I have fascinating ideas about the War on Christmas

This is a stridently apolitical blog. But the whole "War on Christmas" thing blurs the line between politics and culture, so I consider it fair game. Especially since -- despite prematuredeclarations of victory, I have new information that can aid the forces of faith and belief.

Ladies and gentlemen, witness the face of the leading perpetrator of the secular attack on this most joyous of holidays:


Andy "Moon River" Williams is many things. He is the owner and operator of the Andy Williams Moon River Theater in Branson, Missouri. He is the favorite singer of Nelson Muntz, who witnessed a concert where Williams sang Moon River as the second encore. And he is the voice behind a Christmas album that is a perennial joy, on which he sings my favorite Christmas song that I look forward to every year.

It's a joyful combination of two shorter songs, "Happy Holidays" by Irving Berlin and "The Holiday Season" by Kay Thompson. And in the song, he does not wish us merry Christmas -- but rather, he wishes us the allegedly secular Happy Holidays. About thirty times.

This song might not make Bill O'Reilly happy, but Nelson Muntz is over the moon. The complete lyrics are:

Happy holiday
(happy holiday)
Happy holiday
(happy holiday)
While the merry bells keep ringing
Happy holiday to you
(happy holiday)
(happy holiday)

It's the holiday season
And Santa Claus is coming 'round
The Christmas snow is white on the ground
When old Santa gets into town
He'll be coming up the chimney down
(he'll be coming up the chimney down)

It's the holidays season
And Santa Claus has got a toy
For every good girl and good little boy
Santa's a great big bundle of joy
When he's coming up the chimney down
(when he's coming up the chimney down)

He'll have a big fat pack, upon his back
And lots of goodies for you and for me
So leave a peppermint stick
For Old Saint Nick, hang it on a Christmas tree

It's the holiday season
(the holiday season)
So hoopdidoo and dickoreedock
And don't forget, to hang up your sock
Cause just exactly at twelve o'clock
He'll be coming up the chimney down
(he'll be coming up the chimney down)

He'll have a big fat pack, upon his back
(yeah!)
And lots of goodies for you and for me
So leave a peppermint stick
For Old Saint Nick, hang it on a Christmas tree

It's the holiday season
(the holiday season)
So hoopdidoo and dickoreedock
And don't forget, to hang up your sock
'Cause just exactly at twelve o'clock
He'll be coming up the chimney, coming up the chimney, coming up the chimney down

(Happy holiday)
Happy holiday
(Happy holiday)
Happy holiday
While the merry bells keep ringing
Happy holiday to you!

Personally, my main issue with the War on Christmas crowd is that forcing us to always say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays seems to give short shrift to New Year's Day. What did New Year's Day ever do to you?

I have fascinating ideas about Yoda.

When they first met, Yoda was debating whether or not to kill Luke Skywalker.

When Luke Skywalker first arrived on Dagobah, Yoda acted the part of a simpleton in an apparent test of character. He demanded a flashlight in return for his help. He made Luke return to his home and eat his crappy food. He tested Luke's patience -- and found Luke's patience wanting.

What would he have done if the disembodied voice of Obi Wan hadn't intervened?

As someone who grew up a die-hard Star Wars fan now living in the post-George Lucas Is Obviously An Idiot (GLIOAI) era, it is tempting to basically throw up one's hands and say, "Who knows what Yoda would have done -- George Lucas is obviously an idiot, so he probably never really thought about that since everything in this stupid universe is obviously a jerry-rigged fabrication held together with spit and duct tape."

And indeed, in some cases this reasoning applies. In the very scene at issue, for example, there is a curious moment where Yoda says that Luke is too old to begin his training. Clearly Luke is just a kid, and clearly Yoda is just searching for an excuse because he fundamentally does not believe Luke will ever make a good Jedi. But this throwaway line (presumably written by Lawrence Kasdan, since it's a telling line of dialogue that you can imagine coming out of the mouth of a real person) was subsequently viciously raped by George Lucas, producing the bastard offspring of the little kid Jedi's in the prequels. This last development we can write off to the fact that GLIOAI.

But the larger issue -- should Yoda begin training Luke? -- is fundamental to the whole structure of the movie, which in and of itself does not suck and can be taken as worth consideration. And it implies the question, what would happen if Yoda did not begin training Luke?

