Voices of Danny Thomas, Marlo Thomas, Ed Ames, and Roddy McDowell
Directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass
Music by Maury Laws; Lyrics by Jules Bass
We kick off this year's holiday reviews with the first Rankin-Bass 2-D animated special. This debuted as an episode of The Danny Thomas Show in 1967. It promptly disappeared for 30 years until it turned up on video in 1998 and then on The Family Channel as part of their "25 Days of Christmas" marathon. Is it really a "lost Dickens treasure" like the blub on the video claimed, or should it be dumped at sea? Let's start with Danny Thomas introducing the cartoon on his show and find out...
The Story: Cricket Crockett (McDowell) first encounters Caleb Plummer (Danny Thomas) while looking for a hearth to adopt. Plummer and his daughter Bertha (Marlo Thomas) are toy makers with a lovely shop of their own. Crockett moves in just as Bertha's sailor fiancée Edward (Ames) is being shipped out. She's willing to wait for him...until a government official announces he's lost at sea. She goes blind from the shock. Her father spends so much money trying to restore her sight, he loses the shop and is forced to look for work.
Crockett finds a toy factory in need of workers...but it's run by nasty Mr. Tackleton (Hans Conried) and his crow Uriah (Paul Frees). Tackleton is a miser who who'll let the Plummers live at the factory, but refuses to pay them. Caleb's told Bertha that they're living in a beautiful home and Tackleton is a wonderful man. This backfires when Tackleton asks Bertha to marry him. Crockett tries to keep her from agreeing, but Tackleton orders Uriah to get him out of the way. And who's that gentle old man who suddenly appears in front of the shop?
The Animation: Not as whimsical as the later 2-D Rankin-Bass specials designed by Paul Coker, this one looks more like early anime. The eyes are wide and expressive, even though the characters don't really move much. What I like about this one are the brilliant colors - the psychedelic backgrounds frequently pop against the golds, browns, and corals on the characters and the green of Cricket Crockett.
The Song and Dance: Well, it's one of the more interesting Rankin-Bass specials.. Abbe Lane steals the show with her ribald saloon number, and Conried makes a great Scrooge-esque mean old miser, too. There's an occasional unusual idea or cute gag, like the animals who help Crockett head off Tackleton before Bertha gives him her answer or how Crockett gets back to land.
Favorite Number: The title song opens that opens and closes the special explains the legend of the Cricket on the Hearth and how they're said to bring good luck. Ames performs the lovely ballad "Don't Give Your Love Away" as he imagines Bertha waiting patiently for him. Lane's big number is "Fish and Chips," performed by a cat singing about her boyfriend claiming he has more money than he does in the dive bar where Uriah and the Captain meet. Caleb tells Bertha why they'll be all right if they don't have an extravagant holiday, reminding her that "The First Christmas" wasn't fancy, either.
What I Don't Like: I agree with one review that says this feels more like the bizarre specials Rankin-Bass made a decade later than the ones they put out during the 60's. The melodrama is completely ridiculous and features pretty much every dramatic cliché possible, from his dying at sea to her suddenly becoming blind to the Tackleton's conversion. Danny and Marlo Thomas may be the reason this exists, but they're not exactly believable as a British toymaker in the 1840's and his daughter, and though Ames sings beautifully, he's even more wooden. Most of the songs, especially Lane's saloon routine, have nothing whatsoever to do with the story and are there more as filler or to show off the animation.
My biggest complaint is, despite being the narrator and title character, Crockett often feels like an afterthought in his own vehicle. He claims to be important to the family, but the special puts more focus on the Plummers' problems than the cricket they taken in. He doesn't even have a song of his own. This is also pretty dark for Rankin-Bass, especially the violent fate of Uriah Caw. It's really not for very young children.
The Big Finale: Too melodramatic for all but the most ardent Rankin-Bass fans, Dickens enthusiasts, or lovers of 60's and 70's holiday specials.
Home Media: Just re-released last year on DVD and Blu-Ray; can also be found on several collections of older Rankin-Bass holiday specials.
In the Dickens' story the cricket just sits on the hearth and chirps, so, yes, anything Crockett does in the special is made up.
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