A Cranky Holiday Special, Footnotes
Me am obsessive.


1 - I really hate CBS for getting rid of this studio logo thingy.

2 - Fifty zillion out of one-zillion. A-ha. Sure. Me am good wit mathy thingy, yes? :D

3 - I guess this is meant to parody the sh*ttacular “Yogi’s First Christmas” opening. When and if you happen to catch a rerun on Cartoon Network, ask yourself why there are FEMALE voices coming out of a chorus of all-male (well, maybe not Snagglepuss :) animals. I had only vague memories of that special, until I caught part of it this year, and I think I know now why I made myself forget about it all those years ago.

4 - I personally don’t like “Robin Hood” among Disney movies as it’s very cheap and shoddy and boring and bland. That said, I am aware that it has a big cult following, and I respect that; you may ignore me.
THAT said, however, most of the cult following “Robin Hood” enjoys is thanks to (drum roll please) Furries! If you don't know what I'm talking about, click on that link. Read the Brunching Shuttlecocks article, then click on the "Burned Fur" link within it and read their Manifesto page. Bask in the myriad definitions of "Furry".
I suggest you have a considerably stiff drink for yourself at the ready.
Now, on the one hand, regarding the freakier Furries, I’m like, “God help them all because the minute word gets out about some of the various mutations of their little subculture, they are NEVER going to hear the end of it”.
And on the other hand, the bigger hand, I am like, “See. A. Shrink. (pointed stare) NOW!”
Where the hell was I? Oh yeah. Anyway, “Robin Hood” is the penultimate Furry movie; all the characters are humanoid animals. All well and good, but if you populate your world with animals that act like humans, you are going to have some logistical problems along the way. Like in the finale where Robin and Marion (I could ask how King John, a lion, has a fox as his niece but that’s another issue) ride off from their wedding in a carriage drawn by…
Well, the animators were clever enough NOT to show us what was pulling the carriage! It still begs the question, though. My answer is a logical extension of the Furry world: Robin and Marion’s carriage is pulled by naked, quadrupedal humans. >:)
Horse-less Sleigh is a “Simpsons”-ism, an alternate term for Snowmobile.

5 - There’s going to be a LOT of alternate scenes in this entry, folks. I originally had a TOTALLY different approach to this Episode: that of taking it WAY too seriously. Then I realized that it’s the HOLIDAY part and that NOTHING serious should happen in it. I’ll make a NOTE of where I veered OFF in the final cut, AS it were (okay, that's enough), which happens to be my favorite part of the fanfiction thus far. In this scene, there was a very small difference: the narrator was going to be our old friend, the Guy Who Sounds Like James Earl Jones but Isn’t.

FAUX J.E.J.: “Heh heh. Well, dear readers, I figured it was high time to get some onscreen time. Yup, it’s the holiday season here in Crankyland. And so, moms and dads, boys and girls, dogs and cats, welcome to the Crankyland Holiday Special!!!”

I never really understood Sam the Snowman in “Rudolf”. Why not just have it be Frosty? So what if he had his own special, there could have been a crossover!
Oh, wait… there was. “Rudolf and Frosty’s Christmas in July”. Ack.

6 - That’s Mr. Sun’s opening narration in the first episode of “Strawberry Shortcake”. WHY HASN’T ANYBODY KICKED MY ASS YET??!!!???

7 - A good half of this Episode is based off of the infamous “Star Wars Holiday Special”. I was only about eight months old when it was aired and promptly vanished into obscurity forever, but I’ve heard more than enough stories. If you want to make yourself insane, you can read the transcript. http://www.lucasfan.com/swtv/swhs.txt

8 - I was going to have Commercial Breaks at the beginning and end of every Chapter here. They were going to be links to various strange, strange webpages. For some reason, I thought that’d be too complicated. This was the best commercial break joke I could come up with.
As you can tell from the last part of the prologue, there are a lot of references in this that only fellow Crankizens would get. Even so, I'm pretty sure it's still funny if you don't know an X-Monkey from a Great Holy Hot Rod.

9 - Okay, so I'm not "bleeping" out the word "ass". It'd be too complicated. We'll be dealing with characters who drop f-bombs like it's going out of style, so if seeing "ass" and "damn" and "sucks" onscreen offends you, you might just need to get a life. They are in Maul-Wart on the shelf next to the clues.
I'm such an ass.

10 - Another good portion of this Episode is based on the hideous Michael Keaton squirm-fest, “Jack Frost”.
I am for some reason possessed of (or cursed by) a morbid fascination with bad movies, and I had wanted to see this thing the moment I read the plot description in a magazine when they were just starting to film it. I finally got to see it for free on TV this year.
The millisecond “Landslide” kicked in on the soundtrack, I knew, without a doubt, that this was going to be one long-ass movie.
For an entire year or so, that f*cking “the Dance” CD NEVER left my mom’s CD player. I got to listen to this lovely song every weekend I came home from college.
EVERY.
F*CKING.
WEEKEND.
I would have played Frisbee with the CD but I never built up the moxie to go through with it; my mom would probably have killed me.

