FlipitTypes TV - Recaps, Gossip, and Trash Talk

There may not be new episodes of…well, anything on right now, but luckily it’s the holiday season, meaning crappy Christmas movies are aplenty. Unluckily, even before the writer’s strike began, the scribes of the world had already pretty much given up on Christmas. How many times will I have to watch that nasty ass Scrooge learn his lesson, and in how many incarnations? There’s the Albert Finney version, the Bill Murray version, and my personal favorite, the Susan Lucci version, where Susan’s forced to watch her own horrible acting in the past, present and future until she learns how to be nice to people. This year, I’d like to put my shallow need to laugh at horrible performances in Lifetime movies to rest and watch something that really touches me. When does American Gladiators start?

Who do people tell you you look like? Julia Roberts? Durmott Mulroney? Anyone else from My Best Friend’s Wedding? That’s awesome! I get Charlie Brown. I’ve always gotten Charlie Brown. It pisses me off as much as it confuses me. So random. Just because Chuck is bald. And negative. And insecure. And has bags under his eyes, and has feet the size of saucepans, and wears horizontal stripes even though they’re totally unflattering and …DAMMIT. Alright, so you can see why I’ve avoided every opportunity to reacquaint myself with this movie since I was a child. If you were always compared to Jonathan Winters, would you want his poster on your wall?

No.

Since I’ve decided to completely change my life once the New Year comes round (I really mean it this time), I figured it was probably a good idea to face my inner Charlie Brown to know how to defeat him. As fate would have it, A Charlie Brown Christmas came on right in the middle of a large pepperoni pie with a side of cheesy bread. It’s a sign! No more paper bags over my head in 2008!
We open with the Peanuts gang ice skating together on the pond and singing in little castratto voices about snowflakes and Christmas and changing feelings and confusion…wait. Nix the changing feelings and confusion part. Where the hell did that come from? I go back a few seconds and press pause to clear my head. Focus, Flipit! Is that a g? Hey! They’re ice skating in a pattern! And it’s spelling something! Am I crazy, here?

Am I just lonely at this time of year and totally obsessed with homosexuality, or was Charles Schulz? I think we all know the answer to that. Charles Schulz made me obsessed with homosexuality.

Charlie Brown trudges after Linus in the snow, looking at the ground and stewing and waiting for his friend to notice how horribly depressed he is. He has double the baggage around his eyes as he usually does, probably after spending another entire night cursing God and asking why he has webbed toes and love handles and an unreasonably sized head.

Can’t you see I’m in PAIN here?

Linus just walks on in silence, not about to make the mistake of asking “what’s on your mind?” Pout all you want to, Linus knows not to trigger your endless ranting about the dangers and injustices waiting to strike you down at any moment. Ignoring his friend becomes tiring, so before he asks Chuck what’s up his ass, Linus takes one last second to lean on the wall and suck his thumb in silence.

Wait for it, and one, two…

“I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus.” Ya think? Linus bites down on his thumb and takes a deep breath. Here we go. Chuck isn’t happy, even when he knows Christmas is coming and he’s getting a lot of free shit. Is life just an endless longing for that one special day your mom fills you with resentment and disappointment by wrapping up some lame fug sweater instead of a gift that shows you that she might actually understand you’re a real live human being with feelings and dreams and not just some pudgy plaything to make fun of with her friends?

Wake me when you’re done, Ophelia.

Linus has no response, so he just acts like he’s paying attention and walks on, sucking his thumb. Charlie B goes on and on about wah Christmas I don’t get it I’m depressed waaaah. Finally, Linus turns around takes his thumb out of his mouth. “Jesuth Chwist woman shuth your faceth.” He’s over it, to the point where he sides with Lucy (the biggest bitch ever invented), who said of all the pussy ass crackers in the world, Charlie Brown is the pussyasscrackeriest.
The boys get to the pond, where the neighborhood kids are still skating and singing that creepy song. Charlie Brown tries to enjoy himself, but unfortunately his upstaging attention whore of a dog is there too, skating like he’s got spandex and glitter running through his veins. Damn that dog! He can do everything! Snoopy, embarrassed that the loser who feeds him is there to dull his shine, grabs Linus’ blanket and swings it around to catch Chuck in a choke hold.
Just when his “master” is about to pass out, Snoopy lets the blanket go, sending CB crashing into the snow. Instead of beating the hell out of his beagle or having it put down like anyone with a pair of nuts would do, Chuck takes the victim route and just stands there, waiting for the shaky tree behind him to dump the inevitable pile of snow on top of his head. Then Snoopy comes over and pees his name on top of the snow heap.

