Little Drummer Warners

Now, for a divine, animated edition of…

Here’s to You!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, Animaniacs!”

I made of mention of this in last year’s Secular Specials entry, where I mentioned the reasons some Christmas specials tend to not touch the story of Jesus’s birth much (or it at least might seem that way). Basically, it’s safer not to. With all these oversensitive Christian morons running around, one false step on the sacred ground that is the nativity story could have like 5,000 midwestern churches wanting your head on a platter. Yet you might have these same people also whining that Jesus is being phased out of Christmas, a doublespeak typical of evangelicals. They want Jesus to get more of a mention, but if you try, they pipe up with “YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!” And because doing the nativity story can have the side effect of coming off as proselytizing, makes it all the more appealing to just stick to other Christmas stories.

There’s also the issue of how exactly the nativity story would even be incorporated, evangelical whininess aside. I mean, it gets at least a casual mention on a lot of sitcoms and whatnot (I’m thinking of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when the family was staying in a ski cabin or something at Christmas and Will says “no one else is being let into this cabin unless they’re with a pregnant virgin on a donkey!” Hehe.) But that would pretty much suffice since, let’s face it, the story is pretty boring. In which case, it’s actually pretty widespread and the people saying otherwise are either blind or nuts.

But I’m getting way off track here. There is one Christmas special that nailed it. Not proselytizing. Not disrespectful. Includes the show’s usual zaniness. I’m of course talking about the Animaniacs segment “Little Drummer Warners“.

Well, admittedly, it’s a little low key for Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, though that is perhaps just part of the humor when they go into the all out musical number, hehe. But it works and I really can’t see how either the religious or the secular can find it offensive. I’m sure there are some who find a way, but screw them.

In any case, something to shove in my dad’s face next time he whines that Charlie Brown’s Christmas is the only Christmas show ever to mention Jesus. But even in that, it’s still pretty much just a casual mention.