As reviewed by Lisa Carver, Sadie (six) and Wolf (thirteen).
Doodlebops: Happy Doodle Holidays
SADIE: Everybody would hate this. There's silly, not good-looking clowns.
LISA: As opposed to all the other serious, attractive clowns? This is so San Francisco. And Pee Wee Herman, Candide, Partridge Family, Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the Barnum & Bailey colored poodles. What we need is some juxtaposition . . . something dark to offset the joy explosion. Maybe a black dragon to come and kill the Doodlepops?
WOLF: Yeah, fire them up. Except the girl. Let her sing and dance.
SADIE: Wolf has a crush.
WOLF: Noooo! Help!
LISA: You know how you can tell if someone has a wicked crush?
SADIE: How?
LISA: If they yell "no" and run away when you accuse them of it.
WOLF: Noooooo! [runs away]
*The three of us have very confusing feelings about this one.
Santa Claus, The Movie — 20th Anniversary Edition
(with Dudley Moore and John Lithgow)
 LISA: That's a lot of snow! Well, now we know how Mr. and Mrs. Claus became magical — they froze to death and were brought back to life by magic elves.
SADIE: And Father Winter.
LISA: And now we know how Santa delivers all those toys in one night: "Time travels with you . . . a passage of endless night." So cool.
The Happy Elf
 SADIE: That elf is crazy happy. Uh-oh crazy.
LISA: He reminds me of Alfred E. Newman, the Mad magazine guy. I love the narrative style of Harry Connick, Jr. He's a good new Bing Crosby. Bluesville really captures my imagination.
WOLF: Yeah, because it's dark most of the time.
LISA: It reminds me of Stockholm, where you wear dark clothes and are possessed by dark thoughts. And drink your coffee black.
WOLF: Bluesville is between two cliffs and the sun shines through the crack one or two minutes a day only. The people are tired and grumpy, so all the kids got on the Naughty List. So the Happy Elf went to Bluesville to make everybody happy so they can get on the Nice List and get presents. But I think it is kind of fun to live there and be so bad.
Shrek The Halls (ABC Television Network)
SADIE: Shrek told "The Night Before Christmas" in a funny way.
WOLF: Ogre moms and ogre kids were doing kazoos in their bed. Gassing.
LISA: Gross.
SADIE: And he gave swamp slime to Ogre Claus and a nice naked turkey for the mom. Shrek kicked his friends out of the Christmas party, because they put fire on his butt by accident and he thought it was on purpose.
Enchanting Christmas Stories
 SADIE: This is boring.
LISA: Can you tell me what it lacks?
SADIE: Yeah -- I hope something will happen.
LISA: Like what?
SADIE: Like it turns into a different movie.
RELIGIOUS NANNY: It's about Baby Jesus!
LISA: It's not Baby Jesus they object to -- it's how slowly and simply the story unfolds. Look at me, I've turned into a crabby old woman complaining about kids' attention spans. I always was, though. I used to be a crabby young woman.
But then both kids loved the next, equally slow and simple, movie about magical elves . . . so maybe it was Baby Jesus they objected to! Little heathens.
HIT Favorites: Winter Wonderland (with Barney, Bob The Builder, Thomas Tank Engine, Fireman Sam, Kipper, and Pingu)
 WOLF: As a teenager, I don't like this. I do like all this snow. And the looks of the fire trucks.
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