We first meet up with Dobbs in desperation and penury, homeless and begging on the streets of Tampico. All he wants is to get his head above water, to live comfortably without having to depend on handouts from rich American vacationers. Nothin’ fancy, just freedom from poverty.

Even when he first hits on the idea of prospecting for gold, his ambitions remain modest. Howard (Walter Huston, in one of the best-deserved Academy Award winning performances of all time), another drifter with some experience as a prospector, tells him what gold does to a man, the way getting a little only makes you hungry for a whole lot more. Dobbs insists that won’t happen to a simple, reasonable man like him, that he’ll just collect his little piece and go home.

We know better, of course. Dobbs, Howard, and a third young down-and-out named Curtin (Tim Holt) set off in search of veins of gold and barely any time has passed before they all, but Dobbs in particular, begin to feel the effects of potential wealth. Once they actually start to find gold, Dobbs plummets into greed-fueled madness in record time.

Dobbs views everyone’s actions with suspicion, and the more gold the three companions find the more pronounced his paranoia becomes. Soon this regular guy is pulling guns on his friends and voting to kill strangers, all to make sure nobody comes near his supply of gold, already greater than he ever expected it would be.

And that’s what the movie’s about, the immediate, irresistible corrupting influence of a avarice. It’s the greatest exploration the snowballing effect of lust for money and what it can do to a person since von Stroheim’s Greed. (The film shares other surface similarities with that silent masterpiece, including its budget-busting location shooting.)

It’s a slight to the fabulous Walter Huston to talk only of Bogart, but man is he great. His transformation from likeable loser to nasty paranoiac to murderous madman is what performance is all about. When his greed finally forces him to kill, his lonely monologue where he tries to convince himself he’s done all the right things, regardless of what a pest like a conscience might say, is one of cinema’s all time highlights.

If your New Year’s resolution was to see some of the great movies you’ve missed out on, and you haven’t yet experienced The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, there’s no better way for you to start your year’s viewing.

BONUS NOTE: What’s the deal with Humphrey Bogart being in movies whose most famous lines are never actually said by anybody? We all know no one in Casablanca ever actually says “Play it again, Sam,” and in  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre the menacing bandit almost but not quite says “We don’t need no steenkin’ badges.” Coincidence, or secret government plot?

This is another one of the last kind.

See, I watched Superman II today and wasn’t exactly surprised to find that, though I enjoyed the film in my childhood, it actually pretty much sucks. But I also realized something else as I was watching the movie: This whole secret identity thing is completely stupid.

Remember that scene in Superman II where Lois Lane is convinced she’s figured out that Clark Kent is actually Superman? She’s so sure of herself that she throws herself into the Niagara River, where she’ll surely be killed unless Superman intervenes.

But rather than risk exposing his secret, Clark Kent nearly lets Lois drown before coming up with a way to clandestinely keep her from spilling over Niagara Falls. And this is the guy that loves Lois, remember? Yet keeping the whole “Clark Kent = Superman” thing a secret is so important it trumps saving the life of his sweetie.

All of which is total bullshit. There is absolutely no reason for Superman to maintain the Clark Kent identity at all. The whole pretense is an utter waste of time. This isn’t like over in Gotham City, where Batman is just a dude in a suit. Batman needs all kinds of resources that billionaire Bruce Wayne provides.

Superman, on the other hand, actually is Superman. It’s Clark Kent that is the assumed identity; why not just shed it entirely? Couldn’t he just be Superman all the time? Of course he could. He gains nothing and protects nothing by prancing around as a butterfingered reporter half of the time.

Supes, seriously: Stop it.

Though there are other excellent holiday movies that are indispensible for any merrymaking movie buff, none is more perfectly realized than this story of a little girl learning to believe.

That little girl is Susan (Natalie Wood), as adorable as anything you’ve ever seen but sadly lacking in the childlike sense of wonder department. Her mother (Maureen O’Hara) has raised her by the generally appropriate maxim of “deal with the real world and don’t go falling for a lot of dopey nonsense,” but this has had one unfortunate consequence: Susan doesn’t believe in Santa Claus!

This cannot stand, so it’s rather fortuitous that a man claiming to be the one and only real Kris Kringle plops right into her lap. The kindly old man teaches Susan a thing or two about imagination and manages to bring a little Christmas spirit to everyone he encounters, to boot. When working as a department store Santa at Macy’s, for example, he doesn’t hesitate to send shoppers to other stores if that’s where they can get the best deal on what they need. It’s about making the children happy, after all, not about which store should make the biggest profit.

