THE CAPTAIN AND THE KIDS In "The Captain's Christmas" - 1938

Like, here's our Xmas present for you... This cartoon from MGM is special in a few ways. It 's directed by Friz Freleng, Joseph Barbera and Rudolph Dirks were the writers, and had the voices of Mel Blanc as John Silver and Billy Bletcher as The Captain. As I was looking at their acting credits I noticed that Billy had 474 which is pretty good, then I looked at Mel's credits and almost fainted! He has an unbelievable 1,160 credits, AND, many of his credits were a TV series with multiple episodes like THE JETSONS. He is a Super-Duper Dungeon Hero!!

So, John Silver and his pals catch the Captain dressed up as Santa, ready to take a bag of toys down their chimney for the Kids. But, John decides that he would make a much better Santa than the Captain and trades places with him...

John comes down the chimney with a bang and is dazed from the drop.

The Kids are filled with happiness and start playing with their new toys!

With John though, well, he's just a little too happy! I mean, he has a flintlock that he keeps firing off on top of his wild antics.

And, he ends up destroying all the toys in his drunken-like portrayal of Santa.

Of all things, John's conscience appears and berates the Hell out of him. He wants to know what to do and the little guy whispers something in his ear. John responds, I'll do it!!

The plan is to go into town and cause a disturbance...

So, John and his crew start loudly singing silly songs and do a bunch of absurd acting to basically make all the people in town start throwing things at them so they'll SHUT UP! But, John and the crew just crank it up!

Looks like all the dads are dressed up as Santa for their kids too!

Anyway, the people run out of items to throw and start tossing out their kids' toys!! Once the sleigh is overflowing with presents, John heads back to the Captain's house.

He drops all the presents down the chimney and the Kids get a bonanza of toys to play with, OMG, what a glorious Christmas!

Now wait a minute! The plan was, not to pay them back for breaking their toys, but, to make such a disturbance that you get all those toys just for being total jerks?!

Anyway, Happy Holidays to ALL, from the Guys at The Dungeon!!..

TRAPPED IN PARADISE - "Ain't It The Truth" (1994)

My last Christmas feature of this terrific year has a title that I think we can all identify with, "Trapped In Paradise." I don't watch newer modern movies much, then I realized that this movie is 26 years old! So welcome to a Dungeon Warm Walnuts in Wonderland Wednesday!

 

Seriously, I don't know what to say about "Trapped In Paradise." I kind of liked it, sort of. It's not exactly great, and it's not really horrible, so I guess it's okay, and I can tell you one thing for sure, it is definitely a Christmas movie!

Christmas days and nights of futures past.

"Trapped In Paradise" stars Nicholas Cage as small time con man Bill Firpo who is seriously trying to go legit.

The problem is that Bill Firpo has two completely worthless idiot brothers who are just getting released from jail right before Christmas. The brothers are none other than Dana Carvey as Alvin Firpo, and Jon Lovitz as Dave Firpo.

Let's all share a pensive holiday moment together!

Tabonga used to have a copy of this issue of "Weekly World News," but I think he sold it on eBay.

Alvin Firpo has a serious problem with kleptomania, and he'll steal almost anything.

Now is this a festive scene or what?

Bill Firpo gets sucked into robbing a small town bank with his idiot brothers, and everything goes to Hell from there.

After a number of calamities, they try to get away by hitchhiking and are picked up and taken to Paradise.

They are taken in and given dry clothes and fed by a wonderful family, and the gracious Father of the family just happens to be the President of the bank they just robbed. Bill's starting to feel a lot of guilt! They had masks on, so he doesn't recognize them, but they sure recognize him!

I just love this shot of the "Tick Tock Diner."

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!"

Looks like a shot from an Agatha Christie Christmas novel.

Bill's love interest is Mädchen Amick who was Shelly Johnson and Shelly Briggs in both the "Twin Peaks series. I love her because although she was born in Nevada, she has an umlaut in her name which literally means Girl in German.

The rest of the movie is about the brothers trying to escape, and being treated oh so nice by all the people they stole from, and Bill finally decides they need to try and return the money.

 

The trio of misfits return the money, and even though everybody knows they are guilty as Hell, they don't have any real proof, and all is forgiven.

After all, it is Christmas time!

 

The moral of the story is that even if you're a complete jackass, if you turn your life around, and truly mean it, then "All Roads Are Open" to you!

Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

CARTUNE CLASSICS / "Toyland Premiere" - 1934

Here's an Oswald The Rabbit color cartoon from Universal Studios. Santa must prepare for a parade and reception given by Oswald. Tex Avery does the voice of Santa!

So, Santa gets a telegram from Oswald saying for him to come on to NY, everything's ready for the celebration!

The jolly old guy opens up the box where he stores his Xmas costume and a ton of moths fly out, tickling his nose. 

His costume ist kaput and he's devastated by the fact that he can't go to the celebration. In the meantime the elves color his clothes with red paint, then string corn kernels together for his trim and light them. They all pop (finishing the look) and Santa can now make the event. Way to go little elves!

So, it's time to hit the sky, Santa's followed by a long line of giant rubber balloon characters and a bunch of elves to hold down the balloons for the parade.

The parade's over and Oswald greets Santa at a large department store.

A number of stars show up to wish Santa well. Here's Tarzan with his real wife, the Mexican Spitfire, Lupe Valez!

Laurel and Hardy are there!

There's Frankenstein's Monster and Mammy's Al Jolson. Also there are Shirley Temple and Bing Crosby.

When Ollie tries to pick a cherry off of the chocolate cake, the mean old monster chases the two funny guys away from the table.

Stan and Ollie end up running into the costume department. Low and behold, there's a dragon costume and they come up with a plan to get the cake.

After a 'dragon' scares all the guests away from the table, Santa toots out a call to arms on a horn and all the toys join together to wage war on the intruder!

The toy airplanes attack, exposing Stan and Ollie in the costume.

These army guys shoot their little machine gun mounted on a roller skate!

Santa gets in the act and launches a few pies for good measure.

Little Indians use a woman's corset to shoot bunches of arrows at the screaming fake dragon as it tries to get away from its attackers.

Stan and Ollie surrender and the party continues.

After such a terrific time, Santa cannot control his Christmas joy! So, like, check back Wednesday as we close in on Xmas Day, here at the Dungeon!!..