Christmas Shelf Reviews: Olive the Other Reindeer

Tags

20th century fox, 2D animation, adventure, animated, animated special, animation, artwork, cgi, cgi animation, children’s book, Christmas, Christmas cartoon, christmas elves, Christmas review, christmas special, computer animation, dan castellaneta, drew barrymore, ed asner, elf, fox animation, futurama, j. otto seibold, jack russell terrier, james otto seibold, joe pantoliano, Matt Groening, michael stipe, north pole, olive, olive the other reindeer, penguin, reindeer, santa, santa claus, Simpsons, television animation, television review, television special, tv, tv review, tv special, underrated, vivian walsh

While I remember the hype for the FOX Christmas special Olive The Other Reindeer back in 1999 –

…

…

…Excuse me, I was suddenly struck by the realization that I’m old.

Anyway, while I remember the promotions for it before it premiered, I’m ashamed to say I never got around to watching it until several years ago. Shame, really, because it’s been among my personal favorites since. Olive The Other Reindeer is loosely based on a children’s book by Vivian Walsh and award-winning artist J. Otto Seibold, the main conceit being “Hey, doesn’t that one line from the Rudolph song sound like they’re saying Olive The Other Reindeer instead of ‘all of the other reindeer’? Wouldn’t it be funny if someone named Olive got confused over it and tried to become a reindeer?” The book is fairly straightforward with little-to-no stakes, though it has some wonderfully stylized and colorful artwork. Naturally the leap from page to screen meant the story had to be significantly fleshed out, but who could possibly step up to the task?

Eh, how about the guy behind the biggest animated adult show of all time?

To this day I have no idea why Matt Groening took the job but I sure as hell am grateful for it. He, along with Futurama co-creator David X. Cohen, took what could have been another simple Christmas special and injected it with the sly modern wit and cheeky sense of humor they’re known for (the fact that Olive premiered on the same night Futurama did couldn’t have been a coincidence either). They spice up the proceedings with wonderful touches exclusive to this adaptation: the other characters with mondegreen names; the snappy dialogue; the background sight gags that you have to watch multiple times to catch; the running joke with the cordless drill; the self-depreciating jabs at Fox, and more. The smart writing in addition to the unique animation gives this outing a strong sense of identity without losing the heart and charm that’s inherent to the story. It also marks Olive as the only “family-friendly” thing Groening’s made to date; an interesting designation to have, but not a bad one at all.

Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews: Rapunzel

Tags

80s, abandonment, abusive parent, abusive relationships, bargain, blinded, brothers grimm, controlling parent, Faerie Tale Theatre, fairy tale, fairy tale adaptation, fairy tale creatures, fairy tales, fairytale, giambattista basile, gilbert cates, golden hair, grimm, grimms fairy tale, gustav klimt, haircut, let down your hair, lettuce, long hair, magic teardrop, metaphor, mockingbird, munchkins, parsley, persinette, petrosinella, pregnant, prince henry, puppets, radishes, rampion, Rapunzel, Roddy McDowell, scary 80s, shelley duvall, television review, television series, the brothers grimm, the dude, tower, tv, tv review, witch, woman in tower, womanhood

“You’ll be safe up in the tower, Rapunzel. No man can ever touch you.” “But I don’t want to be safe. I want to be free!”
– Our villainess and heroine lay out the theme in the middle of a mother-daughter argument

Ah, back to fairy tales. Hopefully it won’t be anything as nightmarish as Meets Frankenstein.

(looks at schedule)

…aw, crap. It’s worse.

I won’t beat around the bush, this episode is pretty infamous for having some freaky imagery that’s forever burned into the nightmares of kids who’ve watched it. I may have been spared from it in my childhood, but watching it through the eyes of a fully-grown adult doesn’t make it any less disturbing (and that’s before we get to the horrifying realistic show of physical and psychological abuse the titular character endures at the hands of her “mother”). Rapunzel is a fucked-up episode – and kind of a fucked-up story when you stop and think about it.

This wasn’t my favorite fairytale to begin with but I see the appeal in it; a woman with impossibly long, beautiful hair rescued by a dashing prince after being held prisoner by an evil overbearing parental figure oozes classic storybook romance. It wasn’t until I saw Into The Woods for the first time that it really gave me pause. The first act of the show ends with everyone celebrating their hard-earned happily ever after, only for it to come crashing down in the second act as the consequences of their actions catch up to them. Rapunzel is no exception, even though she’s the most innocent character throughout all this. She’s out in a world she’s never known with no social skills, family, friends, or any idea how to cope with change; she’s clearly showing signs of post-partum depression, the prince who fathered her children and got her banished from her home in the first place brushes her off as a nuisance and joins his odious brother in ogling other women, and when she confronts her mother for abusing her all her life, the woman tries to justify her actions and drives her under the feet of an angry giant. All I’m saying is thank God for Tangled rewriting the story to give the main character a chance to actually affect things in her own story and create her happy ending; hell, thank God for the Barbie version of Rapunzel doing that as well – both of them!

