When you think famous elves, an image of Will Ferrell dancing around in yellow tights and pouring maple syrup on spaghetti usually springs to mind. But before Buddy, there was Hermey — a misfit elf who dreams of being a dentist in the stop-motion Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

The Rankin-Bass production is the longest running holiday special of all time, and it celebrates its 50th anniversary on December 6.

But Paul Soles, the actor who voiced Hermey (and later Spiderman in the 1967 animated series), tells TIME that he doesn’t have any special plans to watch the movie on its anniversary.

“Because you can’t avoid it!” Soles, 84, says. “It plays three or four times — it’s hard to escape… I don’t believe I own a copy, but I do watch it, it’s nice to be reminded of a good time.”

When Soles was cast as Hermey in 1964, he never dreamed that character would sing on TV sets around the world for decades to come.

“I had a day job as the host of a national current affairs show in Canada,” Soles says. “[Working on Rudolph] was fun. It was a playground. An after school play in the park. It was not unlike ice cream on pie after a good meal.”

And that ice cream-covered pie has withstood the test of time, although over the years Soles says he has had to confront rumors about Hermey’s sexuality.

“I don’t know if it’s because of the Adam Sandler rule or Seth Rogen rule of comedy, but people have questioned if Hermey is gay,” he says. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think elves are thought of anything other than neutered.”

Regardless, Soles believes the movie has persevered because of its charming embrace of misfits — from a red nosed reindeer to an elf who eschews toy making for dentistry. But Soles himself isn’t a big fan of the profession.

“I’ve had one of the most horrible careers with dentists over my lifetime. I just hated it,” he says. “Up until about ’07 I had to go to the dentist once a year to have a tooth out. And I got so upset, I went to a dentist in Toronto and said, ‘Take them all out! All the ten or 12 that are left!'” (He now wears dentures.)

But as Soles sums it up: “I guess what Hermey was appealing for was that he was there to help people, not hurt people.”

Noah Baumbach’s last film, Frances Ha, concerned itself with the romantic and professional frustrations of a young woman in her 20s. For his next film, While We’re Young, he skips ahead a couple of decades to explore the lives of a couple in their 40s grappling with their fading — or really, already faded — youth.

Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play Josh and Cornelia, a husband and wife struggling to accept their adulthood. Their lives are upended by a new friendship with a couple of twenty-somethings, played by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried, whose “apartment is full of everything we once threw out.” Playing on the themes of Henrik Ibsen’s 1892 play The Master Builder, the film explores the way in which the latter couple’s youthful energy challenges their older companions. Josh takes up rollerblading and Cornelia attempts hip hop dance, but youthful pursuits, of course, can’t take years off one’s age.

While We’re Young features some decidedly still-cool quadragenarians, with former Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz in a supporting role and LCD Soundsystems’s James Murphy composing the sondtrack. The film hits theaters on March 27.

“Prepare to be mildly thrilled and as excited as is reasonable to expect…”

So reads the preamble for the most lukewarm video game of the holiday season: The Christmas Shopper Simulator. In case navigating through the crowded aisles of a mall in the weeks before Christmas isn’t enough, you can now relive the experience on your computer screen!

But don’t let video retailer GAME, which created the simulator, undersell it with a lackluster description. The interactive game has some serious perks. Rather than taking out your holiday anxiety out on real-life fellow shoppers (don’t get a criminal record for Christmas!) you can unleash your rage on fake shoppers and inflatable Santas in the game.

The only thing more stressful than an impending zombie invasion is holiday shopping — so it makes sense that there are video games simulating both daunting events.

GAME previously released a Goat Simulator game, in case you’re looking for another way to kill time during the holiday season.

Twas almost the night before The Simpsons holiday show, and Springfield is covered in mountains of snow. At long last, the preview is here, filled with yetis, Smithers and some tiny reindeer.

The Simpsons are headed straight for their couch, and every creature is stirring including reindeer, a yeti and maybe a mouse.

The children aren’t nestled anywhere near their beds, stuck in detention and jazz band instead.
Marge is headed to the check-out lane, while Otto is taking a hit off a candy cane.

Homer is working in a dashing elf cap, but he wants to go home for a long winter’s nap. Patty and Selma face off in town square and, yes, an obligatory Frozen reference is there.

The stockings are hung, a Festivus pole is there, and Groundskeeper Willie flies through the air, volleyed by polar bears drawn with great care.

Tune in to The Simpsons this Sunday at eight, if you set your clock now you won’t be late.

During the National Christmas Tree Lighting at the White House Thursday night, President Barack Obama attempted to keep things light by breaking it down with Santa Claus. He gave ‘ol Saint Nick an enthusiastic high-five, and then the President started grooving, basically moving his hands, which were in a thumbs-up position, from side to side, before dancing his way off the stage.

At one point, you can even see Santa saying something to the President. Maybe it was in response to Obama’s Christmas list, which we imagine is made up of requests like more bipartisan cooperation in Congress, or coal in the stockings of those who have challenged his authority.

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