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Up On The Shelf

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Tag Archives: cartoon review

Bah Humbug, Delayed Again!

18 Sunday Dec 2022

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in Updates

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cartoon review, Channel KRT, Christmas review, disney review, frosty, Frosty Returns, movie review, Muppets, Muppets Christmas Carol, musical, podcast, review, tv review, update

I’m sure this comes as a surprise to no one, but the review for Muppet Christmas Carol isn’t ready just yet. There’s a lot to be said about the film and I couldn’t say it all on time, unfortunately. My goal is to have it posted before Christmas Eve at the very latest.

Since I don’t want to leave you all hanging until then, please allow me to share some delightful news: This month I hit the three-timers club on the Channel KRT podcast! I was invited to discuss the little-known unofficial Frosty The Snowman sequel, Frosty Returns, and we all had a hoot doing so. The full episode should be ready soon (and I will eagerly promote it when it is), but patrons can listen to the first 20 minutes right now for only $5. Tyler, Randee and Kit are a great bunch and I highly recommend you support them, even if it’s a one-time donation.

So until then, I hope you’re having a safe and happy holidays, and I’ll see you soon with the finished review!

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Vote for Your Christmas Shelf Review! (Plus Life Updates)

14 Friday Oct 2022

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in Christmas, Updates, Voting & Results

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

A Christmas Carol, blog, blog post, blog update, brian henson, cartoon review, Christmas, christmas carol, Christmas cartoon, christmas episode, Christmas review, christmas special, christmas story, disney muppets, disney review, ghost of christmas future, ghost of christmas past, ghost of christmas present, ghost of christmas yet to come, library, movie vote, muppet, Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Movie, Muppets, review, television review, The Muppets, tv review, Up On The Shelf, update, Updates, vote, vote now

Greetings, all! Hope you’re enjoying this spooky season! It’s often around this time I open the blog to vote for multiple Christmas-related specials and films for me to review, but things will be going a little differently this year.

In September I began a new job as an Assistant After-School Tutor at the largest library in my district. It started simple enough, just helping out kids with homework and doing activities with them twice a week. The staff and clientele are great and the pay is decent, no complaints. In fact, I did well enough flying solo in my first weeks there that I got promoted! As of October 24th I will officially be the Lead Tutor, with all the raises, responsibilities, and extra workdays the position entails.

How does this bode for the blog? Well, the holidays are a busy time for me, as some of you already know. Writing three lengthy posts on top of the Faerie Tale Theatre reviews is pretty stressful even before taking the new job into account. That’s why I’m limiting myself to just two Christmas reviews – and I already have one of them picked out.

What can I say, it’s a stone-cold classic that’s hitting a milestone this year and I don’t want to pass up the chance to talk about it.

“So what do I get to vote for?” you may ask. The answer is simple, dear friends: anything on the Christmas Shelf that’s under the category “Very Special Specials”. Let me know the special you want me to look at in the comments or by emailing me at upontheshelfshow@wordpress.com. Don’t worry, you’ve got plenty to choose from.

Thanks, happy voting, and I’ll see you on October 20th with the next Faerie Tale Theatre review!

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Seventh Anniversary: Twelve Movie Reviews in One Post!

01 Monday Aug 2022

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in Movie Reviews

≈ 5 Comments

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a very potter musical, a very Potter sequel, animated movie review, anniversary, Bill Murray, blog, blog post, blog update, cartoon review, Chico Marx, Christmas review, classic comedy, coco, Comedy, comedy review, computer animation, Disney, disney animation, disney film, disney review, disney star wars, Duck Soup, feature film, film, film review, films, Groucho Marx, Groundhog Day, Harpo Marx, James Gunn, Legally Blonde, Luca, Marx, Marx Brothers, movie, movie review, Movie Reviews, musical review, Night of the Living Dead, Pixar, pixar animation, Pixar review, review, review series, Rifftrax, Rifftrax Live, romantic comedy, Solo, star wars, team starkid, The Mitchells vs The Machines, The Suicide Squad, Up On The Shelf, We're No Angels, youtube video, Zeppo Marx

It’s Up On The Shelf’s seventh anniversary, yaaaaay!