Anyway, tales of beautiful women trapped in towers go back as far as ancient Greece with Danaë, mother of Perseus, locked up by her dad so she wouldn’t get knocked up. There’s also the Persian myth of Rudāba, whose lover climbed her hair (sound familiar?) and even the myth of St. Barbara, whose father shut her in a tower to stop her from marrying beneath her station. The earliest version of the Rapunzel story we know, however, comes 178 years before the Brothers Grimm penned their take on it. In “Petrosinella”, a Neopolitan folktale collected by Italian author Giambattista Basile, a mother sells out her daughter (the titular character) to an ogress to save her own life after she’s caught stealing her parsley. Petrosinella is seven years old when she’s taken away from her mother and locked in a tower as opposed to being raised from birth by her captor. The usual bit with the prince showing up and falling in love happens, but this time they make their escape using magical means she picked up from the ogress, ultimately defeating her to earn their happily ever after. This tale was later retold in France as “Persinette”, then ambled on over to Germany in Friedrich Schulz’s fairy tale collection, before finally being picked up and rewritten into the Rapunzel story we know today by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

If there’s a running theme throughout all of them, it’s the futility of trying to keep girls from reaching the inevitable – no, not men, womanhood. The tower is the means in which the parental figures try to keep their daughters innocent and childlike forever instead of letting them flourish and learn out in the world. It never works, obviously, since knowledge and arguably temptation comes in the form of the prince. Whoever’s holding Rapunzel prisoner, be it witch or ogre, is furious that their daughter is “tainted” by the outside world and “ungrateful” for all that they have given her to keep her happy (barring the one thing she does want, real freedom). It’s an ugly but honest reflection of how society views girls through the Madonna-Whore dichotomy; if they can’t be sweet and pure forever, then they’re sullied and to blame for the mishaps they face when trying to grow up, things they should have been able to endure if the parents in question had helped them to understand instead of smothering them out of their own selfishness. Rapunzel does get her wish for freedom, but at the cost of being cast out of her childhood home – it was an entrapment, yes, but also the only world she’s ever known up until then. Ultimately the power of love comes through because fairy tales (at least in anything that isn’t Into The Woods).

So knowing all this, how well does Faerie Tale Theatre tell the story of Rapunzel?

Well, you already read this far…

An Introduction to Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews

Tags

1980's, 80's fantasy, 80s, actors, Aladdin, anthology, anthology series, beauty and the beast, Big Bad Wolf, brothers grimm, celebrity, celebrity casting, Cinderella, dwarfs, Faerie Tale Theatre, fairies, fairy, fairy tale, fairy tales, folk tale, folk tales, frog prince, goldilocks, goldilocks and the three bears, gretel, grimm, hamelin, hans christian andersen, hansel, hansel and gretel, introduction, Jack and the beanstalk, little mermaid, little red riding hood, magic mirror, mirror, nightingale, pied piper, Pinocchio, puss in boots, Rapunzel, red riding hood, review series, rip van winkle, rumpelstiltskin, series, seven dwarfs, shelley duvall, sleeping beauty, snow queen, Snow White, snow white and the seven dwarfs, television review, television series, the boy who left home to find out about the shivers, the dancing princesses, the emperor's new clothes, the emperor's nightingale, the little mermaid, the pied piper, the pied piper of hamelin, the princess and the pea, the princess who had never laughed, the snow queen, the twelve dancing princesses, three little pigs, thumbelina, tv review, tv series, witch, witches, wolf

“Hello, I’m Shelley Duvall. Welcome to Faerie Tale Theatre.”

Once upon a time in the faraway land of Malta, an actress named Shelley Duvall starred in a little movie called Popeye. A blithe innocent spirit, Ms. Duvall kept herself entertained with a charming book of fairy tales in between shooting. Duvall recounted the story of The Frog Prince to her costar, Robin Williams, who found the tale humorous enough to his liking. From there, an idea sprung that would stay with many a child of the 80s and 90s.

