'Christmas on Mars' might just be the weirdest holiday TV special ever

All right, all right. I've seen a sour-pussed drummer boy smile. I've seen the Abominable Snow Monster trim a tree. I've seen a guardian angel save a man from suicide. I've seen polichinelles (whatever they are) emerge from beneath a fat woman's skirt, and Ignorance and Want emerge from the robes of a Christmas ghost.

I've seen a penguin wish to fly and a drunken TV host wish for a crane shot. I've seen Pee-wee Herman build a home addition out of unwanted fruit cakes. I've seen animals with British accents sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and Mr. Magoo sing one of the most affecting holiday songs in the entire canon of carols.

Yet nothing, nothing in the history of visual media, prepared Your Friendly Neighborhood Ghost of TV Present for the Flaming Lips' "Christmas on Mars," which makes its world TV debut at 11 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 24, on the Sundance Channel.

No, wait, one thing did, something I first saw as a child in Pittsburgh and that made an indelible and forever-warped impression on my consciousness, the scars of which are readily observable to this very day: "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," the infamous classic commonly ranked among the worst movies of all time, and now best known as an early star vehicle for Pia Zadora.

Yet don't get the wrong idea. "Christmas on Mars" isn't so bad it's good in the classic Waste Watcher's tradition; it's simply so weird it's irresistible, that is for anyone with a weakness for avant-garde surrealist cinema full of profanity and explicit sexuality that delivers a heartwarming holiday message, or as an antidote for anyone sick to death at this point of more saccharine-sweet holiday fare.

It's daunting to even try to explain "Christmas on Mars," but here goes. First, it's shot in grainy black and white to give it the look of avant-garde underground films like Maya Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon," or think David Lynch's "Eraserhead" as a more immediate, secondhand source of inspiration. It has cheesy sound effects and a haunting soundtrack provided by the Flaming Lips themselves.

Lead Lip Wayne Coyne wrote the screenplay, co-directed with Bradley Beesley and stars as a mysterious, mute, antlered space alien who travels in a glowing, orblike ship he pulls from his mouth and enlarges. (Think of a light-speed upgrade on the bubble Glinda the Good Witch pilots in "The Wizard of Oz.") Coyne's alien arrives at a U.S. space station on Mars, where the astronauts are slowly going stir crazy, led by fellow Lip Steven Drozd as a certain Major Syrtis. Long story short, he thinks a little Christmas cheer could help reinvigorate his fellow astronauts, but when a guy in the lone Santa suit mysteriously perishes outside the station, the captured space alien is enlisted to play Santa. Miracles of various sorts ensue, including - shades of Jesus Christ Himself - the first birth on Mars.

Or anyway the first human birth.

Seems straightforward enough, doesn't it? Yet anyone familiar with the Lips' own whimsical sense of surrealism knows to expect more - lots more. The prevailing tone is eerie and dreadful, with non-sequitur transitions and off-kilter camera angles. The Madonna, in this case, gives birth not in a stable, but in a self-contained medical observation tent.

"Too many freaks freak me out. It freaks me out," insists one character. "I don't like to be freaked out."

This is my Christmas happening, baby, and it most certainly freaks me out.

Fred Armisen and Adam Goldberg pop in to make cameos without supplying anything resembling an air of normalcy. Instead, there's a commanding officer who likes to curse, and strange creatures with heads of genitalia - get this, female genitalia - both of which figure to challenge the Sundance Channel censors like they've never been challenged before, that is if there are any Sundance Channel censors, so consider yourself warned.

"What's going on?" one character wonders.

"I wish I knew," replies another.

Tell me about it, says Your Friendly Neighborhood TV Critic.

Yet for all its determined weirdness, I found myself liking "Christmas on Mars," which really does try to deliver a heartwarming holiday message, albeit within the package of an avant-garde sci-fi fantasmagoria.

If only someone had added the closing voice-over: "But I heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight - in his outer-space bubble - 'Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night." So just imagine it yourself if you need some help figuring out "Christmas on Mars," which now enters the pantheon of oddball holiday TV specials.

Oddball Christmas specials

Christmas has produced so many conventional holiday TV specials, small wonder it has also inspired a series of wackier responses. Here are a few of my favorites, all available on video.

"Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" - This product of Mr. Magoo's brief vogue in the early '60s would seem laughable. Yet it's remarkably heartfelt and tender, thanks to the soundtrack by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill. Just try to resist "All Alone in the World," "Winter Was Warm," "We're Despicable" or "The Lord's Bright Blessing."

"A Wish for Wings That Work" - Speaking of vogues, the popularity enjoyed by Berke Breathed's "Bloom County" comic strip in the '80s produced this lovely animated special focusing on Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat. The title says it all, but the colors and quality of the animation go well beyond that.

"Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special" - Open with a Marine choir singing, move on to Grace Jones' version of "The Little Drummer Boy" and don't stop until you get to Pee-wee building an addition out of unwanted fruitcakes. "A Colbert Christmas" doesn't begin to compare.

"SCTV Staff Christmas Party" - This episode from the show's second season on NBC peaks with Santa giving Johnny LaRue the crane shot he's been pining for. It's included in "SCTV Vol. 2" and the more recently released "Christmas With SCTV."

"Creature Comforts: Merry Christmas" - This holiday episode of Nick Park's animated British Claymation TV series, putting person-on-the-street interviews in the mouths of various animals, has become a dysfunctional family classic in my household. It peaks with the most wacked-out version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" ever recorded.

"Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" - This is really just a cruddy mid-'60s kid movie, but at some point it attains the heft of an Ed Wood so-bad-it's-good holiday classic. Or just check out the sendup via "Mystery Science Theater 3000."