11 - “Calvin and Hobbes” kicks so much ass it cannot be accurately measured by today’s means.

12 - ALTERNATE SCENE: I was originally going to get the “Funky, Funky Crankmas” scene over with a lot sooner.

(Retard smiles at the Snow Goon’s two smiling faces. Then he leaves.
The Snow Goon’s eight randomly placed eyes gaze out over the lovely snowy landscape. His three arms, one of which actually looks more like an antler sticking out of his right head, look ready to embrace Crankyland. The Nut-Hatch stuffed backwards into his left head to be a nose squeaks merrily.
One of the cool things the Snow Goon looks at now is a dark, frightening shape blotting out the sun.
Inside the Black Gremlin, our beloved Crankydestined… oh, wait…)
CRANKYDESTINED: (somewhat sadly) “Urrr…”
(Yeah, I guess we can still call these characters the Crankydestined as a collective when they aren’t with any former Brigadiers. Mostly cause I’m hideously uncreative. But, as a whole, the Crankyland Supergroup is henceforth known as…
The Assclown Stomping Society.)
CRANKYDESTINED: “Why… why… why…?”
WRECK: “Uh, it’s not THAT bad… (sees that he might just loose his head again) Um, hey, c’mon, no violence! It’s Crankymas McMother’s O’Ween!”
(And from there, the scene plays out basically as it does in the final version, without the commentary from the former Cranky Brigadiers. Also, they travel back to the Halls of Justice, where they meet Wulfgar 010. And all he can say is… )
WULF010: “Angels. Vacuum. Wallpaper.”

By the way, I don't think I could explain the whole Retard in the Theater phenomenon if I tried. I don't remember the details very well, so please don't kill me if this is wrong. I guess it started when Slater wrote a very funny... excuse me, (ahem) VERY OFFENSIVE (cough) post recounting how the sold-out premier, in his town, of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was marred by an apparent misuse of power. Seems a social worker had brought his severely mentally challenged charge with him to guarantee tickets to the premier. He figured stuffing the poor fellow full of Skittles would keep him quiet.
Well.
That's not even the half of the story, but all you really need to know for now is that from then on, fish, Skittles, and the phrase "hey man!!!" became frequent go-to punchlines in the Crankyverse. As for the *poster* Retard in the Theater, well he still shows up from time to time, and he even wrote a "Planet of the Apes" fanfic. I am not exaggerating when I say that it is better than both movies and the book combined.

13 - Our Snow Goon has now been decorated with pee. Keep track of the kinds of things the Goon gets covered in during the story.
Here’s a shameless tie-in with "Babes in Crankyland", my first Holiday-themed fanfic. I must warn you that this thing is seriously weird. You may very well go insane if you read it. If you ignore me and you're going to read it anyway, start off by reading "Little Neo in Crankyland" first. It's another, earlier Ness-penned Metafiction, and it involves the same cast of characters, mostly. I am not for a minute suggesting that "Babes" will make any more or less sense if you read it's predecessor first, but they're both wikkid short, so you might as well.

14 - It was originally going to be a human Assclown Stomper who saves the Retard. Thus, the whole part about the boots would have made a *little* sense.

15 - See what I mean? This would mean that the Snow Goon has got pee and Troll brains all over it throughout the fanfic. Even when it is possessed by Slater. EEEEEEUUUUWWW!!!!

16 - I can honestly say that I am not curious enough to see if that alleged “Adventure” game really ever existed.

17 - A jab at that “Dungeons & Dragons” movie.
Now, I guess "D&D" really isn't THAT bad. There are a LOT of worse fantasy movies out there... ignoring the fact that you're dealing with a genera that includes "the Neverending Story", "Dark Crystal", "Vision of Escaflowné", "Dark City", ect., ect., ect. (not to mention a couple little underground trilogies known as "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings") in along with "Za-Gor the Intimidating Meets the Chain-Mail Bikini Babes of Cave Girl Island". If it's on Encore (I mention them because they're probably playing it RIGHT NOW!!!) and you've got an hour or two to kill, it's worth a look.

18 - And, finally, the rest of this Episode is based off of another insane Christmas special I’ve never got to see myself but have heard enough of to parody it. The “Santa Claus vs. Satan” movie from Mexico. The link will take you to it's review at Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension, which happens to be the best summary of it I’ve seen. I am DYING to see the "MST3K" take on it.
Oh yeah, I guess it's pretty obvious by now, but here Brittany Spears is the Overlord of Evil. You know, I don't hate her THAT much (her niche in my Loathe-O-Meter has been replaced by that Lord of the Assclowns, Eminem). I just thought it was funny, given some of the characters we've got working on the side of good, to have sweet lil' Brittany be EEEEEE-VIL.
As for Grundle and X-Man, well...
Well.
If you bone up on your Cranky History (and I allude to some of it later on), you'll see why you don't really have a compelling reason to feel bad for them here. Now, there aren't a lot of posters I don't like. I'll only not like a fellow poster if there's a good reason for it. I don't know about you, but sexual harassment, general creepiness, and cyberstalking on the one hand and racism, sexism, and homophobia on the other hand are pretty damn good enough reasons for me. Then again, at least they're not laughing their way to the bank thanks to their self-important vaguely autobiographical movie or something. End rant.

