Ever since the advent of television programming in the 1950s, the Christmas television special has become an American tradition of some sort. There are the TV Christmas standards such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” However, there are some Christmas specials that live in infamy. Here are the weirdest Christmas specials.

 “We Wish You a Turtles Christmas”

 “We Wish You a Turtles Christmas” is a low-budgeted, live-action, sing-along Christmas special that featured the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that was released straight-to-video back in 1994. In this particular special, the Turtles ( four actors in cheap costumes) get into some holiday-related shenanigans such as singing a reggae version of “Deck the Halls” and doing a rap number entitled the “Wrap Rap”…I kid you not. Did I mention that Michelangelo sings opera? 

 “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”

 Remember that novelty song about somebody’s grandmother being run over by a reindeer? There’s an animated special based on that song. It’s everything how you imagined it: bland animation accompanied by even more bland music.

 “He-Man and She-Ra Christmas”

 Remember that 80s cartoon that featured a prince turning into a mystical superhero by summoning the powers of Grayskull to fight a skeletal menace named Skeletor? Apparently it was so popular they made a 45 minute Christmas special in 1985.

 The special follows He-Man and company celebrating a nonspecific holiday in Eternia that emphasizes good will to all men. As usual, Skeletor will not take this lying down. Orko, being the annoying little twerp he is, manages to send himself into space in a rocket. He ends on our little blue planet of Earth where he befriends two siblings who tell him about the importance of Christmas. I am not making this up, folks.

Despite the moral of the special emphasizing the importance of goodwill towards your fellow man, this special (like the show itself) only exists to sell more toys. Way to shoot yourself in the foot, guys.

 “The Star Wars Holiday Special”

 This particular special finds Chewbacca’s family awaiting their beloved patriarch for “Life Day”. What is “Life Day”? I would guess it’s the Kashyyyk equivalent of Christmas, but I have no idea since the special gave no indication other than it being a “celebration of life”. The plot keeps getting interrupted by unrelated sketches such as the Chewbacca making noises for ten minutes (with no subtitles for context to boot), a musical number involving the closing of the Mos Eisley Cantina from the first movie, two unfunny “instructional video” segments and a cartoon segment that introduced the character of Boba Fett (this is unfortunately canon).

 This two-hour special was only aired once on CBS on Nov. 17, 1978 and was never given a proper release on home video due to George Lucas’ displeasure with it.

 “That was the worst piece of crap I’ve ever done,” Lucas admitted in an interview with NPR. “If I had the time and a hammer, I would track down every copy of that program and smash it.”

 “The Christmas Tree”

 This 1991 animated special may rival the “Star Wars Holiday Special” as the worst Christmas special of all time with its terrible animation, terrible writing (complete with  improbable deus ex machinas), even worse voice acting and its very questionable morals (“you’ll always win if you’re good”). It has to be seen to be believed.