Original Title: Rougela's Christmas
Original Airdate: October 5th, 1998
US Airdate: December 11th, 1999
The one where... We learn Santa is a real person in the Pokémon universe.
Tropes:
- Anachronic Order: This episode was supposed to air around where "Pikachu's Goodbye" was slotted, but ended up airing much later in the season. As a result, an episode with Charmander aired during the period when it should've been a Charizard.
- Blackface-Style Caricature: There was a complaint that the featuring Pokémon, Jynx, looked like this to people in the West.
- Bowdlerise/George Lucas Altered Version: Later Japanese airings of this episode digitally color Jynx's black-colored face to purple, to appear less offensive and reflect her current appearance. This has yet to be applied to the dub version, though (and thus
hasn't been rerun or released on any format for some time now.) - Christmas Episode: The plot is kicked-off by Santa losing his boot. It was originally scheduled to air on December 23rd, 1997 in Japan, but the seizures caused by the episode intended to immediately precede it forced Pokémon off the air for four months. It eventually aired as a special in the following October. The American broadcast actually aired it in December.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: In the original Japanese, Santa lived on an island in an unspecified location; the English dub changed his home to the North Pole. This created the question of how Ash and his friends were able to get there so quickly on a raft pulled by not particularly fast Pokémon.note
- Eye Catch: This episode, the Who's that is Jynx (original) and/or Pidgeotto (dub).
- Forceful Kiss: When Pikachu battles Jynx, Jynx defeats him by simply picking him up and using its Lovely Kiss attack on him.
- Idiot Ball: Ash deciding to pull the raft to the North Pole himself. He's a scrawny ten-year-old expecting to survive an estimated 4000 mile swim to the frigid northern waters in his underwear while pulling a raft full of people . Even if he didn't keel over from exhaustion, he'd probably freeze to death from exposing so much skin to the cold. Possibly Subverted as, considering that he only said he'd "take over for a while", he might have been trying to give the Pokémon who were originally pulling the raft a break.
- Kiss Diss: A justified example between Pikachu and Jynx. When Pikachu battles Jynx, Jynx picks up Pikachu and tries to use its Lovely Kiss attack on him, with him constantly trying to move out of the way to avoid it. It doesn't last for very long before Jynx successfully kisses Pikachu on the cheek.
