| Series: | South Park |
| Season: | 3 |
| Episode: | 15 |
| Production: | 315 |
| Music: | “I Have a Little Dreidel, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, “I Saw Three Ships”, “O Holy Night”, “O Tannenbaum” |
| Director: | Trey Parker |
| Season Article: | South Park season 3 |
| Episode List: | List of South Park episodes |
| Prev: | The Red Badge of Gayness |
| Next: | Are You There God? It's Me, Jesus |
"Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" is the fifteenth episode of the third season of the animated television series South Park and the 46th episode of the series overall. An album of the same name consisting of versions of songs from the show as well as a number of additional songs was released the week prior to the episode's original air date, December 1, 1999.
The episode is styled as a variety show and features Mr. Hankey as the host;[1] he sits by the fire in his sewer home and introduces shorts featuring unusual holiday songs. In a similar fashion to "Starvin' Marvin in Space", the episode was dedicated to Mary Kay Bergman, the original voice of most of the female characters on the show up to that point, who had committed suicide less than a month earlier. Since the episode features audio from the Christmas Classics album, which had been recorded months earlier, it marks the final episode in which Bergman's voice is heard. During the performance of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, a brief montage of several of Bergman's characters are shown and some gather within Mr. Hankey's home afterwards to sing.
During "The Dreidel Song", Gerald Broflovski sings his admiration for Courteney Cox, who is according to him, 'hot' on that show.
During the "Christmas Time in Hell" song Satan is singing along with various celebrities in Hell, including Jeffrey Dahmer, John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Diana, Princess of Wales, Gene Siskel, Mao Zedong, Genghis Khan, Michael Landon and Jimmy Stewart. A framed picture of comedian Andy Dick is also seen during the dance number.
After every commercial break, a live action segment featuring a news anchor is shown, saying "Fighting the frizzies, at eleven." In the DVD commentary, Stone and Parker indicate this is a reference to a bootleg tape of Star Wars Holiday Special. The original tape featured a brief clip at the end from WCBS-TV featuring newscaster Rolland Smith informing viewers, "Fighting the frizzies, at eleven." However, while the original news ad was apparently referring to "frizzy" hair, the ending credits of this episode of South Park feature the news anchor boxing a man in a giant fuzzy suit.[3] The announcements were followed by Hankey's show's logo, which is based on that of Star Wars.
In September 2008, Russian prosecutors filed a motion to ban the series based on complaints received about this episode.[4] The TV station was allowed to keep its license by agreeing not to re-air the program.[5]
| Italic Title: | no |
| South Park: Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics | |
| Type: | soundtrack |
| Artist: | Various Artists |
| Released: | November 23, 1999 |
| Genre: | Comedy, Christmas Music |
| Length: | 36:34 |
| Label: | Columbia American Recordings |
| Producer: | Rick Rubin (exec.) Marc Shaiman, Matt Stone, Trey Parker |
| Chronology: | South Park |
| Prev Title: | South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut |
| Prev Year: | 1999 |
The album features more songs than the show. Additionally, some of those featured in the show are slightly different than the aired versions. The album reached #33 on Billboard's 1999 Christmas albums.[6] The duet between Santa and Jesus that appears in the episode was meant for the album, but music rights for Duran Duran's "Rio" could not be cleared for the album in time.
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[7]