I never imagined the blog would come this far or have the loyal band of readers like you. Thanks for sticking around for so long! I understand some of you are disappointed by the lack of updates or movie reviews (believe me I miss them too, but don’t have the time to get back to them just yet), so to mark the occasion I’m doing something a little bit different.

About ten years ago I got into the habit of documenting what movies I watch each month. It’s a fun way of tracking my taste in film, how many times I revisit favorites and mark new discoveries. To that effect, I put every movie I watched each month over the past year (2021) in a Randomizer, and came out with twelve mini spoiler-free reviews for you to take in. Some of these flicks are On The Shelf so consider them previews for when I eventually review them proper. Let’s get to it!

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My Top 20 Favorite Goofy Shorts

27 Friday May 2022

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1990's, 2000's, 2020's, Action-Adventure, Comedy, Disney, Fantasy, Mystery, Random Opinions

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

2D animation, a knight for a day, Action-Adventure, African diary, animated, animated short, animated shorts, animation, animators, cartoon, cartoon review, Comedy, Disney, disney animated, disney animated short, disney animation, disney cartoon, disney cartoons, disney golden age, Disney Plus, disney review, disney short, disney shorts, favorite cartoons, for whom the bulls toil, foul hunting, gooft gymnastics, goofy, goofy gymnastics, goofy sports cartoon, goofy's glider, hand drawn animation, hockey, hockey homicide, House of Mouse, how to, how to be a detective, how to be groovy cool and fly, how to be smart, how to cartoon, how to dance, how to fish, how to goofy, how to goofy cartoon, how to haunt a house, how to hook up your home theater, how to play football, list, motor mania, Mouse Works, sport goofy, sports cartoon, sports goofy, sports goofy cartoon, the art of self defense, the art of skiing, the olympic champ, tiger trouble, top 20, top 20 list, traditional animation, two gun goofy, Walt Disney

happy birthday goofy

It’s the 90th anniversary of everyone’s favorite goof. Whether you know him as Dippy Dawg, George Geef, Mickey’s loyal pal, Max’s dorky dad, one of Donald’s many sources of frustration, or just the character you compare to Pluto when debating pants and anthropomorphism, Goofy is the best kind of everyman. He’s adaptable to any situation and a master of physical comedy. Name a sport, and he’s “mastered” it. Name a job and he’s tackled it; his resume is nearly as long as Homer Simpson’s. Goofy’s cartoons have aged the finest out of the Fab Five’s thanks to a healthy dose of slapstick and wry modern commentary. He even survived the move to mundane 50s suburbia with most of his good humor and personality in tact. And like his costars before him, we honor him and his nine decades of goofing it up here today.

The usual rules apply: no bits from films, only short features (but A Goofy Movie would be Number One if that weren’t the case). And while Goofy works just as well on a team as he does solo, this thankfully won’t be another matter of sorting through Mickey cartoons where he steals the spotlight. But before we begin, here are some well-deserved Honorable Mentions:

