About this episode
In 1987, the California Raisins missed their bus, then made a sleigh out of garbage and flew it into space in the greatest holiday special out of all holiday specials hosted by clay dinosaurs. WARNING: This episode inexplicably contains a major spoiler for the 2014 movie How to Train Your Dragon 2 . **** 🎙 Guest: Erin Evans ( @mserinmevans ). Joey O. ( Y-Not Radio , Words with Nerds , @ImGonnaDJ24 ). Emily Rowley ( @mlerowley ). **** 💬 Topics & Tangents: 1. 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. 2. Vinton also worked special effects on the Epcot attraction Captain EO starring Michael Jackson. 3. Johnny Counterfit , the voice of Rex (and not at all Johnny Arcade ), wrote a JFK time-travel novel . 4. Rex and Herb’s original appearance in Dinosaur , which was later included in a direct-to-video thing starring Fred Savage. 5. Related: “ I Just Realized Why We Are All Mean ,” by Jon Bois. 6. 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.” 7. The California Raisins’ cancelled Nintendo game: The Grape Escape . 8. Simpsons did it: The California Prunes . 9. This special ends with a reference to the grossly enormous Mr. Creosote from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life . **** “Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Celebration” © 1987 Will Vinton Productions, Inc. Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house . Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse . Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost . Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house .