There is only one answer. Luke was potentially the most powerful person in the galaxy, and Yoda was all too aware of the Emperor's ability to turn a naive young man to the Dark Side. There is no way Yoda could let Luke leave Dagobah alive without the Jedi training under his belt to resist temptation. Indeed, even after his training, allowing Luke to leave for Bespin was a calculated risk.

But if Luke had been untrainable -- as Yoda thought before Obi Way intervened on his behalf -- there was only one option: Yoda would have to kill him. Not the most noble thing a Jedi had ever done, but eminently justifiable and indeed the only moral course of action.

I have fascinating ideas about Rankin-Bass.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the quintessential Marvel Comics superhero, because his greatest weakness is also his greatest strength.

I'm hardly the first to say this, but the single innovation that separates Stan Lee and Jack Kirby from everybody else is that they were the first to explore the pain of exceptionalism in comic books. Now it has become a trope and is verging on trite, but back in the 1960's it was revolutionary.

The X-Men are the most pure expression of this phenomenon. They are sworn to protect a world that fears and hates them, and this fear and hate is because of the very powers that make the X-Men capable of protecting the world. It is a sinister loop that has more in common with La Jetée than with the triumphal universalism of Superman. (Note: I have no idea what that sentence means).

Rudolph fits this model exactly. Indeed, in the bright and cheerful utopia of the North Pole, the brutality and racism the other reindeers (and even Santa!) exhibit toward Rudolph is even more jarring than the generalized condemnation felt by the X-Men. Sentinels are less out of place in New York than the exclusionary Reindeer Games are out of place in Santa's castle.

Next year, I will discuss why Hermey is actually a Skrull agent.

I have fascinating ideas about girls just wanting to have fun.

There is a lot to be said about the classic 80's movie Just One of the Guys. I actually wrote my college thesis about how much Joyce Hyser looks like Ralph Macchio when she disguises herself as a boy for important journalism-internship-securing purposes -- and about how the space-time continuum briefly turns in on itself when another character comments on this resemblance even though the bad guy in this movie is also played by Billy Zabka. I discovered in my research that the original draft of the screenplay was written by Jacques Derrida.

But I digress. This movie is also notable for containing the worst line reading of all time. It's by Clayton Rohner, also known as "the white guy from that late-90's Fox show G vs. E that seemed like more people should have watched it but no one did."

Rohner is dismissing a suggestion by boy-disguised Hyser when he says the immortal line, "Yeah, and I'm Cindy Lauper."

Except he doesn't say Lauper. His pronunciation is impossible to transcribe with the English alphabet, but it is something akin to, "Liaaaauuuæper." It's just fantastic.

The only reasonable explanation is that it's a joke at the expense of his character because he's so dorky and out of touch. But no, I've watched this scene thirty times in slow motion, and it's clear that's not what they're going for. It's just a completely gratuitous line in an otherwise good screenplay, a true moment of "this is what the kids say," a desperate and flop-sweat-soaked attempt to seem cool and timely by referencing a relevant celebrity -- that is completely flubbed but somehow made it past everyone on set, the director, the editor, the foley guys, the studio, and everyone else. It is the worst line reading of all time.

I have fascinating ideas about storm trooper helmets.

There are so many wonderful things about the Shockmaster -- the epicenter of the greatest moment in the history of the human game of chess that is professional wrestling -- that he had to be the subject of a new semi-recurring feature here at IHFIAPC: Low Culture Monday.

The Shockmaster, of course, was a new identity created for wrestler Fred Ottman when he moved to WCW from the WWF (where he had been known as Typhoon, one half of the tag team The Natural Disasters along with John "Earthquake" Tenta). He unveiling was meant to be the stuff of legend: live, on the talkshow-within-a-show "Flair for the Gold," as a long-hyped mystery partner for an 8-Man Tag match featuring a who's-who of early-1990's WCW talent. At the climactic moment, he would be introduced by WCW Superstar Sting... and in an infernal explosion of heat and glory Shockmaster would break through the wall of the set and into our hearts.

It didn't work out that way.


(Awesomeness begins at about 3:25 and goes to the end)

The following four things are widely-regarded as the best aspects of the Shockmaster incident:

1. The glittery storm trooper helmet and the long black vest.
   
2. The fact that he falls on his ass and his helmet comes off.
3. The fact that he picks himself up, shakes himself off, and delivers his speech.
   