  • Goofy and Wilbur – Goofy officially gets his moniker in this charming short where he and his grasshopper pal risk life and limb in the name of fishing.
  • Victory Vehicles – Goofy and his ilk develop a variety of creative and implausible modes of transportation as a response to the war effort.
  • How To Be a Sailor – The reason why I barely saw this cartoon growing up is because the ending is one big screw you to the Japanese due to Pearl Harbor. But everything else up to that point is fantastic.
  • Goofy’s Big Kitty – This Mouse Works short has Goofy confuse an escaped circus lion for his new kitty.
  • How to Wash Dishes/Be a Waiter – These shorts appear to have misleading titles as they instead show Goofy globetrotting and becoming an actor respectively…but how they circle back to what the titles promise is genius.
  • How to Play Golf – Playing a good game is easier said than done when an angry bull gets involved.
  • Baggage Buster – Gags run amok when Goofy is tasked with unloading a magician’s trunk.
  • Get Rich Quick – Goofy catches the gambling bug; a quick reminder that golden-age animation was created with adults in mind.
  • Double Dribble – The rules of basketball barely apply when Goofys of varying size are involved.
  • Fathers Are People/Father’s Day Off/Father’s Weekend/Father’s Lion – Goofy’s first forays into fatherhood come with many pitfalls and pratfalls – and the occasional risqué joke.
  • The How To Stay At Home shorts – These extra-short shorts were created for Disney Plus in response to the pandemic, but Goofy learning to adapt to these unusual circumstances will make you smile.
  • Goofy’s Radio – Goofy spends a day in the countryside, oblivious that his radio is the only thing keeping him from being a mountain lion’s lunch.
  • Teachers Are People – Nothing but respect for good teachers in my house, even though Goofy doesn’t get much of it here.
  • How To Take Care of Your Yard – Goofy gains a green thumb but destroys his home in the process.
  • How To Sleep – An insomniac Goofy tries varying methods of getting forty winks when it’s time to actually go to bed. Shockingly relatable.
  • How To Be A Spy – Paranoid that his neighbor is out to get him, Goofy attempts to master the art of espionage.
  • How To Be A Rock Star – Goofy pursues stardom in the music world.
  • How To Camp – This How To short takes an interesting turn when Goofy is abducted by aliens.
  • A Goofy Movie – How could I not mention this? It’s Goofy as we’ve never seen him before, a fully-developed, compelling character that makes you feel things other than humor.
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Christmas Shelf Reviews: Duck Tales 2017: “Last Christmas!”

18 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in 2010's, Action-Adventure, Christmas, Comedy, Disney, Fantasy, Horror, Movie Reviews, TV Reviews

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

A Christmas Carol, adventure, animated, animation, cartoon review, Christmas, christmas carol, Christmas cartoon, christmas episode, Christmas review, christmas story, classic disney, david tennant, Della, Della Duck, Dewey, Disney, disney animation, disney review, Donald Duck, Duck Tales, ducktales, Fantasy, ghost, ghost of christmas future, ghost of christmas past, ghost of christmas present, ghost of christmas yet to come, holiday special, Huey, huey dewey and louie, jack mcbrayer, Launchpad, Louie, magic, Mrs. Beakley, quest, review, scrooge, Scrooge McDuck, tony anselmo, traditional animation, tv review, tv special, Uncle Scrooge, Webby, wendigo

I don’t think it’s a big secret that Gravity Falls is my favorite series from Disney. Not just animated series, I mean out of everything the channel ever churned out. It was mysterious, funny and occasionally frightening, with deep themes of family and growing up and some of the most well-written television characters to come from the 2010s. When it bowed out after two near-perfect seasons, it left some enormous shoes to fill. What show could possibly live up to the standards it set?

Well, it turns out the answer was one no one asked for, but we’re sure as hell thankful we got anyway.

Hot take for y’all, especially from someone who grew up in the 90’s and enjoyed the hell out of the original DuckTales: the 2017 reboot blows its predecessor out of the water. It takes the fun, creative adventures from the first series, adds a much-needed measure of character arcs and development (Huey, Dewey and Louie have actual distinct personalities now!) and amps it up with a huge dose of heart and enough lore borrowed from the Carl Barks and Don Rosa comics to win over even the most jaded fans. Also, as opposed to his unceremonious draft into the navy in the first series, Donald Duck finally has a part to play in the new adventures! (Well, in 13 out of the 65 of them anyway…way to get my hopes up, Disney.) By the time I was halfway through the first season I thought to myself, “Yes, this is it. This is the successor to Gravity Falls,” (though The Owl House definitely ties with that sentiment as well, and Amphibia isn’t too far behind).

I’m woefully behind on Season 3, but am well aware that they’re bringing in more characters and plots from the other classic Disney Afternoon series that were hinted at since the very start, and I can’t wait to see how they’re re-interpreted. On a similar note, since this episode deals with some major revelations from the tail end of Season One that have ramifications for the rest of the series, I must warn you that this review will have spoilers.

