The Massive Attack Podcast

We said we were going to find some obscure Christmas specials for our 12 Days of Christmas, and you can't get much more obscure than this one. All the way from Czechoslovakia in 1960 we bring you "Pulnocni Prihoda", or as it translates to in English, "The Midnight Adventure". It is a stop-motion animation of a little wooden train put out by the arival of a shiny new electric one on Christmas night.

We're really not sure where Mitch dug this up from, as we couldn't even find it online to put up a link. But, it is kinda cute, and a nice palate cleanser after the very adult themed ep yesterday.

"A Very Venture Christmas" was one of the extras for the DVD release of the first season of the great Adult Swim series, "The Venture Brothers" and is our choice for Day 7 of the 12 Days of Christmas Specials.

It has lots of very wrong moments, and that's why we love it so much!

Check out the link here to Vimeo if you want to watch it for yourself before we spoil all the fun.

The Charles in Charge Season 1 episode "Home For The Holidays" was our pick for Day 6 of the 12 Days of Christmas Specials. Mainly due to the fact that we needed a bit of palate cleaner after yesterdays topic.

Although we didn't remember this specific episode, we both had fond memories of the series from watching it as kids.

This episode is on Youtube, but the rip is a bit of a strange one, click the link here to see for yourself.

Who would have though that our favourite special so far for the 12 Days of Christmas Specials would be this strange little stop-motion annimaton to a William S. Burroughs story of a junky trying to score a fix on a bleak New York Christmas Day, but that's exactly what "The Junky's Christmas" delivered.

We must admit, we were both pretty ignorant to the work of Burroughs, but even if you are too I'm sure you will enjoy this one!

We do pretty much disect the whole story, so if you don't want spoilers, check it out before listening by clicking this Vimeo link.

The Jim Henson production from 1977 "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas" was our pick for Day 4, and although this is the first time watching it for both of us, we're told it's a Christmas staple for lots of people.

Maybe it's a bit too "of it's time" as we didn't really think it held up, but we did enjoy the technical aspects to it.

Much like yesterday, there are a couple of versions of this, we watched the one with the added Kermet The Frog intros, but could only find one full version on Youtube, which you can find here if you want to avoid spoilers.

For day 3 went went back, way back! All the way to 1913 for this Russian stop motion short called "The Insects' Christmas".

Neither of us knew anything about this film, or the mysterious film maker, Ladislas Starevich, so we had a bit of fun reading his wiki page.

Considering the age of this one, we were impressed with how well the stop-motion holds up, which you can see for yourself on YouTube.

For Day 2 of our "12 Days of Christmas Specials" specials we went back to the 80's to watch the Christmas cross-over episode, "He-Man & She-Ra A Christmas Special".

Both of us were big He-Man fans back in the day, so in this ep we make up for the fact that we didn't think this held up by discussing our Masters of the Universe toy collections and childhood memories. Mitch also lets rip on his least favourite charactor too.

Again, we go in depth into the plot, so if you want to watch it for yourself to avoid spoilers before listening, check out the HD rip on youtube that can be found on the very impressive He-man Official YouTube Chanel.

As a special treat in the lead up to Christmas, over the next 12 days we will be reviewing a different Christmas themed TV special per day in our 12 Days of Christmas Specials minisodes.

Some will be shows we held fondly in our youth, others like today's episode will be new to us episodes that Mitch stumbled across while trawling youtube.

So today, we watched the Matt Berry Christmas musical spoof, "AD/BC: A Rock Opera". We do go over the plot in detail, so if you don't want spoilers, maybe watch it first then come back. The Youtube clip can be found at this link.

It's December once again, so that must mean its time for our Second Annual Top Fives for the Year episode.

In a slight change of format for last year, this year we make it a bit more formal and nail down our favourites in the areas of Gaming, TV, Movies, Comics and Podcasts.

What we liked, why we liked them, and some of the other condenders that didn't quite make the top spot.

WARNING: There might be some spoilers in this ep, but we warn you before we drop them.

Proving they are on the cutting edge of gaming, this month Mitch plays "GTA: San Andreas" and watches his wife play "A World For Keflings" while Joe plays more "WWE Supercard" and moans about the disapointing Games for Gold titles on offer for November.

Mitch then discusses the latest DC Comic themed TV shows like "Gotham" and "Constantine", Joe dives into "Lucha Underground" and "American Horror Story: Freakshow", and both wonder why "Dating Naked" is even a thing before heading to the movies for "Gone Girl" (no Spoilers) and "Interstellar", and ponder the question as to whether the makers of 80's action flick "Speed" got it's premis by watching the saturday morning staple, "The Thunderbirds".

Then after being inspired by reading the new bio-comic by Box Brown, "Andre The Giant: Life And Legend", the guys discuss the book, some of it's stories, and what Andre meant to them back when they first started watching wrestling.