Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer

Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer
"Grandma got run over by a reindeer, walking home from our house Christmas Eve..."
Genre: Holiday Fantasy Comedy drama Mystery Musical Directed By: Phil Roman Written By/Screenplay: Jim Fisher Jim Staahl Photography: Color Distributed By: VHS Release Date: October 31, 2000 Runtime: 51 minutes Country: United States Language: English

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is a Canadian–American animated Christmas television movie, directed by Phil Roman, that was first released on direct-to-video in October 31, 2000 by Warner Home Media, then premiered on The WB in December 21, 2000. It is based on the novelty song with the same title written by Randy Brooks and performed for the first time by Elmo & Patsy in 1979.

Synopsis

A youth embarks on a journey to find his missing grandmother and prove that Santa Claus is real.

Why It Got Run Over Itself

1. The title itself is laughable and nonsensical, and it doesn't sound fine for a family-oriented Christmas film. (Although the film is based off of a song)
2. Most of this doesn't feel like an actual movie. It feels more like a TV special because it is only 50 minutes long.
3. Ridiculously dumb and poorly executed story.
4. Tedious and annoying songs that don't need to be in the movie at all, even if again, the film was based on a song.
5. The animation looks poorly made, even in the time it was released.
6. Overused of holiday clichés.
7. Laughably bad names such as "Spankenheimer", and "Cityville".
8. Tons of awkward moments.
9. Clichéd and dumb characters.
10. Whenever the main character Jake wears his jacket, he always has his PJ'S on underneath, especially in the same scenes where he wears normal clothes.
11. The transitions to the songs are hilariously bad, like how Cousin Mel and Grandpa are talking about signing the contract and out of literally nowhere, Grandpa starts singing.
12. No one other than Jake, especially Grandpa, shows concern that Grandma is missing.
13. The character designs are as generic as they can get, so much so that they could very well be mistaken for background characters than the stars of the show.
14. When Jake is telling everybody about Grandma's sleigh accident with Santa, he mentions that Rudolph was right near Grandma as she was walking even though Rudolph wasn't seen with any of Santa's reindeer in the film.
15. The lip movements are out of sync.
16. Most of the plot is extremely forced.
17. Cousin Mel plans to sell the family general store for millions, there is no way a small general store is worth millions.
18. The movie was spammed every December on Cartoon Network almost every day until 2014.
19. It was first released on Halloween (October 31), which makes no sense because it is way too early for a Christmas-themed special and Christmas comes out in December, not October.
20. Although Grandpa noticed Grandma get run over by a reindeer, he completely shows no emotion to that, meaning he wasn't upset about Grandma getting severely injured when he should be.
21. Plot Hole: There are a few instances of characters eating rotten fruit cake throughout the film but they show no signs of illness and food poisoning. This is unrealistic.
22. The songs often have off-topic and even gross/inappropriate imagery, such as Grandma's underwear being flung on-camera, and the Grandpa's Gonna Sue the pants of of Santa scene showing Mel and Slime dressed as Carmen Miranda, and the outfits expose their cleavages and a few closeups are shown while doing the samba on an island background while shouting random Spanish words, making noises, saying "allah", and singing off-key.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The voice acting is passable.
2. Cousin Mel is somewhat a memorable character. And though it seems she was meant to be unlikable throughout the film (her greedy and selfish behavior and creating a plan to ruin Christmas by putting reindeer nip in the fruitcake Grandma was going to deliver so the reindeer in Santa's sleigh can smell it from the sky, resulting to them crashing down and running over Grandma. She also intended to use Grandpa to frame and sue Santa for running over Grandma), she received her comeuppance by being sent to jail and, as Wikipedia mentioned, was put in the naughty list for life.
3. Austin Bucks is also a fairly likable character.
4. The movie is so bad it's funny.
5. ”Grandpa’s Gonna Sue the Pants of Santa” can be funny to some viewers.
6. Thankfully, the songs in the Elmo and Patsy album make more sense than the entire movie itself.
7. Even the character designs may be generic, they can look passable on the other hand.

Trivia

• Elmo Shropshire, one of the members of the duo who performed the song for the first time in 1979, narrates the movie and voices Grandpa.

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