Note from RD: It’s that time of year again – CHRISTMAS! As is the tradition around these parts, my last induction of the year prior to Christmas is always a non-wrestling one that focuses on a terrible Christmas movie or TV special. Take a break from awful wrestling with an awful yule log instead!
As I write this, I am just a couple days away from seeing the new Star Wars flick, The Force Awakens. In fact, when this induction goes live I will be in the theater watching it. As excited as I should be about it (and don’t get me wrong, I am!), this week I’ve spent more time watching another one of my favorite films, Back to the Future. Oh how I love Back to the Future. In many ways, I view it as the perfect film – it has a fun plot, characters that make sense, and a story arc that twists and turns and in the end all makes perfect sense. When I think of my high school days, I always always think about this film.
Despite my love for all things BTTF, though, I had never even heard of the cartoon show until Blade told me he found an old tape of it in his closet. Better yet, it wasd a Christmas episode! How this happened without my knowledge seems impossible. I’d like to think perhaps I had better things to do when I was 24 years old than scour Saturday morning television for kids shows. But I write that, and I know it’s complete folly – I am now nearly double that age and am spending several nights putting together this induction about, oh yes, a kids show.
The intro tells us pretty much exactly what we are in for, as we get Doc and Marty crammed into the DeLorean with three other characters. Two appear to be young boys; the other is either a girl, a fish creature of some ilk, or maybe Mick Jagger. Also, Einstein is now a wacky dog who apparently can drive the flying time machine train. It wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t get the dirt worst rendition of Back in Time your ears ever did hear.
Why if I didn’t know any better, I’d think that this show was going to be completely awful!
The show opens with Doc Brown’s Legs under the DeLorean as he babbles on about about oil and french fries and transmissions and how he wishes he’d never invented the time machine. But hey, is sure did come in handy that time it was hot outside!
Sure enough, we switch to the cartoon world, wherein, as stated, it is the dog days of summer. As Doc is walking around upside down in the house (he’s an inventor, see?), we meet one of the kids, Verne. Oh, ok. So the kids are Jules and Verne, as those were Doc and Clara’s kids at the end of Part III. Got it.
What I did not get was this person. Above I noted that I thought perhaps this was Mick Jagger, but obviously it’s Steven Tyler, right?
Wait, what?
THAT IS CLARA?
CLARA?????!!!!
Look, I always found giving Doc a love interest kinda strange, but at least in the movie Clara was a slightly older woman. Here…
…she looks legit like someone who has to be his daughter.
His creepy Steven Tyler looking daughter.
Please don’t kiss. That’s all I ask.
Marty shows up on his hoverboard to join in complaining about how hot it is. We get it, everyone is hot. So hot they throw a temper tantrum worthy of the brattiest 2 year old you ever done seen.
The whining continues as Clara notes it’s “hot as the Dickens!”, which gives Doc a great idea: get out of the heat and go back in time to December 1845 England!
This is where I must borrow Blade’s “Whoa whoa, wait a second, time out” catchphrase. I may be wrong, but I would have sworn in the movie Doc kept talking about how they needed to destroy the time machine so they couldn’t go back in time and potentially screw up the future. I am certain he was adamant about that possibility.
But now, here, he decides to go back in time for the sole reason of a heat wave.
Why not just go back to last Thursday when it wasn’t so hot?
Whatever, they head back to Dickens’ London and are promptly greeted by Christmas carolers…
…who appear to be the minstrel trio of Porky Pig, Carrot Top, and Zamfir (thanks for the joke, Blade!).
As soon as they land, Jules asks Doc if he can have the keys to the car. To “watch over them” he says. Yeah, because if you are a adolescent teenage boy, you’re just going to pop those in your pocket for safe keeping. Right. Even young RD would have had ideas of where to go back in time when given the keys to do so. They wouldn’t have been as filthy as young Blade, but I mean, who would?
Meanwhile, Marty falls off a rooftop (seriously) and starts hitting on various wenches in the local toy shop. Again, remember when they wanted to stay inconspicuous in the movies and hide in the background? Here Marty just goes loco looking for some strange. To any of you who may have access to a time machine, I’d advise against that – gotta believe women (and men I suppose) of the mid 1800’s would be rampant with various now eradicated venereal diseases.
While watching Marty get smacked through the window, Doc notices quaint mechanical toys he had as a child and goes in to meet the shopkeep, who for all intents appears to be a mole.
In fact, not A mole, but rather…
…THE MOLE from Disney’s Wind in the Willows. I’d cry foul, but to be fair, this same character also appeared in Mickey’s Christmas Carol:
So yeah, in the spirit of the holiday, we’ll cut them some slack. In fact, I’d like to believe that there’s a whole extended family of mole people running around London at the time Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. Speaking of which, does anyone remember that old Night Before Christmas cartoon with mice running all over the place? I’ve not seen that on TV in at least 30 years. That wasn’t just something from my imagination was it?
A hooligan steals the car keys thus drawing the kids, Marty, and Doc away from the toy store just as Clara runs smack dab into…
…EBENEZER TANNEN!
He decides to not only foreclose on the toy store, but to kidnap Clara too. I can only surmise he did so as he was woo’ed in by her blow up doll face.
The boys wind up trapped as well, hanging upside down by the kid who stole the keys and a dude with pork chop sideburns who decide that instead of killing them, they will make them go out into the streets and steal stuff. What qualifies them to do this other than the fact that Verne was caught stealing cookies before they went back in time (which of course means they’d never have known about it) is unknown.
So Clara and the kids are gone and Marty and Doc just kinda look at each other in a baffled manner. Thankfully the carolers we saw earlier appear to sing the entire plot line of the show. That’s always a win. In fact, I bet even the worst Raw would be enjoyable if every other commercial break we had festive carolers recapping the events in a sing song manner.
Marty discovers that Clara has been taken to debtor’s prison, and the only one who can get her released is Ebenezer Tannen. Marty thus comes up with the brilliant idea of haunting Tannen. Did anyone NOT see that coming? As cliched as it may be, I will say this:
I’ve never seen a version of this with one of the ghosts as a flying teenager.
Hover board spirt no.
As Doc and the kids recover the keys to the DeLorean, Marty tries various tactics into scaring Tannen into releasing Clara, all of which fail before he finally hits upon success in showing him a Godzilla movie.
Again, I have to give this show props for being creative. After all, how many other versions end with Scrooge being frightened by Godzilla, thus causing him to let everyone out of prison (???!!!)…
…followed by him dancing in his underwear…
…before falling into figgy pudding and then being mocked by carolers…
…until finally turning the DeLorean into a clown car by jamming 87 people into it as they all go Back to the Future?
I mean, sure, this was absolutely terrible and makes no sense whatsoever, but, hey, it was definitely original!
And with that I take leave for this winter’s eve. However, please check back in next week for the annual WrestleCrap Radio Christmas special. After all, it’s also absolutely terrible and makes no sense either…but it is original!