4. The prerecorded "scary" speech by Ole Anderson

The great unknowable component of the Shockmaster episode is how it would be remembered today if Ottman hadn't fallen on his ass. Because remember: outside of falling off, the glittery storm trooper helmet was not something that went wrong. It was supposed to look like that. Someone somewhere thought this was intimidating -- even shocking.

The Shockmaster is inherently fascinating -- a koan of low culture stupidity, put together with love. Yet there is more Star Wars to the Shockmaster than meets the eye. Yes, there is the storm trooper helmet dipped in glitter. But the oversize vest...where have I seen that before?

There is more than a little Original Jabba in the Shockmaster, I think. We know that Fred Ottman and Ole Anderson were more than a little into Star Wars. I imagine them sitting around, looking at old Starlogs from 1978 showing the deleted scenes, and regretting that George Lucas had moved away from the guy in the long black vest and instead used a giant Muppet slug. This is before the GLIOAI era, so it wasn't unreasonable to look to him for inspiration.

OTTMAN: "Man, this original Jabba actually looked pretty cool."

ANDERSON: "Heck yeah! And you know what would makes it even cooler? Imagine him with a glittery storm trooper head!"

And you know what? They were RIGHT.

I have fascinating ideas about wine.

One day, back in 1978, I was crossing over to Jersey on a ferry and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in - and on it, there was an old, drunk Orson Welles waiting to get off. Wine he was talking about - and he was completely plastered - and I only saw him for one second and he didn't see me at all - but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of old, drunk Orson Welles.

I have fascinating ideas about Doug Ramsey.

Doug Ramsey was one of the original New Mutants, with the code name of Cypher. He was an innate master of languages, which meant he could translate stuff. This wasn't very useful in a fight, and in the comics, his power was mostly used to justify him being a 133t hax0r -- the theory being that least computers were cool. He used to sit around and bemoan his fate.

Cypher is now dead, and he is generally remembered as having the lamest mutant power ever conceived by the geniuses at Marvel comics.

This is all wrong.

Cypher's power makes him arguably one of the coolest and most powerful people on the planet. After all, from early on it was established in canon that his mastery of languages included all forms of communication -- verbal and nonverbal. Human beings give off thousands of unconscious signals all the time: body language ranging from posture to eye dilation, choice of diction and inflection, and just plain flop sweat. Cypher's power gives him the ability to instantly and accurately read all of these signals.

What would this mean in the hands of a creative writer? Well:

• He is a perfect lie detector.

• He is the ultimate poker player.

• He is the ideal politician. In any political negotiation, he automatically knows where you stand, who you represent, and what you want to hide. In any political interaction, he knows exactly how you are reacting to what he is saying, and can change his behavior accordingly.

• He is an unstoppable businessman. He will win any negotiation. As soon as he sits across a table from you, he knows exactly what your bottom line really is -- and exactly what you want him to think your bottom line really is.

• He is the greatest lover in history. Every shudder he interprets perfectly. Every gasp is perfectly judged in how it relates to pressure, friction, and duration. Based on eye dilation and heart rate he knows if he should go faster or slower, wetter or dryer, looser or tighter.

This is the character that turned into a techno-organic cyborg and eventually killed off because he was too boring!

I have fascinating ideas about a Very Brady Corvair.

Okay, so everyone knows that Tackleberry played Sam the Butcher in the 1990's movie versions of the Brady Bunch.

But did you know that Henriette Mantel, who played the part of Alice originally immortalized by Ann B. Davis, recently co-directed a biographical documentary of legendary consumer advocated and noted Presidential spoiler Ralph Nader?

It's true.

I have fascinating ideas about how soon is too soon.

I don't know. But obviously 50 years was too soon. I'll get back to you at 75 years and see if anybody still cares.

I have fascinating ideas about time.

Time is a cruel bitch with a heart of stone. Isn't that right, Gil Gerard?


Yes. Yes it is.

I have fascinating ideas about myself.

My entire life, I have had fascinating ideas about pop culture.

A lot of people may feel the same way, but they are wrong. On the other hand, I am right. My ideas are truly fascinating. They make you look at the world in a new way. They make you look at yourself in a new way. Until now, I have kept these ideas inside, hidden away from public scrutiny, only coming out when I am drunk.

These ideas are fascinating, and now they are yours.