Not long after Christmas, I discovered a beyond obscure animated special called The Adventures of Candy Claus: Part 1–The Beginning. By now, you probably know I love sharing this kind of crap with you, but unfortunately, the holiday season is now over, which means that it’s completely stupid for me to do an OT thread for it in fucking February.

But, you know, in this case, I just couldn’t handle waiting that long. Candy Claus wouldn’t let me. She has taken over my soul, and she won’t release me until I share her message with you, which is to…eat candy canes or something.

The Adventures of Candy Claus: Part 1–The Beginning begins with a family getting ready for Christmas, and immediately it’s evident the special is going to be an awkward mess. Characters often sound like they’re interrupting themselves, there’s random slapstick, and I’m 90% sure that the animation staff mixed up who was who in the family, since “mom” is one of the two people in the image below, and no, she’s not the one you think she is…

Anyway, the family decides that they should give Santa Claus a gift, because no one gives him anything for Christmas despite him giving gifts to everyone else. Then the special just breaks and a musical number happens which I can’t describe. It tries to mix animation with live-action, with dizzying, headache-inducing results. Also, the family thinks that it would be best to give Santa toys for Christmas. You know, toys. The one thing that Santa is in short supply of. They stitch together two rag dolls, sign the packages “from all of the children of the world” (pretty sure this means that all of the children of the world can sue them for forgery), and then give them to Santa. Santa, I should note, always seems barely awake here. I’m not even sure if he knows that he’s alive. This is a man who has given up.

Then some…flying, windy, prankster old man thing called “Oh-No” steals one of the presents. He cackles madly, because this is a huge victory for him. Santa brushes it off, because Santa is stupid. Then Santa and Mrs. Claus open the remaining package–it’s CANDY CLAUS! And Candy Claus IMMEDIATELY COMES TO LIFE and turns into a human little girl, because Santa and Mrs. Claus love her. Santa reacts to this in the way anyone else would: with bored confusion. Really, he just sounds like he wants to return to his nap.

Then all of the “adventures” promised by the title begin, and by “adventures,” I mean that Candy Claus goes on exactly zero adventures in this. She does, however, attract the attention of Oh-No, who gets…jealous? Or something. His doll has “come to life” as well, but he can’t become “fully alive” because Oh-No doesn’t love him. This makes Oh-No even more…jealous of Candy? Or something. Anyway, he decides to use his wind powers to make everyone think Candy is clumsy, the elves have a board meeting in the most riveting scene in all of animation history, and there’s a robot too, because 80s.

But none of that matters since The Adventures of Candy Claus: Part 1–The Beginning fucking SEQUEL BAITS! At the end of the special, Candy is given a special bracelet which ALLOWS HER TO TRAVEL THROUGH TIME! She finds out about her brother, who Oh-No then kidnaps, leaving Candy alone and heartbroken. That’s right. This special ends on a fucking cliffhanger! A cliffhanger that was never resolved.

You can watch The Adventures of Candy Claus: Part 1–The Beginning for yourself here, and then hate me for sharing it with you afterwards. As an aside, this is an upload of a VHS which ends with a couple of trailers, including something called Lollipop Dragons, which they advertise twice. Also, later home video releases–such as the far easier-to-find 1990 one–just removed the cliffhanger altogether, leaving the special with a very abrupt ending.

The Adventures of Candy Claus: Part 1–The Beginning was apparently produced to promote a rag doll toy, which from what I’ve gathered is why it only ever aired in syndication (at least as far as I’ve been able to tell). It seems it was only available to buy in certain department stores, for whatever reason, that would market that they had it available. Also, I’m not saying that this doll looks like super creepy or anything, but there’s just something about her that screams Annabelle’s First Christmas to me…

Have a Merry February Night Thread, y’all!