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Merry Kitschmas

Murderous, masturbating Santas -- seasonal tchotchkes aren't what they used to be

by Dan Tobin

Once upon a time, Christmas was about giving, loving, praying, and celebrating our humanity -- yadda, yadda, yadda. Soon it evolved into a celebration of the retail industry and the manufacturing of weird seasonal ephemera (talking plastic Christmas trees, silk Santa boxer shorts, and raunchy greeting cards). Then came Silent Night, Deadly Night, a movie in which jolly old St. Nick plays a psycho murderer. Silent Night taught us that, like the moon and the Force, the holiday season has a dark side. And it took us way beyond plastic reindeer lawn ornaments.

The stakes keep rising for these seasonal knickknacks to register on the holiday kitsch-o-meter. Awful new products are released to the masses each year, making the previous year's haul seem adult contemporary in comparison. But if you want to have yourself a kitschy little Christmas, read on for a roundup of the new kitsch klassics. And remember, bad taste has become très haute to the point that 10 years from now, we'll see nostalgic roundups of these grotesque items, bemoaning how much worse everything's gotten.

And that, my friends, is far more frightening than the murderous Santa in Silent Night, Deadly Night.

Awful animation

To network execs, the holiday season means animated specials. From Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang rescuing a flaccid tree unable to perform its Christmas duties to Herbie the dorky elf, the seasonal TV specials for youngsters have remained pretty much the same since Walter Mondale was a relevant political figure.

But the tides turned toward scary kitsch with The Simpsons. The series's very first episode outside the realm of The Tracy Ullman Show was a Christmas spectacular in which Homer blows his Christmas savings at the track. It ends in a fairly heartwarming way as the family adopts a washed-up greyhound named Santa's Little Helper to make it the Best Christmas Ever. Awwww.

But this was an animated Christmas special without the do-gooder message of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer -- "I'm different, you're different, we're all okay, even the mutant with the Day-Glo nostrils." The Simpsons' message was darker and more subtly subversive: "Everything will turn out okay because it's TV and everything turns out okay on TV."

But The Simpsons Christmas Special first aired in 1989, and although there's a new one airing this season, it's doubtful it will plunge as far as Beavis and Butt-head's 1994 special did. In Huh Huh Humbug, Beavis is the manager at Burger World and goes home to watch a porno flick (Ebenezer Screw) on Christmas Eve. As the ghosts of Christmas come out of the television, Beavis just doesn't get it, even when he sees the grave emblazoned HERE LIES BEAVIS: HE NEVER SCORED.

This nihilistic twist on Christmas is the message that there is no message. In a brilliant parody of It's a Wonderful Life, Butt-Head's guardian angel shows him how the world would have been a better place had Butt-Head never been born. In an age of recycled style and retro fever, it fits that a classic-to-be is created by stomping on the old. If only there was a scene of them calling Herbie the dentist a wuss.

But the new standard against which all bad taste shall be measured for years to come is the just plain wrong South Park special, The Spirit of Christmas. A holiday film originally conceived as a video Christmas card for friends, it's too foul even to run on Comedy Central. It screened last month at Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation at the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the script and movie can be found on the Internet at http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~tskirvin/soxmas/. There's no doubt everyone involved is going straight to hell, as its enduring message seems to be, "Jesus is cool, but Brian Boitano is cooler."

It opens with the South Park kiddies singing Christmas carols and using words even sailors draw the line at. Jesus descends on the town -- not to kill Kyle for being Jewish, as suggested by Stan, but to wage war on Santa Claus. The Mortal Kombat-style fight is deliciously sinful as Jesus calls Santa a "fuckin' pussy," the kids try to decide which icon to root for, and a certain gold medalist figure skater saves the day. It's made sweetly surreal by munchkin-cute voices cussing up a storm and overly round two-dimensional animation.

Given the steady decline from Rudolph to the Simpsons to Beavis and Butt-head, in 10 years we'll likely look back longingly on fireside viewings of The Spirit of Christmas. For children of the '90s, Frosty the Snowman's catch phrase, "Happy Birthday!" falls somewhat short of "Don't say `pigfucker' in front of Jesus." The next step down the evolutionary ladder should be interesting. And hilarious.

Cyber-kitsch

Even the Web is chock-full of Xmas kitsch, but this stuff was never innocent, so it's hard to imagine how it could get any worse. You can access sites ranging from the tame (a "database" which provides a personalized report direct from Santa Claus as to whether you've been naughty or nice -- http://www.claus.com/nn_hmpg2.html) to the disgusting (an advertisement for "Elf-Lax," featuring a picture of Santa Claus with an elf crammed up his ass; it's enough to steer you away from yard sales forever -- http://www.randy.com/santa.htm).

And then there's the strange phenomenon that's pushed the envelope of stupidity and bad taste on the Web. A few years ago, somebody created a home page called "Mr. T Ate My Balls," which consisted of photos of the A-Team star accompanied by cartoon balloons discussing how he pitied the "fool that don't like balls," and ranting, "Gimme your balls, fool!" and so on.

If you don't get it, don't worry. There's nothing to get. The humor comes from the bizarre notion of somebody famous wanting to dine on testicles.

For some reason, though, people copied the idea. A lot. They all feature a photo of a celebrity or fictional character along with a balloon about eating balls written in the victim's manner of speaking. Nobody is safe, from Bob Dole to Luke Skywalker to O. J. Simpson to Papa Smurf. Or even, we hate to say it -- Jesus Christ.