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Christmas Shelf Reviews: Pluto’s Christmas Tree (1952)

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in 1950's, Christmas, Comedy, Disney

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2D animation, animated, animated short, animated special, animation, candles, cartoon review, chip and dale, Christmas, christmas carol, Christmas cartoon, Christmas review, christmas special, christmas tree, classic disney, deck the halls, Disney, disney animated, disney animation, disney review, Donald Duck, goofy, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, snow, traditional animation, winter

pluto2

When I made my list of favorite Mickey Mouse shorts, I had a hell of a time combing through his filmography for what I considered “real” Mickey cartoons. This is because a good many films in the mouse’s oeuvre have the supporting characters like Donald Duck and Goofy quickly steal the spotlight from him. And that’s not the only thing they took: as more characters were ingrained into the Disney canon and Mickey was reduced to being a bit player in his own features, the scrappy traits that once endeared him to the public were siphoned away to his costars. And what was left for him once the childlike curiosity, playfulness, brash temper, big heart and fierce determination were gone? What kind of personality could Mickey cultivate for himself into when there was no personality left?

Thanks a lot, Lisa.

By the late 40s and early 50s, everything that made Mickey enjoyable was scrubbed away into a bland, neighborly squeaky-clean corporate-friendly icon. He was good for selling merch, but his cartoons suffered severely for it. Mickey was paired up with his faithful dog Pluto to keep things more interesting, though that resulted in him getting far more to do than his master. I always thought Pluto worked better as a supporting role rather than the main star, so I’ve never been crazy about the Pluto shorts or these in particular because…well, let’s look at a comedic dog and master duo done right:

Wallace, for all his mechanical ingenuity and good nature, is more than a bit of an idiot. Gromit is vastly smarter and is capable of expressing a variety of relatable emotions despite never uttering a word (though that has less to do with him being a dog and more due to the fact that he has no mouth). Whenever there’s trouble (usually of Wallace’s own making), Gromit steps up to the plate and the two always manage to work past their shortcomings together to save the day. They may not always be on the same level as each other, but their camaraderie and the situations they get into certainly make for an entertaining time.

As for Mickey, he may have been a lot of things in his prime, but he certainly wasn’t stupid. So seeing the resilient rodent who sailed steamships, conducted his way through storms, battled giants, saved kingdoms, slayed dragons and controlled the very cosmos have his IQ substantially lowered just so he could play second fiddle to his pet…well, it feels downright insulting. Pluto’s Christmas Tree was the second-to-last short made before Mickey’s thirty year-long retirement, and it’s a prime showcase for all the problems that come with his extreme flanderization, right down to the fact that his name isn’t even the one that’s in the title.

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Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue Review

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in 1990's, Disney, Non-Disney, TV Reviews

≈ 2 Comments

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30th anniversary, alan menken, ALF, alvin, alvin and the cipmunks, animated special, anniversary, anti-drug psa, anti-drug special, anti-drugs, baby gonzo, baby kermit, baby piggy, barbara bush, brainy smurf, bugs bunny, cartoon, cartoon all-stars to the rescue, cartoon review, cartoon-all stars, corey, daffy duck, Dewey, disney review, drug psa, drugs, ducktales, frank welker, fuck ronald reagan, garfield, garfield and friends, george bush, george c. scott, ghostbusters, gonzo, howard ashman, Huey, kermit, kermit the frog, looney tunes, lorenzo music, Louie, Michael, michelangelo, miss piggy, muppet babies, nancy reagan, nephews, papa smurf, piggy, pooh, pooh bear, psa, review, ronald reagan, simon, slimer, smoke, smoking, smurfs, teenage mutant ninja turtles, television review, the real ghostbusters, the smurfs, theodore, tigger, turtles, tv review, tv special, winnie the pooh, wonderful ways to say no

cartoon all-stars

30 years ago today (well, yesterday when I was originally writing this and was meant to go up but couldn’t finish it in time due to carpal tunnel), television history was made…well, for my generation, at least.