This would enhance your climax if you could muster up enough manliness to get wood, you WUSS!

The next morning, Chuck opens his empty mailbox to find not a single Christmas card. Jeez, kid, give the mailman time to show up and then complain. He feels like Christmas was probably invented just to make him feel like more of a looza, and I’ve felt that many many times. Christmas is the time I get to go home to questions like “how’s your career?” “when are you gonna be approved to adopt a couple of Asians?” and “did you gain thirty pounds on purpose?” F you, Christmas! I hope you go on a date with Valentine’s day and get into a fatal car wreck.
On his way to his shrink he runs into Violet, who just happens to be standing at the end of his driveway reading a Christmas card and giggling. What a bitch. I get a bit hopeful when Chuck’s face scrunches up and he scowls at her. “Thanks for the Christmas card, Violet!” Anger! I like it! Go with it! Violet says the steaming pile of dog poo she left in the mailbox wasn’t meant to spread Christmas cheer, but she’s glad he’s thinking positively. How rude. I hope she asks Christmas and Valentine’s day for a ride somewhere.
I’d like to think if he had a vial of acid in his pocket, he would have thrown it in her busted ass grill, but since he doesn’t, Chuck trudges on, finally coming upon Pig Pen. The freaky little mongrel is own little world as usual, making a snowman as clouds of dust and stink come off him. Is there no Social Services in this town? You know those little Japanese women who go speedwalking with paper covers over their mouth? They do that because of kids like Pig Pen. Bad American parenting=paranoid Japanese immigrants. Sit in front of an adorable little family on a plane with snotty mongrels coughing all over the back of your head and you’ll see their point. Dirty children are dangerous and must be stopped. Chuck can’t help saying something as he passes by, as Pig Pen is the one kid in town who’s even more untouchable than he is. He congratulates PP on still managing to surround himself with billowing dust even in a snowstorm. Pig Pen’s all whatever baldie, hope your under eyes have fun on that trip they over-packed for.
Even Snoopy ignores Charlie Brown, choosing to concentrate on bingeing on Milk Bones and reading the newspaper he stole from the neighbor’s yard after he dropped a deuce on their doorstep.

Putin’s gonna kick our ass.

When CB gets to the doctor’s office, she’s outside throwing snowballs at a can with Linus and missing every time. Linus puts a snowball in his blanket and flings it at the can. Uh, doesn’t really count when you hit the can with your blanket, Cheater Peter. Don’t use your crutch for evil, little man. Lucy tells her brother that he’s going to have to give up his security blanket when he gets older and face the fact that he has a pug nose and a lisp instead of living in denial and walking around pretending he’s a baby so it doesn’t matter, but he says he’ll just make the blanket into a cute dinner jacket and continue deluding himself into thinking he’s Butch Cassidy until he finds a nice girl with a penis to marry and have his babies. Ah, kids and their dreams of grandeur.
Charlie Brown, who ran out of lithium and needs a new prescription bad, stands by Lucy’s ghetto ass office twitching and compulsively touching himself, his bipolar manic depressive disorder at its peak. Lucy tells him that she’ll consider listening to his bs when he pays her fee up front as usual. This bitch is meaner than Dr. Laura. He writes her a check for a nickel and she dances around with it singing Abba’s “Money”. Hello, lithium? She bends him over and gives him a shot of meth to hold him over, and he’s like a new man.

Yay Abba!

She asks what his problem is today and shocker, he’s depressed. Her opinion is that he’s full of fear and lists a number of diseases that are probably wracking his mind, including Pupaphobia, Parturiphobia, Theophobia, Bufonophobia, and Medorthophobia (which are the fears of puppets, childbirth, God, toads, and erect penises, respectively). He says that her diagnoses are probably true, especially the childbirth one, but what’s really up his ass today is the hate of Christmas. She understands. She’s always getting a bunch of crap like clothes and toys and bikes instead of what she asks for: real estate. LOL, Lucy.
If he wants to not feel like such a dipshit on Christmas, he should get involved in the community and actually do something. You know, like direct a Christmas musical! Charlie Brown doesn’t know it yet, but Lucy has shown him one of the only places where insecurity, depression, neurosis and freakish looks are not only allowed, but celebrated: The Musical Theatre.

