Long-Forgotten Holiday Cartoon Specials #2

A Q*Bert Christmas
First Broadcast: December 17, 1983
Straight from the 1980's—when arcade game characters such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong appeared on everything from cartoons to Sunday morning TV political roundtable discussions—comes this confused retelling of The Gift of the Magi in which the mute title character sells his favorite watch only to wind up evading coiled snakes on a multi-colored pyramid in the dark, foreboding abyss for all of eternity. But what the cartoon loses in regards to O. Henry’s poignant storytelling flair and bittersweet sense of irony it more than makes up for with two mischief-making pineapples and a cataclysmic ending straight from the "Game Over" sequence in Missile Command.

The special was immediately followed by the little-seen holiday cartoon A BurgerTime Chanukah.