Ed Ranks Rankin/Bass Christmas TV Specials

You know it's Christmas when you see this logo.

It's Christmas time and I'm Rankin' Rankin. Rankin/Bass, that is. The famed production company known for it's holiday season television specials (especially --but not limited to-- the ones done with stop motion).  You've probably seen a couple of these on TV over the last month or so.

Well...here they are, ranked.

18. Santa, Baby! (2001) - Rankin/Bass had been essentially out of business since the 1980s and produced nothing. Then, in 2001 they finally returned in 2001 to make this Gregory Hines / Patti LaBelle story about a frustrated musician and the importance of being kind to your family and animals. Well, they should have stayed out of business and this proved it, as it was the last Rankin/Bass film ever.

17. The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold (1981) - Christmas already has little short people who wear green. They're called elves. There is no reason to bring Leprechauns into this whole Christmas thing.

16. Pinocchio's Christmas (1980) - Remember how everybody was like, "I wish Pinocchio had a sequel, but set at Christmas time"? No? You don't remember that. Well then your memory is good, because nobody was asking for it. Also this brings up some philosophical questions for me. So Pinocchio was a toy, right? Then he became a real boy. So, given that toys have the potential to gain sentience, don't you think it's odd that Pinocchio would be all into a holiday about giving toys?

15. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974) - Santa Claus, who is an asshole (this is pretty well established, I mean just watch #1 below), hears that a newspaper in one town says he doesn't exist, so as a punishment to that whole town, he returns all the letters to the children, unread. So presumably, they will get no gifts because of this one newspaper article which he didn't like. What a dick! But then mice decide to build a clock tower that will somehow trick Santa to coming to the down. This is just all around stupid.

14. The Little Drummer Boy, Book II (1976) - In this sequel (see #8), the little Drummer Boy now has to team up with one of the three magi to prevent, like, greedy Roman soldiers from stealing silver bells. Which is an odd way to mix up actual religious messages with 20th Century commercial Christmas commercialism.  Did I mention that this special is brought to you by the American Gas Association? Because the true spirit of the season is marketing.

Where does July look like this? New Zealand?

13. Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979) - The idea of Rudolph and Frosty together sounds good.  This could have been Rankin/Bass's version of The Avengers where their two superstars teamed up.  Alas, in terms of quality and memorability, it was probably closer to Batman vs. Superman.  There is stuff in here about evil ice wizards, the Queen of the Northern lights, magical amulets that prevent frosty from melting in the summer, etc.  Eh.

12. Frosty's Winter Wonderland (1976) - Frosty, just as he promised to the Children years ago, returns for another Christmas. But the children figure out that Frosty is depressed and that the best way to cheer him up is to make a snow woman for him to HAVE THE SEX WITH!  They make a snow woman, but of course she's not alive like Frosty, because Frosty is only alive because of his magical hat.  But then somehow Frosty brings the the snow woman (now named Crystal) with the power of love. Uh, okay.  Oh, and Jack Frost is also there and wants to steal Frosty's hat (essentially murdering him, right?) for some reason even though he doesn't need the hat because he's already sentient without it. 

11. Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) - Santa learns that Father Time needs to find a Baby New Year named Happy that has gone missing, or else all of time-space will break down and there will never be a New Year and it will stay Dec 31st forever. This sounds cool to me because if it stayed the same day forever we would presumably never die, right?  But I guess that sick fuck Santa likes to watch people grow old and die, so he sends Rudolph out to find Happy.  Rudolph finds out that Happy ran away because everyone made fun of his big ears, and the Reindeer can totally relate because everyone made fun of his nose.  Past years are depicted in corporeal forms via islands of the past that can be visited, so Rudolph goes off on a time travel adventure like some sort of Ruminant Doctor Who. I guess that's...cool?

An anime, like Dickens always imagined.