Do you think Patti LuPone won popularity contests in grade school?

Chuck’s feeling better when he gets home until he sees Snoopy blingin out the dog house. WTF? The dog has true Christmas spirit? Sweet! Nope, he’s just doing it because there’s a neighborhood contest to see who can make the tackiest Christmas house for a cash prize. CB storms off, offended that his dog would sell out Christmas for a little green and runs into his way cuter, way more popular little sister, Sally.
Sally talks in a Marylin Monroe voice and bleaches her hair, which means she’ll either grow up to be a country singer or a total whore. I love her and want to hang out with her, so I hope it’s the latter. She can’t write and needs her big brother to help her with a letter to Santa. She wants money, a rich husband, a winning lottery ticket, a mound of gold, a Rolls, and an Elmo doll. Charlie Brown, disgusted that she didn’t wish for world peace or for him to win a Tony in directing, tells her to shove her letter where the sun don’t shine. What’s the big deal with asking Santa for stuff? What else is he there for? That fat bastard’s gonna be a total drain on our healthcare system one day. We should milk him for all he’s worth.
Time for CB’s first rehearsal as director! He tries to lay the ground rules about respecting the craft and being in the moment for his actors, but then Schroder starts playing the only other song that plays in Peanuts Land (other than the creepy Christmas song) and the kids start partying instead of listening. Linus is dirty dancing with Sally, Violet’s doing a line of coke off the Frieda’s ass, hell, even the hunchback kid’s ignoring Chuck. Ew. What’s wrong with that kid? He looks like Charlie Brown, but he’s all gimpy and mohawked.

Cartoon character cloning gone terribly wrong.

Chuck yells at his cast and tells them to put their drugs and condoms away until after rehearsal and act like professionals, then he has Lucy hand out scripts and assign roles. The production this year will be the Nativity Story, but since we are in modern times, this Christian story has been amended to include other religions like Judaism and Scientology, too. Shermie will be all three wise men for the price of one and Pig Pen is cast as Xenu the Inkeeper with Frieda and her naturally curly weave as his wife, Kirstie Alley. And Just because Franklin has a cold and can’t perform doesn’t mean that the kids aren’t going to give a shout out to Kwanzaa too, so The Twelve Days of Christmas finale is nixed in favor of The Seven Principals of Blackness. This show is gonna kick ass.
Lucy tells Snoopy that he will be playing all the animals in the show, but she wants to make sure he’s capable of imitating them. He makes a sheep sound, a cow sound, and then starts humping Schroeder’s leg and telling the stage curtains they suffer from social anxiety disorder. Wait a second, that sounds more like Dr. Lucy than an animal. Oh, I get it. Howling at the moon’s not enough, Snoopy’s gotta prove he can play a bitch, too. Lucy’s not amused, and starts lecturing the room about respecting the director. Snoopy licks her face, which really sets her off in a tizzy. She screams “EEEWW!! I’ve got dog germs! Get some hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some iodine!”

Get a haircut. You look like Eleanor Roosevelt.

The kids are left alone to memorize their scripts for awhile, and Linus is turning out to be a little diva. Not only does he not want to memorize his lines, he refuses to get rid of his blanket to play a shepherd, telling Lucy to give him five good reasons to do so. She, famously, counts all five of her fingers down into a fist. Hair pulling, nipple clamping, toe stomping, eyebrow plucking, and burning alive. He can’t argue with that. Wait a second, yes he can! He’ll turn his blanket into a shepherd’s headpiece! Damn. Linus lisps, acts like a diva, and makes fabulous clothes out of nothing. He should be on Project Runway.

You have offended shepherds everywhere with that piece of walking hell and will be put to death by sundown.

Charlie Brown calls places, which Schroeder takes as his cue to start up with that hack ass song he’s obsessed with. That song is like the Peanuts version of Celine’s Titanic theme, which department store DJs still insist on playing at least three times an hour. All the kids start their partying and dancing again, which Chuck nips in the bud right away. He stops Schroeder and decides to work on the music later. There are more important things to focus on right now. Like the cast.
Frieda’s refusing to do her makeout scene with Pig Pen because she doesn’t want to get her weave dirty. Charlie Brown tries to be a soothing, manipulative director by telling her to think of the stank like the smell of something exquisite, like a five star dinner or a can of Fancy Feast. She says PP smells like a crack ho’s ass crack and she’s not touching him.