From 1982 to 1987, Duvall produced and hosted Faerie Tale Theatre, a 27-episode long anthology series on Showtime. She convinced many of the biggest stars of the time to play the roles and even a few well-known auteurs to direct using her clout and gregarious charm. Duvall herself would star in seven of the episodes as well. This show, along with HBO’s Fraggle Rock, proved to be one of the first successful examples of cable programming and cemented itself as a cult classic. My own experience with Faerie Tale Theatre stems from renting episodes on VHS from my library at a very young age. Back in the day, if you really wanted to know what you were in for, then you could turn to the VHS cover. Yes, we’re all familiar with the old adage about not judging a book et cetera, but there’s an art to home media releases that’s tragically all but lost. The VHS tapes of Faerie Tale Theatre had a specifically crafted painting made for each episode done in a famous art style that the episode itself replicated in its set and costume design. Apart from giving you an idea about the content on the tape, it was just pretty to look at. Tell me, which is the more inviting, this –

or THESE?

After a lengthy time gap, I rediscovered the entire series on Youtube and watched with fascination. While many of the effects and the over-reliance on green screen certainly dates it, there’s a nostalgic charm that’s far from a deal-breaker. This was well before Disney began building upon and later deconstructing classic fairy tales with the Renaissance and Revival periods of animation, meaning the stories are told completely straight with just the bare amount of changes needed to fill an hour runtime. Seeing a score of well-known actors in fantasy costumes playing to the cheap seats can make you feel like you’re watching a pantomime, but there’s hardly a moment where it seems like they’re doing it just for the paycheck. Everyone involved looks like they’re in on the idea of putting on an entertaining show. Some performances remind us how excellent some of the actors are at their craft, others show sides to their talent that were rarely seen – though for the most part, there’s plenty of ham to go around, ham smothered in heaps of delicious cheese.

So I’ll be going through every episode in order, providing a ranking, a little bit of the stories’ history, why they were changed, and how they hold up compared to other versions. I won’t be classifying the reviews season by season as the amount of episodes in each one is erratic, with some having as many as six or as few as two. Despite their being only twenty-six of them (plus one reunion episode), there’s going to be a lot to unpack.

See you tomorrow when I review the first entry in this series, The Tale of the Frog Prince.

New Review Schedule!

Tags

abbott and costello meet frankenstein, adventures of tintin, Aladdin, animated, animated feature, animated movie, animated movie review, animated musical, animation, anniversary, bedknobs and broomsticks, cartoon saloon, Comedy, comedy review, Disney, disney review, epic, fievel goes west, Horror, jurassic park, movie review, musical, musical review, Pixar, song of the sea, Steven Spielberg, the incredibles, tintin, Toy Story, triplets of belleville, tv review, twice upon a time, Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a great summer so far! You’ve told me about what movies you want me to finally take a look at yourselves, so we’ll be taking a break from the voting system and celebrating six years of Up On The Shelf with a pre-chosen review party that’s going to be over a year long! I want to thank everyone who’s supported the blog for this long by sharing how the new review schedule looks for the time being, as well as who requested what. Mark your calendars and rev up your streaming service/media player of choice, because here’s how things are going down:

August: Song of the Sea (gordhanx)

September: An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (John Dailey)

October: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (The Animation Commendation)

November: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Amelia Jones)

December: Christmas vote!

January ’22: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Tristan Petty)

February ’22: The Incredibles (Mr. B)

March ’22: Toy Story (Rhapsody)

April ’22: The Ten Commandments (Samuel Minden)

May ’22: Twice Upon A Time (julayla)

June ’22: The Adventures of Tintin (Cup Of Joe)

July ’22: Seventh Anniversary Review

August ’22: Jurassic Park (MrXemnas1992)

September ’22: The Triplets of Belleville (Sam Flemming)

October ’22: Halloween vote!

November ’22: Aladdin (MichaelSar12IsBack)

December ’22: Christmas vote!

January ’23: The Little Mermaid (Ben Walderberger)

I’d like to add that in addition to these film reviews, I’ll be posting a review of every episode of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre each month. Expect the first shortly after this August’s review is done. See you then!

Christmas Shelf Reviews: Duck Tales 2017: “Last Christmas!”

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.

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue Review

Tags

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

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!!

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?

“…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.

It’s Time For Tv Series Reviews Again!

Tags

adventure, animated, animation, avatar, avatar the last airbender, covid-19, disenchantment, Disney, disney animated, disney animation, ducktales, faerie take theater, galavant, happily ever after, happily ever after fairy tales for every child, Hey Arnold, legend of the three caballeros, little witch academia, mlp, musical, my little pony, over the garden wall, Rapunzel’s tangled adventure, review, series, series review, tangled, tangled the series, television review, the last airbender, the three caballeros, three caballeros, tv review, vote

In the space of a year and a half, I covered the entirety of Gravity Falls’ television run. It’s been fun sharing what I loved about my favorite show, and it brought in some loyal readers who have stuck around since. Once my Patreon was up and running, I promised that I would review another series the day I reached my goal of making $100.

