In some room somewhere they at Rankin Bass thought that their Rudolph special needed a sequel and for a different network than where that one was airing. First airing on December 10, 1976 on ABC (whilst original Rudolph aired on NBC and later CBS) "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" takes the idea that Rudolph now has to save the New Year because we need to have new years or something.
New Year's as a holiday isn't really a big marketed thing, I mean in the way Christmas is, plus mostly it's just a trend of time and it happens right after Christmas. It's not the most fun of holidays anyway. That's right I said it.
I've made the statement before that Rankin Bass seemed to like the idea of taking Christmas songs and going "Hey Let's make that a special" and then try to wrap a story around that. It's creative, but it's also creative to see what they do with they don't. I think "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" is their most original Christmas special since they really had no source material to work from except Rudolph existing.
So how does a New Year's special with Rudolph work? They do take a creative (again this is another Rankin-Bass special written by Romeo Muller) idea of the concept of baby new year. Baby New Year is a classic personification of the time. A new fresh year, rebrith-- birth--- baby.
Santa starts off the special and this one apparently takes place just after the famous Rudolph story The Santa in this special looks like the same model they used for "The Year Without A Santa Claus" but uses Rankin Bass go to -Paul Frees- as his voice. The Rudolph model is different too, but again it was about 12 years after the first special. The special is voiced by Red Skelton, the famous entertainer, he voices the character of Father time, which also fits well for our New Year special here. This is Red Skelton after networks were cutting back on classic stars from the radio and early days of television because they wanted newer younger viewers. He does fit with Rankin Bass using classic well-known performers to their thing, and he does it well.
I don't control Daylight Saving time, you dummies made that/ Copyright Warner
The story starts where Santa gets a letter from Father Time because the Happy, the baby New Year is missing. Apparently, if the baby is missing we will live in a loop of December 31st forever. (That doesn't sound too bad) To raise the stakes, there's an awful snowstorm still, so enter Rudolph. That's the stakes, Rudolph has 6 days to find the baby or else. (What happens if he finds the baby later, couldn't that still, and what?)
What? I didn't run that traffic light? / Copyright Warner
I do find the concept very creative, the baby New Year being the quest for Rudolph to find him. Father Time's world is a neat thing too, he has a clock work set up and shows him taking care of time. (not Life magazine) I do find it interesting he has a scythe, like a grim reaper. There's General Ticker who is a clock work solider, there's a whale named Big Ben, and a clock on his tail. A clock based camel as well. Much like the first special, Rudolph gets some fun characters to work off of with.
There's Eon , a vulture, who doesn't want the baby to be found and brought back to Father Time because he's gonna die. That's not a joke of mine, they outright say that Eon can live until he's one eon old and turn into ice and snow, so death. (I looked how much an Eon is and apparently he lived a billion years?) I think it's kind of a justifiable reason to not having something happen where he dies. That's an interesting character motivation for a villain. (Also kind of dark that Rudolph's goal means that death of Eon has to happen)
Of any villain he has a good reason / Copyright Warner
More concept stuff is that it explains what happens when the years switch, well through the year the baby New Year ages( I also love the song used when Father Time explains it) it then hands its crown to the next year. The special explains later that old years go to their own islands and this is the special I learned the term archipelago from as a kid. So there are islands where it's 1965 , for example, and it's always that year. (Don't go to 2001 or 2020 island) Through the special you'll meet some of the old New Years. I'll get to them in a minute.
Why did Happy leave? Well unlike his name, he wasn't very happy, he has big ears. When people saw him they laughed because big ears are funny or something. He ran away. This special does take Rudolph's story where he was maligned for being a misfit and he understands Happy's problem. So, again he has to find Happy before Eon and before midnight December 31st. 
He's not very happy/ Copyright Warner
More after the jump
The islands on the Archipelago of Last Years are where the old years go. This also adds to the creativity where each Island is set to the time of year the year was from. The first character met is 1,000,000 B.C. or O.M for short, he's a fun caveman like year and his island looks like 1,000,000 B.C.. ( I mean well I mean you know) O.M tells Rudolph that he did see Happy, but he ran away because again everyone was laughing at the ears. There are some islands that are mentioned that we don't see like 4,000 B.C which would be like ancient Egypt. There's 1965 (they restrained themselves from making a reference to the original special's year of 1964) which is said to be to noisy. (Good thing they didn't go to 1968 island) There's 1492 island where everyone was too busy discovering stuff to help. (But they didn't...ow ow ow ow ) They also make a panic of 1893 reference which I'm sure the people watching will be enjoying. Back to the islands we do see, there's 1023 , said as ten-two-three, which apparently is the year the fairly tales really happened. Rudolph starts with O.M joining him and helping him and they go to 1023 where they meet that year, who joins them. Later there's 1776, where the year looks like Ben Franklin and the island celebrates the fourth of July every day; (Dogs don't live on this island, I hope) that sounds kind of annoying. (it's summer too and hot yikes) I like gaggle of friends Rudolph makes here, they are all stand out characters and bring their own fun to the thing.
Imagine this meeting/ Copyright Warner
Happy was on ten-two-three the same time as Rudolph and his group were because he was Goldie Locks and meeting the three bears. The baby bear wants to be friends but then eventually the bears see his ears and laugh because plot. The special is trying to say that people aren't laughing at him to be mean, compared to Rudolph where they were mean because reindeer reasons, it's just that they are so happy by his big ears they bring joy and can't help but laugh. That is kind of weak. There are people who have a feature of themselves they could make fun of themselves- comedians do it- but it does kind of waste away that Happy didn't like the laughing. The special does show that characters do feel bad they made him feel bad and so that's the encouraging part.
The parts where Happy keeps leaving after he gets laughed at, does have him kind of find comfort in Eon when he meets him. Eon doesn't have any ill-intent for the baby, he just wants to hold him until midnight New Years' Eve so he won't die. He's kind a not as bad in the antagonist scale of Rankin-Bass baddies. The least threating of the ones Rudolph met too. The stakes are driven up as there's only a few hours until midnight ( I like how Time Zones don't matter here) Rudolph and friends need to get Happy from Eon. He then gets them in an iceball to make things feel more tense but Rudolph is able to break free by melting it with his nose powers. (It's strange, but it's true)
While Eon falls a sleep, Rudolph does talk to Happy about the ears and it's a nice scene to see Rudolph sympathize with him. I really like the part where the Rankin-Bass drawn animation comes in to play whilst Skelton sings the Rudolph song, it's really nice. I do like Rankin-Bass' drawn animation there is a charm to it as well. If there's a parallel universe, I think there's one where Rudolph is down like this as a full special.
As mentioned already, I can see what was being said here for the moral. That people weren't trying to be mean when they saw his big ears, but it is up to Happy and how he feels. It also does try to show acceptance in yourself, like how Rudolph learned that in the first special. I see what they are getting at, but some would maybe not.
Anyway, Eon sees the ears and laughs so happily that he apparently won't die or something.. anyway there's only a few seconds left. Then Santa shows up for the clutch and New Year is saved. (So technically, Santa saved the New Year) It's now 19 Wonderful. (uhhh hmmm)
The music in the special is good, I like the moving hand writes song, with raining sunshine, and Have a little Faith in me, the most. It is a creative and charming special, though not as impactful as the first one, can't help but enjoy it. It's a good New Year special, since there's not many it gets a special spot anyway. It's a nice Rudolph story as well.
That's it for now, tune in next time when we visit 2019 island.
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