(Image courtesy of the Youtube upload of Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa. Screenshot taken by me.)
I’d rather take the coal over these “holiday classics” any time.
Christmas, the holiday in general, is a money maker in several different industries. From toy sales, to decorations, to trees, to music, Christmas sales bring home billions of dollars for every different corporation.
Christmas movies are a different beast, one that has personally perplexed me for years. Typically, there are a select few cult classics that get replayed year to year, but one can definitely expect that not every festive classic is going to be perfect.
But it wouldn’t be one of my articles if I didn’t pull something really bad and obscure out of thin air, and Christmas movies definitely have those kinds of movies. Some range in different ways that they’re bad, while some just have really weird origins for a movie that is moderately mediocre.
Some just appear on TV, and their studios disappear just as quickly as they’re formed, while some movies have a rich history surrounded by scandal and insane history. One of these movies was even lost media at one point, and the search spiraled for approximately 10 years.
10 years, for a movie that is often revered for not just the worst Christmas movie of all time, but even as far as the worst animated movie of all time.
I’ve got a couple that I think especially stand out, because if there’s one thing I love, it’s garbage media.
Happy holidays, I think.
(Image taken from The Christmas Tree’s IMDB page)
This is the most straightforward movie. Not really a good thing.
The Christmas Tree is a movie made in 1991, and was only televised once. This was the only movie made by “Flamarion Ferreira Films.”
The titular guy that the studio is named after not only has a prolific animation/storyboard artist career, but also a face attached to his resume. Unfortunately, the lack of faces attached to these people is a theme with this article.
Now, the movie.
It’s a very formulaic, almost stereotypical Christmas movie. There is a family that moves to this local town, where the mother has to live in an orphanage with her two children while she works at said orphanage. The downside? The owner of the orphanage is an abusive boss.
The most interesting part of this movie is the children. Not saying much. The only reason they’re interesting is because they have this morbid fascination with the pine tree outside of the orphanage that they’ve called “Mrs. Hopewell.” This is also ironic, because in the movie, there is a scene where the children are talking to the main mom, Judy, about how they don’t know what Christmas is.
Weird.
Near the second act, Judy’s kids go missing because they’re on the search for the Santa Claus to help them protect the tree they’ve idolized for years.
At the climax at the end of the film, the boss, Mrs. Mavilda, threatens to cut down Mrs. Hopewell with a chainsaw, and only with the power of Christmas (because yes, Santa Claus does show up) everyone’s lives just immediately become better, alongside Mrs. Mavilda becoming redeemed?
Weird character choice, but okay. Not like a sequel was planned or anything. These characters have the depths of puddles and are going to stay like that for the rest of the film’s legacy.
So… woah. Agonizing watch.
While time periods do play a role in the look of a movie, having to consider the lack of technology, I don’t think I can muster up an excuse on why everything looks so dull and stilted here.
Genuinely, there is no color in this movie. It’s all very washed out and cold. The most colorful moment was near the end with Mrs. Hopewell all lit up. Everything else is washed out pastels and no shadows.
The animation itself doesn’t fare much better. Character movements are lacking, in fact, there’s barely any movement in this movie. And even then, it’s slow, like it’s lagging or buffering. Lip syncing? Never matches up with what the characters are saying.
And the voice acting? Wow. Genuinely, wow. I know kid voice actors are a mixed bag, but half of the orphan’s voices were so blatantly edited that it makes them genuinely hard to listen to, let alone understand.
You know it’s bad, when the villain meant to be the meanest person alive, stereotypically so, is the most entertaining aspect of the movie.
I’m glad Ferreira is doing better in the animation world, and is succeeding as in the art department across the industry, but oh my God, everyone definitely starts somewhere in their art journey, I suppose.
(Image taken from the Dubbing Database)
So, the origin of this movie is interesting. I know I say that a lot, but this was a rabbit hole I didn’t think I would uncover.
On IMDB, most of the actors have very barren pages. The most popular voice actor for this movie was Johnny Duncan, who passed away in 2016.
The only one who has the most elaborate IMDB page is Cory Edwards, who is the writer, director, and lead producer of this movie. He is mostly known for writing and producing moderately infamous movies, such as the “Hoodwinked!” duology, and has been a writer for the Christian series “Veggietales” since 2013.
Speaking of Christianity, Edwards also has a writing credit on a particular show, one that even stood out to me. It was a direct-to- series from the early 2000’s called “Gaither’s Pond,” about a bunch of fish in a pond talking about God, as Christian shows tend to do.
This is worth bringing up, as people from Gaither’s Pond like Benjy Gaither, Gloria Gaither, and Marshall Hall both have voice acting credits for Wobots.
Live Bait Products is also one of the main animation studios credited near the beginning of the movie. It just so happens to be the animation studio founded by the Gaither family back in the 1990’s.
The Gaither family, for those unaware, are a family known for their Christian gospel music. Why they’re making a more subtle Christmas movie compared to their other, more heavy-handed Christian productions is definitely a creative decision.
But what about the movie itself?
Well, the movie is about an orphan named Zak, who befriends a bunch of misfit, broken robots in order to stop the leader of Scrap Town, another broken down robot, from weaponizing the children and their toys to take over the city.
I’m going to admit it, watching this movie for this article was… weirdly fun? The writing can be pretty sharp at times, but are usually just one off lines rather than actual witty banter.
