Blazing past convention, Stoned for Christmas is a kaleidoscopic animated short that combines weed culture, queer joy, and visual experimentation in one irreverent, emotionally resonant package. We spoke with Morgan Young, the filmmaker behind this wild holiday ride to learn how community, animation, and a love for the absurd came together to tell a story that’s as heartfelt as it is hilarious.
Patrick Roy, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Your film Stoned for Christmas is described as a “blunt rotation” of animated styles. What inspired this multi-style approach, and how did you choose the artists to bring each vignette to life?
Morgan Young (MY): Stoned for Christmas is a true reflection of my personal journey: a colorful melding of my experience in children’s animation and my stoner comedy sensibilities, grown in an NYC community garden. The short’s shifting styles portray the whirlwind of hustling in the city, the colorful personalities, and the highs and lows of a trip. Each collaborator was chosen for their unique style’s ability to bring a specific section to life! The extremely talented artists I chose were a mix of friends, coworkers, and artists whose work I admired but had never worked with before!
(UM): The film explores not just weed culture but also queer and trans experiences in a big city. How did you balance humor with the vulnerability of those themes?
(MY): Trans people are seriously underrepresented in stories that are stupid and silly. I wanted a queer and trans story that wasn’t about the usual dramatic topics of dysphoria or social rejection or even successful transition. Stoned for Christmas is about weed. It’s funny and irreverent and that’s liberating in a queer narrative. I have seen Eddie Redmayne’s lipsticked lips quiver enough – I want to laugh!
(UM): What role does community—especially queer stoner community—play in your artistic vision, both in this film and in the broader scope of Talking Cat Productions?
(MY): So much of Talking Cat’s work only exists because of queer stoner community – all the earliest productions were born from getting high and riffing with queer friends. Queer stoner community not only validates my own existence, but by being inherently outside the norm–by being weirdos–queer stoners foster a creativity that’s rare, collaborative, and powerful. We violate boxes and shirk rules and expectations, and Talking Cat strives to do the same with its pieces: from a cute little puppet who smokes weed and swears (“COMFY!”, 2019), to this animated film with 13 different art styles.
(UM): Animation allows for infinite possibilities. Were there any scenes in Stoned for Christmas that could only be told through animation?
(MY): Absolutely! Multiple scenes in Stoned for Christmas are not just fantastical, but deliberately abstracted. I wanted to really explore emotional storytelling, where we follow a character through their emotional arc rather than their narrative action. These moments in the story are not only heightened through surrealism, but also through their animated mediums being inherently more dramatic – like hand-painted frames and stop-motion done with live actors.
(UM): How do puppetry, drag, and clown traditions influence your storytelling techniques in animation, especially in terms of tone and structure?
(MY): Puppetry, drag, and clown all celebrate abstracted, heightened storytelling. Puppets, drag artists, and clowns are dramatic, absurd characters that are highly physical and put laughs first – they are cartoons! I like stories that bury weighty realities in gut-busting humor, singable music, and bright lights. Like a dog swallowing a pill coated in cheese.
(UM): You’ve worked at major studios like Nickelodeon and Disney Jr.—how has that industry experience shaped your approach to indie, boundary-pushing work like Stoned for Christmas?
(MY): My favorite part of my job is interfacing with artists! I wanted to make something intimate and indie so I could collaborate closely with each artist. The structure of Stoned for Christmas in particular allowed each artist the most freedom to create something that represented their style and interests. Unlike most major studio productions, Stoned for Christmas was not hyper-concerned with continuity – the personalized differences in styles are the beauty of this experiment!
(UM): The film’s title suggests irreverence, but there’s deep sentiment in your director statement. What’s something about this film that you hope really lands emotionally with audiences?
(MY): Cis people are rapidly forgetting that trans people are not just a buzzword. We’re people busy buying groceries, commuting, doing homework, smoking weed. We are right next to you. Stoned for Christmas is not about transness first, but transness is built into its bones; I am trans, the protagonist is trans, the story is trans. When the audience sees themselves in the story at any point, hopefully it demystifies transness even a little bit. We are right next to you.
(UM): What were some of the technical or creative challenges of coordinating an international team of animators with such different styles and voices?
(MY): The most dramatic moment of working with different artists on distinctly stylized sections was piecing every finished piece together in the end. Artists were working on their sections independently – it was my responsibility to make sure everything flowed together. There was always a chance that such dramatic visual shifts could take the air out of the room and throw an audience off – but I think it’s safe to say the end result paid off!!
(UM): Finally, if you could deliver one “gift” through this film—be it a feeling, a laugh, or a moment of recognition—what would it be?
(MY): I want someone to watch it at Christmas and get high. Being indoctrinated into anyone’s stoner movie canon would just be the highest (haha) honor.
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