#also: now begins the silly doodle era of the calls

[apocalymons]

Weekly Digikin Roll Call!

If you’re digikin, sound off in the replies or reblogs!

Or, if you prefer, send a call in a-mon-ymously!

[book-o-scams]

What do you think of the Kanker's presence in Jingle Jingle Jangle? How is it different from their other appearances?

OKAY I FINALLY DID IT!  Step right up and see analysis of the Kankers’ parts of Jingle Jingle Jangle!  Only 3 or 4 weeks late!

First of all, in case I never analyze this special in full, I want to call out that this whole way of connecting the Eds’ A Plot to the Kankers’ B Plot is complete nonsense.... randomly discarded and forgotten flashlight + conveniently placed mirror = reflection of light pointed at the sky = Star of Bethlehem that uses Godlight to deliver sexual harassment to the main characters???  It is a purely visual idea, and what’s worse it seemingly has no meaning....  is it punishment for wasting a battery??  Then what was the point of the special’s other Chekhov’s lightbulb!?

Was that just a spiritual redemption, but not an escape from his punishment?  

Is it punishment for breaking his parents’ trust?  

Is it just to say the Kankers’ lives are sadder and this universe’s god prioritizes them above the Eds or anyone else?

Or is the Snow itself an entity, like the Static?  Both are terms to refer to television fuzz….  

Is Evil Tim in control of the holidays, with all the magical Santas and Elves and Monsters that get to appear in these episodes???  

The Snow is even the first thing to appear, in detailed close-up for one time, before the rest of the universe fades into existence, ushering Plank (and Jonny) into the digital era before the Eds OR the Kankers get to appear at all, and scenes where the snow is coming down are markedly more abstract and focused on the characters being quiet and internalizing their emotions.  

Is supernature itself overwhelming the characters at will and leading them to cruel fates!?  

Is the supersnow meant as a warning of the literal and figurative after-effects bound to invade any show switching to digital!?  

SOMEBODY STOP ME!

The snow even just fades out when Eddy’s light starts glowing.

I’m sorry to begin with a whole silly rant. It’s just that Christmas specials are normally the one episode of any show that can be counted on to let the main characters have a win.  The show was set to end with its stagnant nihilistic 4th season, so it was a miracle to get the holiday specials or digital era at all...  So this Kanker ending stung more than usual.

That said, this special has won me over as an adult!  The series’ first foray into digital animation looks really gorgeous and it’s such a visually driven special, you can’t look away.   The animation is unfortunately a little better than the digital era could make consistent, but it’s close enough to feel like the same show as everything that came before and after it.  Definitely some of the most experimental style choices the show ever made. I’m always so glad the backgrounds are still hand-painted throughout Jingle Jingle Jangle.

I’m fascinated by the way this star is clearly a digital effect, but at the same time it avoids being too high quality for EEnE by mostly looking like a dry brush (like when they do those paint-blurs when the characters move fast), and animating the star as white outlines with no color inside when they could easily do a real light effect is an interesting choice.  It captures the eery prettiness the star’s role demands without betraying the show’s sketchiness.

I really like the music direction this whole special, but this opening to the Kankers’ Christmas is one of my favorite parts.  It is about a minute long and starts 2 and a half minutes into the special.

As we start hearing dialogue from Lee, the camera whips down to the trailer park and the Kankers’ theme music drums in.  This is the one time the show really made me aware the Kankers have a theme so now I always keep an ear out for that music cue.  I know it fills most of their appearances in Big Picture Show.

Inside, the Kankers sit and squabble as always, playing with a box of Krazy Krackers.  Apparently Christmas Crackers are a more popular thing in the UK (the show had a lot of UK influence around this time, with Rachel Connor joining as head writer in the next season), but I think it’s been confirmed to be a Canadian thing too now.

Room analysis!   The Kankers seem to have to make do when it comes to decorations… They have lights on the staircase and around the windows, and a cute wreathe with a red light on top of their TV, but their tree is a lone stick that has 7 branches if it’s lucky, it’s plugged into the wall yet the one light on it isn’t working, and most of the ornaments seem to be recyclables, barbed wire, or orbs that have fallen from the tree.  Oven mitts have been hung from the wall in place of stockings and rather than garland, they’ve trimmed their living room with chains, fishing lures and… are those shower curtain lines?

This is probably the most the show really gets across how big of an economic difference there is between the cul-de-sac and the trailer park.  The kids, even Ed and Eddy (unfortunately we see little of Edd’s family’s Christmas traditions), seem to have very gaudy and extravagant decorations, most of them appear to be expecting family or coworker Christmas parties later in the evening.  The Kankers’ trailer is sparse by comparison.

