Jingle Friends: Holiday Movies & Specials

After last week's pretty, pretty bad movie, the Jingle Friends watch something they enjoy for once - the Curb Your Enthusiasm Christmas special. We grimace with Larry David through Christmas carols, Christmas tree decorating, Christmas tipping awkwardness and Christmas lies. Topics include the oddly relatable problems of the ultra-wealthy, pets eating food in dumb ways, a cat meowing, another cat’s belly, our dream U2 set list, embarrassment, and Bono, the original scamp. We love you!

This week, we are joined by Matt Nisenoff from Politipod as we watch An American Carol, a disaster of a "patriotic" riff on A Christmas Carol starring Chris Farley's brother, Kevin, and Kelsey Grammer as Patton. It's a real doozy from the newly conservative third of the team that brought you Airplane! and The Naked Gun - oh, how the mighty have fallen, or at least, began creating patronizing conservative comedy. Topics include golf with Kevin Sorbo, what character looks the most like Albert Nobbs, all the terrible, insulting jokes of this movie, and why you should just see Albert Nobbs instead. We love you! Check out Politipod at ipmnation.com/politipod or wherever podcasts are downloaded.

Veteran Simpsons writer/producer, co-creator of The Critic and author of numerous children's books Mike Reiss returns to the show along with his lovely wife Denise to talk about Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, which he co-wrote. Topics include how Mike is driven by revenge, Cambodian bootleg videos, ballet fraud, kid detectives, bobble-head Joey Greco, how dinosaurs are like frozen cabbage, similarities between Santa and God, why Mike wouldn't eat dog meat, and the Ukranian nihilism of Scrat. Check out http://periscope.tv/jinglefriends to watch this on video! We love you!

We celebrate the life of the recently departed and dearly missed David Huddleston by talking about a pretty bad Christmas movie that he starred in alongside Dudley Moore and John Lithgow. Topics include whether or not Santa and Mrs. Claus are dead, mush food, lazy elf toy design, John Lithgow's status as a national treasure, mammy dolls, the trope of the streetsmart kid who learns to believe in Santa, and what it means to love and fear Grotbags. Come along and join us for this cavalcade of horrors...

The Jingle Friends take a look at the inventive romantic comedy Bridget Jones's Diary, which spans a year from Christmas to Christmas. We talk unfair weight standards, charming Hugh Grant ad libs, illegal sex, handsome women and the name "Perpetua". Thanks for listening, we love you!

This week, we take a look at the ABC reality TV competition The Great Christmas Light Fight with special guest Doyle Lee. Doyle's worked behind the scenes in television and film production for over a decade, including credits as field producer for The Real World and technical coordinator for America's Next Top Model. Topics include behind the scenes tidbits, dog camps, tractor talk, dental bones, why there's no Real World Christmas special, weird failed reality show pilots, and shirtlessness vs. pantslessness, plus a special belated birthday song for Carrie. Thanks for listening! #Awesome!

Ho, ho, oh no! (Hey, we said 'ho, ho, d'oh' for Mr. Plow.) Bart's in trouble! Today he's stealing video games, tomorrow it's stadiums and quarries. We take on the second Simpsons Christmas special (Mr. Plow was a bonus) about the holidays and what it means to grow up. Topics include fake snow, tree hair, shoplifting, how to shoplift, shoplifting stories, Allan Sherman, chin putty and comedy whispering. Please subscribe, rate five stars and tell your friends!

This week, we are joined by former Donkey Kong world champion Hank Chien. He toppled the Steve Wiebe/ Billy Mitchell rivalry and currently holds the third best Donkey Kong score in the world (1,138,600!). After endless arcade screens, Hank faces his biggest test of endurance yet: sitting through two episodes of the Donkey Kong Country TV show, "The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights" and "It's a Wonderful Life". Topics include gender politics in video games, why Donkey Kong contains multitudes, the sexual act of Bozo-ing, furries, nipple lightening cream and the most handsome gorilla in the world. Banana slamma!