19 - I don’t want to relate the Some Tiny Software Company story just yet here. I don’t want to get depressed.

20 - I really can imitate all the voices in “Do They Know it’s Christmas”. And call me an oversensitive sissy but the “Here’s to you…” verses got me bawling this year.

21 - “Olive the Other Reindeer” is about the only recent Christmas special that is worth hunting down.

22 - It’s from Walt Kelly’s “Pogo”, and it was the Wreck that got it.

23 - On Christmas Eve, on some radio station I cannot remember because I just tuned into it randomly on the way to church, I actually heard New Kids on the Block’s “Funky, Funky Christmas”. It was the very ending, which is sung by the Wreck here.
That has got to be a sign.
I don’t know for sure if there are any New Kids conventions of any sort, but I’ll bet if there are or were, then this would be the kind of thing I'll bet you couldn’t even pay Jon or the Northside Posse to discuss.

24 - I came up with many of the songs in this Episode while on a Christmas Gift Shopping Quest. I would periodically start laughing randomly when I came up with a good one.
You don’t want to know what kinds of looks my friends were giving me.

25 - DRUG REFERENCE NUMBER NINETEEN!

26 - “Cats Don’t Dance” is possibly the most sadly underrated animation this side of “the Iron Giant”. More so, actually; people have actually heard of "Giant". Go hunt it down, especially if you like old Looney Tunes!

27 - Hmmm, that almost sounds like the beginning of another NKOTB song.

28 - And apparently it did. I haven’t seen any sign of her or Redundancies in over a year. Bummer.

29 - After I realized I was taking this chapter WAY too seriously, I decided to approach it as sort of a self-contained silly part.
So of course, my character ended up saying more Important Things in it than in previous ones.
What’s interesting is that I think I’ve revealed more about myself in this stupid story than I have in my two years posting in the main forums. That is whack. It is also funky.

30 - I really do get misty-eyed reading the final “Bloom County” cartoons.

31 - ALTERNATE SCENE! This scene was going to wander off in an ENTIRELY different direction. Check it out. My comments are in those cool curly math-class brackets {like this}.

(She cries and cries, it keeps snowing, and finally Mad-Ness is completely covered with snow. But the Snow Goon isn’t because it’s going to be important later.
When Ness almost comes to, she sees two pretty talking lights in the sky that twinkle as they talk…)
{First thing I lost by cutting this: the ONLY reference to the, IMHO, overrated “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I have to say, though, that a few months ago, Mr. Wonderful himself wrote sort of a mini-fanfic, “It’s a Mr. Wonderful Life!”, and I can’t hope to top that. It is, sadly, lost to memory.}
NESS: “Unnn-BRRRRRRRRR-nngh???”
PRETTY LIGHT 1: “Woah, look at this!”
PRETTY LIGHT 2: “Alright! Free sushi!”
NESS: (passing out from the cold again) “Unngggh…. X_x”
INT: “WARRIORS OF VIRTUE” FORUM – BRIGADIER H.Q.
VI: “Okay, we’ve established that the Crankydestined were idiots, but their behavior lately has just been ridiculous.”
(She has the Headquarters completely decorated. The doorbell goes off to the tune of that wonderful Crankymas carol, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Headbanger”.)
{Billy and the Boingers kick ass!}
RED: “I’ll get it! (he does) It’s Mendo and the Creep, Freak, Loser!”
AUDIENCE: “Scream! Applause! General uproar!!! Why the hell are those two Obligatory Sidekicks anyway? We've barely ever seen them hang out together in the -uh- 'real' Crankyland.”
DIRECTOR: “I... I don’t know.”
{I don’t.}
MENDO: “Look, Redundancies! We brought you a dead animal!”
C.F.L.: “You think if we hit it with a shovel it’ll shatter?”
{HAW HAW HAW!!!}
RED: “EUWWWW! Get it off the table! (pause) This Episode is, undoubtedly, the most insanely stupid so far, I think.”
VI: “Dudes, maybe it’s not dead. It’s just sleeping. (pause) Really REALLY soundly. Go thaw it out in the Out-Thawing Device.”
RED: “AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE, DON’T GO MESSING AROUND WITH THAT SPACE GOOP!”
(C.F.L. and Mendo go to the Out-Thawing Machine room. On the way, they pass some kind of vent.)
{This part is actually rather interesting. It’s the first time we find out what the alien stuff does to you. I am actually glad I cut this cause Zarquon’s revelations are more interesting.}
PSEU: (from inside the vent) “Um, can you guys let me out please?”
MENDO: “No way. Heh, that’s the last time you slip deadly nightshade in my soup.”
SMALL IMPRESSIONABLE KIDS IN THE AUDIENCE: “WHAT? Mendo should be dead or at least squirming on the floor and foaming at the mouth or something! Does that mean drugs are GOOD for you cause they undo the poison stuff?”
{BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!}
PSEU: “I never tried to poison you! And besides, I already had my Obligatory Redemption, so can I get out of here?”
MENDO: “No. (pause) Well, okay.”
(He lets her out. They all go inside the Out-Thawing Machine room. C.F.L. puts the Not Dead But Sleeping Very Soundly animal inside and watches at it gradually starts twitching as it unfreezes.)
{Sadly, there's no scene coming up where she messily devours, than transforms into a dog.}
C.F.L.: “There goes our Crankymas dinner.”
PSEU: “Now, I heard that alien goo mentioned again. Now, is there anything I should know about it, for plot purposes?”
(Mendo and C.F.L. look confused for a long time.)
MENDO: “Um… well… Uh, it makes you psycho…”
C.F.L.: “It makes you psy-CHIC. Or something. I really don’t understand what it does.”
PSEU: “But I’m getting to see cool colors, at least.”
MENDO: “Yup.”
NESS: (unthawed) “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (pause) Oh, sh*t, I’m in The Future!!!”
(Technically she is, having been frozen about an hour ago.)
MENDO: “Welcome to the Wonderful World of An Hour Later!”
NESS: “Coooooooool… (pause) So, like, how about all the Assclowns go out for cocoa?”
PSEU: “WE aren’t Assclowns! We STOMP the Assclowns!”
{That sounds insurmountably funnier coming out of the Wreck.}
(Everyone stares at her.)
NESS: “How do you know that? You weren’t in that scene.”
PSEU: “Yah, but I’m PSYCHIC now, duh. Oh, and that’s also why Ken knew about that sword thing. Duh.”
(The Director does the happy I Retrofixed a Plot Hole Polka.)
{That’s just about the only other thing I lost in this scene.}
ALL: “Ohhh… Huh.”
NESS: “Let’s go ingest lots and lots of sugar so things don’t get more insane.”
(They do this.)
{I have no clue at all what direction I was going to take that in.}

