I can’t say I ever thought of sci-fi when thinking about Christmas or thanksgiving but that didn’t stop Nelvana from doing animated specials and may the holiday gods bless them for it. Thinking about it, it’s a match made in heaven and can’t believe it hasn’t been done more, the potential is huge. With that said because of when they were made they aren’t the greatest quality But I was still happy to check out what they had to offer and hopefully we get more space themed thanksgiving and Xmas specials in the future
Untergalactic Thanksgiving 1979
This movie is also called Please don’t eat the planet, I guess if they preferred to market it more as an ecological movie than a thanksgiving special and it’s not like either of these themes are hard coded into the plot. I mean I guess they’re kind of there but it’s really subtle at best, I kind of wish there was more of either of the themes the titles are going for and it would’ve made the special more interesting but I don’t know what they were actually thinking.
I mean you start with cosmic farmers, that’s interesting and the story has them relocating after an ecological incident and basically invade another planet but to make it a little less hostile the aliens in that planet need their help because of their foodmaking machine literally eating the dirt of the planet. It sounds more interesting than what it is since most of these aspects aren’t really touched upon and need to be inferred. They start as enemies but eventually become friends and that’s how the first intergalactic thanksgiving began I guess. Decent animation for the year.
not many thanksgiving specials, space one and a space xmas one too 79
Cosmic Christmas 1977
The concept of Xmas in another planet or another location is pretty interseting to me, although here it’s a bit of the opposite. It’s Alien robots who come to earth and the kid teaches them about Jesus. He shows them around the world to see if they alien A.I. can learn the lessons of how to act and understand what Christmas is. They don’t quite get it until the end after a tragic incident and they leave their selfishness aside and embrace the holiday likely to take it back to their home in space.
In a way this special is like the Nightmare Before Christmas in the sense of someone discoverin Xmas but not quite understanding it, of course, that description gives a lot more credit to the special than it actually deserves. It’s far more interesting on paper than what you get on the screen but still, it’s rather peculiar that if you just want something new to watch for a holiday special you could do worse.
At only about 24 minutes each, you can easily get in the mood of the holidays through this bad cartoon specials and call it checkmark that you made the effort to watch something related to the holidays. But hey, the concepts are interesting enough that I’d love to see a modern interpretation of this, there’s enough there to do something cool.