Pages

Featured Page

Other Pages

Thursday, December 03, 2020

Christmas: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

The Flashback  Christmas 


         There are many takes on the origin story of Santa Claus, so one from the man who created Wizard of Oz, I expect nothing else.  In 1902, L. Frank Baum's book "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" come out , and it's not as well known as his "Oz" series.  The concept is where does Santa Claus come from? And How does he live so long?  While, also trying to give it's own twists on where Christmas traditions come from.

    Rankin-Bass made an adaptation to the book which came out in 1985, pretty much the end of Rankin Bass and their stop motion work, at least.   I'm not going to compare to the book in this post because ,that's not really the purpose  of this blog post. We are just going look at the special on it's own. 


     This special first aired on  CBS on December 17th, and unlike Rankin Bass' other Santa origin story, it doesn't rerun on a network, just on cable.

            First off, this special starts in a forest called the forest of Burzee , and a figure named "The Great Ak" and apparently some members of the immortals are coming for a special occasion.  Ak wants to convince them something or else Santa's gonna die.  The intro is amazing, the music is grand I love it so much, it's so unnecessary but, yet awesome anyway.  Each immortal figure is introduced.  The Great Ak says that he thinks Santa deserves to be immortal  and is trying to convince the other immortals  to be allowed to continue his good work, and bestow him the mantel of immortality.
The moon light is right/ Copyright Warner Bros because they own the special. 


     The rest of the special is flashback of Ak telling them about the morals, and how one day he found a baby in the woods. He took the baby in and gave it to a lioness named Shiegra. (Uhhh what?) He made sure the child shouldn't be harmed or else lion is going to lion. He bursts into a dramatic song about how they can live forever and don't have children. (What?)  The music is on a dramatic level this special it's amazing! 
   
Her giant cat , don't the ate the baby, k thanx bye/ Copyright Warner Bros. 

    A fairy woman finds the baby and decides to take him.  Her name is Necile, and she wants to take care of the baby.  She sings a song about her wanting to take care of a child.  Eventually, Ak decides to let her take care and raise the child. They name him Claus, because that's the name that was attached to him. (That could have been where he was made or something, silly immortals)
   
My baby now/ Copyright Warner Bros. 

        There's a montage of Claus growing up with another song.  The song mentions that he will eventually have to face the mortal world and this care-free life will end in the future.  Ak decides to show Claus the mortal world.  This special isn't shying away from how the world is, it's take place before our modern times, but it sets up a more dour world.  He's shown while being invisible the different dour things in the world. Like people working for a feudal lord.  Then they go a rich family and see's how they live. Going to boys training to be samurai for war. Claus wants children to be happy and playing. 


    This gives him a drive to want to help children. When, it comes time for him to leave the forest that's what he sets to do. Tingler and Shiegra join him.  The special presents how Claus got his place to live, his "ho, ho,ho" and how he lives in a snowy spot.  Then we get a montage of Claus working with children like reading and playing with them.  As he gets older. In fact it takes a long time in his life to get the idea of doing something else, making toys. 
Remember that guy above? This is him now, feel old yet?


         An orphan boy named Weekum falls into  a snow drift and Claus saves him. He makes him a wooden cat, that becomes known as a toy.  Another song, this one about orphans wanting a big surprise like that cat toy.   This inspires him to make more toys. So he has different creatures helping him with toy making.
Where'd they get the signs?  Copyright Warner Bros.



   There are villains brought in called the Awgwas, they are make children do bad things.  They also can be invisible, which makes it easier to animate. (Joke)  They kidnap the Santa Claus but since he knows nook calls, he's freed by the nooks. The awgwas take his toys instead, alot. Great Ak calls up the awgwas to get them to stop.  They say no, so they go to war instead.


more after the jump




       They even want to kill Claus, so the Great Ak gets his friends to help in this war. Even gets his great silver ax. Now we get, epic Christmas battle. it's funny in a way to see a dragon get burnt up by a fairy with tree branch. This whole sequence is both amazing, silly, and epic in one throw. I really love it, you can see how well Rankin Bass had become at stop motion, it's a shame that this was their last.  So after, Great Ak and his team win, Claus is free to deliver toys again.

Grilled dragon tonight!  Copyright Warner Bros. 


        And  the Awagas weren't just ran off,they were killed. (Dark Oz Christmas)  Anyway, Peter Nook is the reason why Santa has a reindeer so, they made that for their Christmas tradition origin story. They also have their reason on how Claus would start going down chimneys and how he started leaving stuff in stockings.    They also note that Claus gets called Santa Claus because saint.  And Santa making  a Christmas tree.


     Eventually, the immortals decide to give Santa the gift of immortality to him because of his good works. 
       
    Such an interesting and epic tale that Rankin Bass put together well. It has their smoothest use of  stop-motion, and looks the best of all the specials.  The music is well done and brings a lot of grandeur. It's a good showing for those who had never read the book and gives them a lot to enjoy, plus how Christmas special can you say there was a dragon burned up, Santa has a lion, and anything of fantasy. 

       I do reccomend if you haven't seen it, to check it out!   Thanks for reading, tune in next time when we adventure on
     

No comments:

Post a Comment