GIDGET’S TALESPIN REVIEW
Jolly
Molly Christmas
Rating: 4 out of 5 Krakatoa Specials
Summary
Rebecca wistfully recalls childhood memories
of Christmas (the lights, toys and candy and most of all, the snow). She says to Molly, “That’s what I’d really like for Christmas… to see it
snow.” Unfortunately, it never snows in Cape Suzette.
While she goes shopping, the rest continue to
decorate the tree until Molly accidentally drops her last candy cane,
shattering it. Baloo tries to comfort
her by telling her to put a piece under her pillow for the Peppermint Fairy,
the Tooth Fairy’s cousin. Tying a string
on his finger to remind him to put a candy cane under her pillow that night,
Baloo soon falls asleep.
The following morning is Christmas
Eve; the Cunningham girls spend the night at Higher for Hire (no nooky for
Baloo that night!) while the guys sleep
in the armchair downstairs. Rebecca
runs downstairs in a panic (she has to exchange Molly’s gift) and shakes Baloo
awake, leaving him in charge of Molly until she comes back from the store. Suddenly he notices the string on his finger
and eventually realizes that the ‘Peppermint Fairy’ hasn’t shown up yet. Just as he’s trying to slip the candy cane
under Molly’s pillow, she opens her eyes and accuses him of lying to her about
everything, including Santa Claus. So
Baloo foolishly hatches a scheme to prove Santa’s existence: Take Molly to the ‘North Pole’ to meet him
in person. Kit, against his better
judgment, accompanies them on the Sea Duck.
Louis finds himself talked into redecorating the bar as Santa’s workshop
and disguising his waiters as elves and reindeer before the girl arrives. But the ruse works; Molly is enchanted and
tells ‘Santa’ that she wants snow for her mother. The collective (though unspoken) feeling in the room is, ‘oh
crap! Now what do we do?’
Baloo then remembers that the Rebecca asked him to deliver cargo --- several
crates of soap flakes. What better way
to convince Molly that Santa made it snow than to grab the flakes and sprinkle
it outside? Louie is not a happy
Santa, but agrees to keep Molly entertained until Baloo and Kit return with the
‘snow’.
When he returns to Higher for Hire, Rebecca is waiting for him. Where did he and Kit go? Where’s Molly? And where is he going with her sudsy-wudsy soap flakes? Thanks to Kit, Baloo escapes an
ear-blistering tirade and Rebecca and Wildcat fly back with them to help
sprinkle the flakes. That’s soap, not
dandruff. ;)
Don Karnage overhears a radio conversation between ‘Santa’ (Louie) and
‘Undercover Elf’ (Baloo) that the ‘biggest and best Christmas present of all is
on the way’ and assumes that it’s something valuable. He attacks the Duck and the gang is forced to dump the soap
flakes out the back in self-defense.
Soap gets in the engines of the pirate planes, causing them to sink into
the ocean. Lightning strikes the wing,
making it tip. Rebecca nearly falls
out, but Kit saves her by grabbing her shirt and hauling her back inside. Though Wildcat closes the hatch, all the
soap crates fall out, lost forever. Now
what are they going to tell Molly?
Meanwhile, Louie’s customers are furious that Louie’s Place is locked up on
Christmas Eve, (they always spend it there---sad, isn’t it?) and hearing the
enforced merrymaking inside (Louie and his ‘elves’ have been singing Jingle Bells for hours so Molly will
still think she’s in Santa’s workshop).
They break the door down and demand to know why Louie locked them
out.
Molly:
“This is no Louie. This is Santa
Claus!” Louie’s beard falls off. The customers (a rough crowd at best), roar
with laughter at her naiveté. Shocked
and embarrassed, Molly snatches her letter from Louie’s coat pocket and runs
out of the building in tears. Louie is
deeply sorry and chastises the boneheads.
“Now what you guys go and do that
for?”
Molly wanders the beach, feeling desolate and betrayed. “A lie!
It was all a lie!” she sobs as she throws her letter to the winds. But the letter is now on a special journey…
The H4H gang land at Louie’s, and a search for Molly begins. Baloo and Becky call Molly’s name (like
parents). But Molly doesn’t hear
them. She sees something shining in the
sky. By the time they find her, she’s
still looking up. A lone snowflake
lands on Rebecca’s nose, followed by hundreds, then thousands, until Louie’s
island is covered by a blanket of snow.
