TOP 12 BEST (WORST) XMAS VILLAINS

Well, it's that time of year again and with all the awful and annoying Christmas specials and movies out there we sometimes forget that a lot of those movies have some of the best (or worst) villains this horrible holiday has to offer. Forget about "Peace on Earth" and Christmas cheer, these holiday badasses are devoted to spreading Christmas FEAR! What would this jolly holiday be without a few merry miscreants to cause trouble. So, in honor of this frightfully festive time of year CHERNOBOG'S BLOG Presents: The TOP 12 BEST (WORST) XMAS VILLAINS! Why 12...? Duh, Twelve Days of Christmas! Enjoy and Bah Humbug! (Why is it so short, because I've been to busy to write it and you're probably too busy to read it...LOL)

#12 Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), Die Hard (1988)

#11 Jack Frost (Martin Short), Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006)
#10 Snow Miser/Heat Miser, The Year Without A Sanat Claus (1974)

#9 The Winter Warlock, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (1970)

#8 Mr. B.Z. (John Lithgow), Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

#7 The Abominable Snow Monster, a.k.a. "Bumble", Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

#6 Stripe, Gremlins (1984) - Gizmo
#5 Mr. Henry F. Potter, a.k.a. "Old Man Potter" (Lionel Barrymore), It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

#4 Harry and Marv, a.k.a. "The Wet Bandits" (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), Home Alone (1990)

#3 Mr. Oogie-Boogie, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

#2 The Grinch (Boris Karloff & Jim Carrey), How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1964/2000)

#1 Ebeneezer Scrooge A Christmas Carol - (Reginald Owen, Alastair Sim, George C. Scott, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, Jim Carrey and 200 others!)

TOP 10 1980's TOYS: XMAS EDITION

It's Christmas time again and of course we all know what the TRUE meaning of Christmas is... TOYS, TOYS, and more TOYS!!! Growing up in the 1980's there were so many great toys out that my Christmas' were filled waking up and finding the latest and greatest toys! What would my childhood and those of my generation have been without great toys like G.I. Joe or Transformers! (but NOT Cabbage Patch Kids, they made the '90's Furbie craze look like the Bubonic Plague!) For anyone who grew up with these toys you might remember some of these, if not, just watch an episode of Adult Swim's "Robot Chicken" http://www.adultswim.com/shows/robot-chicken/index.html and you'll see what I'm talking about! So, I made my list (and checked it twice!) of the TOP 10 1980's Toys (Christmas Edition):

#10 "My Pet Monster" - My Pet Monster, it says it all! He was a huge, blue, stuffed-toy, with an ugly face full of hard plastic teeth. He came in this huge box which looked like a jail cell AND he had these weird orange handcuffs that could break when pulled apart. You could also take them off and put the handcuffs on yourself! Brilliant!

#9 "M.A.S.K." - M-m-m-m-mask! Mobile Armored Strike Kommand! (And no I am not misspelling it!) M.A.S.K. were vehicles that turned into other vehicles like a green motorcycle that turned into a mini-helicopter or a red sports-car that turned into a jet...fun!

#8 "Centurions"- Power Extreme, Men-Machine!" The Centurions were a team of cyborg superheroes (easily forgotten) who could attach weapons to their armor (which were full of holes) and you could even mix and match them depending on their mission either by land, sea, or air! The villains Doc Terror and Hacker were the ugliest and most awkward looking cyborgs ever!

#7 "Robocop (and the Ultra Police)" - Here's a great idea: take a violent R-Rated Sci-Fi movie about a cop who gets killed only to come back as a cyborg cop THEN turn it into a kids cartoon TV show and develop action figures! Awesome! The best part was the Robocop toys had caps in their backs which would simulate shooting! Don't you just LOVE cartoon violence! I know I did!

#6 "Thundercats"- "Thunder, Thunder, Thunder Cats! Ho!" Based on the popular cartoon series these anthropomorphized cat-people are still a nostalgic favorite, especially Cheetarah (nuff said!) My favorite toy was the actual "Sword of Omens", a short, plastic, sword based on Lion-Os sword with a glowing red "Eye of Thundera" (you pressed the button and it glowed)!

#5 "The Real Ghostbusters" - These were "The Real Ghostbusters", based on the popular movies starring Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd but more so based on the spin-off cartoon series which featured "Slimer" as their ghost-mascot! My favorite was the full Proton Pack with a foam tube to simulate the ion stream and with it the ghost trap which opened by stepping on an air pump foot peddle. Hours of fun busting imaginary ghosts (unless you had the projector gun too)!

#4 "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" - He-Man was especially popular (and somewhat overly homoerotic?) the action figures based off the cartoon show was one of the biggest toy lines ever with outrageous bases and vehicles to go along with it. My favorite was the actual Snake Mountain (Skeletor's castle) with all kinds of creepy trapdoors, giant snake and a voice modulator!

#3 "Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye" - Probably one of the biggest and longest running toy lines of the 1980's, The Transformers were extremely popular with literally hundreds of robots and not just vehicles as later came the Dinobots, Insecticons and even a city (Omega Supreme)! When I was a kid I wanted Megatron most of all (as did every kid) but my parents thought it looked too much like a real gun? They were right, that's why we all wanted it! Instead I got Perceptor, he changed into a microscope...yeah...thanks a lot!