32 - I am proud to say that I haven’t seen a single episode of “Crossing Over”.

33 - That trademark squiggle thingy better be showing up correctly.

34 - IMHO, of all the early-90s Disney animations, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” have aged the best. LRT’s scene here is practically verbatim from “the Star Wars Holiday Special”.

35 - Yeah, I guess this counts as the TWENTIETH DRUG REFERENCE!

36 - I knew Slater would love a “Buffy”-style reincarnation scene. Merry Christmas.

37 - There is a wonderful little book by Dave Barry, the _Book of Bad Songs_. Here is his interpretation of a portion of Oliver’s “Good Morning Starshine”. I *DIED* when I read it.
I defy anyone to read along to this scene, out-loud, without cracking up.

38 - Please note that the humans in Crankyland get buried in big shoe boxes.

39 - See also the infamous “Cartman’s Search for his Dad” episode of “South Park”.

40 - We’re up to TWENTY-ONE drug references! This is as good a time as any to re-emphasize that I am a practically strait-edge (not in the punk sense) prude.

41 - ALTERNATE SCENE! Here’s how Slater was originally going to come back. This was before I saw “Jack Frost”:

(And we pan down to look at Slater’s dead body again. Suddenly, his eyeballs solidify into his skull! But they’re on inside-out with the black part outermost and the white part as the pupil, until they correct themselves somehow. Then his skin grows back on and, for reasons left unexplained, so do his clothes. He is very surprised to be alive again.)
SLATER: “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”
(Slater claws his way out of the big shoe box and digs his way out of the ground. When he surfaces, the Random Zombie Biker Guys, who have chased away both A.S.S and Slater Force [help] are standing around doing nothing. Then they see Slater.)
ZOMBIES: “Oh sh*t. Say, do you think we’ve said that enough times?”
(Slater kicks the Zombies’ ASSES. Afterwards, he stands there knee-deep in dead zombies [okay, twice-dead zombies] and ruminates.)
SLATER: “They couldn’t just clone me like NORMAL PEOPLE DO???!!!???”

Heh. I was happy to get to use that again later on.

42 - Fun science fact! Deer usually keep their antlers well into wintertime, then shed them sometime between late December and February. They immediately start to grow them back once the milder weather comes along.
I don’t know if deer ever gnaw on their own antlers, but I do know that other animals like rodents gnaw on shed antlers. They have excellent nutritional value. I am not curious enough to find out about that nutritional value firsthand, of course.

43 - Anyone wanna write the world’s first Cranky Filk?

44 - "Hang up your stockings / and SAY YOUR PRAYERS! HA HA HA!!!"
I have to say the Parca Claus Subplot is the Best Part in the Entire Fanfic EVER!

45 - I gotta give props to ABC Family for letting “the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus” resurface occasionally.
If the Keanu version of “Babes in Toyland” is the mutant inbred cousin of Christmas Specials, chained up in the attic and forced to eat fish heads, then “the Life” is the brooding Goth chick cousin who writes long diatribes about mortality in some sad little dark room. That's the Rankin/Bass Christmas Special, based off a book by L. Frank Baum, where, if you remember ANYTHING from it, you remember the song about "EEEE-more-TAAAAH-lit-TEEEEEEEEEEE" quoted here. And, as likely as not, it probably scared the hell out of you. I can’t possibly imagine what today’s kids think of it.
I am disappointed that the next line contains the only surviving “Nightmare Before Christmas” reference.