We are never shown just what Molly saw in the sky, but whatever --- or
whoever it was --- it was a miracle. A
little girl’s faith is restored.
Quibbles and Bits
When Molly drops her candy and cries in
dismay, “My last candy cane!”, why doesn’t she just take the one from the bough
of holly on the wall (the very one Baloo was going to put under her
pillow)? Besides, so what if it’s in pieces? Now it’s bite-sized.
Cody: Well, it did fall on the floor. Would you want to eat anything that had
fallen on the floor in Baloo’s house? Oh—I’ve got a quibble with something
else! Becky says that she used to see snow as a little girl, which means she
probably lived somewhere up north. But in The
Time Bandit, when she’s in front of the firing squad and the radio
personality is telling her life’s story, he says that she was born in Cape
Suzette where she “attended a private school.” If she lived in Cape Suzette as
a child, how could she have seen snow?
Gidget:
Maybe she spent the
holidays with northern relatives?
Molly says to Baloo, “I bet all that Santa
Claus stuff you told me was baloney too.”
The kid’s about six years old and hasn’t heard of Santa until she met
Baloo? Didn’t Rebecca mention the Jolly One’s name at all?
Cody: (as Rebecca) Now, Molly, we’re going to
be logical about all this. I give you
presents on Christmas, not some fat bear dressed in a red suit, okay?
Gidget (as Molly): But what about that red bellhop’s uniform
you made Baloo wear when he made that first cargo run? (Plunder and Lightning)
Rebecca goes to the store for a second time
(just to exchange Molly’s present) and comes back with several large boxes.
Cody: Yeah, makes her out to be a
shopaholic, doesn’t it?
Gidget: I’m surprised she didn’t make
one of the guys accompany her so they
could carry all those packages. “Come
along, Sunny Jim. The white sales
beckon.”
Cody: LOL! That reminds me of that comic in
Disney Adventures, “Voodoo Baloo” where they finish a job and Becky goes
shopping while Baloo grumbles about her using him and Kit as pack mules.
Gidget: I know!
It offends me as a feminist (all women just loooooove shopping! ---
rolls eyes), but I can never resist it when she tortures him that way. And in the same comic, when she blackmailed
him into flying a dangerous saber-toothed bobcat to an island by threatening to
fly the Duck herself --- using the manual --- he says sullenly, “You play dirty
pool, lady.”
Molly calls out the pilot’s window to assure
Wildcat that she’ll put in a good word for him… as she leans out further, her
head is dangerously close to the spinning propeller. (remember what happened to
the big bald guy in Raiders of the Lost
Ark?)
Cody: Oh, that’s a major quibble. Why
didn’t they go ahead and slice her head off? That would have been so much
better.
Gidget (as Rebecca): I’m free!
I’m free!
It bugs me that Baloo would destroy cargo just so Molly would believe in
Santa. It’s sweet, endearing and yet…ARGH!
I wouldn’t blame Rebecca for strangling him --- if she could just get
her hands around his neck in the first place.
Rebecca: “Oh, curse these dainty paws of mine!”
Cody: She could always use the tinsel. But
you’re right. Molly’s got to find out sometime, and don’t most kids stop
believing when they’re six? That makes Molly seem like she’s three. Not that
she doesn’t act like a three-year-old most of the time, anyway.
Gidget:
Um… (coughs) I believed until I was twelve. My parents didn’t have the heart to ruin Christmas for me. I was crushed when they finally told me some
time afterward! I cried.
Cody: Aww…L
Gidget (motherly
voice): Yes, Gidget, there really is a Santa Claus. (Peanuts Sally voice) I’ve been robbed!
The way the guys decorate the Christmas tree is rather
fun to watch: Baloo shoots the
ornaments at the tree with a slingshot, Kit hangs tinsel by jumping on a pogo
stick around it and Wildcat, well… he causes the lights to short-circuit and go
out.
The way Kit frantically waves ‘nononononono!!’ at Baloo
as he promises Molly that she’ll meet Santa in person and the ‘d’oh!’
gesture (smacking his forehead)
Cody: LOL! My favorite part of this ep!