Marie being the least cheery at Christmas is probably the most punk thing about her..

Focusing Kanker scenes on May is pretty typical of this point in the series, but I like how infallibly nice May is in this one.  Marie tries to blow the Christmas cracker up in May’s face, and yet May barely reacts to the threat level here as anything out of the ordinary.  Then again, this scene likely exaggerates how much these things are like firecrackers.

May calls the cracker a dud, so of course Lee razzes her, “just like you, huh, May?”  This moment has a good undertone of Lee trying to readjust Marie’s negativity to more of a light ribbing, to fit the season.

REALLY COOL DIGITAL DRYBRUSH EXPLOSION EFFECTS…

What’s the deal with this eyepatch on Marie though?  Is this just a “under the bangs” teaser gag like the one frame three-eyed Lee in BPS?  The artists don’t try nearly as hard to hide Marie’s full face as they do Lee’s….  Is it just an unexplained one-episode injury like Jimmy’s?  

so glad even the digital X-mas special gets inverted frames, one of the most interesting visual features of the series’ early episodes

Good honest reactions of concern for May from Marie and Lee..

WHAT IS THIS A HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!?

“Look, Lee, May got a makeover~!”

….how desensitized have they become to slapstick!?  Sarah and Jimmy react to a similar gag with Eddy casually decapitating Ed next season with utter horror and confusion!

Apparently the most important thing here is that Marie wasn’t left out of getting a crown.

5 fingers on her right hand for one pose…

Note that the Kankers have replaced their wall unit’s knick knacks with Christmas cards from their invisible friends and family! 

 “Joy”

 “HAVE A XMAS” 

“From Your Father” (please appreciate this rare acknowledgement of the likelihood of a preferred Kanker dad)

“Ho Ho Ho” 

“Happy Kwanza” (also the one acknowledgment of other winter holidays in this Christmas special and I don’t think it’s even spelled correctly… I thought for sure at least JIMMY would celebrate Hanukkah or something…)

“[doodle of a candy cane]”

“DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?” 

one of this special’s many references to classic holiday staples, in this case the song, ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_What_I_Hear%3F

“Something twinkling in the sky!”

This opening scene to their plot starts the Kankers off as unusually innocent and naive, seemingly motivated only by an attraction to light, like moths.  Lee even has to ask “where is it?” to which Marie correctly points out that May already said the star was in the sky.

To be fair, Lee’s hair was blocking her eye, and we finally get to see her eye for the first time since season 1!

I LOVE this little detail of Lee twirling her foot before skipping out of frame.

Marie rises, embarrassed to have been choked and dropped so carelessly.

She tries to save face by telling May to come on.

May’s Christmas cheer will not be defeated!  

She teases Marie by giving Marie the same “come on” command.

Iconic!!  Doesn’t this shot kinda make you think of the night scenes in Disney’s Aladdin?

10 minutes later, we get another minute of Kanker B-plot.  I don’t think any other episode ever gets this close to the super-geometric outline-eradicating Samurai-Jack-esque style Rod Filbrandt uses in concept art for his backgrounds..

Such background porn…  I’m really unsettled by the weird abandoned signs of life this God Light takes the Kankers to…  It’s like a trail of death leading to the Eds’ bad ending and the Kankers are too desensitized to pick up on that.

Lee gives her sisters a quick glance as they approach.

Lee and May unintentionally shut Marie out and she steps around.

Also, I’ll give them points for the “gold, frankincense and myrrh” = “mold, franks and cents, and fur” rhyme gag, but only because I wasn’t aware of that part of the nativity scene until this special aired.  I was 13 when this came out, which means I’d already done like 8 grades of Catholic school, how did they fail to make any impression on me!?   But honestly, that’s a weird punchline to try and use as a button on this bit.  And as much as I love the art in that montage, it seems like it would’ve worked even better as a mood-setting detail if they found each gift separately between each house Eddy visited.

“What the heck is it?“  Pretty sure her mouth colors are mismatched.

“It’s a sign, stupid.“   Touching.

I love when they all look up in unison.

They look more confused as they walk away.

I’m really interested in how extra moody Marie seems in this montage.  I also noticed that their frostbitten walk through the snow seems to be slightly foreshadowing of the walk Eddy goes on in the climax.  

This is a really iconic shot and camera direction for me too, and it’s the one appearance of the junkyard at night in the whole show (as a setting, there’s at least one episode that shows it from overhead at night).  It’s also one of like 3 uses of the junkyard as a setting in the digital era.  And here you can barely even recognize it under the snow.  Still looks great, though!

