Christmas is my favorite holiday, Santa, giving gifts, decorations, and the all-encompassing, all-pervasive, fully comprehensive music. But like most things there are some weird things that happen around the edges of any season. Sometimes the weird gets mainstream. Halloween used to be just a kids thing and while I was growing up any adult that dressed up was considered a bit strange. But today it has really become a holiday for everyone.
But back to the occasional weirdness of Christmas. People want to fit their own stories into the holiday season, sometime adding things that have never been part of the
traditional stories. The Little Drummer boy comes to mind, the hero of that story, Aaron (no relation) is thrust into the story of the birth of Christ when his pet camel is stolen and used by the Magi to get to the Manager where Jesus is born. The 1968 Rankin/Base TV special was based on the 1941 song of the same name by Katherine Kennicott Davis, a composer and music teacher. The TV special and the song have been accepted by the public as a good addition to the Christmas season.
Other things have not.
I am not going to discuss the eccentricity of attempt to maintain relevance in the holiday season, like Christmas Comes To PacLand (1982), the Star Wars Holiday Special(1978), The Pink Panther in: A Pink Christmas’ (1978), or Christmas at Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (TV Special 1988), while some are a bit strange, they were established characters/situations that existed as storytelling devices and where just trying to maintain an audience, and possibly a cash grab in the Yuletide season.
No, I am looking at the one-off stories, the attempts to wedge something different, something new into the holiday season. Starting off with another song that is mainstream, but while attempting to transition it into the Christmas TV special it sort of was left out in the snow with incriminating Claus marks on its back.
Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is a 2000 animated Christmas from the 1979 novelty song. The orginal song is three minutes and twenty-five seconds long. The TV special is 51 minutes long, which in my opinion is about twenty-one minutes longer than it needs to be, but they needed to fit a bunch more Elmo Shropshire songs in. (Elmo wrote the orginal song and was the voice of the Narrator and Grandpa Spankenheimer in the TV special).
Spoiler Alert: Grandma does not get taken out by Santa Claus and his irresponsible reindeer powered contraption, instead Grandma Spankenheimer develops amnesia and spends nine months at the North Pole, and Cousin Mel, animated as sexy, greedy red head tries to 
sell Grandma and Grandpa’s General Store to the Cityville Ownall Corporation (probably controlled by big Eastern Syndicate, bonus points if you can tell me what Christmas Special that is from). Grandma comes back but with amnesia, then Santa Claus is charged with “sleighicular negligence” allowing the song “Grandpa’s Gonna Sue The Pants Offa’ Santa” to be played. What saves the day, well Grandma’s fruitcake of course.
The biggest reveal of the TV special, the reason Grandma stumbled out into the snow, she forgot her medication, which we learned is to help with her egg allergy, so she could have just skipped the eggnog and stayed in the nice warm house.
I hope Elmo Shropshire was happy with the TV special, but in my opinion, he should have kept the W with the song, which my dear departed Grandma Mabel, laughed about whenever she heard it.
Now back to another Rankin/Bass Christmas Special. I don’t know anyone that does not have some fondness for some of the other Rankin/Bass animated specials, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or even the slightly strange The Year Without A Santa Claus (that’s the one with the Heat Miser and Cold Miser characters with their songs)(also there is a live action version of the special which I will watch soon). But there are other Rankin/Bass TV specials that just missed the mark in adding to the holiday season.
The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold from 1981, with narration and songs by Art Carney. Art Carney joined the ranks of Fred Astaire, Burl Ives, and Shirley Booth who added their voices to other delightful animated specials. Too bad Mr. Carney’s efforts did not make it into the beloved pantheon of great narrators like the others did. I blame the storyline. 
Trying to cram Irish folklore into a Christmas tale might work, but not in this twenty-five-minute special. While the Rankin/Bass animation is a good as always, and the songs are pleasant, the storyline is confusing and while I am not an expert on Irish folklore, but the leprechauns are typically seen as solitary creatures and not seen family men but, in this story, there is a whole community of them. Not to mention Mag the Hag a Banshee, that is tricked by Saint Patrick to be trapped under a pine tree. It seems the writer, Romeo Muller missed the mark on this one, even though he had a great track record with Rudolf, Frosty the Snowman, and the Little Drummer boy.
Aside from the Irish mythology Christmas mash up you are never quite sure who the main character is, is it Dinty the Cabin boy or Blarney Kilakilarney the leprechaun protecting the gold from Mag the Hag who Dinty accidentally released from underneath the pine tree. It is not till the end that you really find out whose story of redemption this is. Like most things when you try and combine two very separate things, in this case Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day you fail miserably and do neither justice.
