South Park Meets "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Tuesday night my favorite Christmas special ever was on ABC Family. It is "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with Joel Grey. The one where Santa decides to take a year off in response to a letter written by a mouse that doesn't believe in him. The town clockmaker builds a clock that plays a song about Santa in the hopes that it will cheer Santa up. Of course something has to go wrong - the mouse breaks the clock and then he and his father have to scramble to repair it in time to save Christmas.

It's such a cute story, and I love the songs in it. Especially the song they sing as they are trying to repair the clock.

I also love South Park. I thought that I had seen pretty much all the episodes, but apparently not. Last night I saw an episode that somehow I had managed to miss until now. "A Very Crappy Christmas". At one point in the episode, after Cartman has stormed off, Kyle and Stan (and Kenny, until his unfortunate demise) are scrambling to try to finish a stop motion Christmas special. They start to sing a song that sounds strangely familiar. It's - almost - the clock repairing song! I was so surprised! At one point one of them (I can't remember which, maybe Kyle?) even changes his face for a second and looks like the animation from "Twas the Night . . ."

It's so funny. I"m always noticing references to things I like when I'm watching South Park, and it always surprises me since some of them are fairly obscure. I love that show. I won't let the Kidd watch it - possibly ever - but I really enjoy it.