They are SO introspective over this star… what are they contemplating?  Should we retroactively assume they’re regretting their situations with the Eds post-Fistful, or accept that this special wasn’t made in chronological order and think of something less specific, like family troubles or… just not thinking anything particular at all???  

Lee and May stare dumbfounded at their lost-in-thought sister.

Very cute Maries.

Love that unoutlined background pipe.

This glow effect seems.. broken.

“weiners and pennies!?“

Wait…  …Are you kidding me?  I just noticed that May and Marie are each wearing one half of the same pair of gloves and the same pair of mittens….

Oooh look at this goregous postcard-ready background of the construction site!  The construction site only has one other night scene I can think of that isn’t just an overhead shot, and it’s only one shot of Ed running there to grab a cement mixer during his fight with Nazz in Boo Haw Haw.

I really love how these gradient-silhouettes with blobby purple outlines look.  Their progression through the show’s locations reminds me of the EEnE video games (mainly Jawbreakers! for the GBA because that was the only game they had at this time)…  I think they also used this silhouette style for the kids on the Scam of the Century DS game cover.

i love EEnE vehiclessssss

I love wondering whose coat this is and why it’s been left here…  Also, do the rust and torn seat imply this construction site is officially abandoned? Or is this one of only a few vehicles that got left behind right before Christmas break and is now being ravaged by the elements?

This frame always makes me yearn for a future where Lee is a construction worker. Or demolition!!!

“It’s a coat.  Come on, we’re getting close.“  Oh sure fine, makes sense to me.

We then cut one street over to Eddy in Plot A, where it isn’t snowing, reinforcing the idea that the Kanker’s story is not chronologically synced up to Eddy’s story.

Anyway, another 10 minutes later, we get a final Kanker scene!

The Snow is strong enough to smack Eddy with a door (UNINTENTIONAL BRO FORESHADOWING?).  Eddy is also not very good at boarding a door, apparently.

On a scale of 1-10, how blasphemous is this shot?

The Snow encroaches upon the Eds

“Could it be!?  Three kings who have traveled afar!?“

How serious is that question, Edd.... why would there be three real-ass monarchs in Rolf’s shed in the middle of an American blizzard???

I feel real weird about Edd being so religious in this episode, it’s too soon after season 4 made such a point of Edd not believing in things that cannot be proven…  

I like that the special is religious.  As agnostic as Catholic school made me, Christmas specials that get sentimental about the Christian traditions get the most nostalgia out of me.  But this special and series clearly revels in sin and hopelessness, so I found it kind of jarring how much of this special lets the Bible references be played straight.  Making Edd super religious just so he can continue to be fanserviced as an angel felt a little cheap, and I feel like it creates an undertone that Eddy is being punished for not being as religious as the others around him.

But take my complaints there with a grain of salt, it’s impossible to understand X-mas Special Logic, where it’s not quite Christianity, just some sort of TV-safe offshoot with elves and magic and a generally more fantastical mythology.

Hey the silhouettes are back!

I already spoiled this joke...

I do really like this shot…  Nice to see Rolf’s animals get a Christmas cameo.

I do entertain the idea that the Kankers really think these gifts will warm the Eds’ hearts and earn their admiration.  But we all know this will be a short lived moment.

“This image certainly has the Christmas spirit…“

And now that there’s been a beat of peace, the Kankers reveal their true intention of pressuring the Eds into gifting them some kisses.  The way they trap them in the shed and suggest it’ll last a whole year is really one of the creepiest approaches to a Kanker ending in the whole show.  Obviously it’s not likely it would really last that long, and imo if it’s just kisses it’s not really new or surprising... but it’s still a pretty damn meanspirited ending for a beautifully-crafted holiday special that very easily could have been scrapped by the show’s season 4 cancellation. 

I do love the fur coat being draped over the cow’s face, though.

And it is honestly important to know the Eds can still do well drawn group scream takes in digital.

May and Ed scaring the animals is a nice touch, but I hate how we hear May going “oink” during this walla.

“WAIT”

“I’M AN ANGEL”

“STOP!!!!”

kiiiinda scary

I hate Eddy almost getting away but kinda love this rare separation of his eyes.

At this point my brain dies and I just go “aw the kids are so cute this is the only thing going on look how cute jonny is and kevin is being so nice and rolf is such a killyjoy i love this i love their group what a great xmas special nothing went wrong everyone is singing”

hope you had a good Kanker appreciation month!

*cries*