AndrewBloom

4/10

[4.0/10] This was pretty rough. I remembered *Bump in the Night* fondly from my childhood, and maybe the regular show was good, but this was definitely not. While there’s some creative poses and animation with the claymation characters, there is barely any story in this, and what little there is gets stretched and recycled ad naseum. The basic premise is a slightly weirder *Wizard of Oz*, where Bumpy wants to go to the North Pole to steal Santa’s bag, and along the way, runs into various creatures who want something from Ol’ Saint Nick as well, whether it’s Squishington who wants feet he can tapdance with, a conquistador earthworm (voiced by Cheech Marin) who wants arms so he can better conquer, or a british hummingbird who wants a jetpack so she doesn't have to constantly eat to have energy for flight. It’s not the worst premise in the world, but the special does nothing with it, the new characters are broad and cheesy, and there is oh so much filler. At basically every opportunity, the characters break into songs that are almost wholly unrelated to the events taking place, and most of them are just tired retreads of existing (conveniently public domain) X-mas songs. If that weren’t enough, the characters barely even perform the songs, as they’re just played over cobbled-together, context-free clips from other episodes. There is a pretty solid take on the dreidel song, and I appreciate a little Jewish representation, but there’s a lot of laziness to the special otherwise. If I had a nickel for every time *Twas the Night Before Bumpy* recycled a bit of animation, or did some kind of recap instead of advancing the story in some way, shape, or form, I could afford to make my own X-mas special. The B-story, such as it is, sees Molly Coddle left to direct the pageant back with the other toys. It’s barely a story, and more an excuse for various interstitial bits. But you do see Molly’s angry director side, which is good for a laugh or two. And there’s some odd references to *Patton* and other classic films that would probably be lost on the average ten-year-old in 1995, let alone 2018, but are still kind of amusing for the adult viewer. Overall, this is one of those “you can’t go home” specials, where you’re probably better off clinging to your fond memories from youth rather than actually revisiting something like this and being disappointed like I was.