#2 "Star Wars" - What child of the 1980's didn't play with Star Wars toys, the highly sought-after and often valuable Star Wars toys brought a whole new level to movie merchandising! My favorite was of course the Millennium Falcon (it took forever for my Dad to assemble it! lol)

#1 "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" - I was a HUGE G.I. Joe kid! I had the comic books, I watched the cartoons, AND had lots and lots of action figures and vehicles (played with while wearing camouflage fatigues bought from the Army/Navy store), THE best (and biggest!) was of course the 6-foot long aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Flagg!!! (Original retail cost: $89.99 Yikes!) Absolutely Amazing!

TOP 10 FAVORITE XMAS MOVIES

Well, it's that time of year again...it's cold, the stores are crowded, and traffic is terrible! So why go out into the holiday madness, why not curl up on the couch and watch some of my favorite Christmas movies. Now for most peoples Xmas movies are silly, sappy stories involving our favorite pseudo-religious icon: you know who I'm talking about...the big guy (No, not Buddha!) Santa Claus! He's on every channel, on every Coke bottle and on Christmas Eve he'll be coming down your chimney and breaking and entering into your house to stuff your stockings! Most of my favorite Xmas movies are not your usual yuletide viewing (but some do have the word Christmas in the title! lol) So grab some hot cocoa, maybe a few gingerbread cookies or spike that eggnog with a little more "holiday cheer" as I present my Top 10 Favorite Xmas Movies:

#10 Tales from the Crypt (1972), "And All Through the House" - While the whole movie is not Xmas themed, one of the first vignettes adapted from the wonderful EC Comic Books from the 1950's (and also as an episode of the popular TV version of "Tales from the Crypt" in 1989) stars Joan Collins as a murderous housewife who kills her husband with an axe on Christmas Eve however, coincidentaly there is also a murderous lunatic on the prowl dressed as Santa Claus!

#9 Die Hard (1988) - Even though this is one of the best action movies of the 80's the whole thing takes place during Christmas. Also, with all the Xmas jokes and references and even various Xmas music and even the song "Let It Snow" plays during the end credits, how much Xmas can you get?

#8 Edward Scissorhands (1990) - Tim Burton is the best at making Christmas delightfully creepy and Edward Scissorhands is one of the best! Johnny Depp plays the shy progentor of the Goth craze, a man-made boy with scissors for hands who has a phenominal talent at cutting topiaries, women's hair, and ice! Although Winona Ryder still looks hot as a blonde she soon falls in love with Edward but it ends tragically with Edward killing her boyfriend on Christmas! But that's ok because she fakes his death and he gives them snow. Lol!

#7 Batman Returns (1992) - When I think of Christmas, I think of Batman! (Don't you?) with the sequal to 1989's Batman directed by Tim Burton, Batman Returns featured Danny DeVito as The Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as the sexiest Catwoman ever and even though this was a Summer blockbuster, the whole movie takes place during Christmas! Penguin is abandoned in the sewer by his parents on Christmas Eve and later his henchmen jump out of a giant Christmas present during a tree lighting ceremony! Now that's what I call Christmas!

#6 Gremlins (1983) - What's Christmas without a bunch of hellraising little green monsters? When Billy Peltzer's dad gives him Gizmo, a Mogwai, for Christmas, he inadvertantly breaks every rule in the book on the care of this distgustingly cute little furball! Plus Kate's incredibly depressing monologue on her childhood Christmas tragedy is probably one of THE most traumatic things I've ever heard!

#5 Home Alone (1990) - This was always one of my favorite Xmas movies when I was a kid, also because Macaulay Culkin is only a year younger than me! He was so adorably annoying and mischevious that I could watch Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern get mercilessly beaten to a pulp by all of Kevin's ingenious (and possibly deadly!) traps over and over! Brilliant!

#4 A Christmas Story (1983) - This has come to be one of the best Christmas movie classics ever! With Ralphie's bizarre, overactive imagination and his neverending pursuit of an air-rifle for Christmas he has become a Christmas icon! Oh and the leg lamp too! "You'll shoot your eye out!", "Oh Fuuuuuuudge!"

#3 Scrooged (1988) - In this modern (but very '80's) adaptation of Chrales Dicken's "A Christmas Carol", Bill Murray is Frank Cross, a ruthless and amoral TV station president who gets a dose of the 3 ghosts routine and eventually changes his ways. (Predictable?)

#2 National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) - This is one of my favorite Christmas movies and probably one of the best of all the Lampoons/Griswold Vacation Movies (including Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, and NO I am not making that up!) "We're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny ****ing Kaye!" Awesome!

#1 The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - Again, Tim Burton+Xmas=Amazing! When Jack Skellington, The Pumpkin King, gets bored with Halloween Town, he finds Christmas Town and decides to kidnap Santa Claus and make Christmas his way! (Sounds reasonable?) This has become one of THE best loved Christmas movies of all time and it definitely deserves the #1 spot on my list! My favorite scene has to be when the little boy gets a shrunken head for Christmas: "And what did Santa bring you honey?" Excellent!