Also, the music is a highlight of this movie. Does it mean it’s good? No. Not really. Some numbers, you can tell, were made by gospel singers and music producers. However, compared to the animation for this movie, it’s the better part of it.
The animation is… woah. Definitely a movie from 2003.
(Image courtesy of the Youtube upload of A Wobots Christmas. Screenshot taken by me.)
While it’s better than Gaither’s Pond, Live Bait Productions’ other CGI animation project from just a few years ago, the character designs are quite clunky and not exactly the most interesting. Which, I suppose makes sense, given the robot characters are meant to be old and broken down, but the designs just feel more uninspired than anything else. Especially the human designs.
The animation itself is decent enough. It’s not like the lip syncing is completely off sync or anything.
My issue is the voice acting itself.
While the writing itself has its moment where it can be funny, it’s hard to be engaged when everyone is dry with their delivery. Especially Zak. For the main character, his voice isn’t really as dynamic compared to everyone else, who are clearly hamming it up.
Even with Zak’s character arc of finding what Christmas is all about (spoiler, it’s Jesus.), his tone doesn’t ever lighten up, or get out of constantly sounding depressed. Maybe it’s just the voice actor, who I couldn’t find a face for, but the fact that we’re supposed to be rooting for him, yet sounds so permanently exhausted doesn’t make him interesting to follow.
While this movie is the better looking and better composed of the 3 movies in this article, that doesn’t mean it was any fun to sit and watch through.
Just because a movie has moments where it’s self aware and jokes about how formulaic its premise is to other Christmas movies, that doesn’t excuse it from being the formulaic Christmas movies it’s making fun of.
Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa
(Image courtesy of the Youtube upload of Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa. Screenshot taken by me)
The extra research I have done into this movie should be enough evidence for me to seek out some form of compensation, but I digress.
So, Rapsittie Street Kids was a movie that (actually!) aired on television back in 2002, specifically on the WB, and other various local TV channels. It’s one of the very few movies that has been solely produced, directed, and written by a guy by the name of Colin Slater (not to be confused with a basketball star that kept popping up while searching his name.)
Colin is a strange case. There is no picture of his face on the web, it seems.
His IMDB page is remarkably barren despite the claims of making “2000+ hours of writing, producing, and making music for television.” He has also only worked (publicly) on four movies excluding Rapsittie Street Kids. These movies are “Wolf Tracer’s Dinosaur Island,” which was made by his own studio, “Wolf Tracer.” Then there are few producing credits on “Friends Are Forever: Tales Of The Little Princess,” and “The Norfin Adventures: A Norfin Noel” alongside “Castle of Doom.”
So, not much.
However, he does have some connections to bigger names in the industry, including voice actors. Some, of which, have been the subject of a strange conspiracy theory of sorts.
The theory goes that Colin knew Nancy Cartwright, one of the voice actors for Rapsittie, through supposed connections to the Church of Scientology. (Yes, that one.) Through Nancy, the rest of the voice actors followed suit, not knowing exactly what kind of movie Colin was making.
There also exists speculation regarding the production of this movie, specifically in the animation department. It goes that the program Wolf Tracer used to make Rapsittie Street Kids, 3D Photographer, was very faulty, and not the most optimized program even for the time. Rumors also went that the voice actors didn’t even get to see the final product until the movie was either A) very close to the end of production, and B) already airing on live TV.
So… what about the movie itself?
The movie features Ricky, who is poor. This is important because he wants to buy his crush, Nicole, a present, but doesn’t have a whole lot of money. So, he results in giving her the teddy bear that his mother gave him before she died.
Nicole, is an ungrateful, spoiled brat. She throws away the teddy bear because it’s not an expensive gift.
Then, not even 5 minutes later, she has a change of heart after opening Nicky’s mail one day on the way home, and she and some of Nicky’s friends have to go find it. Along the way they figure out the importance of learning about how the thought is the most important in giving a gift.
Strangely enough, Santa isn’t really mentioned in the movie. One of the characters sings a song about believing in Santa (because yes. This movie is a musical!) but if you were to cut out the Santa stuff from the movie, nothing would change. The moral wouldn’t change, the characters wouldn’t change, except that one song.
And now, must I say, the voice actors better have gotten paid decently for this movie. The music itself? Awful. But at least the voice actors are doing the best they can with what bland song writing they’ve been gifted with. Makes me question Slater’s supposed “2000+ hours in music production for TV.”
Of course, the most infamous part of this movie is the animation. It’s made in a program that wasn’t even well suited for animation to begin with, so that at least explains something, but not all of it.
A good chunk of this movie is after effects and stock clipart. Yes, clipart. For a movie in 2002.
Also? The layering. Characters are just placed on a background, not even interacting with their environment. The school scene where everyone is outside? No one is actually in the snow. They’re just on the backdrop of the snow.
Just explaining every error and technical decision in this movie makes me want to go insane. So many other people have raved about this movie online, what else can I bring to the table?
My personal recommendation.
Yes. I suggest watching it. I believe it is a rite of passage for anyone interested in bad movies. Just watch it once, and you’re set for life.
Heck, watch all of these movies! Make it a whole event to just watch these horrendous movies extensively. Broaden those horizons of Christmas cinema (even if these movies suck.)
Happy holidays. You’re welcome.