But you can’t go around claiming to be Santa Claus and, most egregiously, being nice to strangers without people growing suspicious, so it’s only a matter of time before Kris Kringle is committed and made to stand trial to prove his sanity. It’s this trial that gives us one of cinema’s most well known and most often parodied moments: an army of mailmen bringing sack after sack of letters addressed to Santa Claus into the courtroom.

Throughout the picture are scenes of genuine comedy, of pathos, of unabashed emotion. When Susan writes a letter to Mr. Kringle saying she believes in him and her mother adds the postscript “I believe in you, too,” I cry every time. That’s right, I cry. You wanna fight about it?

My DVD copy of Miracle on 34th Street features a colorized version of the film in addition to the original black and white. Now, even if you were the sort of inhuman monster who normally watched old movies in colorized form, you’d be making a particular mistake here. The black and white—aside from imparting an easy elegance and just being the way movies looked best—also helps to sell the fantasy. By providing that slight disconnect from the way your real life works, the movie can draw you into its story of belief in the implausible all the more easily.

The movie has been remade several times, to varying degrees of success. But even with such names as Thomas Mitchell, Ed Wynn, Sebastian Cabot and Richard Attenborough in the Kris Kringle role, none of those subsequent tellings have matched the breezy charm and potency of story of this original version.

Watch Miracle on 34th Street and learn to believe in Santa again. It’s the best Christmas gift you could give yourself.

When Eric assigned me to write A Charlie Brown Christmas, I’m not sure he knew what he was getting himself into. See, I’m not much like other merrymakers who fall all over themselves praising any little thing which carries the smallest iota of warmhearted nostalgia.  I can’t ignore things like horrible dialog, an annoying plot with laughable transitions, and just general bad direction and production all around.

No amount of feeling like I’m “supposed” to love something (and I do feel that it’s a sweet little piece of pop history) can make me ignore all of that. It’s a cute story with some touching moments, but all things considered it’s rather absurd and it doesn’t even try to make sense.

The story opens with Charlie Brown feeling depressed about Christmas, God only knows why (FORESHADOWING, THANK YOU!). Apparently he thinks Christmas has become too commercialized, though we only learn that through a few meandering and mumbling scenes with Linus, Snoopy, and Lucy. Finally, five minutes into this barely 30-minute piece, we have a reason why it exists.

So Charlie is depressed and basically disowns Snoopy because decorating his dog house is far too “commercial” an activity, and Lucy names him director of their Christmas play in the fleeting hope that it will get him to shut up.  No such luck.

Chuck has no success getting the other kids to respect him as a director, and Lucy (what is she, his mother?) sends him off to find a “Nice, aluminum Christmas tree,” because if being a director doesn’t make it so she doesn’t have to listen to him, making him leave the building sure will.

The Christmas tree lot scene is by far the best and the most relevant to modern day, as they look at all these perfect, colorful, fake trees. At the time, it was a dig at the popular aluminum trees, but it works just as well as a rallying cry against the plastic trees of our day. Naturally, like any smart person, Charlie gets a real Christmas tree, albeit a sickly one.

Then everyone hates the tree Charlie brings back, and they’re like “Charlie Brown, you fucking asshole, way to ruin everyone’s lives by selecting this stupid tree that doesn’t even make sense in the context of our ultra-religious, traditionalist Christmas play.”

Charlie gets depressed again, and reiterates that he simply doesn’t know what Christmas is all about. “Can’t someone tell me what Christmas is all about?” he whines to no one in particular.  And then, the most worthless, meandering, overrated, unfortunate piece of Christmas nostalgia takes place, as Linus says “I can tell you, shithead,” then takes his place in front of the microphone (what?) in the center of the stage.

“Lights, please,” Linus instructs.  And then, as the lights dim, he spouts a half-hearted, poorly written version of the Biblical story of Jesus’ birth. Aside from the tasteful lighting, the quiet background, and the quaint echo of his small voice in the amphitheater, his speech is out of place, awkward, hyper-religious (obviously), and ineffective.  It is the single most overrated moment in all of Christmas pop culture.

Then, Charlie takes his tree and goes home for some reason, somehow still depressed even after that clearly worthwhile homage to Christ our Lord and Savior. Except actually, he goes to Snoopy’s home, which won first prize in the neighborhood Christmas decoration contest. Naturally, Snoopy’s success fills Charlie with rage.

