I do like to mention that Rankin-Bass specials seem to be taking songs and trying to make a story out of them. They have "Rudolph", "Frosty", "The Little Drummer Boy" etc. I have mentioned times they've used books as source material like "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" and "The Year without A Santa Claus" This time, they used a poem.
The famous "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" no creature was stirring not even a mouse. But they in joke is in this special a mouse is stirring. (ha ha ha ha)
From 1974, originally airing on December, 8, 1974 on CBS where it ran for a couple decades before being cable-ized. "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" is a Rankin-Bass special that's traditionally animated , instead of stop-motion, and a 30 minute (25 without ads ) special.
The original poem was written in 1823 and uses the story from it, but that would be short, so they added a story around that poem to build up something. This special was written by Jerome Coopersmith whom also wrote scripts for "Hawaii Five-O" , "Streets of San Francisco" and more.
The special starts with the famous words "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse..." it feels like a little animated version of the poem, but the guy who is playing the I is having a hard time sleeping, then it goes a mouse , who also laying in his bed, who is actually stirring and starts to tell us that's it 3 minutes until Christmas. So apparently, he's going to tell us this story in the span of 3 minutes. (Not for us)
His name is Father Mouse, so that's helpful. He is voiced by George Goebel who was a radio entertainer in the 1930's through 50's. He and his business partner named David O'Malley were the guys who started a company called Gomalco which produced the hit series "Leave it To Beaver" He also will be singing a song for this special, we'll get to that.
I've always been called Father Mouse, even before I was married and had kids/Copyright Warner
Father Mouse says that it all started when letters to Santa are returned to the people of Junctionville. We also meet the Trundle family, who live in the house where the mice also live. Santa has decided to remove the town from his route. That's right, we also set up the rest of the plot with Joshua Trundle, a clock maker and repairer, is going to make a special clock that plays a song that will play at midnight on Christmas Eve to entice Santa. The mayor character who is kind of fun just because he tries to use elaborate language to sound more how a kid thinks a politician speaks.
This clock is our new Santa! Copyright Warner
Back to the reason why Santa decided to remove the town of Junctionville from his route, well, the reason is a newspaper editorial to the local paper. Which means Santa has too much time on his hands to read every town's newspaper or likes to search for himself and finds out what people are writing about him. Either way petty Santa is petty.
The letter is notable because the words are long and Father Mouse figures out his son, he has three kids, but the only one that matters his is eldest son named Albert, who is a nerdy mouse decided to write a letter signed "all of us" meaning his friends not the town (or the UPN sitcom). Which either way Petty Santa is petty.
We are going to have to disown you / Copyright Warner
I have 3 questions , 1) If the Santa thinks the whole town thinks he's a fraud then why would send him letters? Did he not think of that? 2) If Albert thinks Santa is not real, then where does he think the letters were from. 3) Why doesn't Albert believe in Santa, when everyone seemingly does and he says he's a science mouse, there's evidence Santa is real in this world?
These Christmas stories where people say "Santa's not real" but then he is real meaning there's evidence are always weirdly conflicting if you think too hard about it. (Which is going on here)
More after the Jump
Anyway, Father Mouse, tells Albert that Albert only thinks facts and logic and that might be a bad thing that he believes in tangible things. Essentially, the special is saying it's alright to that but you should have an open mind to believe in things that aren't as easily tangible. (Even though, in this same special Santa is real real)
The first song is "Give your Heart a Try". It's alright and gives the message that imagination and fun things are fun. Not a bad song, it would be bad if it was saying it's bad to also have facts and logic.
Then Father Mouse says an unfortunate line when he's showing Albert around town the affects of Santa's big tantrum. He says, "Here's how you ruined everyone's Christmas with your opinions." It's weirdly saying that Albert doesn't have the right to that opinion, and plus Santa is the one being petty and in the wrong. Even stating it, as Albert's opinion was the special's mistake , it's true, but that makes Santa even more petty.
Father Mouse, goes around showing his son the town being sad that Santa is petty. The good thing is they've not started an angry mob to kill a mouse child, that'd be weird. Then Father Mouse shows Albert the special clock, AKA the plot device.
I'm like King Kong/ Copyright Warner
We still have 20 minutes left, so something has to go wrong... I guess, ah yes the clock, it's demonstration day! So the Trundle family is there to show off the clock and to show it working and stuff but uh oh it breaks! No! This is where the special gets stupid, in my view. The clock breaks, now Trundle is a man who's job is to make and fix clocks. Now he made this clock and it was a demonstration, but the mayor says no don't fix, you suck, and the town decides to remove their business from his business, because the town is petty. You know what, Santa is right, this town is awful. (The Trundles should move)
This was unnecessary. Just from my view, the only characters I should be rooting for is Albert Mouse and Joshua Trundle. If the town is going to act that way towards Trundle and not even let him fix the clock and take away his work, I don't Santa should show up, sorry for the kids who did nothing wrong, but wow.
Oh we found out that Albert accidently broke the clock because he was curious how it worked, and they find out on Christmas Eve. The clock was broken in like summer or something and well we have a mess.
I do like the second song "Ever a Miracle a Needs Hand" which is the best song from this special and a good song from Rankin Bass catalogue all together. It is weird that Father Mouse is now alright that Albert wrote his opinion, guess he grew a little. Anyway, it's Christmas Eve and driving the tension, Albert says he's going to fix the clock. That brings us back to the 3 minutes ...now seconds. (Father Mouse told this story in 3 minutes : witch Craft)
At first, it seems that Albert wasn't in time and that Santa is going to pass over. Nah, it works and Santa decides to show up after all (good thing, because otherwise, they were going to do child sacrifice next) Then the special uses the rest of the poem when Joshua Trundle (no relation) is the "I" in the poem again and he and his family watch Santa in their house doing stuff.
I'm Santa/ Copyright Warner
That was a nice touch. Rankin Bass' 2-D hand drawn animation style has a nice look to it. The characters look like the ones in the Rankin Bass show "Festival of Family Classics", which I've covered an episode of before.
I do not hate this special, and I watch it every year. But I do not understand certain aspects of why certain parts are necessary. The characters including seem like awful people. Albert and Joshua are the only characters I can really sympathize with. It has some good messages that were mostly muddled by weird messages. They fit the poem in, which was a good part and the "Miracles" song is in the top tier of Rankin-Bass songs. It's not a totally awful special, but you might feel annoyed by several parts in it.
That's it for now, tune in next time when this blog post causes Santa's wrath and he ends up ending every holiday.
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