I’m ready for my kiiiiiiiiissss!!!

He moves on to his sister Sally, who he hasn’t cast in a role yet. Since he feels a little guilty about telling her to sit and spin on her blank letter to Santa, he gives her the biggest gift he could ever give her. He casts her as Linus’ wife. Hearts start coming out of her head and she gets all swoony. Linus hides in his closet blanket and tries to pretend he’s invisible. Poor Sally. I can see her future so clearly…as a three hundred pound funny girl yuckin it up with a bunch of homos in a piano bar wondering if the one singing “Evergreen” will take her home and bang her senseless if she gets him drunk enough. The pattern of a fag hag starts very young. I had my first one when I was five, and I didn’t even know what a fag or a hag was. Holla, Amy Greenberg!
Speaking of hags, Lucy realizes that she hasn’t discussed her leading role with her director. No, not Jesus. He’s being played by the twins, 3 and 4. The Christmas Queen! CB’s like WTF what religion is that character in? Lucy says that she’s beautiful, so of course she’ll be the queen. Right? RIGHT? Charlie Brown doesn’t know what to say, because Lucy is the type to force you to call her beautiful on set and then sue you for sexual harassment. She takes his silence as a diss and freaks out, waving her finger in his face and screaming at him to watch his back for the rest of his life because she’ll always be right behind him ready to slice the second no one’s looking. I wonder what kind of man is going to marry this harpy.

There’s a prince for everyone.

Lucy realizes that CB is already low as a human can possibly go, so she cuts the crap and gets back to the task at hand. Becoming a star. Charlie Brown calls places and action, and the gang starts dancing to that f ing song again. Note to Schroeder’s parents, please get this kid some new sheet music. You’re killin me here. Charlie Brown finally loses all the resolve he’d mustered up for the project, and Lucy takes it as the perfect time to steal the job she suggested he take in the first place. There must be something else he could do, like…tick tock tick tock as she tries to come up with something. Anything.
He says that no one is feeling the true spirit of Christmas, and he thinks getting a tree might help. Lucy has an idea! Get a tree! Great plan, soul sucker. For those of you who weren’t aware, in addition to being the Christmas Queen, Lucy also invented the internet and discovered global warming. She tells him he would be the perfect person to haul in a six foot tall pink aluminum tree. Go! As he leaves, some little bitch tells him not to fuck up like usual and he gets general boos from his cast. If this was really a modern American school, CB would show up to class with a black trench coat and a rifle, but it’s not, so he just puts his head down and goes out into the cold to do what he was told.
Sally won’t stop grabbing Linus’ ass, so he jumps at the chance to join his friend on a tree hunt. They don’t know where to start, so they follow roaming searchlights in the distance. It’s a movie premiere! Something called The Golden Compass. Unfortunately, it’s already left the theater for a run at the dollar drive in by the time they try to buy tickets, so they keep hunting for trees. Eventually, they stumble upon the red light district, which is selling some of the most girly aluminum trees ever made. Linus gets a huge grin on his face and runs up to touch a big pink one to make sure he’s not dreaming. Charlie Brown, in awe, finally catches his breath to mutter “fabulous!” The boys look at each other in fear. CB say’s “I’m not…” and Linus is all “No! Me neither!” Then they cough and grab their nuts.

These trees couldn’t be gayer if they were shaped like penises.

There’s a tiny little dying tree in the middle of all the tacky ones, so the boys race to it and talk about Jessica Alba’s boobies. Linus thinks they’re bigger than Judy Garland’s, but Charlie Brown doesn’t know who Jessica Alba is. Awkward pause. Cough nut grab cough. If they took this tiny pathetic tree back to their friends, no one would confuse them for tasteful possible homos. Besides, the tree’s tiny, it’s losing it’s needles, and it’s depressing as hell. Charlie Brown can relate. To further solidify to each other that they’re all man, they leave the tree lot without paying. Hey! Christmas isn’t about free things! Wait…yes it is. Never mind. Go ahead with that burglary.
Back at the theater, Lucy is using her power as a director to force Schroeder to play something sexy for her on the piano. He plays her some Fur Elise, and she gets pissed. SOMETHING SEXY! He informs her that Fur Elise was written by Beethoven, who was a deep brilliant deaf man that died alone. What’s not sexy about that? Lucy, not taking the hint, asks for The Pussycat Doll’s “Dontcha”, but as he plays it , the ever talented Snoopy gets on top of the piano and starts doing backbends and grinding his little lipstick into their horrified faces. Beethoven it is.