You probably already know Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue from its reputation more than anything else. There’s plenty of online critics who have picked apart this bizarre little PSA before me, and more will with every generation that discovers it. This was an unusual attempt on behalf of the White House, the Ronald McDonald House charity, The Walt Disney Corporation, several powerful television stations, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to get kids to say no to drugs. Did they succeed? Probably not. But in order to understand why, we have to go back to the beginning:

In the 1980s, America was gripped by a crippling epidemic of drug users, urban monsters enticing children off the playgrounds into increasingly dangerous and deadly vices such as smoking and drinking – or so they believed. Ronald Reagan and his First Lady Nancy made headlines by declaring drugs to be the number one problem in the country and signed bills and acts into action that cracked down hard on even the most minute offenders. I don’t know, I could have sworn there was a real worldwide health crisis going on at the time that could have used more attention and early action, but maybe that was just my imagination. It wasn’t like this whole drug narrative was a desperate attempt by Ronald to create his own boogeyman that would distract the American public from a disease that predominantly affected an unfairly maligned group that he and Nancy liked to pretend didn’t exist, someone’s gotta think of the children dammit! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!

protestors

Never forget them. Never EVER forget them.

As nostalgic as it is to look back on the colorful anti-drug PSAs that plagued the airwaves in my day, learning more about why and how they were made as a result of Reagan’s manipulation leaves a bitter aftertaste. They also present blatantly unrealistic scenarios; never in my life has a shady-looking fellow come up to me and my friends in the schoolyard and offered us marijuana or crack. I didn’t even know these drugs existed until my school got a visit from D.A.R.E. In fact, the whole War On Drugs is downright hypocritical if you know anything about the Contra affair. This self-fabricated war mainly targeted African-American and Latino communities, which only served to inflate Reagan’s ego and fuel his open prejudices against minorities when not steering the country towards bankruptcy and the threat of nuclear war through a combination of greed, bloodlust, and encroaching senility. It makes you wonder, what kind of campaign did this old bastard run that got himself elected in the first place?

fuck reagan

caricature self

“…Either I’m on drugs right now or we’re all trapped in a time loop, and I don’t know which one is worse.”

The War On Drugs continued into the Bush administration with George Bush himself pushing this special as a huge step forward into saving children from drugs. He and Barbara Bush even filmed an awkward introduction for the VHS release. Cartoon All-Stars was a shockingly big deal at the time, not just for what it was trying to promote but for the fact that so many characters from a number of different studios were coming together all at once for the first and most likely only time. Roy E. Disney, in particular, played an enormous part in getting the special made. He stepped into the role of Executive Producer, ensured characters from some of Disney’s big Saturday morning cartoons like DuckTales and The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh appeared and had the special distributed through Buena Vista Home Video. Disney’s big name drew in more parties, and the use of other characters like Garfield and the Chipmunks got the personal approval from their creators.

Written and animated in the short time of eight weeks (startlingly quick turnaround time for animation), Cartoon All-Stars was part after-school special, part Who Framed Roger Rabbit/Avengers-style crossover, part commercial. The special was simulcast on four different major TV stations, and also freely distributed in video stores, schools, and libraries. I wasn’t born until after Cartoon All-Stars aired, but I spent my early childhood watching the tape fairly frequently. I enjoyed seeing all these cartoon characters I knew together, and admittedly the anti-drug message hit home pretty hard due to my grandfather passing away from lung cancer around that time. That part stuck with me longer than I care to admit. When you’re a four-year-old kid scolding an adult for smoking, it’s cute. When you’re fourteen? Eh, not so much.

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April Review: The Pagemaster (1994)

01 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in 1990's, Action-Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Movie Reviews, Non-Disney

≈ 5 Comments

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1990's, 20th century fox, 2D animation, 90's, 90s movie, adventure, animated, animated feature, animated movie, animated movie review, animation, animators, book, books, captain ahab, cartoon review, christopher lloyd, classic literature, david kirschner, dr. jekyll, dream away, edward hyde, fairies, fairy tale, Fantasy, film, film review, frank welker, frankenstein, george hearn, ghost stories, hand drawn animation, haunted house, henry jekyll, Horror, James Horner, jim cummings, joe johnston, leonard nimoy, library, literature, living books, macaulay culkin, moby dick, mother goose, movie, movie review, mr. hyde, Non-Disney, nostalgia, obscure animated movie, obscure animation, pagemaster, patrick stewart, puns, review, stephen king, The Pagemaster, the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde, traditional animation, treasure island, turner animation, wendy moten, whatever you imagine, whoopi goldberg

I expected this movie to have a few votes from those who remembered it as kids. I never expected it to win by a landslide. Lesson learned: never underestimate a nostalgic kids’ movie from the ’90s.

