The 1992 short film "The Spirit of Christmas" is basically a South Park episode (with a slightly different animation style) packed into 4 minutes. The four boys accidentally create an evil snowman with tentacles who promptly kills one of them, then transforms into Santa and when the kids ask Santa for help, he kills the second. So the kids go see Jesus. And luckily, Jesus is not the evil snowman in disguise, but kills the villain.This was the first time Trey Parker and Matt Stone entered the very long-living world of South Park. The show is at its 18th season now already and this short film here was made 5 years before everything started (and 7 years before the movie). The characters have quite a few differences compared to what they were in another short film by Parker/Stone also called "The Spirit of Christmas" from 1995 and the show later one. Kenny gets actually killed here, a running gag for a very long time in the show, but he has Cartman's outfit and the clothes are different in general. Also, you can see the mouth of the character that looks like Kenny (but isn't). What is not different is the moral lesson at the end told by one of the boys. This idea was also taken up for the show and appears at the end of almost every episode.

This is the very first, early draft of what would become 'South Park'. This is the work of film students in their last year of university/college, and frankly, I like this little short. Why? because it's such a classic, I never even knew about this until 10 minutes ago.Trey and Matt soon would discover that this little short film will have a sequel to it, in which that will spawn them a TV show, two years later. It's bad quality, but it's 1992, so don't complain. But if you want to be reminded of your child-hood memories, then watch this. A nice 10/10 for originality. You think it starts out as your regular Christmas special or educational Christmas cartoon short, but as soon they put the magic hat on the snowman, everything goes nuts, and you see the true nature of what South Park is today. Again, 10/10 for originality.

For fans of South Park, this is a real treat. We see what was to become of the 4 boys back in 1991. Very rough, very raw, and very scrappy (Matt and Trey did everything on this, like how they did on the 1995 version). A+

This is interesting for the way it shows a very early, very rough version of the show. The four principals are there, though not quite the same way we know them now. Collectors will love watching it, though the 1995 remake is funnier.