50 Below Zero

**50 Below Zero** is the second episode of the animated series, A Bunch of Munsch. It was originally aired on CTV in Canada on December 7, 1991, and then it was aired on Showtime in United States on December 17, 1991, this was after Thomas' Snowsuit, which is based on the 1986 Robert Munsch's book of the same name.

## Plot

A young boy named Jason is sleeping on a cold snowy night until he wakes up due to hearing a sound. He then leaves his bed to go and investigate. He then he sees his father sleepwalking in the kitchen, and his entire house and all of the objects in it starts shaking and strange things start happening at the same time. He attempts to yell to wake him up to no avail, and Papa continues to stay sleep. He then grabs him and drags him into bed, and then goes back to bed declaring that the house is going crazy loudly.

An hour passes by, and wakes up to hear another sound coming from the house, and goes and sees that his Papa is now in the bathroom. He gets him out and now all of the objects and all the mice are also going crazy and doing various things as well. He declares that the house is going crazy again loudly.

He then wakes up again after another hour to see his father now sleepwalking this time in the garage and almost getting himself hurt due to all of the objects that are falling onto him as he narrowly escapes it. He then brings him back to bed. Jason once again declares that the house is going crazy again loudly.

Another hour passes by and Jason wakes up this time to Papa outside in the snow, and that he must leave the house to go and bring him back inside, and also brings him into a hot shower so that he can warm up. Jason this time now keeps him in bed by tying a rope to his toe so that he cannot leave the bedroom.

Jason then wakes up on top of the fridge the next morning. When he tries to tell his mom about all his adventures, she dismisses all of his claims, telling him he was probably dreaming. He then agrees that he probably was dreaming until he sees his Papa still attached to the string to his toe from last night, thinking that maybe it wasn't a dream after all. He then is heard at the end singing, "50 Below" with a snowman outside playing the saxophone at the very end.

## Trivia

* This episode takes place in the 80s.
* The scene of Jason putting on his multiple layers of clothes had to be redone multiple times during the animation process due to the difficult nature of it.
* Jason's Papa makes a cameo appearance laying on a car in, "Mortimer". He even gets noticed by the bystanders. This adds to the possible, and long-standing theory that all the stories in the series are all potentially in the same universe.
* The snowman playing the saxophone at the end is a reference to the show's intro. Only in this case with a baseball cap on, and being an average snowman unlike the humanoid one from the intro likewise.
* The song, "50 Below" composer laughed the whole time it was being recorded by the voice actor for Jason due to the goofy nature of the song. Someone else had to be in the room in order to keep on going with recording it.
* You can notice that the quality is a lot better, and showing the messiness of the animation part.

## Differences With the Book

* In the book, Jason screams, "PAPA WAKE UP!" A second time as loud as possible when he goes to rescue his papa out in the snow. But in this version he only says it normally at that part. It is unknown if they thought of this part of the book.

## Goofs

* Realistically, if it was literally -50F, it would have given Jason's Papa a rather extreme case of frostbite, and hypothermia, and the layers of clothes that Jason puts on would not nearly be enough to cover the sheer temperature of it. It is also unknown if it really was even that temperature, or just Jason exaggerating/guessing.
* Jason's Papa does not even the slightest wake up from Jason yelling at him, the arctic conditions, the hot water in the shower, or even the objects falling onto the floor from the kitchen to the garage. Despite all of this, he apparently seems to be aware of it all happening when he reacted to the hot water in the shower. This either means he's just *choosing* to not wake up, or he's actually in a coma.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/474147518/
2. ↑ https://www.ebay.com/itm/275773615187