Once every year, it’s that mystical time.
Because nearly every holiday special starts in song or rhyme.
Everything is blanketed in falling snow illuminated by the lights’ soft glow.
Holiday music sings in the air.
The festive spirit beyond compare.
This can only mean, with all this merry business, that its time to renew my War on Christmas.
How do I know there is a war on Christmas?
Because I’m waging it!
You see, years ago I was but an innocent retail worker.
Then everything changed when black Friday attacked.
The music.
The endless horrible Christmas music.
It still haunts me.
The same 12 stupid songs over and over with all the noise noise noise!
I will have my revenge!
And what savage tactic will I use to take my recompense with this year?
Why I plan to deal a significant blow to Christmas by teaching every writer how to write a holiday
special.
And when every holiday is special, no one will be.
So, my holiday special will need the usual trappings.
Snow, holly leaves, Christmas lights, that ever more gradating sound of bells in the
background, way too much green and red.
Let’s see.
Oh.
I also need to brutally murder a child tree and then decorate its corpse.
CONSPIRACY GUY: JP…
JP…
JP: A ghost!
CONSPIRACY GUY: No.
Again, I’m not a ghost.
This is hologram.
I swear, this is why you chumps are so easy to manipulate.
Then every time I break out the Ark of the Covenant everyone is like “oh what’s the
science behind it?”
It’s a magic relic, how am I supposed know?
It’s like you all jump to the dumbest conclusion every time.
JP: Um.
Why are you here?
The sponsor segment is not until the end of the video.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Oh.
Actually I’m here to tell that you will be visited by three ghosts tonight, just as
planned!
Now if you excuse me, I need to go plan out how I’m going to spend my sponsorship money.
MWA HA HA HA.
JP: That was weird.
Oh well.
Back to writing my Christmas special.
INNER CRITIC: JP…
JP…
JP: A hologram of my Inner Critic!
INNER CRITIC: What!
No.
Did you forget that you killed me?
JP: I did?
Oh right!
I did.
I shot you dead in the Giving Criticism video.
Wait.
That was before the Rivals video?
INNER CRITIC: Oh now you care about continuity?
JP: I don’t understand.
How did you come back to life for the rivals video and why are you dead again?
INNER CRITIC: Easy.
I just use any of the convenient, massive plot holes you leave lying around like Christmas
candy.
Speaking of which, through the power of plot holes I am the ghost of Christmas Past.
I am here to show you how Christmas Specials used to be written and still are because holiday
episodes are the nadir of most writers’ careers so they get little thought put into
them.
Christmas episodes are usually a cheap project strangled by a December deadline and almost
always designed to push commercial products of some kind.
Not that you would ever be so low, brand deal Beaubien.
JP: Of course not.
I’m here to destroy Christmas.
INNER CRITIC: Oh.
I see you have the ‘curmudgeon who wishes to stop Christmas for no good reason’ trope
well in hand.
JP: Yeah.
But I’m different!
INNER CRITIC: Sure you are.
Let me guess, no reindeer games for you or perhaps your heart is three sizes too small?
Or is it that you don’t believe in Santa?
JP: Well he is a fictional character in the fantasy world I’m setting the holiday special
in.
INNER CRITIC: Really?
I would like to see how Christianity made the jump to this fantasy world and why it’s
trappings are the same as our own.
So what flimsy excuse are you using this time to explain this cross world cultural exchange?
JP: Well it just is.
They are skeptical of Santa though in setting.
Oh.
And it has a cool magic system.
INNER CRITIC: They use magic and they’ll skeptical of the supernatural?
Of course they are.
I forget you are writing this.
I’m sick of this drivel!
Go haunt your own Christmas past.
Oh look!
It’s a Christmas miracle.
I’ve been brought back to life so I can get out of here.
JP: Jerk!
Anyway.
Now I can get back to writing my holiday special.
So what will be my story’s conflict?
I know!
The bad guy is going to cancel this celebrated worldwide holiday.
Wait.
You can do that?
I proclaim Christmas canceled!
Did it work yet?
EVIL EMPEROR: Attention, imperial subject, I am haunting you!
I command you to be afraid!
JP: Ugh.
How many ghosts are left?
This video is going to take forever if you guys keep haunting me.
EVIL EMPEROR: I am the ghost of Christmas presents.
JP: Don’t you mean Christmas present?
EVIL EMPEROR: What?
I thought I was suppose to give you a present.
It is Christmas after all.
JP: I didn’t think the evil empire would celebrate Christmas?
EVIL EMPEROR: Are you kidding!
Christmas is great!
Everyone is whipped up into a mindless consumer frenzy.
It’s bread and circuses combined with a sorely needed economic boost.
Plus my generals always get me new parts for my model train set I’m working on.
Now, I understand that you have a problem.
I have a present that will solve any problem!
JP: Is it the capacity to destroy an entire planet?
EVIL EMPEROR: How did you know?
JP: I had a hunch.
EVIL EMPEROR: Well then.
My work is done!
You now have everything you need to solve any problem.
By destroying the entire planet!
JP: Okay.
Where was I?
Um…
Wow.
Writing Christmas specials is kind of hard.
No wonder writers just give up and do a variety show.
Is this variety show mind numbingly awful?
No?
Then try harder.
Add in a random cooking show in there somewhere!
Our holiday special isn’t complete until the plot is a random wreck of disparate elements.
You know, kind of like this is video!
Don’t forget to turn the special into a musical!
Has every episode of the series never had a single musical number ever!
Well then this is the perfect time to add it in!
Why?
Because it’s Christmas!
I mean, I’m not going to sing.
Several international treaties prohibit me singing, but that doesn’t mean a musical
number shouldn’t be awkwardly shoved in there!