But that’s the song that made me wanna be a str…never mind. Sad Horns.

Charlie Brown and Linus show up at the theatre with their not gay little tree, and even Lucy is shocked into silence. Unfortunately for CB, Little Rosie O’Donnell’s there to speak her mind. She calls Chuck a pathetic loser and throws a hammer at his big round head. For those of you not familiar with the Peanut gang, Little Rosie becomes much nicer and more submissive after Peppermint Patty enrolls in school. In a snap, the kids all jump on Rosie’s band wagon and before you know it, the entire cast of the Nativity Story are beating the crap out of poor Chuck and throwing Diet Coke cans at his head. As he lays on the floor bleeding, they laugh and laugh and laugh. Even Snoopy! Put that fucking dog down already!

For the last time this year, Barbara Walters is an Alzheimer’s ridden sack of bones!

Charlie Brown gets off the floor, wipes the blood off his face, and starts blaming Christmas for all his problems. It’s Christmas’ fault I’m alone and depressed and bald! It’s Christmas’ fault that I’ve gained thirty six and a half pounds! It’s Christmas’ fault I’m still making Rosie O’Donnell and Judy Garland hack ass jokes! DAAAAAMMMMMNNN YOU, CHRISTMAS!!!! Sorry. Projecting. Charlie Brown is so beaten down that he’s forgotten the meaning of Christmas. Luckily, Little Rosie’s on duty as the stage manager (typical) to give Linus a spotlight. He recites the Meaning of Christmas Monologue, which he has updated to fit in with the multi-denominational pageant. It’s tacky to quote a two minute chunk of dialogue in a recap, but this is really meaningful and it’s Christmas, so indulge me.

“And, lo, the angel of America came upon the shepherdth,
And the angel thaid unto them,
Unto you ith born this day in the city of Paris a Saviour, which is Neo Hubbard Friedman our President.
And this shall be a thign unto you; Ye shall find the two headed carmel colored alien baby wrapped in thwaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And thuddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising The Thecret, and thinging,
Glory to whoever Oprah tells us to vote for in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward people of all races, ages, sizes, sexual orientations and thocial thtatuses. Except the terrorists. Amen.”

I press pause to go squirt out a couple wet things out of my eyes where no one can see me, and by the time I return, Charlie Brown has somehow figured out a way to take Linus’ monologue to be an anti-commercialism rant. I find it amusing and disturbing that this kid can’t shut up about commercialism when he’s made millions of dollars off of advertising revenue in the commercials for his touching little story year after year.
Commercialism is what makes Christmas great. If you want to rail against something having to do with Christmas, make it about being forced to go to church for two hours the night before or those goddamn old people who stand outside Costco with red buckets asking for money for homeless people all December long. I don’t care that the world is cold and hungry this month. I want an XBox.
Making matters worse, Charlie Brown comes home to find that Snoopy’s pimped out doghouse won the Cheesiest House on the Block Award, beating out even the Grizwalds down the street. Does he write a letter of congrats to his a hole beagle? What do you think?

Sometimes the road to happiness involves being happy for other people’s happiness, you dick.

He steals an ornament of the roof, which makes him feel better until the weight of it crushes his weak soggy stick of a tree and sends him inside to cry to his mommy. The other kids come over to his backyard, so still and emotionless that it looks like they might start the doghouse on fire. Then they loot it. Snoopy’s been a jerk today, but no one deserves that. They take all of the stolen goods and surround the stick tree, breaking it apart and scattering the wood all over the snow. Bastards!
But wait! It’s a new, better tree! And now they’re taking the stolen decorations and making it beautiful! Well, comparaitvely. Awww! Charlie Brown comes out of the house to find them singing around this tree, and he screams and curses the Heavens. If he had been paying attention, he would have realized that people cared about him and wanted him to look like less of a looza so they changed what they could about him pretended the rest didn’t matter for a day. That’s friendship. And that’s Christmas.

I love you, you’re perfect, now for Christ’s sake, CHANGE!!

Love you, gasmii. GodXenuAllah bless you and yours this season! HEART, Flip.