46 - X-Monkeys started out as a lame troll of X-Man (an exercise in redundancy at best), but they started to get cool once Lyra cast them as little flying monkeys in her fanfic. I imagine the X-Monkeys in Parca's workshop as looking like those cute little snow bunnies from "Rudolph".
Anyway, continuing with my clumsy metaphor above, consider “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” as “the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus’s” cheery hippie twin from Bizarro-land.
I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I guess you've figured out by this point that the "Director" is me out of character and writing this. And when I say, "Audience", I mean you. Does that make this a Meta-Meta-fanfiction?

47 - I didn’t even get to photocopy my butt before I was laid off. Bummer.

48 - Tony Freemont from the “It’s a GOOD Life” episode of “the Twilight Zone” still scares the living shizz-nit out of me.

49 - Cosgrove from “Freakazoid” is, by all accounts, the man! “Nasty men / caught again / stealing a hen!”

50 - Do a Google Search for “Dream Valley the Collectors Guide to My Little Pony” (the webmistress has changed the address several times in the past year) and check out the section about “MLP Movie / TV Series”. Read the summary of the movie. This is immediately what I thought of when I first saw Grundle posting here.
By the way, IMHO, “Dream Valley” happens to be the most insanely obsessive encyclopedia-style webpage I’ve ever seen. And, to me, that’s a good thing!

51 - “the Secret of N.I.M.H.” is THE best movie. Period.

52 - Okay, you will have probably noticed that I do not know what the name of Ken’s band is or even if they still exist. So, instead of just, I don’t know, ASKING HIM like a NORMAL PERSON would, I had a grand old time making some up.
Now the “…a performance from Ken Kaminski and the {enter humorous name for his band here}!” was what I had written at the end of every chapter in the first draft of this episode. I left this one unchanged cause I figured everyone got the joke at this point.
Well, along comes the following thread, reposted for your enjoyment / my bafflement:

12/13/01: The Mad-Ness Crankyland Holiday Fanfic Things Requires Assistance!
Posted by: jlc@****.com (LRT)
Observe: “Coming up on the ‘Crankyland Holiday Special’, the Slothrop family, MORE Little Round Top, and a performance from Ken Kaminski and the {enter humorous name for his band here}!”
Indeed, Ken Kaminski's band appears to require a name.
Crankyland, your stupidity is needed. Please get to work on this project immediately or sooner (Oklahoma only).

12/13/01: I have a suggestion
Posted by: grandm@s.house (Little_Red_Riding_Hood)
"The Catholics"

12/13/01: Uh, L.R.T., honey...
Posted by: CameraShy@du.lac (Mad-Ness_Monster)
...that's a joke.

12/13/01: Well, so is this.
Posted by: jlc@*****.com (LRT)
See how that works out all neatly and everything.

12/13/01: How about...
Posted by: Chimp@n.zee (Monkey_King)
Ken Kaminski and...
...the Crack Whores
...the Keanus
...Barnyard Violence
...the Fig Puckers
...the Godless Communists
...Kamikaze Korn
...aw, f*ck it.


I cannot express how angry I am at myself for not having come up with “…a performance from Ken Kaminski and… aw, f*ck it” first.
Anyhoo, here's a list of band names that I couldn't fit into the story, just to show how much fun it is to get p*ss-off drunk and come up with scary band names. If, by the way, there is someone out there who has a band but has not come up with a name for it, you are welcome to steal one of my ideas.
Ken Kaminski and the F*ck You Bunch; Ken Kaminski and Operation Impending Doom II; Ken Kaminski and the Reasons to Weep for the Future; Ken Kaminski and the Punk-Ass B*tches; Ken Kaminski and the Suffocating Gerbils (heh); Ken Kaminski and the Whining Goth Sissies; Ken Kaminski and Satan's Night Out; Ken Kaminski and the Tastes Like Veal; Ken Kaminski and the Red-Blooded Patriots (heh); Ken Kaminski and the Prisoners of Azkabaan; Ken Kaminski and the Vomitorium Janitors; Ken Kaminski and the Tasty Orphans (sick, sick, sick); Ken Kaminski and the Next Teen Idols; Ken Kaminski and the Space Monkeys; Ken Kaminski and the Band With Rocks in; Ken Kaminski and the Kubricks (God dammit, look how long that took!); Ken Kaminski and the Fursuit Fetishists; Ken Kaminski and the Sarcastic Little Shitheads; Ken Kaminski and the Smelly Hippies; Ken Kaminski and the Sperm That Survived; Ken Kaminski and the Club Kids from Hell; Ken Kaminski and the Vegans (bwahaha); Kenny and the Boingers (duh); Kenny and the Clone-a-Saurus; Ken Kaminski and the Spiders From Mars; Ken Kaminski and the People Your Parents Warned You About; Ken Kaminski and El Tormento; Ken Kaminski and the Reasonably Good Band; Sergeant Kaminski’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (heh); Emerson, Kaminski and Palmer; Ken Kaminski and the New Power Generation; Ken Kaminski and We're Just Like the Backstreet Boys, but With ANGST!!!; and Ken Kaminski and Yo Mamma.
About the only idea I had that I wasn't even going to TRY to use was (ahem) Kendra and the Angry Decameter. O.o

53 - This is supposedly what the first TWENTY MINUTES of the “Star Wars Holiday Special” is like. It’s all Chewbacca’s family in their tree house growling and screaming at each other.
I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to see this movie for myself but I think I’ll live.
Skilly and Slothrop are actually major players in the real (???) Crankyland, but you wouldn't know it from this. I apologize.
54 - I must have typed “Tip” as often as I typed “Crackheadland” by… erm… accident.

