Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration

Day 7: The California Raisins miss their bus, make a sleigh out of garbage and fly it into space in Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration, the greatest holiday special out of all holiday specials hosted by clay dinosaurs.

On This Episode Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), a singing goose carrying a basket of Easter Eggs on Christmas Eve for no reason. Erin Evans (@mserinmevans), who fortunately knows more about dinosaurs than Mike does. Joey O. (@ImGonnaDJ24), from Y-Not Radio and Words with Nerds. Emily Rowley (@mlerowley), a sentient church bell coexisting with other, nonliving church bells. Topics and Tangents

WARNING: This episode inexplicably contains a major spoiler for the 2014 movie How to Train Your Dragon 2.

RIP Will Vinton (1947–2018), the creator of (capital-C) Claymation who may or may not have inspired Leap Day William. Vinton also worked special effects on the Epcot attraction Captain EO starring Michael Jackson. Johnny Counterfit, the voice of Rex (and not at all Johnny Arcade), wrote a JFK time-travel novel. No, really. Rex and Herb’s original appearance in Dinosaur, which was later included in a direct-to-video thing starring Fred Savage. Related: “I Just Realized Why We Are All Mean,” by Jon Bois. Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven, from The Adventures of Mark Twain, featuring Tim Conner (Herb) as a 3-headed alien in St. Peter’s place at the wrong “Heaven.” The California Raisins’ cancelled Nintendo game: The Grape Escape. Simpsons did it: The California Prunes. This special ends with a reference to the grossly enormous Mr. Creosote from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.

You can visit the Advent Calendar House on the web at adventcalendar.house and on Twitter @adventcalhouse.