Gidget: Yeah, I enjoyed
seeing him hit himself too!
Cody: Hey!
Louie is always
fun to watch when he mixes a drink (juggles the fruit in P&L, Part 2, for
example). While Baloo phones him to ask
him to play Santa, he’s busy with his trusty blender. Here, it’s so packed full of fruit that he can’t close the
lid. So he hits the lid with a mallet
until it fits.
Cody: Whatever works! But I don’t think I’d be eating anything
at his place. Who knows when the last time he washed his feet was.
Molly blushes as Louie showers her with attention. It’s so cute!
“Don’t tell me!
Molly, right? (kisses her hand, making her blush) And a cool Yule to
you, too!”
Cody: Too bad she didn’t spontaneously combust.
Gidget: What if she did?
(as Rebecca): Molly Elizabeth
Cunningham! Just look at this mess!
When Waldo reads Molly’s letter requesting snow for her
mother, Louie sticks his (ew) fingers in Molly’s ears. “’Scuse me, Punkin. (then to Baloo) “You
said I had to be Santa Claus, not Jack Frost!”
Wildcat, Louie and Don Karnage have the best lines:
Louie: “Let’s
see… Holly… Dolly… Polly… Molly! Hey,
this kid’s triple Grade A numero uno good!”
Louie as scat-singin’ Santa Claus:
-wears shades
-during his ‘debut’, ‘Santa’ can barely squirm down the
chimney (does Louie’s Place have a
chimney? I don’t remember one)
-Louie Claus: “Heidi-heidi-ho-ho-ho! Doo-waaaaaah!”
Baloo hisses to him:
“Ix-nay on the ive-jay!”
Cody: Oh, I loved
that part! Louie makes one cool Santa.
When Baloo wants to go back for the soap flakes to use as
‘snow’, Louie is indignant: “What do you mean, ‘keep her Santafied for a couple
of hours’?… No way! You are lookin’ at
one ree-tired Santa!”
Louie: “Okay, Molly, while we’re waitin’ for the snow ---
it’ll be here any minute now, I bet (nervous chuckle) Santa and the elves’ll
lay the jingle bells on ya, what’d you say?”
Waldo: “We are?”
Louie (grimly):
We are.
One of the customers who break down Louie’s door is one of the bears from the
Disney attraction, ‘Country Bears Jamboree’.
Louie’s toys:
-“You’re gonna love this…(plays with a paddle-ball) Wang! Wang! Wang!”
-a Louie-in-the-box (an opening coconut with Louie’s head
on a spring)
-an old gramophone (sings some scat) “Of course, you can
make your own soundtrack.”
Cody: And the whole time, you could just see him thinking,
“Ohh, Baloo owes me big for this one.”
Louie’s
decorations:
-old patched socks are hung by the chimney with care
-a banner that says Seasons
Greetins
-the tiki masks are wearing Santa hats
Louie’s monkey staff
(sounds kinda dirty, doesn’t it? C:
Yep. J) rarely have dialogue or even names (except Mongomery,
the pianist). Here, Waldo (a chimp) has
brief exchanges with Louie and reads Molly’s letter aloud.
And an observation from Scarlet: Basically, this is one of the very rare instances where we get to
see Karnage wearing something besides his uniform. (Other exceptions include the
yacht captain's outfit in "Jumping the Guns," the gondolier outfit in
P&L, and the equally infamous bathing suit in "Ransom of Red Chimp.)
When DK comes out to yell at the pirates for waking him up with their so-called
singing, he's wearing a purple bathrobe with a gold K emblem on it (and nothing
underneath! }-)
*ahem*
Molly catches Baloo trying to slip a candy
cane under her pillow in the morning:
“Did the Peppermint Fairy forget somethin’?”
Baloo tries to stammer out an excuse but she
cuts him off:
“There’s no Peppermint Fairy. You lied to a little kid!”
“I’ll bet all that Santa Claus stuff you told
me was baloney too.”
Wildcat:
“Oh no, Mollycat. Santa Clause hates baloney.”
Cody: I just felt like slapping Molly in
this scene. She acts so stupid! She acts like she’s never been lied to before.
I do like Wildcat’s line, though.
