“There’s an added dimension to Rankin/Bass specials that you can’t describe,” said Rick Goldschmidt, official Historian/Biographer for Rankin/Bass, and author of the book, The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass. “They call it [the Studio’s stop-motion animation] “Animagic,” and that’s a good term because there’s magic in the specials.”
Many remember Rankin/Bass’ more popular titles, and this has been a big year for many of them, such as Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer which celebrated its 60th, and Frosty the Snowman, which celebrated 55 years.
Additionally, the Studio has given us other favorites such as Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970) and 1974’s The Year Without a Santa Claus, which celebrates its 50th this year.
As this Holiday Season has been filled with many milestones for Rankin/Bass’ popular offerings, it seemed like an opportune time to look back at some of their lesser-known Christmas specials.
For the last two years – both here on Cartoon Research and originally here – there has been a spotlight on several Christmas specials that time has, sadly, left by the wayside, and they deserve to be re-discovered.
This year’s retrospective focuses on the Studio whose name is now synonymous with Christmas specials, Rankin/Bass:
The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1975)
This is a decidedly different special for Rankin/Bass, known for its more fanciful specials like Rudolph and Frosty.
The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow tells the story of a young, orphaned shepherd boy named Lukas who is brought to live with Sister Theresa in an abbey after he is struck by lightning and blinded.
The sisters nurse Lukas back to health, but he learns he must go to an orphanage when he recovers. The young boy would love for it to snow, as Christmas is approaching, and he has never seen it snow.
Lukas takes part in the abbey’s Nativity play as an angel, where he befriends a young girl named Louisa. At the end of the special, after the climax in which Lukas rescues his pet sheep from a wolf in the woods, it starts to snow. Louisa describes it to Lukas, and his sight is restored through a miracle.
It is told in the Studio’s stop-motion “Animagic” style, which adds to this special’s warmth and features the equally warm and iconic voice of Angela Lansbury as Sister Theresa and the narrator.
Directed by Authur Rankin and Jules Bass, The First Christmas features a well-crafted story by Julian P. Gardner, several memorable songs by Maury Laws and Jules Bass, and the inclusion of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”
Originally airing on NBC on December 19, 1975, this special was rarely re-broadcast, which is a shame, as its spiritually grounded story has heartwarming charm to spare.
Pinocchio’s Christmas (1980)
Rankin/Bass’ take on this familiar character, created by author Carlo Collodi, has the title character embarking on a series of adventures, like Disney’s classic take on the fable. Still, this time, there is a Christmas spin to it all.
The Studio had delved into this world before with their 1960 Animagic series, The New Adventures of Pinocchio, which had a different style and set of stories.
In the special, Geppetto sells his boots to buy Pinocchio a book for his first Christmas, who, in turn, sells the book to purchase a gift for Geppetto after the Fox and the Cat trick him. The little wooden boy must then join a Christmas marionette show to make money to buy Geppetto a gift.
Along the way on this journey to Christmas, Pinocchio finds himself in the “Forest of Enchantment,” meets up with a fairy and a cricket (no, not the ones we are familiar with), is sold to a Duke, and eventually gets back home to Geppetto thanks to a ride in Santa’s sleigh.
The special features the voices of George S. Irving (who was also the Heat Miser in The Year Without a Santa Claus), comedian Alan King as the puppeteer Maestro Fire-eater, and veteran voice actors Bob McFadden as the Cricket and Allen Swift as the Fox, among others.
Pinocchio’s Christmas was written by Romeo Muller, the talent behind crafting the scripts for Rudolph, Frosty, and many of the Studio’s classics. As he did with those specials, he crafts a compelling adventure peppered with memorable characters that Pinocchio encounters.
Much like the Studio’s other hour-long specials, Pinocchio’s Christmas takes on the feel of a “mini-movie,” and with great design by Paul Coker, Jr., and nice detail in the sets, this is a seldom-seen Rankin/Bass Christmas adventure worth checking out.
Here’s a clip:
The Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold (1981)
Rankin/Bass brings Irish folklore to life in this Animagic special, where writer Romeo Muller blends the fantasy of the Emerald Isle with a Christmas story.
