Hard Candy Christmas - Henchmen 21 and 24

Christmas is drawing nigh and therefore time for me to unleash some holiday themed wisdom upon those who stumble into my blog.

One of my favourite things about animation is when the writers leave little breadcrumbs of their personality in the script. Are they reaching out to their audience looking for likeminded souls? Or exhaustedly regurgitating every last fleck of their imagination onto the page. Either way, it makes lonely losers like me believe that on some level, I connect with these artists.

A classic example is musical preference- almost all voice actors love the sound of their own voice- therefore love singing- and therefore love music. Why else would they choose a career where they can  put headphones on and slip into a voice tracked-coma-reel of madness inside their own heads?

We all remember this exhaustingly long musical number (P.S- I still loved it)

Venture Bros is one of those awesome shows with an open appreciation for music. One example is how David Bowie, voiced by James Urbaniak, is a reoccurring as the sovereign of the Guild of Calamitous Intent. (Iggy Pop is also a member of the guild, albeit slightly less awesome). (Also there was one episode themed around Space Oddity)

Another example is this!

BAM

Possibly the single greatest cartoon musical holiday moment of all time. (I'm talking to you Schroeder, you stripe-shirted hack). (But seriously, no hard feelings.)

I thought I had seen every known episode of Venture Bros. (Save the finale of the last season).

That includes the Christmas special as well as the pilot. But for some reason, I don't remember watching this at all, and stumbled into this recording on the internet. And it's way too awesome to be fake.

Apparently at some vanished point on the timeline, Henchmen 21 and 24 went to visit The Monarch in jail. It was Christmas, there was a guitar on hand, and they all sang Dolly Parton's Hard Candy Christmas.

Nothing can explain why Dolly Parton's Hard Candy Christmas has always been one of my favourite carols, despite its lack of festiveness, its country flair and its lack of popularity in the general Christmas cannon. But every year early December, I sure as hell lock myself in my car for three or four loops of this sucker.

So let's take some time this holiday season, to remember that this happened.

Oh yeah, I guess you can enjoy the actual recording too.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas does a rendition too