Episode 177: An American Christmas Carol (1979)

Posted on July 28, 2026 by Joseph

It’s Christmas in July here on the podcast, and we’re back discussing that most eternal of all holiday classics: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. More specifically, we’re taking a look at the 1979 made-for-TV movie An American Christmas Carol.

This adaptation transposes the story into 1930s New England, where the town miser is Benedict Slade, played by Henry Winkler. The film first aired in December of 1979, in the middle of Happy Days‘ seventh season, which explains why roughly half of the film takes place during the “Christmas Past” sequence. Winkler was not about to put on the old man makeup any longer than he had to!

ALSO! Have they ever done a “Christmas Carol” adaptation starring Dracula? Let’s talk about that.

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Stocking Stuffer #37: The Real Ghostbusters – “Xmas Marks the Spot”

Posted on April 14, 2026 by Joseph

In true seasonal fashion, your favorite Christmas Creeps return once again to discuss something near and dear to our hearts: Baseball!

Okay not really. This is a podcast about the Real Ghostbusters Christmas episode “Xmas Marks The Spot”! In this one, the Ghostbusters find themselves falling through a time warp to Victorian England, where they accidentally rescue Ebenezer Scrooge from the three Christmas spirits.

That said, we do spend a good portion of the episode on Joe’s recent experience with the phenomenon known as Banana Ball. But don’t worry about it. We’re all having fun here!

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Episode 176: Ebenezer (1998)

Posted on March 17, 2026 by Joseph

It’s our Oscar Special! It’s our St. Patrick’s Day Special! It’s our combination Oscars/St. Patrick’s Day Special!

Okay, so it’s not really either of those things… On this episode we dug up Ebenezer, a 1998 made-for-TV western adaptation of “A Christmas Carol”. It stars Academy Award winner Jack Palance as the film’s namesake money-grubbing miser. It also stars Rick Schroder as a sadsack who just can’t stop getting swindled by that charming old cad Ebenezer!

We also get into the state of cable television, a brief history of Turner Broadcasting, and even a little bit of Oscar chat. (We recorded this three days before the Oscars, and releasing it two days after. Whaddaya gonna do?)

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Episode 175: Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022)

Posted on January 27, 2026 by Joseph

Welcome back, Creepazoids! We’re ringing in the twelfth season of Christmas Creeps with an adaptation of Charles Dickens classic, infinitely adapted holiday fable: “A Christmas Carol.” More specifically, we’ll be looking at Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, the 2022 animated version produced by Netflix.

As it turns out, this is a direct remake of the 1970 film musical Scrooge, which explains why all the musical numbers seem vaguely familiar. We’re hitting the ground running in 2026, so buckle up and join us for holiday podcasting chaos!

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Episode 174: A Very Merry Amazon Prime Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2025 by Joseph

Merry Christmas, friends! We’ve finally made it to the big day, and we hope you all are having a lovely holiday wherever you are in the world. It’s time to sit back, relax, mix up some fun Yuletide cocktails and listen to us yak about some Christmas movies!

On this episode, Joe and Nikki discuss a pair of new holiday offerings from Amazon Studios. First we take a look at The Merchants of Joy, a documentary about families who make their living selling Christmas trees in New York City. Following that, we get into the dysfunctional family comedy Oh. What. Fun., which follows Michelle Pfeiffer as a mom who feels wholly ignored by her family around the holidays. Ha ha ha!

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  • Both movies are available to stream on Amazon Prime
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    KRANKOMETER RATINGS:
  • THE MERCHANTS OF JOY: (3, 2)
  • OH. WHAT. FUN.: (4, -3)

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Episode 173: Play Dirty

Posted on November 28, 2025 by Joseph

Shane Black Friday returns! Our favorite purveyor of holiday action nonsense is back with another Christmas-themed feature to jingle our bells and deck our halls. Or something like that.

On this episode we’re discussing Play Dirty, the latest from filmmaker Shane Black. Play Dirty is based on Richard Stark’s long-running series of “Parker” crime novels. But rather than adapting any novel in particular, Shane Black elected to concoct his own with the help of Mark Wahlberg, Lakeith Stanfield, and Rosa Salazar.

It’s got twists and turns! It’s got heists and wacky characters and double-crosses! It’s got all the things we come to expect from a Shane Black movie. And it also has the baggage of being an Amazon-produced film meant for ‘second screen viewing’. What does all that mean? We’ll get into it!

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Episode 172: Werewolf Santa

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Joseph

Home For the Horrordays continues as we enter spooky season proper! We’ve been sampling the wares offered by everyone’s favorite streaming service, Tubi, and landed on the 2023 found footage horror flick Werewolf Santa!

It’s Christmas Eve in British seaside town of Hastings, and amateur monster hunters Lucy and Dustin encounter Santa Claus just in time to watch him get mauled by a werewolf. Now it’s up to Lucy and her family to save Christmas before the feral monster Santa can devour the entire town.

On this episode, we discuss the film’s found footage bona fides, ponder the logistics of lycanthropy, and reminisce about our own misspent youth as high school filmmakers!

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Episode 171: Adult Swim Yule Log (w/ Alonso Duralde)

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Joseph

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, friends! Home For the Horrordays, our annual celebration of all things festive and spooky, makes its triumphant return!

Also returning this week is our guest, film critic Alonso Duralde! The second edition of his book “Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas” arrives on shelves this week. (Pre-order your copy today!) Alonso joins us to discuss the explosion in the holiday cinema landscape since the book’s original release.

Afterward, Alonso brings us the 2022 Adult Swim Yule Log for discussion. Produced in secret and released with zero fanfare, the Adult Swim Yule Log starts simply enough: just a video of a festive fireplace. It soon veers off into some wildly grotesque directions, including a hillbilly killing spree, alternate dimensions and timelines, aliens, sentient yule logs… You know what? We’ve already said too much. Jump on in and join the insanity!

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Stocking Stuffer #36: Donkey Kong Country – “The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights”

Posted on July 29, 2025 by Joseph

It’s been a long, hot summer, but we’re back just in time for Christmas in July! We’ve been playing the heck out of Nintendo’s new Donkey Kong Bananza game, so we thought we’d take a look at the Christmas episode of the Donkey Kong Country TV series!

“The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights” has everything you could want out of a holiday-themed cartoon episode: A holiday-themed light display, a wacky O. Henry-esque gift-giving mishap, two warring factions coming together in the name of peace, and even a festive song or two!

So yes, we’re talking all about Donkey Kong this episode. The first half of this episode covers the Donkey Kong TV show (and also Avatar: The Way of Water, for some reason). The second half is when we pull the ripcord and just gush about Donkey Kong Bananza. Strap yourselves in, kiddos!

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Episode 170: Spy x Family Code: White

Posted on June 10, 2025 by Joseph

We crash into June with the grand finale of this year’s Ani-May block! This episode we’re talking about Spy x Family Code: White. And to help us break it all down, we’ve enlisted two experts in all things animation: Returning guests Niall Flanagan and Dwayne Moloney!

The Forger family—career spy Loid, his secret assassin wife Yor, and their psychic adoptive daughter Anya—takes a holiday vacation to the cozy mountain town of Frigis. Anya needs her father’s help to bake the perfect dessert for a school contest, but along the way the family find themselves embroiled in a plot to kickstart a war.

As one of our guests puts it: “What if John le Carré wrote one of his spy novels and accidentally wrote a sitcom instead?” That’s about the size of it. And, hey! It’s also a Christmas thing!

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