55 - Ding-dong the book club’s dead!
I've been thinking of starting a book club in the forums if anyone's interested. It would, of course, only be of books that Oprah wouldn't have touched.

56 - Honest and no kidding, there is this scene in “Star Wars Holiday” where Chewbacca’s dad watches some porn. The concept of a Christmas special which includes, as it's centerpiece, a large furry animal watching porn is WAAAAAAAAY too screwed up even for me.

57 - Err, I think this is about the point where Little Round Top lost his mind in the -uh- real Crankyland. I am so, so sorry.

58 - There is no such thing as a casual “Secret of N.I.M.H.” fan. Not that I’ve seen anyway. If you love this movie, then you LOVE this movie, and you practically get violent if anyone you know doesn’t like it.
By the way, there’s a distinction that must be made here. “N.I.M.H” happens to be my favorite movie, so I am a “N.I.M.H.-rod”. For most fans, that’s as far as it goes. But there’s also a sort of a SUB-subculture. A LOT of “N.I.M.H.” fans are also Furries, and the rest of us are very scared. To differentiate, they’re called “N.I.M.H.-phomaniacs”. I think you can guess why you should never get the two confused.

59 - “Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas” happens to be my sister’s favorite Christmas special. It’s pretty cute so hunt it down if you can. It involves Muppets! Anything that involves Muppets is inherently cool.

60 - I’m as confused about the popularity of “Coyote Ugly” and it’s damn theme song as I am about “Duets”.

61 - In the “Star Wars” special, this exchange is between Bea Arthur and Tim Conway. I think the reviewer at “Oh the Humanity” put it best when he/she said, “there wasn’t this much homoerotic tension since the volleyball scene in ‘Top Gun’!”
Yeah, well, that scene is still pretty yummy. Err, the one in “Top Gun”.

62 - There's Emmett Otter's band. Sort of.

63 - Here’s the only reference to the “Charlie Brown Christmas”. By the way, I was in Best Buy the other day and it turns out that there’s a sequel that was made in 1988. I wonder why it’s never resurfaced…

64 - Heh, “Voice of an Angel”. This year, it probably would have been "Kaminstified".
By the way, I heard “the River” recently and I never noticed just how damn depressing that song is. Somebody should do a really dark-toned cover of it.

65 - This was the very first scene I thought up for this Episode. Actually, it might be older than that. I have some vague recollection that I originally wanted to use something like this in some round-robin type fanfic. I’m probably wrong cause we haven’t done one of those in W-A-Y too long.

66 - I had asked many times who wanted to be Slater the Undead Snowman’s friend, but nobody volunteered. You meanies!

67 - I never really understood this aspect of "Frosty the Snowman". There is something to be said about a cartoon that gets the kiddies crying at a scene where the heroine is weeping at a puddle with a hat floating in it. I don't know what that something is, though.
68 - I have a cousin who collects weird New Kids on the Block memorabilia. Her room is like the Hard Rock Café from Hell.
In her collection, she has got an episode of the indeed terminally cheesy New Kids cartoon that she likes to drag out periodically when she wants to make the rest of us cry.
I can’t stress it enough; you must only let yourself watch an episode of the New Kids cartoon for free if you can, otherwise forget it. YOU HAVE TO MAKE FUN OF THIS WASTE OF CELLULOID OR YOU WILL GO F*CKING INSANE!!!
Really, do you want to end up like me?
And this has nothing to do with anything:


69 - About the only important part of the “Star Wars” special is a cartoon that was apparently meant to be a whole Saturday morning series. In it, we see Boba Fett for the first time ever. You may all get back to your lives now.

70 - For some reason, and this is one reason why the New Kids cartoon is royally f*cked up, the episodes dealt more with people like Dick Scott (their manager) and Biscuit (their bodyguard) and, so help me, Jon and Jordan’s dog (Nikko the Shar-pei).
I don’t want to know why I can retain things like that, yet can’t summon any Tori Amos lyrics from college.

71 - That’s sweet. I dare you to try that line on your mate at home. Tell me what he/she says afterwards.

72 - I don’t know why but I remember seeing Don Bluth’s “the Small One” a LOT as a kid.

73 - See, the Badly Drawn Boy hangs out with a Bewilderbeast. Eh? Eh?
Yeah, I don’t get it either.

74 - Actually, I believe this is true. That said, I’m not exactly ready to buy the “reincarnated relatives” theory yet though. And if that is true, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that some humans are reincarnated pets?
(scratches under chin with shoe)
Well?

