn’t listen and appreciate her. The only way she could get attention was to nearly die. And what kind of message is that?

You have NO idea how long it took for me to get this exact frame. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Being very generous, the Elizabeth subplot tied into Christmas by being about family and appreciating the ones you love, but it took way too long to get there, and involved one more concerning (and untreated) head injury than I would expect. They also slapped on the “ohhh, maybe she was a real angel wink wink“ trope, which adds an unexpected angle of the supernatural to the whole thing that feels out of place. The bits from the rest of the special all converged at the end, which felt tacked on rather than a satisfying culmination of the disparate plotlines. It all fizzled.

I really did think that the paper angel was going to be the direction for the whole special, but its reintroduction at the end came across as an afterthought. Like the writers looked at their draft and one of them said, “Shit, we forgot to bring back the angel.“ And the other one said, “OH! That weird dancing lady in the woods? SHE was the real angel all along!“ And the first writer replied, “God damn it, Steve. Okay, yeah, whatever, type it up. We’re close to the deadline and I want to get drunk.“ I’m sure that’s exactly how it all went down. And never mind that Lynn Johnston wrote the whole thing, not a team of writers, one of whom was named Steve… what, she can’t talk to herself? Don’t we all have a team of hack writers in our heads?

Seriously, Christmas felt like an afterthought. But hey, they did a better job of telling a coherent story than the Halloween episode, which was all about bullying and a naughty doggo. There was character growth and everyone learned something. Ellie learned her family heirloom wasn’t as important as her daughter’s life. John learned deep down he’s terrified of outliving his children and has no idea how to handle a crisis. Michael learned money is best spent on the family. Elizabeth learned that her family loves her and also it’s okay to go home with strangers if you know their names. April learned glass is fun and ties are delicious. And what did we learn? Angels are real and strangers have the best cocoa.

You know April’s going to rip this thing to shreds next year. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

So, yeah, that was our third For Better or For Worse cartoon in one year’s time. I promise I’m done with these for now. I think I’ve mined this property as much as I can. I just want to reiterate, like I did with the first special I covered, I don’t hate the comic strip. I’m not planning on reading all of it (like I am for Peanuts and the Boondocks) but I recall liking it as a kid. It’s earnest, at times sweet, and somewhat amusing. And I respect the hell out of Johnston’s decision to make her characters age in real time. That’s creative, innovative, and more artists should take risks like that. (The baby on Hi and Lois is still a baby, 70 years later!)

That said, the cartoon is awful. My opinion. As always, no offense to anyone who happens to love it… the SoraRabbit Hole is a judgement-free burrow. Me, however, I find it bland, lame, and low-effort. That’s why it’s so much fun to make fun of it. And, for that reason, I like it. I both like and loathe it. You’d think that contradiction would get confusing, but it describes so many things in my life, post Rapsittie Street Kids. It’s the bitter taste that makes everything in life just a little bit sweeter. For that, I salute it.

Cronch. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)

Thank you so much for reading. I know this post is really stretching what a Short Hop is meant to be, but it didn’t seem worth a full post, especially since this is a holiday bonus for you. You know, like the kind of holiday bonus you get at the better jobs, only instead of money you earned the reward of reading through text descriptions of a thirty year old special and commercials.

Anyway, like I said, this will likely be our last visit with the Pattersons and their holidays. I know I’m always hard on these specials, but it’s fun and it’s how I get through banal, weak attempts at heart-warming entertainment. I appreciate every single one of you (even the middle children, I guess) and until we see each other again, hold your loved ones close, be careful where you sled, and go make that Jingle Dough, man.

SCREAM. (Credit: Lynn Johnston, Lacewood Productions)