Holly Jolly Jimmy is probably even weaker than SpongeBob's Christmas special. At the very least SpongeBob wasn't mean to the audience; Jimmy Neutron seems to actually be TRYING to insult it's intended audience, and anyone unfortunate enough to watch it for a internet review blog.
Summary
The special begins with it's biggest problem: Jimmy questioning Santa's existence. Now, this normally wouldn't be a problem; he's a genius, and magic doesn't compute. However, he does it in the form of telling his friend, Carl, who believes in Santa that he doesn't exist (in front of the whole class). This causes his friend to run out crying. Congrats Jimmy, you are an asshole.Everyone admonishes Jimmy for assailing Carl's belief system, and Jimmy goes off to prove through experimentation that Santa isn't possible. (You don't need to prove it, the dude is riding through the sky on a sleigh pulled by heavy-weight deer. As a science major you should be more concerned with making web-shooters than making children cry.)
Jimmy Apologizes to Carl, and then tells the tale of how he wanted a dwarf star for Christmas.
...
Uh, no. Sorry, but no. A DWARF STAR?! You'll murder everyone on the planet with radiation, or heat! And even if you somehow managed to cool it down and encase the radiation, YOU WILL GO BLIND.
Good thing cooler heads prevailed, 'cause Santa did not give Jimmy his star.
Back to the present, Carl accidentally activates Jimmy's DNA scanner, which starts playing Christmas bells because of Santa's DNA. Not possible within the parameters of the tool, but whatever, magic need not be explained... So they decide to travel to the north pole to get a DNA match.
We then cut to Cindy and Libby- secretly opening their presents early...
...
Jimmy was already bad when he insulted every child who believed in Santa, but Cindy and Libby are breaking the one, ONE, rule of gifts: do not open until the allotted date. I have no sympathy for their actions. I never did, but this is another reason. (and yes, Eddy did the same thing in Jingle Jingle Jangle, but it was an important plot point, and well within his character. These two are just hypocrites.)
Cindy and Libby see Jimmy preparing his rocket to go to the north pole, and decide to use the Camera Cindy would've gotten for Christmas to get back at Jimmy for making Carl cry. (Retribution is already stupid girls, you don't need to help make it dumber.) Cindy and Libby then get trapped inside Jimmy's bag of holding, and are forced to go to the north pole as well.
Jimmy and his friends arrive, and see a sign directing them to Santa's workshop. (Why does Santa have a sign for his workshop? That's pretty much inviting people to just come and bother him.)
Meanwhile, Cindy and Libby escape the bag of holding (which is an infinite space mind you) by playing music really loud. That'd work if you were outside ladies. Inside, there are no walls for sound to bounce off of. Besides, it is just a CD and headphones, you need a speaker that goes up to eleven to have any effect.
Jimmy and his friends reach Santa's warehouse, where the elves are being completely counterproductive in packaging gifts, and Jimmy is refusing to believe in Santa despite evidence being directly in front of him. Jimmy's DNA scanner then shoots out a bolt of electricity, electrifying Santa. (Welp, that's another person to add to Jimmy's body-count.) Cindy and Libby got it on Camera, and quickly send it to their home town, where it is played for everyone to see.
Jimmy is then forced by the elves to deliver the gifts, and Jimmy proclaims that if he can accomplish it, then Santa doesn't exist. (That's like if Scully from the X-files didn't believe in the internet... While surfing the internet!)
Jimmy's parents hear of Jimmy's actions, and Hugh in his infinite stupidity tries to invent a new holiday on the spot. Ugh...
Cut back to Jimmy, who is heading off to deliver the presents. He is only given 12 hours (he must be working during the day time over in Europe, 'cause Santa usually has 24 hours) and he begins his journey.
Then after a long sequence of delivering presents and Jimmy's father being an idiot, Jimmy finally discovers that he is almost out of time, and yet has forgotten his home town. To try and make it in time, he installs a light-speed chip into his rocket... and is then surprised that he cannot control it because it is going too fast. (Come on Jimmy... You only have to go 88 miles per hour!)
The rocket falls to pieces, and the three plummet to the surface. However, they are saved by a very unenthusiastic Santa, who tells Jimmy to use the light speed chip in his sleigh. He does so and Retroville gets it's gifts and Jimmy is convinced Santa is real and...
And I didn't think it was possible to make something worse than the SpongeBob Christmas Special.
Man was this painful... It was terrible! Completely awful! It is the most base example of a Christmas special, with no heart and only cruelty.
Now, how to improve it...
Saving Christmas
Jimmy questioning Santa's existence is fine, but don't have him be an ass about it. It could just be that Carl is questioning his existence (have it be where Santa didn't eat the food he left out) and goes to Jimmy to see if he can call Santa plausible. Jimmy says he doesn't believe in magic, but he's willing to test it for Carl. Thus we see him run through a large number of possible tests, ending with the best case scenario of Santa's sleigh being a ship capable of light speed travel and the reindeer are just dressing for the technology necessary to accomplish the task, and the math still saying that getting to every Christian household in 24 hours is impossible.Then Jimmy, seeing his friend Carl so disappointed, apologizes, and decides to run the test again. Carl then sees a book on Jimmy's work table, "Profiles of the Future." Carl asks about it, and Jimmy quickly tells Carl about Arthur C Clarke, and a light bulb goes off in Jimmy's head. He remembers Clarke's third law, "Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic." He tells Carl this, and decides the only way to be sure is to locate Santa and find out how he does it.
They then travel to the North Pole, and begin looking for the workshop.
Just when they are about to give up hope, Carl figures out that Santa could be cloaking his shop, and Jimmy activates a decloaking field... Just in time to stop before hitting the massive workshop.
Jimmy and Carl disembark, and go into the workshop.
From there, the show must drop all pretenses about there not being any magic in the world, as the elves explain that it is all magic, but magic that can be explored through scientific method. IE, the arcane. The elves explain that the giant Christmas tree in the workshop is their tree of life, which makes them immortal. When asked how Santa could possibly go to every child's house in one night, they explain that Santa utilizes portals more than he does flying nowadays.
Jimmy isn't really satisfied with it being simply Arcane magic, and decides to go off and see how the elves are tapping into it, hoping to find some scientific explanation, While Carl takes a tour of the factory.
Meanwhile, an army of dwarves notices Santa's workshop is no longer concealed, and elect to attack.
Santa's workshop, being a peaceful toy factory, has no means of defense. So, when Jimmy hears of the dwarf attack, he rushes to their aid with science.
They manage to fend off the Dwarves, and Jimmy and Carl go on their way back home.
While that doesn't sound particularly Christmasy, how many Christmas specials do you know where they actually state that everything is magic, and that magic can be explained? If you have a show about science, what better way to show that magic can exist than through scientific possibilities?
Not a very good Christmas special, but a very good thought experiment.
*sigh* next time, I think I'll do something everyone knows about. I've done obscure movies and specials from TV shows that people who read blogs on the internet don't watch anymore up until now... Next time, Rankin Bass.
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