It's that time of year, when I use my I Love Television™ column to mentally unpack the best animated holiday specials of all time. Last week was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and tune in tomorrow when I dissect How the Grinch Stole Christmas! HOWEVER! While I'm focusing on the "best," maybe you should concentrate on the "WORST."What's the WORST animated holiday special ever?Matt Schimkowicz over at SplitSider makes a very good case for the absolutely terrible Christmas Comes to Pac-Land (1982). Here's what he says:
Ignoring most of the tropes associated with seasonal programming, Pac-Land is pretty upfront with its intentions. Essentially a 22-minute commercial for the Pac-Man video game series, Hannah-Barbara must have felt beholden to the game’s central plot, offering Pac-Man little or nothing to do outside of collecting power-pellets, fending off ghosts, and locating Christmas presents. Without any interest in contributing to the tradition of holiday television, Christmas Comes to Pac-Land teaches children to consume as quickly and gluttonously as possible.
Read the rest here, and check out out Christmas Comes to Pac-Land below. If you can think of a worse holiday cartoon special, I'D LIKE TO HEAR IT!