The Spirit of Christmas (1992)

Boring

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The 1992 short film "The Spirit of Christmas" is basically a South Park episode (with a slightly different animation style) packed into 4 minutes. The four boys accidentally create an evil snowman with tentacles who promptly kills one of them, then transforms into Santa and when the kids ask Santa for help, he kills the second. So the kids go see Jesus. And luckily, Jesus is not the evil snowman in disguise, but kills the villain.This was the first time Trey Parker and Matt Stone entered the very long-living world of South Park. The show is at its 18th season now already and this short film here was made 5 years before everything started (and 7 years before the movie). The characters have quite a few differences compared to what they were in another short film by Parker/Stone also called "The Spirit of Christmas" from 1995 and the show later one. Kenny gets actually killed here, a running gag for a very long time in the show, but he has Cartman's outfit and the clothes are different in general. Also, you can see the mouth of the character that looks like Kenny (but isn't). What is not different is the moral lesson at the end told by one of the boys. This idea was also taken up for the show and appears at the end of almost every episode.

This is pretty funny considering it looks and sounds terrible. It's really interesting to see how Trey Parker and Matt Stone started out with South Park, and they created a very demented and vulgar short film. Within this short, we see a switch of characters: the fat kid, better known as Cartman on the TV series, is named Kenny and is the first to get killed. The hood-wearing kid, who is known as Kenny on the TV series, is the second killed and is not given a name. And the other two (Stan and Kyle) also remain nameless in this short. You'll never look at snowmen wearing top hats the same ever again.

For fans of South Park, this is a real treat. We see what was to become of the 4 boys back in 1991. Very rough, very raw, and very scrappy (Matt and Trey did everything on this, like how they did on the 1995 version). A+

This is interesting for the way it shows a very early, very rough version of the show. The four principals are there, though not quite the same way we know them now. Collectors will love watching it, though the 1995 remake is funnier.