By Todd Garbarini
Having grown up on the Rankin Bass Christmas
specials since I was a child, the Yuletide season just isn't the same without a
yearly viewing of some of their most enchanting shows. Since the 1960s and 1970s, specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus
is Comin’ to Town, The Little Drummer Boy and The Year Without a Santa Claus were shown on the major television
networks. In the late 1980s it became increasingly
difficult to see most of these specials unless you had cable television or
video cassette recorders as the major networks stopped airing them. With the availability of home video, the shows were inevitably made available to the masses and made great Christmas
presents.
The fine folks at Classic Media have
released some of these beloved Christmas classics on Blu-ray. In a two-disc set entitled The Original Christmas Classics, disc
one contains Santa Claus is Comin’ to
Town. Premiering on Sunday, December 14, 1970, Santa Claus is a stop-motion animated special that stars Fred
Astaire as a postal worker who uses the device of children’s letters and
inquiries about Santa as the basis for telling the story of how Santa came to
be. Santa
Claus is voiced by Mickey Rooney. The story is based upon the Christmas
song of the same name and features a wide variety of musical numbers. There is the mean-spirited character Mayor
Burgermeister Meisterburger who despises toys and arrests anyone in possession
of one. There is a scene where his
soldiers burn a group of toys in front of horrified young children. The
sequence was often cut from some broadcasts because it was deemed too upsetting
to kids. Fortunately, it has been restored for the Blu-ray, along with other
scenes that were occasionally cut to accommodate more commercials
Disc two features three specials, the
first of which is the most well-known of all, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which premiered on Sunday, December
6, 1964. Also running 51 minutes, the
copyright year is erroneously listed as MCLXIV (1164), not MCMLXIV (1964). A stop-motion animated special that premiered
on the NBC network and was sponsored by GE, Rudolph
made its way to CBS for many years and is based on the Johnny Marks song of the
same name. It features a lot of themes
that are still prevalent today, including the consequences of bullying and name-calling. However, despite
all of this, Rudolph triumphs in the face of adversity with his equally-spurned
friend Hermie who wants to be a dentist!
Next up is Frosty the Snowman, a hand-drawn animated special from Sunday,
December 7, 1969 that features Jimmy Durante and a host of enjoyable songs. The idea was to create a show that resembled a
Christmas card and for the most part the concept is successful. A young girl, Karen, makes a snowman she
christens “Frosty†and tops him off with a top hat she obtains from a
magician. Karen is voiced by June Foray,
best known for Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Cindy Lou Who, Witch Hazel, and
Granny.
The final show is Frosty Returns from Tuesday, December 1, 1992 and it cannot hold a
candle to its predecessors. It is a
curiosity to behold as the dominant theme mirrors that of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, (i.e. corporate enterprise schemes
to profit at the expense of the environment.) The show is also an exercise in
political correctness as the there are no overt references to “Christmas.â€
It is wonderful to see these specials
in high definition, although Frosty
Returns looks like it was mastered from a lower-quality video release and
there is a fair amount of dot crawl prevalent. If you look closely at Santa Claus
and Rudolph, you can see the wires
that were used to move the characters around, something that was difficult to
see on standard television viewings. The
colors are strong and vibrant, especially in the sequence about the Island of
Misfit Toys. Despite the aforementioned
quality issues on Frosty Returns, it’s
safe to say that, by and large, these gems have never looked better and make for
a perfect holiday treat.
The programs are provided with the
requisite chapter stops and have no extras.
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