Today is not that day. I don’t know when it will come, but I know there are better places that extra bit of money could go to right now than in my pocket. So after much deliberation, I’ve decided to return to series reviews – but with a catch.

Much like the first time, what I review will be up to your vote. Some are shows I recommended the first time around being trotted back out for your consideration, and some are newcomers given a chance to prove themselves. Which one will come out on top is anybody’s guess.

“It’s probably going to be Avatar. That’s the one everyone knows and loves the most.”

As for the twist, I’m reinstating Charity Bonus Votes: For every donation of $5 or more to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, you get an extra vote. Every little bit means the world right now, so even if you can’t give anything at the moment, please spread the word.

And the nominees are –

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

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?

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.

Rankin-Bass Month: Frosty the Snowman (Review)

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

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.

“YOU HATE FROSTY TOO, YOU MONSTER?!”

“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.

Rankin-Bass Month: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Review)

Tags

1960's, abominable snowman, animagic, anti-bullying, Billie Mae Richards, bullying, bumble, burl ives, charlie in the box, Christmas, christmas elves, Christmas Eve, christmas special, christmas town, Clarice, coach, comet, dentist, dentistry, Donner, elf, elves, fame and fortune, flying lion, gay, groupthink, Hays Code, Hermey, hermey the misfit elf, holiday special, holly jolly christmas, island of misfit toys, isle of misfit toys, king moonracer, kris kringle, misfit, misfits, mrs. claus, music, musical, nightmare before christmas, north pole, nostalgia, outdated, racist, Rankin Bass, real time fandub, reindeer, reindeer games, Romeo Muller, rudolph, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, rudolph's dad, rudolph's dad is the worst, sam the snowman, santa claus, sexist, silver and gold, snowman, song, songs, spotted elephant, stop motion animation, stop-motion, talking snowman, the bumble, the worst, there's always tomorrow, toys, tv review, tv special, unpopular opinion, we are santa's elves, we're a couple of misfits, winged lion, Yukon Cornelius

Hi! If this is your first time here, I highly recommend checking out my other movie/tv/holiday special reviews before this one, just to get a more positive idea of what to expect from my writing. Usually, I’m not this…well, you clicked on this review, didn’t you?

I suppose I should begin this month with a little bit of Rankin-Bass’ history. It was founded in 1960 by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass under the name Videocraft International. They began by producing animated television series for children, alternating between stop-motion and traditional cel animation before combining both with a process they called “Animagic” (which sounds more like a fireworks show at Disney World than an actual animation technique if you ask me). All the animation for these shows and the holiday specials and films that they would later branch out into were outsourced to Japan. Throughout the studio’s existence, work rotated between five different Japanese animation houses: MOM Production, Toei Animation, TCJ (Television Corporation of Japan), Mushi Production, and Topcraft. Chances are if you’re into anime, then these names ring a few bells. These studios have produced hit after hit on the big and small screen, with some of them continuing to do so today, and many of Topcraft’s animators went on to bigger and better things at Studio Ghibli.

Most of Rankin-Bass’ Christmas specials, particularly the ones I’ll be looking at, follow a simple formula – take a well-known holiday song and build a story around it. It’s not a bad concept if a bit overutilized. Their first outing, and most beloved in the eyes of many, is Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, based on the tune of the same name written by Johnny Marks (who would also write the other songs in the special) and popularized by Gene Autry in 1949. The song itself was taken from a children’s book created a decade prior to promote the Montgomery Ward department store, and the special was sponsored by General Electric, who, by a stunning coincidence, were selling Christmas lights that holiday season which happened to resemble Rudolph’s nose.

In short, this special originated as a commercial, and always was one through and through.

In spite of its original intent, Rudolph has become a holiday staple and icon as big as Santa Claus himself. And if you are one of the millions of people on this planet who loves this special, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing so, and you are not wrong for enjoying it. After all, this is just one person expressing their opinion. If this person’s opinion differs from yours, that doesn’t invalidate how you feel nor should you feel as if you absolutely must agree with them –

“Hey…you’re making it sound like you’re about to say something bad about Rudolph!”

“Well, I-“

“Nobody dislikes Rudolph! Everyone in the entire world loves it! It’s a classic! The perfect Christmas special! You like Rudolph too, right? RIGHT?!”

“Well…”