'Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas' Trailer: Five Key Scenes

In a way, "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas" is the most high-concept installment in the stoner-comedy franchise. The titles of both "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" and "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" told you everything you needed to know about the films. But the latest addition? Well, it's in 3-D and has something to do with the holiday season, yet it can all get a little confusing for the series' munchies-having, navel-gazing fanbase. The first "3D Christmas" trailer, which hit Yahoo! on Wednesday evening, should clear up most of that duuuuude-what's-it-all-about confusion. And MTV News' picks for the five key scenes should wipe away any remaining brain fog. The Santa Formula The witty tweaking of clichés has been at the heart of what this franchise is all about. After years of derivative stoner comedies, many with premises thinner than a tab of LSD, "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" took the formula to its storytelling extreme — what if we make a movie about two dudes trying to get some hamburgers? — and wound up delivering not only a funny movie, but one that breathed new, smart and ridiculous life into what had become a hackneyed subgenre. "3D Christmas," which hits theaters in November, turns its postmodern attention to the holiday movies, as we see in this scene of Harold accidently shooting Santa in the face. How many Christmas movies will the new movie riff on? We smell the heady scent of a future college-dorm-room party game. The Comedy Equation If the big picture of the franchise has been devoted to undercutting cinematic clichés, the undercurrent running through so many individual scenes has been the filmmakers' quest to identify and explode stereotypes. Race, religion, sexuality — it's all been roped into laugh lines, sometimes with less success than others (see "Escape from Guantanamo Bay"). The third film in the series keeps the fearless tradition going, as in one scene where Kumar is rejected by a lovely lady with the line, "Sorry, I don't date black guys." Claymazing! But hey, perhaps we're being a bit too high-minded. The franchise can also be enjoyed (when it's enjoyable) as a straightforward, drug-addled buddy comedy. In "3D Christmas," the two friends are still getting' high and gettin' into trouble, as when they mistakenly get a toddler stoned or, in this scene, when they're dosed with a hallucinogen. Cue one of the more creative visual representations of the drug experience in recent memory: Harold and Kumar become claymation figurines. It's a fun, unexpected moment, which makes us think filmmakers should have held the scene back so it'd be fresh (and fun and unexpected) in theaters. "Avatarted" The new movie clearly wants to have its three-dimensional cake and eat it too, as Harold asks at one point in the trailer, "Hasn't the whole 3-D thing jumped the shark by now?" The answer, delivered by a TV salesman, is that the movie makes "Avatar" look "Avatarted." He's probably right. "Avatar" director James Cameron's approach to 3-D is to use the technology to create depth, as if in looking at the screen you're looking through a window. "3D Christmas" takes the opposite approach, hurling things (eggs, the Pope's tooth) out at the audience in a manner that has become less favored among filmmakers. Though not entirely. Hey, that in-your-face approach worked for "Jackass 3D." NPH There was a time when Neil Patrick Harris probably thought he'd forever be remembered as a super-smart teen doctor named Doogie. But his turn in "Go to White Castle" changed all that, launching the actor's professional second act. Now, NPH might host award shows and star in a hit network comedy, but he continues to pay respect to the raunchy franchise that resurrected his career. Ignore the fact, as NPH himself does, that he was shot and seemingly killed in "Escape from Guantanamo Bay." What's important is that he's back and ridiculous as ever. The same might well be said of "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas." Check out everything we've got on "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas." For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com. Kal Penn and John Cho in "A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas" Photo: New Line Cinema