Once upon a time, David Kirschner, producer of An American Tail among other things, took his daughters to the New York Public Library. This visit inspired him to write a story about a fantastical adventure that would get kids excited about reading. The result was The Pagemaster, a 1994 box-office bomb that would go on to develop a cult following among children like me who grew up watching it. Animation historians tend to lump The Pagemaster in with the likes of Thumbelina or Quest For Camelot: 90s features that tried to coast off the success of Disney’s Renaissance films yet failed to match their caliber. But actually, trailers for The Pagemaster played in theaters and on home video a good four years before the movie was released…it was still in production for most of that time so the amount of influence Disney had on it is up for debate, but the point remains. I’m willing to bet what played a major part in its delay was the myriad of problems that cropped up during the filmmaking, from David Kirschner suing the Writers Guild of America for not receiving the sole story credit he felt was owed, to the plot being rewritten in the middle of the animation process, which is never a good thing. I’ve also heard stories about Macaulay Culkin being a diva on set, but knowing what we know now about his abusive father explains a lot so I’m not holding that against him.

And here’s another fun fact I dug up while doing my research: apparently Stephen King of all people wrote the treatment for The Pagemaster, which certainly explains the film’s more horrific elements. Does this means this movie is technically part of the King multiverse? I can see Richard hanging out with The Losers Club on weekends and trying to avoid killer clowns and langoliers in his spare time.

Though it was released under the 20th Century Fox banner, The Pagemaster was the first of only two animated films created by Turner Feature Animation, an off-shoot of Hanna-Barbera founded by media mogul Ted Turner. In hindsight, it’s not surprising that Turner had a hand in this children’s flick with an educational message. Let’s not forget the last animated project he invested himself in was all about teaching kids environmentalism in the cheesiest way possible.

But unlike Captain Planet, does The Pagemaster hold up after all these years? Will it get kids sucked into the magic of reading? And how long can I go without forcing in a Home Alone reference? Read on and find out.

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Rankin-Bass Month: Cricket On The Hearth (Review)

22 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in 1960's, Christmas, Musicals, Non-Disney, TV Reviews

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

2D animation, A Christmas Carol, animated, animated musical, animated special, animation, bertha, blind, blind girl, blindness, Britain, caleb, cartoon review, cat, charles dickens, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, christmas episode, Christmas review, christmas shopping, christmas special, christmas story, christmas toys, cricket, cricket crockett, Cricket On The Hearth, Danny Thomas, Dickens, dolls, England, green, green guy, hand drawn animation, Hans Conreid, holiday special, irish animation, London, magic toy, magic toys, Marlo Thomas, musical review, Paul Frees, Phelous, Rankin Bass, review, Roddy McDowell, Romeo Muller, tackleton, television review, the danny thomas hour, toy factory, toy shop, toymaker, toys come to life, toys coming to life, traditional animation, tv review, tv special, uriah, voice actor

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found it.

The lowest of the low.

The Rankin-Bass special that even Rankin-Bass fans despise.

Call it a hunch, but I think Charles Dickens really had a thing for Christmas. His most popular novel has the holiday in the title and has been adapted for the screen and stage at least over 200 times. Dickens set a few other tales at Christmastime, no doubt to recapture the magic and spirit of the holiday in the same way A Christmas Carol did, but those were met with less success. Does anyone here remember that classic “The Haunted Man”? That one was a ghost story that also took place at Christmas. Where are the hundreds of versions of that tale? Or “The Chimes” for that matter? Or “The Battle of Life”?

Then there’s today’s tale, “Cricket On the Hearth”, which only received two silent film adaptations (the first directed by D.W. Griffith) and a long-forgotten stage play. For yet-to-be-fathomed reasons, Rankin-Bass deemed it the perfect material to follow up their smash hit Rudolph three years prior. Instead of stop-motion animation, however, we get hand-drawn animation. While that would normally be a plus in my book, I’m not kidding when I say this is some of the cheapest, most unpleasant animation I’ve set my eyes on. It’s heavily recycled, the character designs are unappealing, and it cheats numerous times by just showing long periods of still images with nothing happening. I also had to be careful grabbing screenshots because the far-right side of the video flickered and was several frames off for some reason. And it wasn’t a corrupted file issue either, this is straight from the dvd. They aired this special on national television, how could they not be bothered to fix that?

