Bozell Column: Frosty the Pervert?

Some memories that still define the warmest moments of American television are the long-running animated Christmas specials. There’s "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (first aired in 1964), "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) and "Frosty the Snowman" (1969). Many grown-ups remember all of those shows once aired just on CBS.

So somehow it’s still shocking that the soulless, cynical people running CBS today would find a way to trash that memory. An online video has surfaced called "Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman," a mash-up of classic "Frosty" scenes (and clips from the less-than-classic 1992 cartoon "Frosty Returns") along with a collection of audio graffiti – smutty sex lines voiced over by actor Neil Patrick Harris, a star of the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother."

At first, it might seem like other YouTube travesties where strangers crudely degrade Disney cartoons like "Aladdin" with dirty talk. But then sadly, it quickly becomes clear that this one was a corporate advertisement made by CBS itself in a cheap attempt to create a "viral video" sensation promoting its Monday night adult comedies.

Never has the "viral" in "viral video" seemed more of a perfect word. It is sick.

It turns out the Harris lines are actual quotes from the CBS show. The video begins with Frosty saying to a little girl, "We got to have a bros' night at a strip club, and both of our ladies are totally cool with it. Because they understand that it’s healthy for us to do that from time to time. Because it’s harmless." The little girl then asks "Did one of your whores tell you that?"

Then, in a scene where Frosty’s coterie of children gather around a train car, we hear "Open it! Open it! Open it! Open it!" The train car opens, and Frosty proclaims, "It’s my porn collection!...I’m giving you my porn." In the next scene, he tells children, "That, my friend, is the Dominator 8000, the best bullwhip on the market! According to my whip guide. Yeah, I have a whip guide!"

Welcome to the Christmas cartoon "Frosty the Pervert."

Well-known scenes of the classic Frosty delighting children by coming to life are ruined by Frosty saying, "I have been with a lot of women. Blondes. Brunettes. Redheads. Big boobs. Small boobs. Medium boobs. (We see a clip of Santa Claus.) Some boobs that were big, but kind of in a bad way."

The newly crude snowman also encourages the little white rabbit in the cartoon to indulge his sexual fantasies: "You should have hit that. Dude, your pants were already off. You had a classroom full of people to cheer you on. And you can't knock her up because it's a dream."

The Frosty-trashing lines were not limited to sex. The snowman was willing to punch anyone: "Come on, that’s my thing. I’m always punching guys. Girls. I'll punch a baby. I don't care." Riding in Santa’s sleigh and waving, Frosty says "My guy at the DA’s office scored us front row seats to a lethal injection!" Why these lines are followed by a laugh track is a mystery.

CBS ends this awful promo with the on-screen line "Some Holiday Classics Are Better Left Untouched," as if the irony gives them a free pass. Graphics promote the airing of the original "Frosty" cartoons on December 18, along with the racy "How I Met Your Mother" on Mondays.

That was bad enough. But wait, there’s more. CBS also made another video with Charlie Sheen ruining "Frosty" clips with lines from another CBS Monday night smutcom, "Two and a Half Men." We are once more treated to revolting dialogue, with Sheen’s fractured Frosty discussing the rash on his private parts; how he just had to pass gas; how the ancient Romans were great for their orgies and bulimia; and how he liked to pick up "do-able grandmas" and single mothers in the parking lot of Chuck E. Cheese restaurants.

Why do the sickos in Hollywood have to put their whips and chains and sordid brains all over every last acre of innocence? Why wage a war on childhood happiness, as if it was something that must be destroyed?