“Christmas is so commercial, godammit!” Charlie shouts as he mocks the decorations on Snoopy’s doghouse, and then he proceeds to take THOSE SAME DECORATIONS and put them on his tree to make it a happy tree. Because stealing a dog’s Christmas ornaments and using them to decorate a tree is okay, but decorating your house in a similar fashion is for heathen hellspawn.

But Charlie can’t even finish that before he whines and leaves, then all the kids come and finish the decorations for him and make his tree nice, which he failed to do.  Then he is kind of happy at the end and they sing a Christmas carol, leaving their play unfinished, the Lord worshiped, and Charlie still not being able to resolve any of his own damn problems.

And there you have it. One of the more overrated Christmas specials of all time. It’s still bearable, however, and even cute, if you spend your evening checking your fantasy football scores while it plays in the background.

If for some unfathomable reason you’re unfamiliar with the concept behind Pinky and the Brain, permit me to elucidate. As the theme song says, “They’re laboratory mice. Their genes have been spliced.” Each night, Brain comes up with a new scheme to take over the world. He and his dopey sidekick Pinky attempt to carry out the scheme with hilarious results.

Comedy gold.

On this particular occasion, Brain has invented a hypnosis device that will allow him to bend all the citizens of the world to his will. The devices are put into Noodle Noggin, a children’s doll Brain’s designed—in his own likeness, as befits a megalomaniac. All Pinky and the Brain need to do is get one of these dolls under every tree come Christmas morning and the world will be theirs to command.

Naturally, they need an assembly line to produce enough Noodle Noggins in time, and when it’s Christmas only one assembly line fits that bill. After answering an ad in the paper reading “Elves wanted for holiday rush. Apply North Pole” (”Apply North Pole to what?” asks Pinky) the Mus musculus duo sets off for the Arctic to turn Santa’s workshop into their own personal Noodle Noggin factory. As a bonus, it will also give Pinky the chance to deliver his letter to Santa in person.

Along the way they have this exchange.

PINKY: I don’t want to be an elf.
BRAIN: Really? What do you want to be?
PINKY: A dentist!
BRAIN: You’ve seen too many Christmas specials.

That kind of  throw-away reference, whether to pop culture, fine arts, history, or anything else, was the hallmark of Pinky and the Brain and what made it so good; it was able to appeal not just to the kids in the viewing audience. For example, when the two mice have been discovered and are suspected of espionage, they’re asked who they work for: the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Hershel the Hannukah Goblin. That mightn’t exactly tickle a little kid’s funny bone, but it surely made me laugh.

But don’t go thinking it’s all jokes. Like any good Christmas special, this one has the kind of love-your-fellow-man-and-joy-to-the-world sentiment you expect, and it has it in just the right dose. For most of the show, it’s Pinky and the Brain business as usual; it’s set at Christmas, sure, but it’s the same kind of comedy that made every episode so good. It’s only for about ninety seconds at the end that it throws in some sweetness and you dab at the corners of your eyes with your shirt when nobody’s looking.

That’s how this kind of Christmas episode should be. When all the other installments of your show are strictly comedy, you want to treat most of your Christmas episode as no different. Then, right at the end, you throw in just a little holiday spirit; not so much that it becomes cloying, but not so little that it seems tacked on. It’s a delicate balance to strike, and A Pinky and the Brain Christmas gets it just right.

In fact, this show gets everything just right.

Our hosts are Herb and Rex, a wackily mismatched pair of dinosaurs (don’t your Christmas traditions involve dinosaurs?). These two thunder lizards will be our guides on a voyage of yuletide magic.

Or, more accurately, they’ll throw a few facts our way about the various Christmas carols that are showcased in this musical extravaganza. Either way.

WE THREE KINGS

Our old friends Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar sing their signature tune, and they sing it with all the seriousness and gravitas Christian types like to imagine their holy days deserve. Fortunately, there are some camels taking the choruses, and they sing like a swingin’ 1950s vocal group.

I think we all agree that anything with singing camels is awesome.

CAROL OF THE BELLS

Nobody knows more about bells than deformed weirdos, and so “Carol of the Bells” is an instrumental number conducted by none other than everyone’s favorite hunchback, Quasimodo (not to be confused with everyone’s favorite hatchback, the Toyota Starlet). The instruments being played—playing themselves, actually—are anthropomorphic bells. Creepy looking, anthropomorphic bells.

