tek's rating: ½

A Mammoth Christmas, on FOX
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This aired November 24, 2011. I didn't see it, probably by choice. But I did finally watch it in 2017, a few days before Christmas. (So I actually saw it after I saw the second special, which was for Easter.) It takes place after the third movie, which I haven't seen. Manny is looking forward to celebrating Christmas with his wife, Ellie, and daughter, Peaches. This involves a traditional "Christmas rock." Sid doesn't think this is festive enough, so he invents the concept of the Christmas tree. In the process, he accidentally destroys Manny's Christmas rock, which prompts Manny to tell Sid he'll be on Santa's "naughty list" (which also didn't exist yet; Manny just made it up). So, Sid, Peaches, and a couple other critters decide to go to the North Pole, to get Sid off the naughty list. Along the way, they meet a flying reindeer named Prancer (voiced by T.J. Miller, whom I know best from How To Train Your Dragon). He ends up flying them to the North Pole. Meanwhile, Manny, Ellie, and Diego start tracking them when they realize Peaches and Sid are gone.

Well, there are lots of anachronisms, and I don't understand why they all believed in a human Santa Claus (even though they were right). It's not much of a story, but it was all amusing enough. And I guess I'm glad to have seen it.

tek's rating:

The Great Egg-Scapade, on FOX
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This is the second TV special. It aired March 20, 2016 (Palm Sunday). I was going to watch it, but the audio on FOX got all wonky, so it wasn't worth bothering with. But I finally did get to see it on Easter Sunday of 2017. The special takes place after the fourth "Ice Age" movie, and I'm only really familiar with the first one. So, there are some characters and backstory I didn't know about, but I don't think that's really important.

So... there are various plot threads going on. One is that Sid the sloth opens an egg-sitting business, for busy mothers of various species, who don't have time to sit on their own eggs, I guess. (Also there's one single father, who had adopted an egg.) There's also a rabbit (or prehistoric species that's similar to rabbits) named Squint (voiced by Seth Green here, though he was voiced by Aziz Ansari in the movie). Anyway, Squint has a grudge against Manny the mammoth and Diego the saber-toothed cat, I guess, and demands they build him a new ship. (Because he thinks he's a pirate.) Of course they refuse, so later, when Squint finds Sid has fallen asleep while watching a bunch of eggs, he steals them, and demands a ship as ransom. So, Sid, Manny, and Diego have to go egg-hunting. This is made easier, because Squint's brother Clint gives them a map to where Squint hid the eggs, because he's upset that Squint is ruining his family's reputation. Meanwhile, there are a couple of opossums who are trying to invent a holiday based around themselves, which involves setting up a bunch of pranks. Also, Manny and his wife, Ellie, have a daughter named Peaches, and she would rather spend Easter with her friends than with her family, I guess. And as always, Scrat the saber-toothed squirrel is running around trying to obtain acorns.

Well, a lot of this didn't make much sense, but I don't think that's entirely because of my unfamiliarity with some of the characters. It's all just inherently weird. And of course you just have to ignore the fact that it doesn't make sense for prehistoric animals to be celebrating Easter in the first place. But there were some funny moments, and I liked how the plot threads all sort of came together in the end, and how we got to see an alternative take on the origins of various Easter (and April Fools') traditions. So, it was worth watching once, I guess.