10. The Stingiest Man in Town (1978) - This is an animated remake of a live action musical special from 20+ years before that is itself a remake/retelling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Why couldn't they just name it A Christmas Carol?  I'm not sure, maybe because they felt they were drifting too far from the original version by adding stuff in like having the story be narrated by an animated cricket voiced by Tom "Howard Cunningham" Bosley.  Who has a great voice for animation, by the way.  This one is animated, not stop motion, and like others by Rankin/Bass, it was animated in Japan. Yet for some reason though, this one above the others looks very Anime-style.

9. Nestor, the Long–Eared Christmas Donkey (1977) - Clearly a desperate and somewhat sad attempt to create a new "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Nestor the Long-Earned Christmas Donkey would obviously never be as memorable or good.  As with the Little Drummer Boy, this version oddly mixes up the Santa-version of Christmas with the Jesus-version by having Nestor be Santa's donkey, and yet is also set in Roman times with Nestor stumbling into Joseph and Mary. He helps guide them safely to a manger so that Mary can give birth. I technically believes this makes Nestor a saint and that we should all be worshiping asses. If that's true, than the most pious man of all is Sir Mix-a-Lot.

8. The Little Drummer Boy (1968) - Based on the song, obviously, this follows the story of a young Jewish Drummer Boy who's entire family is BRUTALLY MURDERED and his HOUSE IS BURNED DOWN (Merry Christmas kids!). Because of that, he's now an orphan that hates all people and is only friends with some animals.  He and his animal buddies meet up with the Three Magi but one of his animal buddies, a lamb, is hit by a chariot and is dying. The only way to heal the lamb is to bring him to the lil' baby Jesus.  And while the Three Magi all have gifts for Jesus, the Drummer Boy only has the gift of music.  So yeah, they added a lot to this TV special that wasn't in the song. Can you imagine Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing about burning down a kid's house and murdering his parents?

7. The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1975) - A little blind boy named Lucas is taken in by a bunch of nuns, including one voiced by Angela Lansbury. The boy is selected to play an angel in a Christmas play, and in a Christmas miracle is able to see again. So I guess God just hates all the other blind kids out there who haven't been cured of their blindness. Tough break, other kids.

6. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985) -  Based on a children's book by L. Frank Baum, (The Wizard of Oz novel series), is a Santa origin story. Which makes sense. This dude has been giving away presents forever and kids probably want to know why he's not dead yet. Remember how their was that Young Hercules TV show with Ryan Gosling as a prequel to the Kevin Sorbo series? This is that, but with Young Santa. Anyway, he's a great dude who always makes toys for the children, stands up for what's right, battles evil creatures named Awgwas, etc.  After a whole life of doing that, Santa then becomes an old man and he's about to die. Until he's granted immortality for being so awesome. Good work, Santa. At least when you were a mortal. After you lose the fear of death...well...we know how you turn out.

Remember kids: win by cheating!

5. Jack Frost (1979) - So yeah, this is the cute, stop-motion animated one about a winter sprite who falls in love with a human girl. This has nothing to do with the cheesy Michael Keaton film where he's turned into a snowman by a magical harmonica, nor the 1990s horror movie about a serial killer who is turned into a snow monster by magical chemicals. In this one, Father Winter tells Jack that he can be with the human girl he loves, only if he can prove he's worthy of being a human by Spring time.  Jack sort of cheats at this, extending winter by six weeks via making a deal with a groundhog (who narrates the film). What does the groundhog get in return for this? Pretty much THE BEST THING EVER. The groundhog is just lazy and wants to sleep for six more weeks. If I were a groundhog I would pretend to see my shadow every single year so I could sleep for another month and a half.  Does Jack Frost use the extra time to prove himself a worthy human? Of course! By defeating some "evil Cossack" king. Which I feel is pretty racists against Eastern Slavic people, but whatever. This is a good one.

