This bloomin' great Christmas animation combines both of Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas books into one animation.
We follow Father Christmas (Voiced by the late Mel Smith, who was fantastic on Not the Nine O' Clock News) throughout the year when he is off work. He's in need of a proper good holiday so he goes to France, Scotland and Las Vegas. Everywhere he goes he can't get away from the fact that everyone is like, "Hey, he looks like Santa Claus". Which is what he wants to get away from.
He gets diarrhea in France whilst out camping and has to shit amongst the bushes and cows, and asks for chips and ketchup with his meal, perfectly capturing the real British tourist representation. (When I was in Malta last some British people asked for mayonnaise. Fucking mayonnaise)
He gets merry with the Scots and lives it large in Las Vegas before realising he is too old for it all and heads back to rainy England to start preparing for Christmas.
This animation is a staple part of British TV at Christmas and is usually shown alongside Raymond Briggs' other creation; The Snowman. Even James and his snowman friend from that film feature in Father Christmas when Santa goes to the North Pole for a wild party full of debauchery with lots of other snowmen. Once again the animation is fantastic with it's simple but effective soft crayoned cells and layouts.
It's nowhere near as sad as The Snowman (there's no death in this one) but Santa is presented as pretty damn grumpy and we get to see how he lives every day. His dog and cat make the animation all the better for me, as they constantly follow him everywhere and annoy him, much like real pets do. Actually, the saddest part of the whole animation is when he takes the pets to the kennels before he goes on holiday. That part always made me sad as a kid. It was almost as upsetting as Gromit leaving home.
I'm fairly sure everyone has seen Father Christmas, it's on every year so there's no escaping it. And who can forget that brilliant theme song? ALL TOGETHER NOW...
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