Continuing on the Rankin/Bass animation route we come to The Life And Adventures Of Santa Claus. This 1985 TV special is based on L. Frank Baum’s book from 1902. Why Jules Rankin and Arthur Bass thought this would be a promising idea I am not sure. They had already done a great Santa origin with Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, 1970 so why they thought this would add to the holiday season I am not sure.
I am all for alternative storytelling, but this seem so divorced from the known and accepted narrative of the holiday season it does not make much sense. Baby Claus is raised by a strange pantheon of demi-gods known as The Immortals, such as Sound Imps, Commander of the Wind Demons, the Grand Duke of Light Elves, and the Protector of the Nooks. Again, I am not a scholar of mythology and legends but these seem to be wholly created by L. Frank Baum, who while a great storyteller with the Oz books seemed to venture a little far afield from the commonly accepted origin of the Christian Saint Nicholas of Myra who Santa Claus is based on.
In this story, Clause leaves the forest of the Immortals and makes his way in the world of Man, becoming a toy maker. He runs into conflict with Awagwas, another mystical creature who did not like Claus convincing children to be good for toys. The Agawas and the Immortals go to war over Santa’s right to give away toys, which causes Santa to cry, although no Immortals where harmed and the Agawas do not seem to be able to be redeemed.
In the end, the mortal Claus is gifted with the Cloak of Immortality so he can continue to bring joy to the children of the world one night a year with the reindeer working for him under the direction of the Protector of the Nooks.
Nothing is ever explained deeply in this fifty-minute tv special and it is the fifth time Mickey Rooney voiced Santa Claus for a Rankin/Bass production. Maybe a little chemical brain enhancement might make this a better watch but I doubt it.
Now getting away from the powerhouse of Rankin/Bass we turn to another type of stop motion by the people at Will Vinton Studios. A Claymation Christmas Celebration,
1987, this twenty-four minute TV Special won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program and was a hodge podge of Christmas songs done with a comedy twist involved either in its presentation or sight gags.
Presented by a pair of dinosaurs hosting a Christmas Carol Show. The hosts attempt to introduce all the songs but are interrupted by a running gag by dogs, ducks and pigs instead of Wassailing they go a waffling, a waddling, or a wallowing, with the finale being a bunch of elves show up singing the proper words.
My favorite had to be the Carol of the Bells, presented by a choir of anthropomorphic Bells actually hitting themselves with hammers. 
One goofbell hitting himself producing
sour notes. Then there is the Angels We Have Heard on High with a pair of walruses doing interpretive ice skating continuously crashing into penguins who go flying like bowling pins. Ending with the famous (at the time) California Raisins singing Temptation style, a soulful version of -Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeers. The soulful dried grapes who have missed the last bus on Christmas Eve and exit pulling a sled into the sky.
I could go into Rich Little’s a Christmas Carol (1978) , with Rich Little playing all the major roles, while doing impersonations of famous people from the 1970s, including, John Wayne, Johnny Carson, Edith Bunker and Richard Nixon. If you do not know who these people are you are probably a good bit younger than me so you will not get any of the jokes, so don’t bother. Even if you know who these people are, along with their references you will not be amused. I am just glad I did not have to watch this full thing when doing my Christmas Carol compare and contrast piece. It might have competed with the Barbie Christmas Carol as the worst interpretation of the Dickens story.
Then there is Santa vs. the Snowman (1997) a 3D animated tv special where a lonely snowman jealous of Santa attack the North Pole workshop and starts delivering presents. Of course there is a redemption arch. This show has a very much a Nightmare Before Christmas vibe to it.
The holiday season is celebrated in a multitude and wonderous variety of ways. My old Parole Agent buddy Art, celebrates Kwanza, for some people it’s all about the church and the Nativity, for some it’s about the presents and others don’t do much at all but it the Christmas season is something that happens here in America. In the words of Garrison Keillor, “A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” So, my dear readers, if you have enjoyed any of these don’t allow me to “yuck your yum” or anyone else for that matter. Enjoy what you enjoy. So Merry Christmas and listen for those sleighbells on the 24th, give a gift, make someone happy if you can and enjoy your life.
For more Christmas Cheer listen to the Miles Mitchell Christmas Radio Play.
The Five Types of Christmas Movies
You Are A Mean One (All about the Grinch stories)
Lenny and Squiggy’s Christmas Song
Categories: Christmas, My Views On The Real World
Stories and Quotes from the Mind* and Keyboard of A.A.Forringer 
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