In fact, there are multiple pages devoted to this topic. Most notable are "Jesus Christ Resurrected My Balls" (http://www.cyberg8t.com/bunney/emb/jesus.html) and "Balls! Thou Shalt Be Consumeth!" (http://www-scf.usc.edu/~cread/balls/index.html). The pictures are Renaissance works of art with the Son of God saying things like, "Thou shalt not eat balls," and, "Oh, Father, may My balls be worthy of Thy noble palate."

The Resurrection page gets extremely creative (at least by "Ate My Balls" standards) by using more well-known works of art. For Michelangelo's Pieta: "Just look at those tasty balls makes Mary's mouth water!" (sic) Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper: "Pass the balls!" And Michelangelo's David: "'Nuff said."

Evergreen fruitcake

There are some things that play a role in the holiday season every year that simply can't get any worse. Like fruitcakes. Well, it's probably more accurate that jokes about fruitcakes will never die. They'll never be funny either, but the joke-teller will no doubt feel most clever for being the first person in the world to label holiday fruitcakes as one of the things likely to survive nuclear war (along with cockroaches, condoms, Twinkies, and Keith Richards).

And like fruitcakes, there's Christmas music. In some ways, all Christmas music is in bad taste -- after all, isn't there something really kitschy afoot when an album of Jon Bon Jovi's Christmas favorites is guaranteed to sell thousands of copies every year into the millennium and beyond? Novelty Christmas music is a bit better, but Alvin and the Chipmunks crowing in their heliumized finest that "Christmas Time Is Here Again" is as awful as most of us can stomach.

Sure, Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" is a fantastic guilty pleasure, but to find the kitschiest music, you have to sift through the holiday bargain bin at the local record store. Granted, there's a certain generic charm in panning John Tesh's An Intimate Christmas, especially with its cover depicting him lounging serenely by the fireplace with Connie Sellecca. Maybe if John and Connie themselves were roasting over an open fire it would be different.

So beneath treasures like Elvis's spiritual Christmas, Ted Nugent Eats a Reindeer, and Snoop Doggy Dogg's Music to Fuck By (Under the Christmas Tree), you'll find the budget $3.99 compilation tapes. With generic titles like Rockin' Christmas, Seasonal Metal, or even Hip-Hop Holidays, these are so awful, they're brilliant, and so time-irrelevant, they'll be kitsch mainstays forever.

This music sounds as if it were recorded by karaoke session players who read a book on what a genre should sound like. Some studio arranger probably found a few out-of-work, really sensitive musicians, wrote out a list of holiday standards, gave them one rehearsal, then offered the advice, "Try to be more sterile and generic this time." It can't get any worse than that.

The video corollary is the slew of awful movies that resurface yearly. Would Arnold Schwarzenneger's Jingle All the Way or Tim Allen's The Santa Clause really survive for any reason other than that they were filmed in a winter wonderland? No, we'll see these "classics" forever and ever, alongside Ted Turner's unintentional King of Kitsch: the colorized It's a Wonderful Life. It's so awful that it makes the Beavis and Butt-Head send-up look, well, genuine.

Santa's claws

While you're keeping an eye out for Christmas Tree ice cream, eggnog cappuccino, and the McReindeer Arch Deluxe (all of which are in relatively poor taste) ready yourself for ForPlay Sensual Succulents -- which takes the seasonal spirit to its perverted extreme. This line of lubricating body lotion that heats with friction comes in tasty flavors like strawberry, piña colada, and the (almost) appropriate cherry. Come Noël, candy cane-, eggnog-, and cinnamon toddy-flavored lubes ($9.95) are added to the line. Put up a tree in your bedroom and you're all set. Available at Grand Opening, 318 Harvard Street, Brookline, (617) 731-2626.

But when you need the kitsch you can't bring home to mom, head over to Condom World, 332 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 267-7233. Sure, they have a condom-lollipop with a candy cane on it ($1.90), but the star of the show is Santa Claus. Besides getting his ass kicked by Jesus courtesy of South Park, Kris Kringle becomes quite the randy fellow in the hands of product designers. Forget the sexual innuendo of sitting on Saint Nick's lap to talk about the first thing that pops up -- we're way past that.

There's wrapping paper that features a naked (and well-hung) Santa Claus lustfully in pursuit of a fleeing (and well-endowed) Mrs. Claus ($5.95). Condom World also stocks socks ($9.95) picturing the same famous couple engaged in sexual acts you'd expect to see on the Spice network. Directly above the line, "Santa's Coming!" you can get more insight into whether Mrs. Claus spits or swallows her . . . eggnog.

But Santa doesn't get off quite that easy. Or maybe he does. The best way to find out exactly how he gets off is with the "Happy Jerk-Off Santa Claus" ($12.95). It's an adorable little Santa doll in red suit, black boots, angelic face . . . and a big old candy cane that would make Dirk Diggler jealous. Wind him up and watch his arm stroke up and down until he's completely spent. Okay, so maybe that's all Santa has to keep him warm in the North Pole, but did we really have to see his north pole?

Surely, it can't get any worse than that. . . .

Dan Tobin is the listings coordinator for the Boston Phoenix; as a child he was not allowed to play in any reindeer games.