One of the bells is tell-me-about-the-rabbits level stupid and keeps whiffing it when it comes time for him to sound out his lusty tone, much to ol’ Hunch’s mounting frustration. But perhaps he wouldn’t be so stupid if he weren’t being called upon to repeatedly beat himself about the head for the amusement of cruel Parisians; did you ever think about that, Quozzy?

O CHRISTMAS TREE

An unseen children’s choir sings “O Christmas Tree” as we’re treated to a series of visuals depicting the life and times of the teeny-weeny monsters that live inside Christmas ornaments.

Sleep tight, little Billy and little Susie! Santa won’t come if you’re awake! And the assorted terrifying homunculi living on our Christmas tree won’t be able to escape and devour you if you don’t shut your peepers right now!

ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH

Ladies and gentlemen: if you, like so many people, live with the constant dread that you’ll never be able to see walruses ice dancing, you can put those fears safely to bed.

They’re big, blubbery walruses and they’re skating around! The boy walrus is wearing a little hat and bow tie! This, in two minutes, is the very essence of everything entertainment is about.

A bow tie!

JOY TO THE WORLD

If you wanted something that combines Christmas, the abstract ethos of the “Toccata and Fugue” segment of Fantasia, and David Bowman going into the Stargate, here you go.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER

OHMANOHMANOHMAN!! Seriously, you guys have no idea!

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is here sung by the California Raisins [hold for applause].

Did you guys hear me? I said the California Em Effin Raisins!

When I was just the wee-est of bairns, I was absolutely gagakookoo nuts for the California Raisins. I had California Raisins toys and wore my California Raisins shirt virtually every day (until the day came along that I got my Ghostbusters II shirts). They might have been the first ridiculous pop culture thing I was crazy about, and my zeal for the wrinkly little guys hasn’t abated a scintilla in the ensuing years.

Why do I love the California Raisins so much? Dude! THEY ARE RAISINS AND THEY SING, DUH!

And then the whole cast comes out to sing Here We Come A-Wassailing (throughout the show, Herb and Rex have been trying to deduce just what in the hell “a-wassaliing” actually is). And then, after that, I rewind it and watch the segment with the California Raisins 136 consecutive times.

I know I’ve mostly poked fun at this little show, but it’s definitely something special. Vinton’s Claymation characters sometimes delight and sometimes frighten; fortunately they mostly delight in this particular television special. I don’t know if this gets aired on TV at all, but it’s available on home video and you can find it on the YouTubes, so be sure to give it a watch. It’s well worth your time.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol wasn’t one of the first versions of the story that I saw, but it’s now one of my favorites. In fact, this theatrical short is probably the best thing Disney animation did between One Hundred and One Dalmatians in 1961 and the renaissance period begun with The Little Mermaid in 1989.

What makes it so good? First is the artistry on display in the animation, which in style is far more akin to the earliest Disney classics than what was coming from the studio in the 70s and 80s. Second is the good use of existing Disney characters in A Christmas Carol’s roles, particularly Mickey Mouse as Bob Cratchit, Goofy as Marley’s ghost, and Scrooge McDuck as—surprise!—Ebenezer Scrooge. This allows for two things: the right amount of freedom and looseness in the characterizations and the storytelling and at the same time the ability to treat the story with the seriousness it warrants.

And perhaps most importantly, the piece succeeds by recognizing the strengths of Dickens’ novel and distilling the book to its essence, moving through it in 25 minutes without ever feeling rushed. As someone with the approximate attention span of a cocker spaniel puppy, I appreciate that brevity. If all movies were less than half an hour long, I’d be very happy indeed.

For the thousandth time in your life, let’s recap the story. Scrooge: mean. Some ghosts! Past, present, and future. Scrooge: nice. Somewhere in there, Goofy falls down the stairs. End.

What you’ve got here is a quick little cartoon that rests comfortably alongside the best adaptations of A Christmas Carol, the best Disney animation, and the best of all Christmas movies generally. How can you beat that?

A short review, I admit, but it’s a short film. You shouldn’t need me to sell it to you; quit wasting time on the internet and watch this with the whole family.

Now that’s what I call a Christmas bonus!

