[Is there a better way to celebrate the manger-birth of a superpowered messiah-baby than watching television? Hell no! Join Rendar Frankenstein as he navigates Spaceship OL through the Televised Days of Christmas!]

If pop culture’s taught us anything about Christmas, it’s that it’s the season of redemption. This is the one time of the year during which even the most miserably misanthropic and criminally corrupt are susceptible to the suggestion that underneath their callused exteriors beat hearts of joy and peace and altruism. Even the most seemingly formidable of Yuletide foes have been felled by the most wonderful time of the year.

Ebeneezer Scrooge. The Grinch. Frank Cross.

If the very avatars of greed and contempt are knocked out by Kris Kringle’s right hook, what chance does a run-of-the-mill reprobate stand? Is Christmas magic only reserved for the worst examples of the human condition, or can it be sprinkled on those individuals residing in the darker grey shades of morality? What happens when a lifetime of misdirection is intercepted by holiday responsibility?

Well, when we take a look at the exchange between Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid it becomes clear that Christmas offers hope not just for sinners and saints, but antiheroes and unlikely champions as well.

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Max Headroom is one of the most bizarre creations imported to American television in our lifetime. He poked his unholy prosthetic head onto Cinemax in 1986 by way of British TV and quickly began stuttering his way to stardom. Headroom (played by Matt Frewer – who portrayed Moloch in Watchmen) actually has a pretty sweet backstory. I barely remembered what he was all about, but after watching his awesome Christmas special I did some Wiki research. It’s like the best cyberpunk tale never written by William Gibson:

The film introduces Edison Carter (Matt Frewer), a television reporter trying to expose corruption and greed. In the movie, reporter Carter discovers that his employer, Network 23, has created a new form of subliminal advertising (termed “blip-verts”) that can be fatal to certain viewers.

While attempting to flee the network headquarters with proof, Edison suffers a serious head injury, caused by striking a low-clearance sign labeled “Max. Headroom”. Believing him killed, the network’s chief executive orders Bryce Lynch, an adolescent genius working as a scientist for Network 23, to digitally record Carter’s mind. The recording will then be used to create a computer-based replacement for Carter in order to hide his death.

It only gets b-b-better, folks, and I’ll tie this all into Christmas after the break!

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Welcome to the Christmas Creep, you swine! It’s Omega Sinema’s celebration of the absolute worst in Christmas specials. I found some doozies to share with ya’ll, from childhood icons, to icons we’d rather forget, to utter shit from New Zealand that made me want to convert to Judaism so I would never even be put in the position of watching it again.

I decided to kick things off with probably the worst of the bunch. Get it over with, you know? Like tearing the duct tape off your girlfriend’s mouth following a night of passion. Right? Anyways, it’s pizza time in Hell: Christmas With the Turtles (1994).

Back in the day, us TMNT fans were loyal and the Turtle obsession teetered on the edge of religious obsession. We generally ignored the blatant ripoffs like Biker Mice From Mars and Street Sharks but always shelled out our allowance earnings for retarded figures like “Farmer Don.” We were forgiving of the third movie. We kept it green and we kept it in the sewer. What then, I ask, did we do to deserve this kick to the nuts? I love the Turtles and I love Christmas but fuck this:

…what. The hell. Was that? Why do they all talk like goodfellas but sing with a fake patois? And why won’t they stop smiling? They all look atrophied – like a bunch of green Amy Winehouses, which I think is the plural of Winehouse. God, I could go on and on nitpicking about the horrible production, but lemme tell you about the racy and thought-provoking plot for a minute.

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