6:1 - The Great Ak vs. Clarence Odbody

[UMPIRE]

SEASON 6, ROUND 1

The Great Ak

Slot: The Team's Holiday Special
Season Wins: 0
Season Losses: 0
Fantasy Team Page
Read more about The Great Ak at Wikipedia
Official Site: Rankin-Bass

Clarence Odbody

Slot: The Team's Holiday Special
Season Wins: 0
Season Losses: 0
Fantasy Team Page
Read more about Clarence Odbody at Wikipedia
Official Site: Paramount

Battle Terrain
HOLIDAY CHALLENGE: Give the most motivating holiday speech

[Macklemore]

Oh man, Clarence Odbody would make a great motivator. That being said this does come from a place of ignorance cause I don't know anything about the other guy.

[Z451]

Ak is as his special is, an interesting figure among holiday characters.

First, and foremost, I'll drop some links so that you guys can watch it if you like, hopefully one of these two will work.

Youtube

Dailymotion

This special is probably obscure to a lot of you guys, because it didn't air all that often or on many mainstream channels, but hey I'll share it with you.

That being said, Ak is a Rankin-Bass character, who actually originates from the works of L. Frank Baum, who most may or may not know as the writer/creator of The Wizard of Oz novels/franchise, and more specifically from the book, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

Now personally, I was not familiar with all of these elements of Ak's history or anything related to it, but I did remember a while back when I was kid channel surfing, as you do, running into the scenes and elements of the animated special, and being fascinated by it, but not knowing the title for the longest time.

To shorten this up though, I spent a few Christmases trying to figure out which special it was, but had trouble in doing so, due to obscurity and its limited number of airings over the years, so yeah, in that I can empathize with you guys in not knowing or recognizing it.

Wooh, a mouthful, I'll break this up for now and talk characters later.

[Movie-Brat]

38 minutes ago, Z451 said:

Ak is as his special is, an interesting figure among holiday characters.

First, and foremost, I'll drop some links so that you guys can watch it if you like, hopefully one of these two will work.

Youtube

Dailymotion

This special is probably obscure to a lot of you guys, because it didn't air all that often or on many mainstream channels, but hey I'll share it with you.

That being said, Ak is a Rankin-Bass character, who actually originates from the works of L. Frank Baum, who most may or may not know as the writer/creator of The Wizard of Oz novels/franchise, and more specifically from the book, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

Now personally, I was not familiar with all of these elements of Ak's history or anything related to it, but I did remember a while back when I was kid channel surfing, as you do, running into the scenes and elements of the animated special, and being fascinated by it, but not knowing the title for the longest time.

To shorten this up though, I spent a few Christmases trying to figure out which special it was, but had trouble in doing so, due to obscurity and its limited number of airings over the years, so yeah, in that I can empathize with you guys in not knowing or recognizing it.

Wooh, a mouthful, I'll break this up for now and talk characters later.

Oh I've seen that one multiple times as a kid when Freeform used to be ABC Family. And before that, Fox Family. 

[DSkillz]

4 hours ago, Movie-Brat said:

... when Freeform used to be ABC Family. And before that, Fox Family. 

And before that, it was simply known as the Family Channel. I don't think it was re-airing holiday specials back then, though.

[Movie-Brat]

Just now, DSkillz said:

And before that, it was simply known as the Family Channel. I don't think it was re-airing holiday specials back then, though.

Must have been a new thing when at the time it turned into Fox Family. 

[DSkillz]

6 minutes ago, Movie-Brat said:

Must have been a new thing when at the time it turned into Fox Family. 

Not really. I remember the Family Channel being around for a decent chunk of my childhood.

After looking it up, it looks like the channel had been around for two decades before Fox bought it. The "Family Channel" name came along in 1990.

[Vincento]

Clarence Odbody did turn a man's life around but he isnt much of a motivational speaker. All his arguments were revolving around showing rather that saying. Which is a good way to convince someone but isn't really the challenge here. Ak on the other hand is confident and has that air of intimidation to him? Basically I'd probably do what he told me to do out of fear of getting my ass kicked

[Z451]

These two are interestingly very similar in some ways, and hold very similar connections, in a way, in terms of plot.

The difference, that I see personally, is that Ak seems to hold a pretty slight advantage to me in his persuasiveness compared to Clarence.

Clarence's skills in convincing people, seem to be rather stilted in terms of how many people he can persuade and or rouse, as he spends most of his time with George,

this is of course not saying that he would be incapable, but rather that such is a question mark, and doesn't help much with this type of challenge.

Of course, while I have seen It's a Wonderful Life, a few times, I don't remember Clarence ever convincing large groups of people, George yes, Clarence, just not that I remember, if you guys have seen such please let me know.

Ak, for what its worth, has him here, as part of his story's plot requires him to convince a pretty skeptical Council of Immortals, who we can assume as gods/goddesses in their own rights, to grant Santa Claus the "Mantle of Immortality" to save him from dying.

To me, that is an interesting, and perhaps quite challenging feat, for anyone, god or man to do, as the implications involved with such a decision are pretty severe.

He is also notable for being not only a Father figure to Claus, but also encouraging him to be a good person per say, in spite of the roughness they saw in the world.

Now, to the common man, I think he might seem intimidating, but he does seem to have a softer side, as he saves Claus from dying in the snow, and does watch over the boy as well, showing me that, if we do consider him to be a deity, he is a far cry from the Greco/Roman gods most would think of, but that is off topic.

My point is, I think Ak, could if exposed to mortals here, find a way to convince them to embrace the holidays without much intimidation or threats, as he sort of did that with the Council in a sense, and with Claus earlier in the movie/story.

[UMPIRE]

Match Final Results

The Great Ak: 4
Clarence Odbody: 7