Maccabee Madness!

The Kaiju Hanukkah Spectacular!!

Chanukah is sometimes called the Festival of Lights, but this week, you might as well call us Kaijew Big Battel! You can turn on the TV for any number of Christmas specials and tired old stop-motion reruns of Christmas tales. But here at Kaiju.com, as part of the Kaiju Commission on Political Correctness' initiative on equal holiday exposure, we're pulling out all the stops to give you the ultimate in Hanukkah radness! It's Torah-riffic! Torah-fic? We don't know.

Sure, we understand that Chanukah is not for everyone. Christians, for example, may choose to celebrate Christmas instead, and that's okay. If you really liked Christmas, you would go right ahead and buy one of these Vegetius Santa Christmas Greeting Cards for a loved one, but we figure you'd do that no matter what your religious affiliation was. But no matter what holiday you celebrate, enjoy the festivities, because Hanukkah comes but once a year, albeit for eight straight nights, and when it's gone, you've got to wait another 357 days! Actually, that's not entirely true, since the start date changes every year, but... you know what we mean.

A Brief Explanation of Chanukah

As products of the American public school system, some of you may be just as clueless about other cultures as we are at Kaiju.com. To be honest, we're still not quite sure why we celebrate Thanksgiving, only that we got to make those cool turkey drawings by tracing our hands. And we also realize not all of our fans are located right here in the US, so Hanukkah may be a completely foreign idea to some of you. But worry not, we're here to try to explain it as best we can.

According to Wikipedia, Chanukah has been celebrated much, much longer than Christmas and commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. While we don't want to sell the story short, we have limited space on Kaiju.com, even after our site put a few inches on its waistband last week. So we recommend visiting your local library (or the internet) and reading the whole story on your own. It's actually quite interesting, and if you equate certain characters with your favorite stars from Kaiju Big Battel, it's a lot of fun! For example, Antiochus IV Epiphanes is evil, like Dr. Cube.

Long story short, these five brothers, in an attempt to save the Jewish faith, needed a menorah to stay lit for eight nights, but they only had enough oil for one night. Or so they thought. Instead, the oil lasted the full eight nights, which was either a true miracle, or a blatant miscalculation by the guy who thought the oil would only last one night. But we're going with the former. And ever since then, Jewish families celebrate the miracle by lighting a candle on a menorah for eight nights. They exchange presents, eat potato pancakes and sing songs. It's all quite wonderful.

Play the Kaiju Dreidel Game!

Everyone likes games, and the Jewish faith is no different. On Chanukah, they all play the Dreidel Game. It's lots of fun, especially when you slightly change the rules to make it more like Kaiju Big Battel. Blasphemy has never been more fun! First, make a Kaiju Dreidel with these easy instructions! They're easy to read, although somewhat complicated to do. Secondly, call your friends over. Make sure you do this after you've made the dreidel, since your friends will not want to watch you struggle through the complicated process of constructing this monstrosity. Make sure to only invite your friends with well-paying full-time jobs, and specifically go after the ones with gambling addictions. Use poker chips, because if you get the cool ones that are slightly magnetized, you'll impress your friends. Everyone starts off with 10 chips, each worth 10% of what they paid to enter the game. If they paid $200, each chip is worth $20. Easy, right?

Each player places one chip in the middle, then everyone takes turns spinning the dreidel. Whatever logo the dreidel shows determines what each player gets. If you land on the Cube's Posse logo, you get nothing. Associating with Dr. Cube gets you nowhere in life. If you land on the Rogues logo, you may take everything in the pool. The Rogues are greedy. You should not aspire to be like them. If you land on the Space Bug logo, you get half of what's in the pool, plus one, if its an odd number. The Space Bugs are not evil, but sometimes they can be a little dishonest and steal a little. If you land on the Kaiju Heroes logo, you put two chips into the pool. Kaiju Heroes give everything and expect nothing in return. Truly a noble example for all of us to follow.

If there is one or zero chips left in the pool, everyone puts another chip in. When one player owns all the chips, he or she is the winner, and will likely end up with a lot of money. You should then spend your hard-earned money at the Kaiju Mall.

Question of the Week

Dreidels are usually the ones getting made out of clay around this time of year, but which Kaiju monster recently got his own likeness molded for an upcoming figure?

Special thanks to Fran Harrington for the "Kaijew Cube" logo.

Kaiju Heroes and Fiends Share Hanukkah Memories

Although the Kaiju Heroes are the sworn opponents of Dr. Cube's Posse and any other monster who disrupts the peace, only the holiday season can bring them together in a display of harmony and peace. Here now are some of your favorite Kaiju stars with their thoughts on this magical holiday.

"I'm not Jewish, but I remember a friend of mine used to get pretty excited about Chanukah. I mean, he usually only got a big present on the last day, and got stuff like socks and chocolate coins the other days, but he seemed cool with it." - Neo Teppen

"Back in middle school, I had like four Jewish classmates, and I went to all of their Bar Mitzvahs. I'm sure if I was Jewish, I'd appreciate the part in the Temple more, but the best part was the reception afterwards. Those chair dances are pretty wild." - Hero Intern '08

"I hate Hanukkah. I'm not saying that because I'm anti-Semitic, although I'm pretty much anti-everything. But I hate all holidays, especially Kwanzaa. And don't get me started on Festivus." - Dr. Cube

Unfortunately, just about everyone else had already left for their holiday vacation and was unable to be reached. But rest assured, all your favorite Kaiju Heroes, Minions, Rogues, Bugs, Humans and all of us here at Studio Kaiju wish you a happy holiday season.

Non-Hannukah Related News Roundup

You still have one week left to vote for the Kaiju Big Battel Best of 2008 Year-End Awards, and if you haven't sent in a ballot, you better get voting! This is the closest it's been in years!
Congratulations to the Kaiju Human Resources department for hosting another excellent holiday party this past weekend. Only four casualties were reported, which is the lowest figure since 2006. Although the Kaiju Commissioner was unable to attend, Kaiju celebrities such as Dino Kang Jr and The Beav made special appearances to the delight of at least two partygoers.
Reports indicate that Dr. Cube was seen in South Philadelphia last weekend in what may be one of his first public appearances in months. Two photos were taken, including one of this unlucky fan who thought he could get a picture with Cube, but was later found dead and mutilated in a nearby dumpster.