75 - He didn't bite Mendo, he humped his leg. O.o

76 - A LOT of people vanished while I was writing this. Some of them eventually came back, but I’m afraid to say that I still don’t know if Red and Violet are Just Sleeping. Bummer.

77 - This scene is actually quite rad. I like how I don’t reveal who’s dreaming just yet. This whole subplot is, needless to say, a jab at the best looking boring animation in a LONG time, the “Final Fantasy” movie. I went ahead and parodied more of it later.

78 - I realize that I made two references to my wonderful Some Tiny Software Company Adventure. I don’t want to describe it in detail; I’d just get depressed. Just know that I woke up at FOUR IN THE MORNING to meet the boss of the company at SEVEN-THIRTY IN THE MORNING to interview for a job that, it turned out, I WAS NOT QUALIFIED FOR AT ALL. So I basically wasted a few hours of the poor guy’s life.
I’m never awake before 10 AM if I can help it.

79 - I got Ken’s theory here (and I’m inclined to say that he’s come up with something at least vaguely similar on his own) out of the book the Physics of Christmas. It really isn’t all that mean-spirited, but a lot of what the author puts forth in it could be the magic bullets for Grinches everywhere.

80 - This part is just really surreal but I happen to think it’s cute.
And it includes the TWENTY-SECOND OBLIGATORY DRUG REFERENCE!!!

81 - Those rats would, of course, be the Kenny-eating Rats from “South Park”. Now am I weird? I actually feel bad for Kenny. No matter what, he always ends up dead before the end of the episode. Is he supposed to represent the concept of Predestination? That our destiny is decided for us from day one and we can’t do anything about it? Or does it just suck to be him? This is but another Chapter in the Ominous Saga of the Kenny!
And Butters sucks.

82 - To paraphrase Dave Barry, I don’t know about the girl that the guy is singing to in the song “Him”, but if I were her, I’d go with him.

83 - Here’s my vote for the Best Bad Line in the “Fellowship of the Ring” trailer, although I thought the movie was fantastic!

84 - This entire chapter ought to speak for itself. It is, hands down, my favorite of all.

85 - TWENTY-THIRD RANDOM DRUG REFERENCE!

86 - For the record, Ken thought of the aliens and L.R.T. thought of the burley South American Gauchos. Go wonder what *they* were on.
Note that I tend to emphasize the fact that they're aliens over the fact that they are also Gauchos. See, I've seen the final thirty minutes of "Aliens" about eighteen times. When I watch the whole movie, I don't think of them as the last thirty minutes, I think of the rest of the movie as the first two hours.
AMC has been airing this nifty "Making of the 'Alien' Saga" documentary lately. It reveals something very interesting, but, come to think of it, not all that surprising: the fact that H.R. Giger is one SCARY motherf**ker.

87 - Best. Song. EVER!

88 - At the time, Quester-X was a Newbie, and she'd become one of the fanfic's bigger fans. Naturally, I rewarded her by giving her the traditional Crankyland fanfic induction ceremony: violently killing her character off after about two lines.
That's one of our less insane "hazing" rituals.
Quester is quoting the wonderful, but rarely seen, Bloom County Christmas special, "A Wish for Wings That Work".
89 - There’s a quick little list of the worst-sounding words in American English, IMHO.

90 - I had promised Shadow a really long time ago that the next time I wrote a fanfic, he’d be in it. And there he is.
Here comes the TWENTY-FOURTH RANDOM DRUG REFERENCE!!!

91 - Note to those of you who haven't read the whole thing before: don't ask.
92 - Now, how’s this for fate. I rented both “the Grinch” (the pain… the PAIN!!! Stick with the original. I wasn’t bullshitting when I said Chuck Jones is a god.) and “Beauty and the Beast’s Enchanted Christmas”.
If I’m real quiet, I think I can hear Beast roaring in sympathetic agony as I type this. It gets better.
I subjected myself to “the Grinch” and managed to psychically prepare myself for further torture before popping in the “BATBEC” video. It was, to my extreme bafflement, preceded by many commercials for “other” videos in the –get this- MASTERBA… sorry, the MASTERPIECE COLLECTION.
“Great Gatsby!” I screamed, “I knew Disney was taken over by crackheads, but why the hell is this steaming pile of sh*t a masterpiece???!!!???”
Because it was “Cinderella”.
Some idiot switched the “Enchanted Christmas” video with “Cinderella”.
I took that as a Sign. I didn’t try looking for “BATBEC” again so the references here are pretty vague. This year (2002), Disney has released a "Special Edition" DVD of "Enchanted Christmas".
This explains the agonized howls I've been hearing from the general direction of Cleveland.

