Christmas is right around the corner, and that means it’s time to talk about Christmas films.
One of the most iconic parts of christmas is it’s many movies - which includes many
animated classics. But, what is a christmas film without a christmas villain? With so
many iconic animated christmas films, how could we not focus on these great villains?
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and this is Animated Christmas Villains: Good to Evil
As usual, we’ll start with the most noble character and work our way down
to the most evil. The characters in this first category are… The Good.
Taking our gold medal of good is Steve Claus from Arthur Christmas. Steve is an interesting
case because while he’s a major antagonist in the film, he serves the role of an Anti-hero more than
a villain. He is the grandson of Grandsanta and a descendant of the original Santa, Saint Nicholas.
He is the next in line to become Santa after his father Malcolm, in the meantime he was head of
mission control during his father’s missions.Steve grew annoyed at his father’s continued time as
Santa as he wished to take up the mantle already. He takes his job very seriously despite it not
being his dream and this leads him to becoming antagonistic. Steve is not a bad guy, just jealous
and wishing he was above his station, which leads to him being the COO at the end of the film.
Grabbing our silver medal of good is The Grinch from Illumination’s 2018 Grinch.
This version of The Grinch features a lot of similar ideas and plot points to the original,
but due to a lot of unique differences, we’ll be separating them. The Grinch is a grouchy outcast
who lives up on a mountain far away from Whoville because he seems to despise the Whos. However,
unlike other versions of this character, he makes consistent trips into town and
the Whos try to be friendly towards him. This eventually leads to his plan to steal Christmas,
due to it’s noisy nature and general good vibes which he seems to dislike.
The Grinch’s main issue is the fact that his heart is two sizes too small,
and by the end of the film this is fixed and he becomes less evil. The Grinch isn’t that
bad of a guy in this adaptation, and in fact he’s much less malicious than his other counterparts.
Taking our bronze medal of good is Ebeneezer Scrooge from Disney’s 2009 The Christmas Carol.
While Scrooge is the main protagonist of the film he is also a villain for the majority of
it. The reason we’re focusing on the Jim Carrey version is because not only is it
one of the only animated versions, but it’s an accurate representation of the book. Scrooge
is a miserly old man who’s stinginess knows no bounds. He continually denies money to people
including charities and needy people. This gets to the point where he even steals the coins on
Jacob Marley’s corpse. He is severely hated and it shows because of his pure stinginess
throughout the film. Scrooge does have a very iconic change of heart after seeing his past,
present and future thanks to the ghosts throughout the night. Scrooge’s change
of heart is so iconic that it’s no surprise he ranks with the rest of the less-evil villains.
Up next on our list is The Grinch from the original book and cartoon. The original version of
The Grinch shares a lot in common with his newer versions, a green outcast who lives high upon a
mountain outside Whoville. In the original cartoon he is shown to be a being of nearly pure hatred,
who hates noise, singing and even other people. This leads to his literal war on christmas where
he does everything he can to stop the Whos from enjoying their christmas and their presents.
The Grinch goes into everyone’s homes and steals everything christmas related and
even lies to little children. However, by the end of the film he has the most iconic change
of heart in probably all of media, as his heart grows three sizes. This leads to him becoming a
relatively good guy, even happily feasting with the Whos. However, unlike the other Grinch,
he is shown to be much more malicious and his backstory leads to him being much less likable.
Rounding out the Good section of our list The Bumble from Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.
The Bumble otherwise known as the Abominable Snow Monster of the North is a sasquatch-esque creature
that exists in the North Pole. He appears mostly as a myth that is told to Rudolph on his journey,
where he is portrayed as an evil and hungry monster. However, the truth is that he’s a
relatively peaceful creature that mostly just mills around and survives. He does appear to be
evil and roars angrily on multiple occasions, however, this turns out to be because he is
dealing with a massively annoying and downright torturous toothache. The Bumble isn’t evil,
just in pain, and while he’s angry he never harms anyone directly.
With the Good Characters wrapped up,
we now move into more neutral territory. These characters fall in… The Grey Area.
Starting off the Gray Area on our list is Mr. White Christmas himself, Snow Miser from
The Year Without a Santa Claus. Snow Miser was a protector and friend to the Santa Claus family, as
he constantly protected them from his brother Heat Miser. This means that during Santa’s year off he
failed to protect some of the elves who tried to pick up the slack. When Mrs. Claus pops around
to try and convince Snow Miser to bring snow to Southtown. Snow Miser fights with his brother Heat
Miser on multiple occasions and this leads to them being disciplined by their mother, Mother Nature.
Snow Miser is the better of the two brothers because he does do a lot to protect Santa and co.
Up next is the man with the best name on this list, Burgermeister Meisterburger from Santa
Claus is Coming to Town. Meisterburger is the mayor of Sombertown, a place where he rules
with an iron fist. He has outlawed most forms of fun, but especially Toys. He even goes as far as
trying to destroy any and all toys in the region. He tries to imprison Kris Kringle for giving out
toys and he even seems to give off the impression that he’d be fine with the man’s death if it came
to it. Meisterburger even marks the Kringle family as wanted criminals and the only reason
he doesn’t rank any lower is because while he has power he doesn’t do anything truly evil with it.
Ranking next on our list is Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus. Heat Miser is
the brother of Snow Miser and the son of Mother Nature, where he controls heat for a living. He
is much more openly antagonistic than his brother and this leads him to nearly kill
Jingle and Jangle because Snow Miser failed to protect them. The reason he ranks lower
than his brother is because his anger causes him to get almost homicidal at some points,
and as such he’s much less forgivable. Sure, the other films he appears in makes him much
more likable, but this doesn’t stop him from being an all-around jerk everywhere else.
