Each week, the Comics Curmudgeon helps explain Today's Cartoons. This week, he takes on the proliferation of lame Santa cartoons which might need to go away even more than the Christmas music that is still on rotation at the mall and makes us want to kill kill kill.
By now, those of you who celebrate Christmas, and even you anti-American communists who don't, are sitting in a pile of wrinkled wrapping paper and cardboard boxes made possible by the miraculous figure who's the real reason for the season. I'm talking, of course, about Santa Claus. The very fact that he travels all over the earth at hypersonic speeds in an open sleigh indicates that his body, long mocked as a "bowlful of jelly," is actually perfectly designed for maximum malleability: he flattens into a disk at maximum speed, but once his transport drops down to a near-human velocity, he just snaps back into shape. Similarly, because Santa has worked so hard to be all things to all the world's little children, his metaphorical image is almost as easy to squish into any desired shape. This week: too many cartoonists take advantage of Santa's good nature and put him through things no jolly old elf should ever have to endure.
Santa is: A mysterious, bearded figure of dubious ethnicity who resides in a region outside the control of any known government. He flies only by night, on a date determined by a religious calendar, and enters the homes of Americans at will. Food-based bribes have been known to keep him at bay, but for how long? How long can we afford to ignore his almost certainly sinister plans? We have no choice but to apply extreme measures! We are running out of time!
Secret Santa: Actually, wouldn't it be kind of cool to see Santa waterboarded? I mean, not actually see it -- it wouldn't be hot like the Wonkette-editor-on-Wonkette-editor waterboarding action -- but to get the results. Who's naughty and who's nice? We'd know definitively! Whatever happened to that G.I. Joe U.S.S. Flagg playset I was supposed to get in 1983? I saw you at the mall and you promised! You promised, you terrorist motherfucker!
Santa is: About to be homeless. Which is really pretty pathetic. His house isn't even that big -- in this cartoon, it's like a little snow-covered shack -- and presumably he's lived there for centuries. Wouldn't it have been paid off long ago? Maybe he needed to mortgage Chateau Claus to fund his ever-worsening meth addiction.
Secret Santa: This is without doubt the lamest use of Santa Claus in the entire batch of cartoons I'm showcasing this week. "Uh, shit, it's Christmas, uh, Santa, uh, what's a current issue ... oh, yeah, housing crisis thingie! Comedy gold, baby!" It would have been marginally better if it had been Jesus being evicted from the manger, because Hobo Jesus is always funny.
Santa is: At long last, forced to seek medical attention. Hey, Dr. Genius, I know you have a serious point to make about the fat little kids and the corn syrup and the type two diabetes and the whatnot, but: have you taken a look at the rotund figure sitting on that little bench before you? Did you look at his chart and see that he has a job that requires a lot of lifting and climbing? And you're blaming his knee problems on fat children?
Secret Santa: Perhaps the fat kids are only a smokescreen to protect Santa from the real reason he's being separated from the children he loves so much: increasing paranoia about pedophilia. But if you can't trust Santa, who can you trust?
Santa is: George Bush! Who knew? I mean, where does the guy find the time? He's awful busy coming with new plans to win our various wars ... er, I mean, working with Congress on new legislation ... er, personally taking care of his Texas ranch ... you know what, this actually makes perfect sense, when you think about it.
Secret Santa: While the pig-reindeer (suggested name: "reinpigs") are adorable, there seem to be some mixed messages here. Is the helpfully labelled spending bill full of pork, or is the pork pulling the sleigh? Actually, that could explain the look of wide-eyed horror on the reinpigs' faces: they're pulling a huge bag full of the butchered flesh of their fellows, and if they don't go fast enough, they're next.
Santa is: Tired of hearing all of this whining about the "purity of the holiday". "You know what, kids? Christmas is a fucking business. That asshole the Easter Bunny not only brings eggs to all the children in the world, but he actually hides them. Hides them! And the Tooth Fairy is allowed to just hand money out! So what if I need a little extra chemical help to compete? You liked all that heavy electronic equipment I dragged down the chimney last year, didn't you? God damn it, I wish I was like Elijah; at least he gets booze."
Secret Santa: Notice Santa's tiny head and hands. Does it make you wonder what ... else is ... OK, you know what? I'm not going to make a joke about Santa Claus' shriveled genitals. This job has blackened my soul, but not by that much.
Santa is: Dead. Some crazy old dude in Texas shot him in the chest.
Secret Santa: This is officially the most depressing cartoon ever. It's a good thing that decent people and children don't read the editorial pages, or newspapers in general.