And those are just the issues I have with the visuals.

The characters are one-dimensional tools, the songs are at best forgettable and at worst unbearable, and the story manages to be both devastatingly bleak and disgustingly saccharine while also insulting to its audience. Now, Charles Dickens was a talented writer knew how to properly mix those elements to tell a compelling and resonant story. In his Christmas tales, the sentimentality and darkness complement each other and ring true.

But guess who did such a bang-up job encumbering a song about ableist reindeer with a meandering hour-long plot that he was given free rein over the story?

crick25.jpg

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Deny thy special and refuse thy Writer’s Guild card. Or if not, throw thyself into the roaring cauldron of the sea and let the sirens peck at thy swollen flesh…sexist pig.

Well, this preamble has gone on long enough. Grab your insect repellent, folks, let’s look at Cricket On The Hearth.

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Rankin-Bass Month: Frosty the Snowman (Review)

08 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by UpOnTheShelf in 1960's, Christmas, Non-Disney, TV Reviews

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

1970's, 2D animation, animals, animated, animated cartoon, animated special, animation, barney, billy dewolf, campfire, cartoon, cartoon review, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, Christmas review, christmas snow, christmas song, christmas special, cop, frosty, frosty the snowman, global warming, hand drawn animation, hocus pocus, holiday special, Jackie Vernon, Jimmy Durante, june foray, karen, kids, mad magazine, magic hat, magician, melting, paul coker jr, Paul Frees, pointsettas, professor hinkel, rabbit, Rankin Bass, santa, santa claus, school, sled, sliding, snow, snowflakes, snowman, snowy, television review, television special, traditional animation, train, tv review, tv special

frosty poster

Well…this is awkward.

When I first wrote this review, it opened with Cynicism saying “Bad news, Shelf. Since you shat on Rudolph last week, Patreon’s taking money AWAY from you. If you don’t say more nice things about this week’s special, we’re going to have to file for bankruptcy.” Just a fun little way of letting you know today’s post is going to be a bit less harsh than the previous one.

But then I checked my Patreon hours after the Rudolph review went up, and the numbers had shrunk substantially.

It actually happened.

A silly one-off joke I wrote to ease you, the reader, into the review, accidentally came true.

It’s like the universe itself is punishing me for daring to not like Rudolph.

Okay, the truth of the matter is a bit more complicated than that, but nobody actually quit being a patron based on my feelings towards Rudolph, for which I am relieved and grateful for. It’s already been sorted out and I certainly don’t hold this mishap against anyone because of events beyond their control.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. If you can’t already tell, today’s holiday outing is Frosty The Snowman.

Frosty, Frosty, Frosty…yeah, not a big fan of this one either.

simpsons-mob

“YOU HATE FROSTY TOO, YOU MONSTER?!”

caricature self

“I didn’t say THAT!”

Frosty, like Rudolph, was another Rankin-Bass special I lost my taste for due to forced overexposure. It’s light on story and character, the animation is nothing to write home over, and we trade a bunch of subpar songs for one song dragged across the entire affair. But I’ll give it this over Rudolph:

  1. It’s shorter. Slashed right down the middle of Rudolph’s runtime, Frosty’s only twenty-five minutes of schmaltzy bland holiday fare instead of nearly an hour.
  2. The only jerk in the special is the clear-cut villain, who’s the most fun character in this thing.
  3. The cheap stop-motion has been replaced by cheap traditional animation. Not much of an exchange, I’ll take any crumbs of hand-drawn goodness I can get these days.

If I may elaborate on the latter, the designs for the characters and backgrounds are kind of interesting. The man behind them is Paul Coker Jr., who also created comics for MAD Magazine, hence why the characters have a bit of a unique geometric aesthetic but are still kind of…weird-looking. Alfred E. Neuman wouldn’t feel out of place among this cast.

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