The Peanuts Movie (2015) review

Like many a generation, I grew up with one of the most iconic franchises in all of pop culture; the ‘Peanuts’ franchise. The adventures of the ‘lovable loser’ Charlie Brown were first introduced through a daily comic strip created by American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in 1950. The comic ran for nearly 50 years from 1950 to 2000, ending a month before the passing of Schulz on February 12, 2000. Aside from the comics, the series has also been known for numerous TV specials, almost all of which were made by the duo of producer Lee Mendelson and director Bill Melendez, many of them centered on major holidays like Christmas (the first and easily most famous ‘Peanuts’ special) and Thanksgiving. As for this year, which marks the 65^th anniversary of the comic strip’s initial debut, the Peanuts gang now come to the big-screen in a brand-new computer animated film, ‘The Peanuts Movie’. This is actually the fifth ‘Peanuts’ film to be released following 1969’s ‘A Boy Named Charlie Brown’, 1972’s ‘Snoopy, Come Home’, 1977’s ‘Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown’, and 1980’s ‘Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!)’, but it’s the first in 35 years and definitely the biggest to date given the crew working on it. The film is produced by Blue Sky Studios, ‘Bridesmaids’ director Paul Feig is also one of the producers, and the screenplay was co-written by Schulz’s son Craig and his son Bryan. And amidst all of the skepticism from film fans, this team turned out something that’s truly special.

For Charlie Brown (Noah Schnapp), nothing ever seems to go his way, from trying to fly a kite, which almost always ends up in a tree, to playing baseball, where his pitches always end up knocking him straight out of his clothes. But one day, when a new kid, the ‘Little Red-Haired Girl’ (Francesca Capaldi), moves to the neighborhood, Charlie Brown is almost instantly smitten by her. At the same time, though, he’s worried that his constant bad luck will also ruin his chances of attracting her attention. With the advice of ‘local psychiatrist’ Lucy (Hadley Belle Miller), Charlie Brown, with the help of his loyal dog Snoopy (voiced by the late Bill Melendez via archival recordings that are also used for Woodstock), begins looking for some way to turn his luck around, become a ‘winner’, and most importantly woo the Little Red Haired Girl. As a result, Charlie Brown finds himself embarking on a life-changing adventure where his true character shines through even with all of the unlucky things that happen to him. Meanwhile, Snoopy embarks on an adventure of his own. After finding a typewriter in the school dumpster (after attempting to go to school with Charlie Brown and the other kids), Snoopy begins to write about the World War I Flying Ace as he fights his arch-nemesis, the Red Baron.

Compared to numerous other films that were based on popular media franchises, ‘The Peanuts Movie’ is easily one of the most faithful adaptations of its source material because the filmmakers clearly had a lot of passion for this beloved franchise and that truly shows in the final product. This is not a case where the characters were translated into modern times to make them ‘hip’ for younger audiences. This film still has the characters using land-line telephones and typewriters. It’s full of numerous references to the classic TV specials, from a mention by Linus of the infamous ‘Great Pumpkin’ to even a few re-creations of classic moments, like the ice-skating sequence from ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’. All of this helps make the film a charming piece of nostalgia for fans of the franchise along with the film’s excellent animation. I know that there were those out there who were questioning the decision to translate the world of ‘Peanuts’ into computer animation but the end result is something truly special. It may be computer animated but it is very much faithful to the hand-drawn animation style that the franchise is known for, right down to the fact that sometimes the film actually implements that exact style into the animation, from thought bubbles that use the classic hand-drawn animation to the imperfections in how the lines were drawn that made Schulz’s comics so endearing in the first place.

But ultimately one of the biggest strengths of the film comes in its writing; its story, its characters, and the messages that it conveys that make it such a great story for younger audiences. Some critics have stated that the film isn’t that ‘ambitious’ in terms of its plot and while I will admit that the plot is rather simple compared to other animated films, that is by no means a bad thing when it comes to this film. For one thing, the messages that are conveyed in this film are really great life-lessons for kids. Things may never seem to go Charlie Brown’s way but he never gives up and as he comes to learn, who you are as a person is more important than whatever you may accomplish in life. And of course, all of these characters are iconic and the voice cast does an excellent job in bringing these characters to life. Aside from Snoopy and Woodstock being voiced by archival recordings of the late Bill Melendez and Kristin Chenoweth voicing Snoopy’s love interest Fifi in his fantasy sequences, the main characters are all voiced by generally unknown child actors. The most notable of the bunch is Francesca Capaldi as both the Little Red-Haired Girl and Frieda, who starred in the Disney Channel show ‘Dog with a Blog’, but for the most part everyone else in the voice cast are basically newcomers. And ultimately that was the best route that the filmmakers could take because it helps maintain the natural atmosphere that was also a defining trait of the franchise.  