Rounding out our Gray Area is Cousin Melanie Spankenheimer from Grandma Got Ran Over By a
Reindeer. Melanie Spankenheimer or Cousin Mel is the cousin of the main character and the niece of
the titular “grandma”. In this film she is trying to get the family to sell the store they’ve been
running for a long time. This is because she’s a golddigger who only seems to care about money,
doing whatever she can to obtain it from the people around her. This gets to the
point where she uses fruitcake to cause a reindeer to trample Grandma and then
tries to sue Santa because of it. She spends most of the movie as a manipulative schemer,
and this causes her to be a genuine menace throughout the film.
With our Grey Area complete, we now enter the dark side. These characters are… The Bad and The Evil.
Starting off the bad to evil section of our list is a pairing, Mr. Ellingboe and Mrs. Krum
from Klaus. Ellingboe and Krum are the patriarch and matriarch of the Ellingboe and Krum families
respectively. They are the heads of their families and are supposedly the ones who drummed up the
rivalry in the first place. The two of them hate each other and want to destroy the other family,
no matter what it costs. However, once peace seems to be brewing between the families
they spend their time trying to destroy Klaus and Jesper’s gift giving empire,
creating a truce that they hate.The two of them have to eventually get along because
a romeo and juliet situation happens where they become in-laws. They are very bad people
no matter how you slice it, but the worst thing they’ve done is try and frame Jesper.
Up next on our list is Professor Hinkle from Frosty the Snowman. Hinkle was a magician who
was really bad at magic, often breaking eggs and disappointing audiences for the
most part. Hinkle had a magic hat that brings Frosty to life and he spends most of the film
trying to obtain the hat and as such kill Frosty. He even gets close to child murder
at a couple of points but thankfully it never gets that far. Hinkle is also shown to be kind
of childish as he throws a tantrum upon being tricked and even falls down a mountain thanks
to his actions. Hinkle tries to kill Frosty multiple times just to obtain his hat that
he didn’t seem to care about beforehand. Sure, he has a redeeming scenario during the credits,
but it’s not nearly enough because all he did was write an apology for repeated attempted murder.
Bagging our bronze medal of bad is the big burlap bug boy Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before
Christmas. Oogie Boogie is one of the residents of Halloween Town and takes up a spot as The
Boogeyman. He used to be responsible for the holiday known as Bug Day, and as such used to
be the king of Halloween Town. During the movie he has been banished to live under the town in a home
he built death traps around. He has his minions, Shock, Lock and Barrel, kidnap Santa Claus and
bring him to Oogie’s death trap of a home. He then tortures the kidnapped man and pretty much
uses him as bait for Jack Skellington and Sally. He then tries to murder all three of them during
their fight. He is later killed for everything he did and his bug hivemind is destroyed, Oogie
would fall lower but the stuff he did is actually surprisingly tame compared to our bottom two.
Snatching up our silver medal of evil is King Herod from The Star. King Herod,
better known as Herod the Great was the king of Israel during the biblical times
the movie takes place in. Herod only has about ten minutes of screentime but he is
the one ordering around The Hunter who acts as the more obvious antagonist.
Herod sends The Hunter to kill Mary and her soon to be born child because he thought that the
child would be bad for his rule. This means he is more than okay with political murder if need be,
which is very bad no matter how you slice it. Herod even threatens to kill all children across
his kingdom just so he could make sure Jesus would be dead. If Herod had more screen time it means
he’d probably be even worse. But as it stands his threats to murder babies just to stay in power,
makes him a massive villain, however, he’s still outclassed by the very worst of the worst.
Finally, grabbing our gold medal of evil goes to the other boogeyman on our list, Pitch Black from
Rise of the Guardians. Pitch Black is one of the many creatures who are physical representations of
holiday spirit. Specifically, Pitch Black is the creature known as The Boogeyman and The Nightmare
King, a creature who scares children and brings about nightmares. His job is to scare the children
and become even more powerful with the children’s belief. This leads to him trying to turn
all of the children’s belief for hte Guardians like Santa, The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy
into belief for him. He does this by ruining easter, kidnapping all of the tooth fairies,
leading to them being unable to do their job. He even tries to corrupt Jack Frost into joining his
side instead of the Guardians of Childhood. He got to the point where he even managed to
corrupt the Sandman’s dreams into his titular nightmares. Pitch is by far the worst villain
on this list because he is unabashedly evil and cares about little more than his own powers.
But, don’t leave just yet, we got a few christmas presents to hand out, our favorite Sinner Medals.
Taking our Darwin Medal is Professor Hinkle, who is by far the dumbest villain on this list,
clumsy, unable to do close up magic and is little more than a childish magician.
Earning our Envy Medal is Oogie Boogie, who had his role as king of Halloween Town taken
and as such he is intensely envious of Jack and his position, so much so he dies because of it.
We had a couple options for our Greed Medal but we choose Cousin Mel who spends the movie as a
gold digger and trying to obtain money in any way she can from the supposedly failing store.
Taking up the Wrath Medal is none other than Heat Miser, who’s anger is so immense he tries
to shoot down the arbiter of good, Santa Claus, on multiple occasions.
Finally, pulling our Pride Medal is Steve Claus,
who’s entire character arc is about the fact that he believes he should be the new Santa,
even though his dad is still doing it and the pride does take center stage for this man.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking. And tell
us what we should cover next. Remember to hit that notification bell and binge
our Good to Evil playlist. Where we break down the morality of the characters in your
favorite cartoons, shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked.