Ahh, Santa's toy shop. A place of endless wonder and—what the...? It's overrun with evil toys! How do we always end up in the middle of these things? Well, come on, children. We've got work to do.
— Grim
The Fright Before Christmas is a 2007 The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy-themed Adobe Flash game, formerly hosted on Cartoon Network's official website. It is based on the episode "Billy and Mandy Save Christmas".
A horde of evil Living Toys has taken over Santa's workshop, and it's up to Grim, Billy, and Mandy to stop them. Switch between all three characters to most efficiently mow down the endless waves of toys, and collect their parts to trade in for stronger weapons between levels.
The game is no longer available to play on Cartoon Network's website, but is available on other sites and has been archived by BlueMaxima's Flashpoint
, a Web Game preservation project.
Has nothing to do with the Danny Phantom episode "The Fright Before Christmas".
Heeheehoohoo boy! You tropers are in big, big trouble now!:
- Action Girl: Mandy is responsible for wiping out the evil toys, while Grim and Billy are Support Party Members.
- Anthropomorphic Food: One of the ground-bound toys is a shambling, half-eaten gingerbread man with a Thousand-Yard Stare.
- An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Grim, Billy, and Mandy have to destroy the evil toys overrunning Santa's workshop.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Mandy's Instapop shoots a huge wave of burning popcorn that wipes out every toy in its path. The problem is that it's almost impossible to aim!
- Badass Boast: Mandy has one of those as a possible quote before a level starts.Hope you can keep up, Grim, because I'm ready to smash.
- Balloon of Doom: One of the floating enemies is a red balloon with a Slasher Smile full of fangs. It moves really fast and flies in a circular pattern that makes it difficult to hit, but gives three toy parts when destroyed.
- Body Horror: Some of the evil toys have this. The red-haired dummies are swinging from hooks that appear to be jammed straight through their heads, and the gingerbread men have bites taken out of them and shamble like zombies.
- Darkness Equals Death: The screen gets darker and darker the more candles are extinguished. Don't let them all die out!
- Demonic Dummy: One of the enemies is a red-haired dummy with a hinged jaw that snaps open and shut.
- Dying Candle: Your force field is powered by eight magic candles. If enemies are allowed to touch the force field for long enough, the candles will start going out. Let all of them go out, and you lose the game.
- Edible Ammunition:
- Billy has two in his arsenal. His starting weapon is the Frostsicle, which freezes enemies for a few seconds, and his second is the Chestnuts, which burn enemies on the ground, then form a temporary barrier of fire that incinerates anything that touches it.
- Mandy's fifth weapon is the Instapop, a pan that shoots out an explosion of hot popcorn.Mandy: (when buying or equipping the Instapop) I'll give them a taste of delicious buttery destruction!
- Endless Game: The game doesn't appear to have a final level, and just keeps going and going until your candles get wiped out and you lose to the evil toy horde.
- Evil Laugh: The red balloons make an evil, low-pitched chuckle when they're flying towards you.
- Killer Teddy Bear: One of the enemy types is a green teddy bear-shaped hand puppet. It moves toward you quickly, but yields two toy parts when destroyed.
- Harmless Freezing: Billy's Frostsicle freezes an enemy for a few seconds. The Snowglobe does the same, but produces a large snowy cloud that freezes multiple enemies.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: A reference to 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, of course.
- Power-Up Letdown: The most expensive, and supposedly most powerful, of Mandy's weapons are the Marbles and the Instapop. The Marbles are a three-projectile weapon that move in an arc, but are too small to hit more than three enemies, which becomes a major problem in the later levels with increasingly insane numbers of toys. The Instapop, to its credit, is more powerful, has a wider range and would be a better choice...if it weren't so hard to control. And both of them are used up the minute they hit an enemy. Most players find it easier to just use Mandy's third weapon, the Marcy Doll, which consists of one projectile, but slices through hordes of enemies like butter.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Buying or equipping the Looper Plane causes Mandy to quip, "The plane's domain is mainly causing pain."
- Purple Is Powerful: The Lavender Tranquility candles provide the strongest forcefield.
- Slasher Smile: The floating red balloons have evil smiles full of sharp teeth.
- Support Party Member:
- Grim's role is to use various vacuum-cleaning devices to suck up the parts of destroyed evil toys, which can be traded in for stronger weapons between levels.
- Billy's role is to use items that stop or slow down the hordes of evil toys, making them easier for Mandy to slaughter. He can throw popsicles that freeze toys for a few seconds, flaming chestnuts that incinerate ground-bound toys, or magnets that force toys to stick to each other and make them easier to hit.
- Time Master: Billy's fifth weapon is the Timeclock, which causes every enemy on the screen to move extremely slowly for about five seconds. However, he can only throw one at a time.
