If you’ve been rescued from an alternate reality where you’ve been running from a deadly monster, you’d feel pretty shitty during holiday season, too. This is a point addressed in a brilliant fan-made mash-up of Stranger Things and A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Stranger Things kid Will Byers, who takes the place of the famously depressive Charlie Brown, can’t get into the holiday spirit after being traumatized from his stay in the Upside Down. Fan-favorite Dustin is there to tell him to buck up.
“Will Byers, you’re the only person I know who can be rescued from a mysterious paranormal universe and still find a way to feel crummy about it,” Dustin says.
The three-minute gem is littered with these types of crossover references (“Sometimes I feel I can’t speak to grown-ups unless it’s through light-up letters on a wall,” Will says at one point), and still delivers the childhood malaise associated with Charlie Brown & Co. Eleven is a quiet, nosebleed-prone Sally, Joyce Byers is the whomp-whomping adult, and that trifling monster takes Snoopy’s place. Of course, Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack gets a bit of a makeover, too.
Experience the holiday joy below.
