"Reindeer Roundup"

Not to be confused with this thing, from CP 4:

Not very helpful instructions, if you ask me. They doesn't make it even a tiny bit clear what "rounding up the deer" actually entails. Also, does this game have a victory condition of some sort? Not that I think there have to be winners and losers in every human endeavor, but somehow It all seems a little pointless. Well, fortunately, we don't have to think about it.

What we have to think about is THIS, from 1965's CP8. You know, you should be grateful. For a long time, I COULD NOT find this one anywhere on the internet, so you would've had to do without. But now I have! So SUFFER, HUMANS! Wait, did I say "grateful?" I have no idea what's going on here.

We open with the thing where, allegedly, kids start acting all good 'round-about Christmas-time out of a paranoid fear that Santa is going to punish them for their misdeeds and yet he's apparently super-easy to fool so you can just act extra-good for a few weeks in December and you're good to go. Well...I'm not really sure to what extent kids ever actually took this seriously, nor whether there were parents sociopathic enough to actually give their kids coal. I think I first learned about the concept from Calvin & Hobbes, where it was always a big thing. Of course, Barks himself had a pretty great take on the concept that treated the whole thing with the level of gravity it deserved. Anyone want to place any bets on whether this one is going to do a comparably good job?

Yes, that old saying. Note that in the Barks story, Donald dealt with things in a mature way. This Donald, on the other hand, is more than happy to use his children as slave labor. Whee.

Okay, if nothing else, this image of Donald being injured is kind of a highlight. That's pretty funny-looking.

OH NO WHAT'S THE BAD NEWS TELL ME TELL ME.

Er. Yes. I like that hedging the newscaster is doing: "probably one of the most..." The whole thing is pretty batshit, anyway. This is a concept that was never not going to be goofy as hell, but again, it's all in the execution. Some people could undoubtedly craft a quality narrative around it. Dunno about this guy, however (inducks is silent on the identity of our author here, but it's probably just Lockman again).

There's just something about...I mean, even when Santa clearly exists in the world of a story, there's usually something sort of mysterious and unclear about him. Having this dreadful crime be the story of a news report is just...hmm.

So, you know, back to this quid pro quo stuff: it's always going to be a dubious lesson for kids, but even if you're not undermining it the way Barks did, it can still be sort of okay in the right circumstances, with the right touch. But--and this is so characteristic of these things--the author cannot get this right. He just pounds so hard at it, reeeeally driving home the brutally mercenary nature of the whole thing, that it's just kind of unpleasant. Dammit, we must demand more from our hack writers.

Well, anyway, the story just drops that plot thread anyway, for which we can all be grateful. Here's Scrooge with his IGMFY attitude! Delightful!

The Beagles want him to pay this ransom to free Santa. It's pretty dumb; still, I have to admit, I like the image of the Beagle in the sleigh using a phone booth. One very odd thing that you'll notice about this story is that Santa himself never appears. Seems like an odd omission, but hey, when you have a writer who's more or less just concerned with getting paid, these things happen.

So there's a part of me that wants to say "yeah! Scrooge should pay! From each according to his ability! This matches up with my ideology!" And yet, somehow, in a case like this, there's an even bigger part of me that wants to agree with the nephew, not for any ideological reason; just because no! This whole plot is dumb as hell! If I'm not buying into it, why should Scrooge?

There's a recurring thing in this story where the Beagles can't remember the names of the reindeer, which just strikes me as yet another dumb thing to throw on the pile. As if they're going to obey the Beagles orders in those circumstances...

It becomes grimly obvious where this is going. The similarity of this to "Dinner at Grandma's" does indeed seriously suggest more Lockmania.

As does "jingle bell indicator" which, fair play, is pretty funny.

Anyway, they get captured and blah.

So I feel like by the fifties, the whole trope of newsies bellowing headlines was a thing of the past. Do the writers of things like this remember it from their own childhoods? Very difficult to say. More than likely a lot of them are just getting it second-hand. Regardless, it always strikes me as a generally lazy, hackish way to get exposition out there.

Well okay, yes, that message from the little kid is reasonably effectively childlike. It's just this whole thing of crowds baying for Scrooge's blood and then cheering him...I feel like I should stop using the word "dumb" all the time. But it sure ain't easy.

Um. Yes. Right. Okay okay, so the story does avoid actually stating right out that the blowtorch was meant as a toy for some tow-headed moppet, but that's still the extremely strong impression that comes across. We're really supposed to believe that Santa stores sled-maintenance tools in his sack of toys? It's just another of those innumerable situations when the most convenient thing possible happens just 'cause it's convenient. Blah.

Beagles captured. Look. Gape in awe.

I guess fairness compels me to admit that the writer actually did something a little clever here, in that he has HDL know the reindeers' names where the Beagles didn't, and he keeps things subtle by not actually drawing attention to the fact, as you'd expect. Well...I say that, but did he actually intend it, or did he just stumble into it? Really, really difficult to say with things like this. Still, blah blah death of the author, I'll give the story credit for it anyway. And not much else.

So...did Scrooge's print shop make fake money that was one hundred percent obviously recognizable as not real money (in which case, why would he think the Beagles wouldn't notice?; sure, they didn't, but that's just down to bad writing), or did he just commit a massive federal crime? Well...let's not spend any more time thinking about this than the author did. Oops, too late.

Yeah, all right, nice images, but I really have had just about enough of Scrooge's smugness.

Yeah, okay, it's silly, but it makes me laugh. And you've really gotta take what you can get. This story could've been so much better than it is, but, well, it isn't. Tune in next time for more festive disappointment!