Crap.
I need to pad the run time even further!
Wait.
I know exactly what this Christmas Special needs!
A Love Triangle!
Adapting a Christmas classic for a modern audience?
Better add a love triangle to that too.
Our Christmas special will not be complete until we’ve thrown in every last idea and
have thoroughly cleaned the bottom of the idea barrel.
DARK LORD: Behold, mortal, for I am the ghost of Christmas future!
JP: Oh great.
Here we go again.
DARK LORD: I am here to show you what Christmas will be like!
JP: Yes yes.
I know.
Unless I accept holiday spirit, whatever that is, I am going to die alone and unloved.
DARK LORD: What?
I don’t know about that.
I was going to describe my coming reign of darkness.
For once my forces overrun the final bastions of light, my evil will reign supreme.
Every Christmas in the future will be nothing but eternal darkness and despair.
Then, every year on the month before Christmas, I shall set aside a day where I separate workers
from their families and force them to brave angry mobs of ravenous creatures.
I shall call it Black Friday!
JP: Um.
We already do that.
DARK LORD: Oh.
Well fine then!
I shall create a holiday that reminds single people of how lonely they are while putting
stress on loving couples by beheading flowers and giving it them as a reminder of how fleeting
goodness and love is in the world!
JP: Yeah that’s Valentine’s day.
DARK LORD: Um… then I shall steal chicken eggs from children and hide them after ruining
their white, pure shells with absurd color schemes?
JP: Easter.
DARK LORD: Argh!
Your world is stupid!
I’m going to play Skyrim.
Finally.
This stupid tortured to reference to A Christmas Carol can end and I can get on with making
ruining Christmas a trend!
By now, my terrible advice should be having its desired effect.
Writers should be churning out holiday specials with the quality of dreck!
The audience is watching now and I know just what they’ll do!
Their mouths will hang open a minute or two.
Then dudes down in YouTube will all cry BooHoo.
Actually they will probably just reference a few memes and other natter.
But Christmas will be ruined forever and that’s all that matters!
Now I shall admire my devious handiwork.
While everyone celebrating Christmas calls me a jerk!
It was in that moment when JP’s monologue was stopping, that he saw December retail
was still hopping.
Nothing he did had any result for Christmas was beyond his power to insult.
Maybe Christmas does now just come from a store, but who cares, the economy is what
matters more!
Book sales were up and the money flowed in!
Who cares if holiday specials are lame, it’s all a win-win.
Oh wait, I meant to say that he grasped the true meaning of Christmas.
This most certainly was not about JP cynically promoting his business.
Yes.
JP learning that greed is bad and he will repent.
Just ignore the upcoming segment of sponsored content.
And what happened then?
Well in YouTube comments they say, that JP’s small heart grew three sizes that day!
Then he seized his chest, his pain flowing readily.
And then dropped dead of Cardiomegaly.
EVIL EMPEROR: A ghost!
CONSPIRACY GUY: Why does everyone keep saying that!
I’m not a ghost.
Do ghosts have tech grid lines running through them!
You should know.
Your in a scifi setting.
You have holograms.
EVIL EMPEROR: Yeah but our holograms have hex grids!
Hexes are in right now.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Oh whatever.
I still have this video’s sponsor, Skillshare.
It’s vast trove of knowledge, being an online learning community with over 20,000 classes
in writing, design, business, technology and more is now mine.
But before I start a round of well deserved gloating, I wanted to ask you something.
You see, last time we were about to steal the sponsor from the Dark Lord, then this
guy in knight armor showed up and started ranting about artistic integrity or some such
nonsense.
Then he screamed something about a prophecy and tried to kill us with a sword.
A sword!
And they call me old fashion.
EVIL EMPEROR: Yeah.
I hate those guys with laser swords!
Always ruining my plans to destroy entire planets.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Anyway, we shot him, because who brings a sword to a gunfight?
He wandered off after that.
You know anything about these guys?
I don’t want them screwing up my plans again.
EVIL EMPEROR: Did you try blowing up their entire planet?
That usually works.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Oh yes.
That’s practical.
EVIL EMPEROR: Well it’s not our fault you conspiracy types are parasitic.
You may have stolen our sponsor, but you lack the key to using it.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Don’t get smart with me, young whippersnapper.
I was manipulating world governments back when your empire was still a city state on
planet backwater.
Besides, I already have a Premium Membership which gives those who possess it unlimited
access to Skilshare’s high quality classes.
Which is good, because I really need to finish up that class on what YouTube is.
Ah well, it can’t be that important.
It’s not like hundreds of thousands of people are watching me on it.
Having my existence revealed to so many would be disastrous.
EVIL EMPEROR: Insolent fools!
I will…
CONSPIRACY GUY: Let me guess?
Destroy our entire planet?
Is that your only solution to every problem?
EVIL EMPEROR: Of course not.
We can come up with other solutions.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Like?
EVIL EMPEROR: Um…
We could uh take an entire planet and uh break it up into an asteroid field through orbital
bombardment!
Ha!
Showed you.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Yes.
You put me in my place.
By the way, wouldn’t it be unfortunate if the imperial capital was suddenly hit by a
rogue planetoid?
EVIL GENERAL: My emperor, a rogue planetoid!
Impact imminent
CONSPIRACY GUY: Mwa ha ha ha!
While the Empire contemplates its doom, TWA fans can get 2 months of Skillshare for free
by going to skl.sh/twa7 or by signing up through the link in the description below.
All according to plan!
EVIL EMPEROR: NO!
If only we had some means of removing a large stellar body!
Wait! Maybe.
Maybe we can.
Maybe we can use the doom station and…
I had something there for a second, but I lost it.