🎄 In 1987, the California Raisins missed their bus, then made a sleigh out of garbage and flew it into space. 

🎙️ The Advent Calendar House welcomes Erin Evans, Joey O., and Emily Rowley to join in the raisiny reindeer games that make up Will Vinton’s “Claymation Christmas Celebration,” the greatest holiday special out of all holiday specials hosted by clay dinosaurs. 

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💬 Topics & Tangents: 

RIP Will Vinton (1947–2018), the creator of “capital-C” Claymation who may or may not have inspired Leap Day William, and who was still alive when we recorded this. 

Vinton also worked special effects on the EPCOT attraction “Captain EO.” 

Johnny Counterfit, the voice of Rex (and not at all Johnny Arcade), wrote a JFK time-travel novel. 

Rex and Herb’s original appearance in “Dinosaur,” which was later included in a “direct-to-video thing” starring Fred Savage. 

Related: “I Just Realized Why We Are All Mean,” by Jon Bois. 

“Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven,” from “The Adventures of Mark Twain,” featuring Tim Conner (Herb) as a 3-headed alien in St. Peter’s Place at the wrong “Heaven.” 

The California Raisins’ cancelled Nintendo game: “The Grape Escape.” 

The California Prunes on “The Simpsons.” 

This special ends with a reference to the grossly enormous Mr. Creosote from “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.” 

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“Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration” © 1987 Will Vinton Productions, Inc. 

Find us at adventcalendar.house.