Animation Celebration Double Feature: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town

We're going to kick off the Christmas season with a look at two of the most beloved holiday specials ever made made. Starting out as Videocraft in the 1960's, Rankin-Bass eventually churned out 18 Christmas specials between 1964 and 2001 (as well as three Easter specials, a Thanksgiving special, a New Year's special, and one that was centered more around winter in general). Rudolph was their first holiday stop-motion show in 1964, and one of the earliest frequently-repeated animated Christmas specials. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town came out in 1970, just as the Rankin-Bass studio was really starting to pick up in popularity. Let's head to the North Pole to learn about the stories of these two favorite gift-givers and see if these specials really do "go down in history"...

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rankin-Bass (Videocraft), 1964
Voices of Billie Mae Richards, Burl Ives, Paul Soles, and Larry D. Mann
Directed by Larry Roemer and Kigo Nagashima
Music and Lyrics by Johnny Marks

The Story: Sam the Snowman (Ives) narrates this holiday tale. Rudolph (Richards) is the son of one of Santa's (Stan Francis) reindeer, Donner (Paul Kligman), and his mate (Peg Dixon). He's adorable and smart, but right from the start, he has one big problem - his nose glows bright red. Embarrassed, his father first hopes he grows out of it, then covers it. That doesn't stop all of the other reindeer at the North Pole from making fun of him when it's found out. The only reindeer who doesn't is a kindly doe named Clarice (Janis Orenstein). She thinks he's cute, but her father doesn't want her hanging around with him. Understandably upset, Rudolph runs away.

He's not the only one having problems with the rampant conformity at the Pole. Hermie (Soles) is an elf who would rather be a dentist, but apparently career changes are frowned on for elves. He encounters Rudolph after taking off as well, and they decide to travel together. They're eventually joined by boisterous prospector Yukon Cornelius (Mann) After dodging the Bumble Snow Monster, they find themselves on the Island of Misfit Toys, where toys with defects or who are unwanted by children are sent. The head of the island, King Moonracer (Francis), asks for them to encourage Santa to take their toys on the sleigh. Rudolph is more worried about his nose giving them away and takes off. Everyone else goes after him, including the Bumble Monster. They do manage to rescue him and his parents...right before a major storm hits...

The Animation: This was revolutionary for 1964, and still looks pretty good, even for today. The pastel colors and adorable designs give it the look of a frosty fairy tale, or a mid-20th-century Christmas card...and makes Rudy's red nose stand out even more. Rudolph and Clarice are so huggable, you wonder how anyone could possibly not want play reindeer games with them, red nose or not. Love the more menacing or majestic designs like the Bumble and King Moonracer, too.

The Song and Dance: For the most part, this one remains charming and really cute. What I like about this one are the unique characters. There's no one like Yukon Cornelius anywhere else in animation, or Hermie, for that matter. King Moonracer, for all his limited screen time, is just plain cool. Rudolph is a darling, and god bless Clarice for loving him for what he is! The Bumble somehow manages to be menacing and oddly funny at the same time, with his wide ice-blue mouth and furry yeti-like body. And just you don't often see an elf who wants to be a dentist.

Favorite Number: As someone who has felt out-of-place her entire life, "We're a Couple of Misfits" hits closer to home for me than it probably should. Clarice's "There's Always Tomorrow" is a really sweet ballad, and gets a nice number too, with the animals in the forest all trying to help cheer Rudy up after the incident at the reindeer games. The standards here, along with the title song, are Sam's "Silver and Gold" as he describes why those colors are so important to Christmas (and Cornelius), the misfit toys' "The Most Wonderful Day of the Year," and the big number for Ives and the chorus in the finale, "Holly Jolly Christmas."

Trivia: There's almost been more replacements, changes, and additions to Rudolph than to the Star Wars Original Trilogy. The "Misfits" duet was replaced from the mid-70's to the late-90's by a similar song called "Fame and Fortune." There was also a scene with Yukon Cornelius finding a peppermint mine in the finale. "Misfits" was restored to the special in 1993; "Fame and Fortune" is now it's own number. (The peppermint mine sequence remains missing on most edits.)