Art Carney provides the voice of Blarney Kilakarney, a leprechaun and the narrator for the special, which tells the tale of a cabin boy who is ordered to row to an island and retrieve a tree to use on the ship for Christmas Eve. Once on the isle, Doyle finds himself befriending leprechauns and protecting them and their gold from Old Mag, the banshee, whose tree she was imprisoned in, was cut down by Doyle.
The special then incorporates everything from Saint Patrick to the popular 1940s Dennis Day song, “Christmas in Killarney,” as it tells its entertaining tale. In an article earlier this year for Remind magazine, Goldschmidt wrote: “I believe when Romeo Muller started writing this one, it was intended to be for the St. Patrick’s Day holiday but met resistance somewhere along the line, and was changed for the ABC Christmas lineup.”
This helps make The Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold the perfect viewing for this time of year or to hold on to until March 17th.
And so as we head closer to Christmas, here are three additional offerings to add to the magic, or “Animagic,” that Rankin/Bass adds to the season.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
“Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.” — Isaiah 35: 5-6
Each of the four Gospels contains an account of Christ healing the blind, the longest and most detailed being in the ninth chapter of John. Nevertheless, many people who are blind understandably take umbrage at the suggestion that their vision could be miraculously restored if only they had sufficient faith. Of course nobody would have objected to “The First Christmas Snow” on those grounds when it was first broadcast in 1975, just as no one saw anything wrong with Mr. Magoo in his heyday. But it might generate some criticism from today’s strong advocacy network for people with disabilities.
“The First Christmas Snow” has much in common with the first televised Christmas special to become an annual tradition, Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera “Amahl and the Night Visitors”, commissioned by NBC back in 1951. It was the first opera written for television as well as the first ever Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation. Amahl is a disabled boy, formerly a shepherd, who can only walk with the aid of a crutch. One night the three wise men stop at his house on their way to present gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child. Poor Amahl has nothing to give, so he offers his only possession, his crutch, as a gift — and when he does, his leg is miraculously healed.
Rankin/Bass’s first Christmas special set the bar so high that some of its successors were bound to fall short. Yet even the less-remembered specials were made to a very high standard, just as Beethoven’s least-often played symphony, his Fourth, is still a magnificent piece of music. Thanks for shining a light on these yuletide obscurities. Have a Holly Jolly, by golly!
The First Christmas has to be unique in the Rankin/Bass catalog, with its focus on nuns and priests, and even though it technically isn’t about the First Christmas, it technically is, because the pageant-within-the-story depicts the Nativity. As with the Little Drummer Boy Books One and Two, this one walks the fine line between the spiritual and the secular sides of Christmas, and for my money it succeeds both in terms of entertainment value and in the conveying of a timeless message. Angela Lansbury and Cyril Ritchard lend their warm and distinctive voices very effectively, and to hear Angela’s rendition of “White Christmas” is a rare and exquisite treat. I truly wish that her recording had been released as a single. This is a feel-good movie all around, and it deserves wider recognition.
Pinocchio’s Christmas and the Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold debuted when I was in college and probably knee deep in studying for finals, so they are less familiar to me. One thing I admire about Pinocchio’s Christmas is that once again, a fine line has to be walked, due to the iconic Disney film version. The design of Pinocchio works both ways–he looks sufficiently like the Disney character to be recognizable as the wooden puppet boy, but he is different enough to make it clear that this is not a Disney production. Plus, I note how skillfully elements of the original book (including some things that never made it into the Disney film) are woven into the narrative and re-tweaked for a Christmas setting. The songs are refreshing and enjoyable. Altogether it works–as a retelling of the story of Pinocchio, as a Christmas movie, and as a distant tribute to the Disney film.
The inclusion of “The Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold” in this post brings to mind one curious fact, that there are virtually no family-oriented specials that celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. There is a nice tribute to St. Patrick’s Day in Rankin/Bass’ “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” when Peter finally discovers a venue for his green colored eggs, but other than that, I don’t recall any other instances. There is certainly no “It’s the Great Shamrock, Charlie Brown” or “St. Patrick is Coming to Town” or “The Year without St. Patrick”. Perhaps the holiday is too narrowly centered on one ethnicity? Anyhow, a special that includes Art Carney in its voice cast is definitely a treat.
Thanks, Michael, for these reminders of specials that certainly need to be re-watched at holiday time!