Rebecca scurries off to do some last minute
exchange and wakes up Baloo, including peeling
his eyes open as she talks very rapidly---almost in one breath:
“Wake up, Baloo---it’s an emergency! The store gave me the wrong present for
Molly, can you believe it? I asked for
a nutcracker, not a vegetable-slicer! Now you tell Wildcat to load that
shipment of soap on the plane and you take care of Molly till I’m back, okay?”
Cody: She said “nutcracker.” Hee, hee.
Seriously, though, what parent would give their six-year-old a nutcracker?
Whatever happened to dolls and toy cars and stuff?
Gidget:
Molly was bad this year. Maybe a
nutcracker is the equivalent to a lump of coal.
Baloo’s ‘thinking’ expression as he tries to
remember why he tied a string on his finger (for several seconds) turns to
horror as realization finally dawns.
Wildcat pushes the crates of soap flakes on a
dolly along the wharf. “Okay, Mr. Soap
Flakes, you all ready to go on a biiiig trip…!” Then Baloo accidentally knocks
him over in his rush to fly to ‘the North Pole’.
Louie’s jaded expression as he conducts Jingle
Bells.
After two hours of singing Jingle Bells, Louie and his ‘elves’ run
out of steam; cut to air pirates singing same song off-key around a ratty
‘Charlie Brown’ tree.
Karnage:
Karnage (irate): “Will you shut up with the
jingle belling! Visions of plunder were
dancing through my head --- and you woke
me up! What is your problem?”
Mad Dog: “We’re not getting’ nothin’ for
Christmas.”
Dumptruck:
“Yeah, on account of we’ve been real
bad.”
(when they consider being good for next year)
Karnage:
“What do you mean, ‘next year
you’ll try to be good’? You fooligans, bad is
good! But, let us not be the hasty
puddings. You want Christmas presents?”
Pirates:
“Yeah.”
Karnage:
“Is it not the season of giving?”
Pirates:
“Yeah.”
Karnage:
“Then, my plundering pirates, we shall make people give presents to us!”
Pirates:
“Yeah!” (run off cheering)
Karnage (pleased with himself): “I am not usually so generous, but Christmas
only comes once a year.”
Cody: Oh, yes. So generous, giving them permission to steal.
Gidget: Is that anything like license to kill? J
(James Bond ref.)
“Yes, Don Karnage, there is a Santa Claus!”
“Did you hear that, my merry marauders? The biggest and best Christmas present ---
we hit the jacketty-pot!”
“You will fill our stockings with our biggest
and best present of all --- or we will blast you to tinsel!”
Cody: That’s a great Karnage line.
Wildcat
(tearfully): “They took Molly to the
North Pole to see Santa Claus and left me here! (shakes a snowglobe) “How do you work this thing?” And at the end, when he shakes the
snowglobe, the snow falls. He sees it
through the glass, then all around him.
“Hey! I finally made it work!”
Cody: You think he thinks he made it snow?
(Wildcat, thinking) Hey, I can give up this mechanic-gig and hire myself out as
a weatherman.
Gidget:
That’s like him answering the call of nature and thinking he made it
rain. :p
Rebecca to Baloo: “What are you doing
with my sudsy-wudsy soap flakes?”
Baloo: “Well, we were gonna sprinkle
‘em outta the plane and---!”
Rebecca: “WHAT?!”
Kit (coming to the rescue): “Molly
asked Santa snow for her mom---you know, for a Christmas present? Papa Bear was just trying to make her
Christmas wish come true.”
Rebecca (truly touched): “Oh, Baloo!”
Cody: Guess Becky does care about more than
making a fast buck. J
Gidget:
She has her moments. It also
doesn’t hurt that Baloo uses Molly as an excuse for his misdeeds. EG: Plunder
and Lightning, Molly saves his bacon:
Molly: Baloo threw out the mangoes to save me from the pirates.
Gidget:
Yeah, Molly. Just you. Baloo wasn’t trying to save himself, Kit or
his ‘baby’, just you.
Gidget (as Baloo):
What’s with you, buddy? Never seen a pair of mangoes before? ;)
Rebecca radios Karnage: “Now see here,
Don Garbage! It’s Christmas Eve! This present is for my little girl!” (ooh,
that’s telling him -- rolls eyes)
Karnage: “Ah, she has a point on her
head. I would practically be stealing
candy from a baby. (pause) I love that! Attack!” (his nose
squeaks as he rubs it)
Gidget:
Confound that Vaseline!