DONALD DUCK: STUCK ON CHRISTMAS

Despite what that title would have you believe, it’s actually Donald’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie who are stuck on Christmas. If Christmas is like Groundhog Day, Huey, Dewey and Louie are like a feathery, three-headed Bill Murray.

Yes, the three ducklings make a wish that it could be Christmas every day and hey! presto! their wish is granted.

As Tom Petty warned, it’s Christmas all over again. And again and again and again. First the boys are thrilled by this development. Then they grow weary of the unceasing sameness. Then they realize that they can get up to all manner of ducky didoes without fear of reprisal and they take full advantage of that situation.

But then, as you’d expect, they learn some Important Lessons. Their continual exposure to Christmas teaches them to eschew their selfish ways, that it’s better to give than receive and the true meaning of Christmas is love and all that.

The other moral imparted to Huey, Dewey and Louie is that if Christmas came every single day it wouldn’t be so special. That’s just crazy. Christmas every day would be awesome.

A VERY GOOFY CHRISTMAS

This slapstick adventure deals with Goofy’s son Max and his crisis of faith. Max isn’t sure he believes in the one person that the holy season of Christmas is really all about: Santa Claus.

Spoiler! Santa eventually shows up! Hooray!

MICKEY AND MINNIE’S GIFT OF THE MAGI

O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi” happens, but to Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Mickey’s a harmonica player who wants to buy Minnie a watch chain; Minnie’s a lady with a nice watch who wants to buy Mickey a case for his harmonica. Things proceed from there to their inevitable conclusion.

So that’s what goes down in Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas. It’s not that great, but it doesn’t hurt your feelings or anything (except perhaps by the disturbing inclusion of a family of ducks eating a turkey for dinner). The movie was created as a direct-to-video item, so the animation doesn’t exactly blow you away, but it’s of the same cut-above quality of the old Disney Afternoon cartoons, so that’s good.

The first two cartoons left me a little flat—neither good nor bad but mostly just there—but the third is what earns this movie its three stars. O. Henry’s story is a classic for a reason: It’s a can’t-miss. Positioned as it is at the end of the feature, “Mickey and Minnie’s Gift of the Magi” and the sweetness it delivers leaves you feeling good when the credits roll.

Sometimes that’s all you need.

Christmas with the Kranks

Jamie Lee Curits and Tim Allen are Nora and Luther Krank, a pair of empty nesters who decide, on the first Christmas without their daughter at home, to take the money and effort usually spent on the trappings of the holiday and spend it on a Caribbean cruise instead. Rather than string lights on an empty house and put up a tree they won’t be there to enjoy, they plan to skip Christmas this year and enjoy themselves in warmer climes. As Luther explains to his coworkers, he’s “not angry and [won’t] yell ‘humbug’ at anyone offering holiday greetings,” he’s just not doing the Christmas thing.

Now, I love Christmas decorations and cram my house with just about every piece of red and green crap you can name. They could slap a googly-eyed snowman on a home enema kit and I’d buy eight. But that’s me. I’d never do it, but I can see that what they’re planning is a perfectly reasonable thing for Luther and Nora to want to do.

Not so their neighbors.

As soon as the Kranks make it clear that they won’t be participating in any Christmas activities, all the people on the block turn on them. It isn’t just that they give them the cold shoulder for a while, or privately think that the Kranks are a couple of weirdos; they actually go so far as to continually bully and harass the tropics-bound couple.

Nora and Luther are abused, chased and threatened, all because they won’t buy a tree or put an enormous snowman on their roof. It’s not as if the Kranks are going around stealing people’s presents and stuffing their trees one by one up the chimbley—they just aren’t decorating their own house or throwing a Christmas Eve party. Yet all their busybody friends and belligerent, pushy neighbors act as though they’ve decided to host a Manson family reunion on a playground, followed by random acts of arson.

Of course, things take a turn when the Kranks’ daughter calls, less than 24 hours before her parents are scheduled to leave on their cruise, and announces she’s coming home for Christmas after all. Now Luther and Nora are in a hectic, comic-antic-filled race to throw together a good old fashioned Christmas in a matter of hours.

This, too, I can understand. I can see why, with their daughter at home instead of a continent away, they would want to give her the kind of Christmas she expects rather than foist on her a disappointing surprise. It makes sense.

