Mainlining Christmas

I just recently read the short story, so a lot of watching this special was spent comparing it to the source material. It compares pretty well, I think. So far as I know, this is the last of the Rankin-Bass holiday specials, so the production values by this point were pretty high. The animation is smooth and the character designs are pretty great. The special opens with the Council of Immortals meeting to decide Claus' fate; his life story is then told within that frame. I found the Immortals much more interesting and full of gravity here than in the book. It probably doesn't have anything to do with me being conditioned to like anything set to the same kind of 70's style faux medieval folk-rock that was also used in The Hobbit, Flight of Dragons, etc. Really. The special goes on to be a credible adaptation of Baum's story, although it skips a lot of amusing details for time and adds some side characters to explain plot points to. It also cuts a lot of annoyin

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus L. Frank Baum, 1902 Cross-posted at Blue Fairy's Bookshelf This is a rather unique little... novella, I guess I would call it by the length. Probably one of the earliest attempts to really codify a “logical” life story for Santa Claus. I found it interesting, though, that even given a few animated specials that adapt this story directly, very little of this story has directly migrated into the popular conception of Santa. This could be one of the things that pulled the idea of Santa into the framework of “fairy tale” rather than “religious/mythic figure”, but I couldn't find out much about its original reception or effect. Eschewing any references to Saint Nicholas, the historical figure, this Santa is a foundling raised by wood nymphs and fairies, called Claus because it means something like “small one”. Most of the story is pretty cute: the fairies raise Claus, and since all manner of immortal spirits are his friends and prote

This is a bizarre little animated special on a collection I found cheap on Amazon. This was the first special on the first disc, so here we are. The special opens with caroling children singing, then immediately transitions to tanks firing, followed by a description of the Middle East now, then finally settling on the Ancient Roman Empire. The next five or ten minutes introduce a flurry of characters and locations. From a narrative point of view, this offers very little in the form of a coherent story, but then again, neither did the New Testament. What this does surprising well is depict a complex social and political landscape, complete with intrigue and danger. When we follow a couple Roman soldiers through the streets of Bethlehem, it's genuinely fascinating, and the special's depiction of Herod - while certainly not even-handed - makes for an interesting foil. Things start to drag when the story shifts to Mary and Joseph, who are obnoxiously two-dimensional (as usual

At some point I reached an important realization about this movie. It wasn't that I was watching a bad movie - I knew that going in - but rather that the movie was the wrong movie. I don't mean that I wasn't watching the movie I'd set out to see - for whatever reason, I actually chose to put this on - but that the filmmakers had literally produced the wrong film. See, by all rights, this should have been a Tim Allen vehicle. The lead was clearly written like his character from Home Improvement. Casting Schwarzenegger made no sense. I don't mean to suggest this change would have made the movie better; just that it would made the movie's existence make sense. On the scale of bad Christmas movies, this isn't on the bottom. Before you read too much into that comment, keep in mind the scale we're considering descends into a very deep, very dark pit. And parts of this movie were actually funny. There's a scene in the middle involving an army of m

Ugh. I don't have a lot to say about this lame television special. It was boring, banal, and badly produced. The animation is pretty sub-par, even by the Rankin-Bass standards. The voices are terribly chosen, just incredibly boring. Poorly written dialogue, weird lighting mistakes, completely forgettable musical numbers, and not much more to this. Bleck. Okay, I guess you can have a few more details. So, in this highly padded story, the Little Drummer Boy (Aaron) hates humans. We know this because the narration tells us approximately six hundred times, and Aaron says it a few more times for good measure. Hates. Humans. All Humans. Hates them. Why does he hate humans? Because his parents were killed, by HUMANS! Yeah, this kid's logic was a little shy of becoming Batman rather than a pint-size misanthrope. Pity - the special could have been a lot more interesting. There are a lot of awkward phrases and lines in this thing. Like "Show Caravan". It's a t

This eight minute short came as part of a DVD collection I bought cheap on Amazon, but apparently it's easy to find on Youtube, too. Come to think of it, just about everything in that collection appears to be on Youtube. At any rate, this has to be one of the strangest artifacts we've come across. I've never actually seen an episode of Howdy Doody before, though of course I know what it is. Or at least I thought I knew: now, I'm not so sure. First off, let's talk about the horror. See, every character in this thing, with the exception of Buffalo Bob, is outright creepy. Imagine Chucky but not as cute: that's Howdy Doody. And remember the clown from It? yeah, apparently his older brother's name was Clarabell, and he's in this. Then there's Ugly Sam. I guess he wasn't scary, just weird. This thing starts a few minutes before midnight, with most of the above characters decorating a tree. They hide at midnight, so Santa won't see them (

This is one of the myriad made-for-TV family movies that gets churned out every year. We try to keep a few of these in our queue to ensure we're experiencing the entire spectrum of holiday fare. As the title suggests, this one focuses on the character of Black Peter, a slightly obscure holiday figure, at least here in the US. For those of you not obsessed with Christmas lore, Black Peter is a child assistant to Saint Nick. Traditionally, he's the one charged with punishing children who were bad, an awkward bit of racist stereotyping which makes him an extremely difficult character to use. Since he never really took hold in America, it's pretty easy to skip him entirely and avoid the matter altogether. This movie instead re-imagines him as a kind-hearted adult accompanying Saint Nicholas in his journeys. It's an attempt to reclaim the character while simultaneously raising him in prominence. As a whole, the special isn't very impressive. Production values are