Review: The Simpsons ‘White Christmas Blues’

Spoilers Below

Tis the season for cartoon Christmas specials. Animation Domination had four of them last night, with The Simpsons kicking things off.

And kicking this episode off was a fantastic holiday-themed opening. Say what you will about the quality of newer Simpsons episodes, but the introductions lately (especially this season) have been outstanding.

Last night’s storyline revolved around Springfield being the only place in America with snow (caused by a weird mixture of emissions from the nuclear plant and ash from the giant tire fire) and the droves of tourists that came to town during Christmastime because of it.

Marge decided to start a Bed & Breakfast to make some extra holiday money, but it didn’t unfold quite as she planned.

This episode definitely had its share of laughs: there was a nice Bongo Comics jab, a funny gag involving the appearing and disappearing Simpson house guest room, and the clarification that “ALL eggnog is terrible,” according to Marge.

I also really enjoyed Homer’s line when he opened Lisa’s gift to him, which consisted of vegetable seeds: “You got me weed?”

Although there were some good jokes, it felt like this episode came up a bit short. There was no second storyline, save for an extremely brief (and unnecessary) one about Reverend Lovejoy attempting to write a moving Christmas sermon, and the first one wasn’t especially hilarious in premise. There were still some warm fuzzy moments, like any Christmas episode should have, but it was still missing that extra bit of zazz (or zing, zork, kapowza.)

Then again, it’s hard to live up to some of the classic Simpsons Christmas specials, so this one might have just seemed inferior by comparison. So despite these criticisms, “White Christmas Blues” is still a welcome addition to the holiday episode list.