What I Don't Like: Some of the attitudes here, especially towards women and people with disabilities, can seem more than a little harsh to modern ears in the first half. Donner in particular comes off as nasty to his own young son, and even Santa has his jerk-ish moments. "Silver and Gold" is a lovely song, but it really has nothing to do with the story and seems to be there as filler and to give Ives a slower number.

The Big Finale: While some aspects of the story haven't dated well, for the most part, this remains quite charming, with memorable characters and colorful animation.

Home Media: Though CBS continues to run Rudolph annually, they cut out parts of the numbers to fit in commercials. You're probably better off picking it up on discs or online. It can also be found as part of a collection with 6 other Rankin-Bass specials owned by Dreamworks/Universal, including Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (see below).

DVD
Blu-Ray
DVD - The Original Christmas Classics set

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
Rankin-Bass, 1970
Voices of Mickey Rooney, Paul Frees, Fred Astaire, and Keenan Wynn
Directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass
Music by Maury Laws; Lyrics by Jules Bass

The Story: A group of elves lead by Tante Kringle (Joan Gardner) who live just beyond the Mountains of the Whispering Winds adopt an orphan they name Kris Kringle. When Kris (Rooney) grows to adulthood, he insists on taking the toys they create into Sombertown, over the mountains. There's two problems with that. First of all, the mountain is guarded by the cranky ice sorcerer the Winter Warlock (Wynn), who doesn't like people invading his turf. Second, the even crankier Burgomeister Meister Burger (Frees) has just outlawed toys in Sombertown. With the help of the kids in the town, a wayward penguin named Topper (Frees), and the lovely schoolteacher Jessica (Robie Lester), Kris manages to create a legend that will outlive the Burgomeister's strict laws and reform the Winter Warlock.

The Animation: A bit more colorful, as appropriate for a story about Santa Claus. The pastels have been replaced by bright reds and cool whites for the Mountains of the Whispering Woods and the gray dimness of Sombertown. I loved the sequence towards the end with Winter casting his magic over the Christmas trees - the backgrounds here are especially lovely.

The Song and Dance: Rooney's good humor and a defrosting Wynn liven up this unusual story. Once again, I give them credit for trying something different. I never would have thought of the origins of Santa Claus done as a Robin Hood-style folk tale, with Kris defying the Burgomeister's increasingly harsh rules to make children happy. I also like Lester as Jessica, who scolds Kris for giving out toys at first, before becoming the first person he defrosts with a toy.

Favorite Number: My favorite song from this one is Kris and the Winter Warlock's cheerful "Put One Foot In Front of the Other," as Kris encourages Winter to change his grumpy outlook on life. The elves explain why they make toys and what they'd once been in "The First Toymakers to the King." Astaire, as post officer narrator S.D Kluger, gets to sing the lovely "What Better Way to Tell You."

What I Don't Like: While ending with the Burgomeisters falling out of power is a fairly realistic touch, it also feels a bit dull and anti-climatic. I would have like to have seen more done with Jessica rescuing the others. In fact, we never do see how she actually gets them out of the dungeon! Yes, the reindeer can fly, but as Winter points out, they can't dissolve prison walls.

There's some really dark moments for this one, including sequences of the Burgomeister actually burning the kids' toys and Kris and the elves finding their destroyed home in the mountains. Jessica's big solo ballad "My World Is Beginning Today" is quite good, but it's accompanied by a rather odd series of psychedelic images that smack more of 1970 than vaguely late 1800's.

The Big Finale: Though not quite as beloved as Rudolph, it has enough of it's own charms to make it equally worth a look during the holidays.

Home Media: Same deal, only this one can currently be found on Amazon Prime along with on disc and streaming.

DVD
Blu-Ray
Amazon Prime