What makes no sense is the way everyone, even after the traditional holiday doings are underway, is still pissed at Luther for having the audacity to suggest skipping Christmas and, what’s more, for being disappointed that he couldn’t go on his cruise. Nora, suddenly on the side of those who had hours before been subjecting her to threats and intimidation, berates Luther for his gall in being disappointed that his “stupid, ridiculous, childish scheme” didn’t work out. Yeah, Luther, you jerk! How dare you be a little bummed that the vacation you’d been planning for six weeks and, for all we know, dreaming about for a lifetime, was canceled at the very last second? For shame!

The people on the Kranks’ street don’t come around to forgiving Luther and accepting him until he learns that he was wrong to ever dream of doing something different in the first place. That, after all, is the message of Christmas love: you’re only entitled to it if you do what everyone says. Isn’t it?

Oh, right. Of course not.

The movie is not without its isolated charms—in addition to the two leads, its cast features the likes of Dan Aykroyd, Cheech Marin and M. Emmet Walsh (and a brief appearance by Tom Poston!), and has funny moments and lines of dialogue throughout. Unfortunately, none of this helps the movie as a whole to transcend its weirdly unpleasant characters or the repugnance of its ultimate message.

The film is based on a novel by King of All Things Boring John Grisham and the screenplay was written by King of Filmmaking Style I Don’t Like Chris Columbus, so it’s not really a surprise that this movie is deeply flawed.

Skip this one. Stick with a movie that gives you a message of joyous Christmas togetherness rather than enforced Christmas sameness.

It’s Christmastime and the Muppets are preparing for their big holiday show. They’re auditioning acts and building sets and everything seems to be falling into place for one great Christmas extravaganza. Alas, it’s then that the cruel, malicious businesswoman (Joan Cusack) who holds the lease on the Muppet Theater* announces that if she isn’t paid all of the extensive back rent she is owed, she’ll shut the theater down. The Muppets will have nowhere to put on their shows, and I think it’s suggested that most of them live in the theater, so I guess they’ll be homeless as well.

Of course, a way is found to raise the needed money in time. After a frantic rush through busy city streets, Fozzie Bear ends up failing in his attempt to deliver the payment, and things look dire for the Muppets indeed. Kermit the Frog is utterly dejected; he feels that everyone was counting on him to save their Christmas and, consequently, that he let them all down and ruined their lives. Wandering the icy streets alone, he makes that time-honored Christmas wish: that he’d never even been born.

Yes, the framework of the story is a parody of It’s a Wonderful Life, and many of the movie’s funniest scenes come when the helpful angel (David Arquette) is showing Kermit a the world in which he never existed. Sam the Eagle is a raver, Beaker is a ‘roided-up bouncer at an insufferable nightclub, and Miss Piggy is a desperately lonely cat lady who fakes a Jamaican accent to pick up a few bucks as a phony telephone psychic.

Before all the riffing on It’s a Wonderful Life there are other spoofs as well. The Muppets mount an elaborate production (their Christmas Spectacular Spectacular) spoofing Moulin Rouge!. Fozzie is chased through the streets by a man with more than a passing resemblance to the Crocodile Hunter. My personal favorite parody scene involves Fozzie accidentally being mistaken for the Grinch and accosted by a crowd of angry Whos.

But trumping everything yet mentioned in terms of hilarity are all the scenes featuring Pepe the King Prawn, who steals any scene quite handily. His mispronunciation of words and his unwavering confidence, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, that his hipness and sex appeal are unmatched make him perhaps the funniest of all the Muppets. He’s come quite a long way since he was an elevator operator on Muppets Tonight.

The movie does have its weak spots. As in all Muppet media, any scene that features only human characters loses your attention quickly, and unfortunately the beginning of the movie is weighted down with such scenes. The picture’s one song, sung by Kermit and a homeless Gonzo in the alternate Kermit-was-never-born reality, is called “Everyone Matters” and the only way to describe it is “lame.” Gone is the jauntiness of “Movin’ Right Along” or “Can You Picture That” from The Muppet Movie, and even though that film’s biggest song, “The Rainbow Connection,” was a sweet one, this song is more sappy than sweet, more cloying than charming.

Fortunately, these complaints are relatively minor compared to the other delights It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie holds. There’s more than enough of the comedy and quality you expect from the Kermit and the gang to make this flick worthy of your attention.

NOTE: It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie was directed by Kirk Thatcher, whose affiliation with the Muppets goes back to 1989 but who you may remember best as Punk on Bus from Star Trek IV.

*Didn’t we learn on The Muppet Show that Scooter’s uncle owns the theater?