It's new podcast day! This week, the Jingle Friends take on the overstuffed, confusing, worst Rankin Bass claymation film ever, a full-length feature in which Rudolph and Frosty, who are friends, get summer jobs at a circus so that they can help an ice cream man who they know convince a tightrope walker to marry him, or something. All of your favorite Christmas characters are there, from Ethel Merman to Big Ben, the Clockwork Whale! Topics include Frosty's cold dick, why this is the Game of Thrones or Scandal of the Rankin Bass universe and the villain Winterbolt is Kerry Washington, late night ice cream trucks and vaginal rainbows. And Sara explains why some people, such as herself, just want to watch the world burn. Editor's note: At the end, we forgot why Ethel Merman couldn't just shoot Winterbolt and had to throw her gun at him. It was full of blanks! Oh, what a dumb movie. Enjoy, and happy July!

This week, we take a break from Christmas to celebrate another holiday, Independence Day! Whether that’s independence from Britain or independence from… aliens? Anyway, Robert Loggia, Jeff Goldblum, Randy Quaid and Harvey Fierstein are there, so what’s the worst that could happen? In this episode, we ponder whether or not Will Smith can read, discuss his homoerotic friendship, put a racist meme on blast, weigh the pros and cons of dying a virgin and ask what, exactly, the Transformers have to say about the Right to Die movement. Wiki Wild Wild West! EDITOR'S NOTE: I said Will Smith was in Independence Day 2, but I know very well he that isn't! I misspoke, sorry! Oops!

This week, Carrie, Sara and Zach pay a visit to Arlen, Texas where, much like themselves, Bill Dauterive is celebrating Christmas far beyond the date at which it's normally accepted to do so! What a faux pas! How scandalous! How will he get out of this one? Find out this week! We also discuss Tough Mudder dating profile pics, Schrödinger's Wally and combing your hair with a serrated knife, plus Sara tells a touching story about gift donations for the needy! Summer too hot? Cool off with your pals, those jingling friends, the Jingle Friends!

This week we watch formulaic, corny romantic comedy A Christmas Kiss with special guest Shanthony Exum a.k.a. Miss Eaves. We talk about the racial politics of the sassy black best friend, why you should never listen to your teachers or, for that matter, the haters, and bicycle safety. We also present Miss Eaves's hot new single, "Hump Day". Check her out at misseaves.com, soundcloud.com/misseaves/, facebook.com/Misseavesraps, twitter.com/yoeaves, instagram.com/yoeaves/, follow her body positivity photography blog at theeverybodyproject.com or instagram.com/theeverybodyproject/, check out her web design page at shanthony.com and buy her food-inspired jewelry at earbiteme.com. We love you!

This week, we take a break from Christmas to pay tribute to its older, candle-lighting cousin, Chanuka. We join the bizarre puppet creations of The Simpsons's own David Silverman as they stand up to a mean chef. Also, we have fun with our new microphones. Thanks for listening!

This week, on a very special musical episode of Jingle Friends, we discuss the Michael Keaton snowman reincarnation classic Jack Frost with the help of special guests Andy McCarthy and Grant Glidden, who together form the band Mac/Glidden. The guys treat us to a live performance of their songs “Mountains” and “The Morning Light” and we discuss the most disturbing hypothetical rendition of “Baby It’s Cold Outside”, wasted Zappa and Henry Rollins cameos and Keaton’s frosty tips. And we finally address the timeless question: is snow dad really better than no dad? Follow Mac/Glidden at macgliddenmusic.com, https://twitter.com/mac_glidden, https://www.facebook.com/macgliddenmusic/ and https://www.instagram.com/mac_glidden, or book them at macglidden.com!

This week, the Jingle Friends take a look at Tangerine, a milestone of filmmaking, both for the LGBT community and for people who were told they weren't "serious filmmakers" just because their camera was an iPhone. Seriously, this movie was all recorded on iPhones! Alexander Graham Bell's smiling down from Heaven at this film, for sure. This is definitely worth seeing, so watch it on Netflix! Spoilers galore here! Also in this episode: The Danish Girl and cis-washing! The trouble with fish -- particularly, the word "fish"! How to fail at Cash Cab! Ideas for the sequel, 2Gerine! Crack! And donuts! PS Consider donating at jinglefriends.com, rating us 5 stars on iTunes and telling all your friends about us! We love you!