Commentary
The lightning storm and dogfight sequence is
great…action-packed and dazzling. It’s
funny when Baloo tries to sneak a candy cane under Molly’s pillow, only to be
caught like a burglar. When Molly
throws her letter to Santa away, I was reminded of the old cartoon, The Night Before Christmas (about a
smartass mouse named Albert who writes a nasty letter to Santa, telling him
he’s a fraud, signing it ‘All of Us’ (meaning he and his smartass friends). Santa thinks that means that entire town of
Jenkinsville doesn’t believe in him, so everyone gets their letters to Santa
back, marked ‘Return to Sender’.
Albert’s father takes him on a nocturnal tour of the town, showing him
all the broken-hearted kids in hospitals and orphanages who won’t have a
Christmas --- all because of his thoughtless actions. One of the kids they see is a young boy standing at the top of a
cliff with a drawing (no, don’t jump!).
Father Mouse tells Albert that the child, Jimmy, is the best artist in
school and drew that picture when he thought Santa cared. Not anymore. Jimmy tosses the drawing off the cliff, where it floats down and
gets swept away in the sea. Molly’s
gesture is almost identical to that scene.
Cody: I’m not much of a Christmas person
(yeah, yeah. Just call me Scrooge) and I really hate those cutesy,
Santa-promoting propaganda shows that they put on at that time of year.
Gidget: Hey, you’re Scrooge
and I’m the Grinch. I love
Halloween…why didn’t they make a Halloween episode? Or Valentine’s Day? I was
always so disappointed when the Disney Afternoon just showed ‘Her Chance to
Dream’ on V-day. I love HCTD, but
Rebecca’s mooning over the wrong guy!
I think this is one of Molly’s best
episodes. Before you Mollyphobes come
after me brandishing torches and tweezers, let me explain. It teeters dangerously close to cloying, but
doesn’t quite go overboard with the schmaltz.
Come on, imagine all the
saccharine slime Webby of Duck Tales would have spread all over this
episode. Molly is shown as a truly
sweet-natured child in her desire to please her mother with a seemingly bizarre
gift. It’s a lovely gesture. When Louie’s beard comes off, revealing the
hoax, it’s bad enough. But when those
jerks all start laughing at this poor little kid whose world has just imploded
(from her viewpoint) it’s positively heartbreaking. I get so mad at them for it… they’re more thoughtless than cruel,
but still… GRRRR!!!
Cody: Okay, okay. Webby would have made this ten times
worse. You’re a lot more generous than I am, Gidge. I’d give it a 2, because
it’s so Molly-centered. The only Molly-episode I really like is Molly Coddled. She’s cunning and never saccharine
when dealing with Covie. I like Kit’s part in this one, though. That
“nonononono” with the frantic waving, then smacking himself when Baloo offers
to take Molly to the North Pole is great.
Kit: (thinking) Why do I put up with this
moron?
Joanna: He does comes in handy when you forget your beach umbrella.
Gidget: And this is one the
few episodes where most of the ‘Elite Eight’ is shown (I think the other one
was A Wing and a Bear). I love the look of wonder on their faces as
they see the rare miracle of snowfall.
Sort of a Spielbergian moment (where everyone looks up at the sky,
openmouthed and awed, like the kids in E.T.,
Hook and The Goonies and several
others)
Know what I’d like to see?
Molly (indicating the snow): “Merry
Christmas, Mommy.”
Rebecca (unimpressed): “Wow… snow. Great.
Now where’s my real present?”
Kit to Baloo: “Wait till Molly gets a
load of that nutcracker.”
Baloo: “I thought it was a vegetable
slicer.”
Kit: “Whatever. Molly will just play with the box it came in,
anyway.”
Wildcat (wistfully): “Lucky. I always wanted one of those.”
Kit: “A nutcracker?”
Wildcat: “No… a box.”
Cody: Now that would be a
fitting end! I like the way you think!
Gidget:
Hey, I’m more than just a pretty face, as Aunt Louise would say. ;)
July
2001 (originally written)
December 2001 (Updated with Cody’s two cents)
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