93 - You don’t know how happy I am that I managed to work in the f*cking insane “Michael Jackson’s ‘Ghosts’” movie that you might have caught on Mtv or VH1 this fall. It is far, FAR more disturbing than I hint at here.
The “plot” has to do with the residents of “Normal Valley” (ho ho) trying to run Michael out of his Castle of Darkness.
Ah, yes, but that’s not what it is ABOUT. Imagine the spooky Tim Burton movies after running them through M.J.’s SEVERELY damaged psyche a few times and you have a very vague idea of what you’re in for if they ever show it again.
The sequence parodied here (and it is indeed the longest ten minutes ever) is preceded by one of the Innocent Children characters asking Michael to “show them (the angry mob) the cool things you did for us!” Another Innocent Child says, and I really don’t think this was meant to be a joke, “That’s supposed to be a secret!!!”
(shudder)
For more information about this cinematic wonderment than you could ever use, read the transcript!

94 - The highlight of the Halloween Episode is a scene of unimaginably insane violence. I dare not spoil it, in case I decide to post it here.
95 - Beast is one of the overall nicest posters in Crankyland. He, JabBerwoCk, and Hazel-Rah get special attention here because they were the first older posters to notice me (go figure with a handle like mine).
That said, Beast is ALSO known for having one of the highest gross-out tolerance of any Crankizen. Anytime he lists the songs he plays on his radio show, give it a read. Bwahahahaha.

96 - I miss that show. Good thing siflandolly.com has a lyrics archive!
I find myself singing some of Bobo’s songs nowadays. Should I be scared?

97 - I don’t understand this video. I REALLY don’t understand why, of all the cheesy videos paraded out on TRL, I picked this one to parody. Honestly, this song KNOWS that I wrote it into the fanfic and it’s been following me around ever since.
I swear this is what it sounds like Shakira is singing.

98 - ALTERNATE SCENE! I had a hard time hitting on just how to build to the “You’re a SNOWMAN!!!” part. The “Opposite Day” line is priceless though.

KEN: “Really. Anything sarcastic I could say right now would be WAAAAAAY beyond the point.”
SLATER: “Sarcastic??? Sweet step-dancing monkey butlers, that spell’s hard! You try it sometime!”
(Ooh, here is the FIRST BETA-DRUG REFERENCE!)
KEN: “Yeah, sure. Let me just find my *special ingredients* that *help me think* of things like *Hot Cave Babes*… Nope, wait. Mushrooms don’t grow in the dead of winter.”
SLATER: (livid) “You’re STUPID!”
KEN: “Must be Opposite Day then.”
SLATER: (screaming) “YOU’RE A *POSEUR*!!!!!”
KEN: “You’re a *SNOWMAN*!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

99 - But by my definition of *poseur*, neither of these guys are *poseurs*.
You see, a true *poseur* is exemplified by my sweet little younger cousin, who has got a lot of Nü Metal (what-the-f*ck-EVER) posters all over her bedroom walls… and she REALLY listens to ABBA. Plus she's got a poster of Avril Levigne, whom some have been so bold as to deem the Queen *Poseur*.

100 - Yeah, I have my limits, believe it or not.

101 - One of several loving nods at C.F.L.’s “Cranky Wars 2: Electric Boogaloo”. This is one of the longest fanfics of all, so make time for reading it and "Cranky Wars Part One". I'd suggest reading them in chronological order, but that's just me.

102 - Oh good. I AM scarred for life.
If you don't get this, read Jabby's otherwise very spiffy fanfic. Most of it IS very good. But there's that one scene...
You won't have to read very far to see *why* I'm scarred for life. Picture naive little me,who had been posting in Crankyland for about three months by then, reading that somebody has written you into a "Matrix" parody of sorts, that you have something very important to do in the first few chapters, and thinking, "YES, I get to be Trinity!"
This was exactly where I learned that Newbies are somewhere down the bottom (just slightly above Trolls and the residents of the Gossip forum) of the Cranky Food Chain.
I've been kinda putting off reading the latest chapters of Chica's Epic seeing as I've been little more than an indecisive pain in the bottomsies over what kind of role I should have in it. God knows what she's got in mind for me. Yum-delish dragon shish-kebobs I guess.

103 - See also Slater's “the Adventures of Farkle and God”. This is, quite possibly, the funniest damn thing I've ever read on the Internet.

104 - Actually, in real life, the worst I do is just sit there and seethe. Usually, in up to twenty minutes afterwards, I’ll have forgotten all about it.
I am SO setting myself up for a full psychological meltdown someday. Yay!

105 - We did something like this last year and I’m a little scared by the number of lines I was able to remember with some accuracy.

106 - Is it the Fellowship of… Whatever or the Fellowship of… Something?
The “little dirtbike” bit is priceless. I’ve got two older cousins who are lawyers and, so help me; I really have no idea what they do all day.

107 - Now, it’s funny I should mention giant cranial bruises, isn’t it? Poetic justice I suppose. >_<

108 - TWENTY-FOURTH DRUG REFERENCE!

109 - Whack Chick is channeling Cary Fisher and her absolutely unforgettable musical number at the finale of the “Star Wars” special. I can only imagine…

110 - I don’t know how or why but when I was a kid, I saw the stupid “Rudolf’s Shiny New Year” special more times than the original “Rudolf”. Lucky me.
By the way, as it appears on my computer, in Microsoft Word, the original version of this Episode is exactly 42 pages long. And it’s the single best one in my opinion. Eerie.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four