4. Frosty the Snowman (1969) - This is the highest ranking of the traditionally-animated Rankin/Bass Christmas specials, rather than the stop motion-animated ones.  Do I really need to explain this one? A group of schoolkids build a snowman, and then give him a magical hat (literally, a hat that a magician threw away) that makes the snowman sentient. But after that, they realize the horror they have wrought, as Frosty will die a horrible, painful death by melting.  The kids try to take Frosty north enough so that he can not melt, but dumbass Frosty decides going into a greenhouse is a good idea, and the kids find dead Frosty as a pool of water. Fortunately, Santa comes along and (being less of a dick than he usually is) brings Frosty back to life. He and Frosty then go to the North pole, and Frosty promises to come back every winter to visit. He doesn't though. He waits until 1976.

3. The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) - Remember how Santa shunned an entire town because one person in it wrote an article that they didn't believe in him? (#15).  Well, this time Santa feels marginally sick for a little bit (not even at Christmas time) and says, "Fuck it. Those ungrateful cunts don't appreciate me anyway. I'm taking Christmas off this year. Everyone can suck my balls!" (disclaimer: this exact phrasing might not appear in the special).   Mrs. Claus and everyone else try to tell him he's being a giant fucktard, but he won't listen. So Mrs. Claus sends out two elves (Jingle and Jangle) on a mission with the reindeer, Vixen, to find enough proof that people still love Santa, so that they can bring that proof back to appease tyrant asshole Santas' fragile, wounded ego.  But Jingle, Jangle, and Vixen have difficulty as they're caught in a bunch of crazy situations, including a battle between the Heat Miser and Cold Miser - two yin and yang forces who control the weather.  In the end, the children of the world are forced to send Santa praise and presents. When Santa decides that the foolish mortal children have engaged in enough idolatry of him, his God Complex is fulfilled and he relents on his vacation and decides to work on the one fucking day of the year he's supposed to.

2. Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) - Mailman Fred Astaire's mail truck breaks down and he figures that while he's waiting for AAA to arrive, he might as well break the 4th wall and talk to the TV viewers, explaining the story of Santa Claus to them. Of course, this story is completely different than the Santa origin above at #6.  Here, Santa is an orphan who is sent by an evil Burgermeister to an orphanage, but who is blown away by a magical wind and adopted by an Elf family named "Kringle" and named "Kris."  Later, when Kris is old enough he wants to give toys to all the children, but the evil Burgermeister bans all toys because he's an asshole. There is another evil asshole called the Winter Warlock, but he turns away from evil after Kris gives him a toy train because I guess he was only evil because nobody had ever bothered to be kind to him before. But the Burgermeister is still a giant dick, and sets up a trap for Kris. Fortunately, the Winter Warlock is now Kris's friend and can do magical stuff like make reindeer fly to help them escape the Burgermeister.  But Kris is still a wanted criminal for his illegal toy-selling, and has to grow a beard and adopt a new name (Santa Claus) as part of his disguise to avoid the Burgermeister. Also, Santa now travels at night to avoid detection.  The Burgermeister is eventually defeated by the slow passage of time - e.g. DEATH. After he's dead, and his Burgermeister descendants also die, people are like "Why the hell are toys illegal exactly?" and they change the laws.  So even though Santa's not an outlaw anymore, he's so used to his fake name, beard, and delivering presents at night, that he just sticks to doing that. Oh, and he also decides to limit his toy-giving to just one day a year, presumably because he's grown lazy.

Dentistry! A satisfying line of work. Or is it?

1. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) 

I mean obviously this one is the best. Why wouldn't it be? Yes, there are some problems with this story. Why the hell are all the other reindeer such huge assholes to Rudolph? Even Rudolph's dad, Donner, is essentially the dad who has a gay son and tries to make the gay go away by forcing him to play football when all he wants to do is watch Project Runway. Santa is also, as usual, a giant dick to Rudolph too, and shuns him until he decides he has a use for him (to guide his sleigh through stormy weather).  Despite these problems - this is great story with great characters. Burl Ives (aka Sam the Snowman), Hermey the Elf who wants to be a dentist, the Island of Misfit Toys, Yukon Cornelius, the Abominable Snowman, etc.  These characters are all iconic and memorable.  I don't need to make the description long for this one, because if you don't understand what this one is, then you probably deserve to be cruelly bullied just like Rudolph and Hermey were.