I don't usually like holiday/christmas specials, and part of the reason dawned on me recently while watching the 'Father Ted' Christmas special. It was really funny, but it was double its normal running length, and it was obvious about three quarters of the way through that the writers were used to a half-hour format, and just didn't know how to pace a one hour episode, didn't know how to finish it, so just kept piling up joke after joke until the time ran out.*

Rocko's Modern Christmas is also basically a double length episode from the TV series. It's not among the best episodes, nor the worst, and when you're talking about a show with such a high average quality, even an average one is going to be good.

Rocko is surpised to find that his new next door neighbours are Christmas Elves (the laconic old head Elf is a great character). Their house is bursting at the seams with Christmasy motifs like flashing lights and giant wooden soldiers standing either side of the doorstep. This infuriates the Scroogish Ed Bighead who is determined to sabotage Rocko's Christmas party by spreading a rumour that the elves are carrying some sort of fungal infection.

Really, this might not appeal to you unless you're a Rocko fan, and seeing as how the videos are starting to now hard to find, wuth no sign yet of it on DVD, I'd suggest starting with some of the conventional tapes, though there's certainly nothing wrong with this. It's just shorter and not quite as good as most of the other tapes.

It does have the virtue though of having the episode 'Snowballs' as a bonus, which gives it the extra star, as it has one of the all time classic visual gags in a Rocko episode. It's alsoa more typical Rocko episode, with Heffer in fine form, and contains one of the most memorable scenes from the whole series.

*(of course this doesn't explain why I hate the Simpsons Halloween episodes, which are normal length...)