Christmastime in Larryland: Worst Christmas Album Ever?

One of my very favorite Christmas albums is A Prairie Home Christmas, which features several tracks offering a comical take on the holiday. Some are musical, others are more straightforward sketches, but all are both tasteful and genuinely funny. I was hoping that I might find something like that with Christmastime in Larryland by Larry the Cable Guy. I didn’t really expect it, as I’d heard his brand of comedy was rather lowbrow, but I’d never experienced it for myself, and I dearly love Mater, the open-hearted, falling-apart tow truck he voices in Cars. So I thought I’d give it a shot.

It’s the worst Christmas album I’ve ever heard.

Larry‘s Introduction finds him musing about his fondness for Christmas specials, and for a minute or so it’s fairly inoffensive. But it doesn’t take long for the humor to become distasteful, with one grotesque vignette after another. I did find his comments on lame Christmas gifts amusing, but some of his word choices made his spiel less enjoyable for me, and the culmination of his routine seems to be giving Christians a backhanded insult. Listening to this track gave me much foreboding about the rest of the album.

Lapquest is a very stupid, thankfully very short message from a sponsor, a GPS that directs drivers to dirty clubs. Eulogy isn’t Christmassy but is a rather amusing and self-referential track, as Larry tells us he’s about to memorialize the inventor of the laugh track, which he uses liberally on this album. “See how that works? If you tell the listener it’s funny, then it is!” He then goes on to give a very morbid eulogy filled with calamitous events, after each of which is a most inappropriate outburst of laugh track yuks.

Tobacco Company Choir plays like one of those late-night CD commercials, featuring snippets of songs by a tuneless choir of people with synthesized voices. At least it discourages smoking... Plus-Sized Fashion Shorts is another extremely short and stupid track, proposing a line of designer shorts for larger women featuring messages supposedly more suited to their size. The most redneckish bit yet.

In Nativity Scene, Larry and his friends participate in a live nativity, for the professed purpose of annoying “commie libs”. Larry tries to get his buddies to keep the Christmas spirit, but it’s freezing out and several key characters are missing, so complaints are plentiful, as are inappropriate comments. Farting Jingle Bells is eye-rollingly self-explanatory. Bobblehead Heating Dolls is another advertisement, announced by someone who sounds like he’s fresh from an orthodontist appointment. It’s goofy, not all that funny but not offensive either.

Comedian Muhammad & Oscar is a short-lived comedy routine by a Muslim terrorist sympathizer. Holiday Carols is another CD commercial, featuring Larry singing versions of Christmas carols not-so-subtly suggesting that his relatives leave. A Santa’s Q&A features Larry as a cranky Santa giving a series of very un-Santa-ish answers to questions. At more than 10 minutes in length, this goes on much longer than it should. The very short Nutcracker is nothing but The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy accompanied by popping sounds and agitated yells. Dysfunctional Family Christmas is just what it sounds like, with a family with very poor dispositions opening a series of bad presents.

Liberal Commie Environmental Poem is making fun of environmentalists by “green”-izing A Visit From St. Nicholas. There’s no attention whatsoever to meter, but I suppose that’s part of the intended humor. Magic O’ The Mime presents a performance by a mime magician, which obviously doesn’t amount to much on a CD. We get nothing but the laugh track and some very faint musical accompaniment. 1-900... is seductive / derisive advertisement for a chat hotline.

The Chitmunks is a lame spoof on Alvin and the Chipmunks. Patriotic Poem is another Visit From St. Nicholas knock-off, this one attacking anti-American sentiment, featuring Ronald Reagan in the Santa Claus role. Medley of Carols is another series of skewered Christmas song segments sung by Larry. Thankfully, there are only two. Closing Monologue wraps it all up, leaving me saying, “I can’t believe I listened to the whole thing!”

Yes, there were many times when I contemplated turning off the CD player and tossing this album right back in the case. I kept hoping I would find at least one track thoroughly, genuinely funny. Last year, Stephen Colbert came out with his Christmas special, and while I found elements of that show somewhat distasteful, it was much better than this one. The songs were clever, melodious and mostly only mildly offensive, if at all, and I find it hard to find fault with any of them after listening to this for an hour. I’ll always love Mater the tow truck. But after this, I think I’ll steer clear Larry the Cable Guy in his natural form.