Christmas With RiffTrax Bundle - 4 VOD 8 Shorts

Magic Christmas Tree
We’re happy to present the first ever RiffTrax Christmas special! In the spirit of the season (that is, delusional hysteria and madness) we’ve dug up some hilariously bizarre holiday oddities, all new to us and never-before riffed!

Join your hosts, Mike, Kevin, and Bill, as they:
*Exchange gifts, with vintage toy commercials
*Riff a new short, The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives
*And riff the main event, Magic Christmas Tree!

Magic Christmas Tree is a fresh slice of holiday weird, sure to bring back cherished childhood memories. Remember how your parents used to tell that old Christmas tale of a boy who hit his head trying to help a witch retrieve a cat named Lucifer, hallucinated for months, and befriended a creepy, sarcastic tree? No? Well that’s probably for the best, you were a young, impressionable child. But you’re ready now!

Gather the family, get a bucket of eggnog, and settle in for Christmas with RiffTrax!
 

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny
"Man's Greatest Achievement." This was the entirety of the note we wrote down in the official RiffTrax screening room log book for Santa & the Ice Cream Bunny.

If "Man's Greatest Achievement" doesn't do it for you, then perhaps the actual tagline from the Santa & the Ice Cream Bunny movie poster will: "What a Story!"

You will have to ignore, of course, that Santa & the Ice Cream Bunny barely contains a story, let alone a coherent thought. But you'll be willing to let this pass, since it does contain pigs, gorilla suits, paper mache birds, soiled Santa costumes, child endangerment and, of course, an Ice Cream Bunny.

What is an Ice Cream Bunny? We're not quite sure, and the movie doesn't really bother to explain. Evidently he has a fire truck with an air raid siren, and lives at a place called Pirates World. We also know that we are strongly in favor of ceding all power to it and letting it enact whatever foul agenda it desires, just as long as it lets us take a ride through Pirates World in that sweet, sweet fire truck.

It's one of the strangest and most baffling pieces of outsider art that Mike, Kevin and Bill have ever riffed, and we were only 65% kidding about that "Man's Greatest Achievement" thing. Please join us in experiencing: Santa & the Ice Cream Bunny.
 

Santa's Village of Madness
Ah, Christmas. That magical time of year when Santa travels all over the universe by means of the fifth dimension, (which his close friend Merlin invented in a floating space castle), delivering toys that were made by a skunk in a factory overseen by a wolf in a village whose head of security, Puss in Boots, occasionally has to fend off giant ogres.

A story so familiar and comforting, it’s like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket. By which we mean it’s so insane and twisted, it makes the Ice Cream Bunny look like Tiny Tim Cratchit.

Christmas with RiffTrax: Santa’s Village of Madness is three shorts from the mad mind of K. Gordon Murray, who brought you the MST3K episode Santa Claus. Featuring cheap mascot costumes, terrifying music, an utter lack of coherence and a Santa who appears to have been dead for most of the shoot, they are some of the most astounding things we have ever laid eyes on, and will quickly become a new yuletide tradition, provided your eggnog is adequately spiked.

Mike, Kevin and Bill will be your hosts throughout your journey, introducing each short with their best brave faces as they stare into the abyss of Christmas Skunks and magic flowers that subvert the space/time continuum!
 

The Star Wars Holiday Special
Have a Happy Life Day! And nothing kicks off a memorable Life Day quite so much as watching the legendary Star Wars Holiday Special receive a fully deserved Rifftrax parody treatment! Yes, all your favorite Wookiees are here: there's Chewbacca, Malla, Itchy, Lumpy and Art Carney.

Tony Award Winner and Oscar nominated Diahann Carroll as a singing holographic prostitute who services Grandpa Itchy. Not only that, there are commercials from 1978 that will come close to convincing you that "1978" is fairly synonymous with "Hell".

Because we taped ours off of the television set, and our NV-9300 doesn't have an "edit" function printed on one of its dozens of plastic piano key-style switches, we just left the commercials in there.

Bill, Mike, and Kevin make this the itchiest, lumpiest Life Day of them all!
 

A Visit to Santa
Just in time for the holidays, RiffTrax presents our take on A Visit to Santa, a Christmas short of unknown origin that most probably was the result of Santa's short-lived collaboration with the producing team of Screwtape and Wormwood. Rather than being a right jolly old elf, Santa here is depicted as the Dark Prince of a vast slave empire made up entirely of children under 10 - it's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with less dignified clothing. Or put another way it's Manos: The Hands of Fate without the elephantiasis.

Mike, Kevin and Bill fall on it like a Christmas goose in a brand new downloadable video!
 

Christmas Dream
Santa Claus, famous fat Saint, is best known for his advances in forced deer flight and his work as a firm-but-fair elf foreman. But the man is even more gifted than his great big sack (*cough*), as we learn in the supernatural thriller Christmas Dream! Call him Professor X-mas, as his telepathic powers will awe and terrify you. (Did you call him Professor X-mas yet? No? Fine, whatever.)

One Christmas Eve, a foolhardy young girl discards a toy she is no longer interested in upon seeing her new, less-horrible toys. Never mind that the forgotten toy was little more than a hot dog with hair, this is a transgression that the patron saint of creepiness cannot forgive! While the girl slumbers peacefully, like the total selfish jerk that she is, St. Nick enters her dreams to give the monstrous doll life. It proceeds to torment her with its special brand of high-pitched Christmas horror. Will she learn her lesson and accept that change is always bad, or crack under the pressure and find herself in an asylum for children, gnawing on her own hair? Either way, this doll is gonna break a lot of her stuff!

Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill as they dance the mad carnival dance our dark lord Santa demands in Christmas Dream!
 

Christmas Rhapsody
George Bailey running down the streets of Bedford Falls. Linus explaining to a hushed audience what Christmas is really about. A desperate Arnold suiting up as Turbo Man for the Christmas parade. In no specific order, these were our top Christmas movie moments. But we think that after watching Christmas Rhapsody, you will agree with us that the scene where the The Forester's family sings an off-key version of "Silent Night" to their Christmas Tree has to belong in our top three. So goodbye George Bailey! Happy new year to you—in jail!!! Or just not on our list, whatever.

Yes, Christmas Rhapsody, the latest entry in the Rhapsody series, comes fresh on the heels of Thanksgiving Rhapsody and Cyber Monday Rhapsody. And though Webster's defines Rhapsody as "A highly emotional utterance or literary work", most of us know that the true meaning of Rhapsody is a depressed sentient Christmas tree, bemoaning its own "No Account" status in the world. If Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree and Eeyore the Donkey had a baby whom they denied the prozac it so desperately needed, it would still be more fun to talk to than the tree in Christmas Rhapsody.

Yes, we just created a donkey/tree hybrid baby who is evidently able to talk and has been prescribed Prozac by a medical professional. We need help. You, on the other hand, just need a dose of Christmas Rhapsody!
 

Christmas Toyshop
Can't anyone tell me what Christmas is all about!? an exasperated Charlie Brown once asked. Well, pace Linus van Pelt, the true meaning of Christmas—according to Christmas Toyshop—is a criminally incompetent father, a drug-dispensing demon of the night, and a bored and detached Santa who spins magic mushroom induced fables to two captive children. Other beloved Christmas themes include war, a killing spree, and an attempted murder suicide by an arachnid—in easy-to-view cartoon form!

Join Mike, Kevin and Bill for a warm cup of holiday cheer!
 

Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
You know Dasher, of course. And Dancer, no need to refresh your memory there. Prancer, you go way back. Vixen is as familiar to you as Comet, not to mention dear old Cupid. Donner and Blitzen, why you had them over to your house for chili just the other night. But do you recall the most famous donkey of all? Neither do I.

That's why Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey performs such a great service. It offers THE authoritative biography of this under-appreciated representative of the species Equus asinus. And it makes a great RiffTrax!
 

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
The story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has been told and retold countless times, in film, TV and song. All of those other versions are better than this one. Even the cold war-era East German version "Rudolf van der Schlittenfahrt", which features far more marching and distant machine gun fire than a Christmas special ever should.

The short begins with the bold step of having a song which relates the entire story of Rudolph to the audience, rendering itself redundant. It then takes the even bolder step of completely disregarding the well-established Rudolph canon to tell its own twisted version of the tale. A version that involves ice skating reindeer and provocatively-dressed reindeer moms. A version where Santa and the reindeer deliver presents to other reindeer and rabbits. Where are the human children? What kind of vengeful god created this world? Why is Rudolph's luminous nose referred to as being "twice as bright as a beet" multiple times? Why? WHY!?

These questions are best pondered over a warm mug of eggnog, with the assistance of Mike, Kevin and Bill. (Please refrain from adding your own "Like George Washington!" at any point in time during the short.)
 

Santa Claus' Punch and Judy
When you ponder ideal Christmas entertainment for children, do you think of a centuries-old tradition of violent puppetry, complete with domestic abuse and offensive minstrel-themed puppets thrashing each other? Well, you’d better--what’s that? That IS what you think of? Exactly that? Yes, well I realize I asked, but it was intended as a rhetorical question, really a set-up for a joke--what’s that? Oh, well I suppose that is a rather hackneyed structure for making a point, but...you know what, why don’t you just get the hell out of here!

For EVERYONE ELSE, Santa Claus’ Punch and Judy will serve as a disturbing, yet delightful, foray into puppet-based hate comedy that predates Jeff Dunham by hundreds of years! It’s a special treat, as avid Punch and Judy enthusiasts, known as “Punch men” (these people actually exist) have named this particular performance “the best to have come from the States” (this is an actual quote).

Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Santa Claus’ Punch and Judy: hilarious puppet mayhem that will have the kids laughing, and then sobbing in confusion, for years to come!
 

The Night Before Christmas
It’s the sunniest Night Before Christmas yet. Not a creature is stirring, not even the stuffed, mummified mouse that’s lovingly stapled to the floor. Sugarplums dance in the heads of children, causing the children to wonder, what’s a sugarplum, and why would it dance so suggestively? At the heart of it all is a man with one simple goal—a long winter’s nap, uninterrupted by any sort of clatter. Boy is he in for a surprise!

Hold on to your stocking cap (or, as we know them today, sleeping hat) and prepare for a holiday home invasion the likes of which you’ve never seen. Unwantable toys will be given, boys will wear dresses, and the reindeer will test all limits of tiny-ness! It’s a story as fresh and timeless as that 4th of July egg salad you’ve been meaning to take out of the trunk. So check out The Night Before Christmas now, before Disney adapts this half-page poem into a 4-hour epic next year.