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The Extra-Terrestrial War Against Christmas Stop-motion wizards the Chiodo Brothers take us behind the scenes of their charming Netflix special, Alien Xmas.
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e can’t think of a better way to end this crazy year than taking in the zany charms of the Chiodo Brothers’ new holiday special Alien Xmas. The 40-minute stop-motion special, which premiered on Netflix in November, centers on a special alien who decides to help protect Santa Claus and Christmas from some troublemaking extra-terrestrials. Based on a book of the same name by the Chiodos, the special is directed by Stephen Chiodo and produced by Edward Chiodo, who also exec produced with Charles Chiodo, Jon Favreau and others. The L.A.-based Chiodos, who are well known for their stop-motion and puppetry work for a wide range of features and TV shows, including Tim Burton’s Vincent, Critters, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Theodore Rex, Team America: World Police, The Thundermans and the 1988 sci-fi horror comedy classic Killer Klowns From Outer Space, were perfectly suited for this offbeat adventure. “We always wanted to create a holidaywww.animationmagazine.net
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themed special,” recalls Stephen Chiodo during a recent interview. “We were big fans of the classic stop-motion Rankin/Bass holiday specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town. We were working on some interstitial spots for ABC Family/Freeform’s 25 Days of Christmas programs, and thought it would be great if we could come up with something of our own that mixes Christmas with sci-fi elements. We
able to publish Alien Xmas as a book about five years ago.”
From Book to Stream Chiodo points out that having Alien Xmas published as a book first gave it more bankability. Of course, when his friend actor/director Jon Favreau (who worked with the Chiodos on Elf) found out about the project, he knew he had to champion it and took it to Netflix.
‘When Santa gets this idea of having a super sleigh, you know that someone is going to be out of a job. That’s why the reindeer have this undercurrent of animosity.’ — Director Stephen Chiodo
weren’t able to set up the project at the time, although there was a lot of interest. But we had all the characters designed and the artwork was ready, so thanks to our friend Mark Van Eaton who introduced us to Bob Self and his publishing company Baby Tattoo, we were
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Finally in October of 2018, things really begin to move forward. The script by Kealan O’Rourke, Dan Clark and Noah Kloor was in place, and directors of photography Helder K. Sun and Aaron Wise, production designer Ean McNamara, art director Jeff Bartlett White, VFX january 21
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