There’s usually quite a lot of skepticism that film fans tend to have whenever it comes to a film that is based off of a popular franchise, namely because they fear that it won’t stay true to the spirit of its source material. But then you have a film like ‘The Peanuts Movie’, which is… quite frankly one of the best films of the year. And that’s because it does stay true to the source material from its terrific animation that honors the classic traditional 2-D animation style of the franchise while translating it into the realm of computer animation to its heartwarming story with strong messages like how it’s not about your accomplishments that define you but who you are as a person. There seriously isn’t anything I can think of that I disliked about this film and to be perfectly frank, I don’t even want to say anything bad about it. I really, really, really loved this film just as much as I love this franchise. Believe me when I say folks that by the end, there was nothing but a big smile on my face as I saw these lovable characters translated perfectly to the big screen. Truly this is something that Charles Schulz would’ve been proud of; it was a project that was done with love from all who worked on it, resulting in one of the best feel-good films of the year. If you’re a ‘Peanuts’ fan, I’m certain that you’re going to love this film and for those who aren’t familiar with the franchise, this will serve as a really nice introduction to this iconic franchise and its beloved characters.

Rating: 5/5!

Top 10 Favorite Christmas Specials (Christmas Post Part 1)

The Christmas season is now upon us, the best time of the year. A time for family and friends and of course for many of us, this is also the time where we watch numerous Christmas specials and Christmas-themed movies. They’ve become such an iconic part of the season and we have had plenty of great specials and movies, both timeless classics and recent hits. So this month on Rhode Island Movie Corner, I’ll be listing both my Top 10 personal favorite Christmas specials and my Top 10 personal favorite Christmas movies. This will be a two-part post and today I’m delving into my Top 10 favorite Christmas specials of all time. There have been many, many Christmas specials over the years so if one of your favorites is on this list, the reason for it will mostly likely be because I haven’t seen it yet. And for the record, this is not a ‘Best of’ list; these are just my Top 10 favorite Christmas specials, the majority of whom I’ve seen on an annual basis ever since I was a kid. Finally, I want to note that in regards to the Christmas post I did last year on most of the Rankin-Bass specials, I assure you that this list will not be entirely dominated by those specials; in fact, only three of them made the Top 10. So without further ado, grab a seat in your favorite chair with your hot chocolate and/or eggnog as I give you my Top 10 all-time favorite Christmas specials. But first, some honorable mentions…

HONORABLE MENTIONS

As I just noted a few seconds ago, I didn’t want this list to be dominated by Rankin-Bass specials. So with that in mind, I’ll be starting off the Honorable Mentions sections with the three Rankin-Bass ‘runner-ups’ that missed the final cut. First up is one of the most iconic entries in the company’s filmography, ‘Frosty the Snowman’. I’ll personally admit that of the three most famous Rankin-Bass specials (SPOILERS: You’ll see both of them somewhere on this list) this is probably my least favorite of the three (not that there’s anything wrong with the special itself) but regardless of that it is still a Rankin-Bass classic. Then there’s ‘Jack Frost’, one of the funniest (if not the funniest) specials in the Rankin-Bass filmography highlighted by the hilarious villain Kubla Kraus, the wicked Cossack King. And finally there’s ‘The Year Without a Santa Claus’, which is actually remembered more for two of its side characters, the Miser brothers Heat Miser and Snow Miser, than the actual special itself. Still, it’s another solid entry in the Rankin-Bass lineup thanks to the company’s usual top-notch stop motion animation, the great writing and strong themes of Christmas spirit and the spirit of giving, and of course the Miser brothers, who are undeniably the biggest standouts of the entire special.

As for the non-Rankin-Bass Honorable Mentions, I’ll start things off with the recent ‘Prep and Landing’ specials produced by Disney. This series focuses a special group of Santa’s Elves, more specifically the duo of Wayne and Lanny, whose job is to prep homes all over the world for Santa when he visits them every year on Christmas. There have two specials so far, the original ‘Prep and Landing’ from 2009 and ‘Naughty vs. Nice’ from 2011, along with a seven-minute short ‘Operation: Secret Santa’ that was released in 2010 with another special currently in the works. Both benefit from their solid premise and great animation and voice-acting and I am very eager to see what they do next with this franchise. Finally, there’s ‘Merry Christmas Drake and Josh!’ the series finale to one of my favorite shows when I was a kid, ‘Drake and Josh’, in which Drake Bell and Josh Peck starred as two boys who end up becoming brothers when their parents get married. In this special (technically a TV movie), the two of them get in trouble with the law resulting in them having to work to give a group of foster kids ‘the best Christmas ever’ in order to avoid going to jail. Fans of this sitcom will no doubt enjoy this special as it has everything that made the show great; humor, the great camaraderie between the two leads, and much more.

Starting things off at Number 10 are a pair of direct-to-video Christmas specials from Disney. Despite their ‘direct-to-video’ status, I do watch them every year because I really enjoy them both and I always love seeing the classic Disney characters.

10. MICKEY’S ONCE AND TWICE UPON A CHRISTMAS

These two films both feature a series of Christmas stories starring the classic Disney characters; Mickey Mouse and his friends. ‘Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas’ was released in 1999 and is a traditionally-animated special while 2004’s ‘Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas’ was computer-animated, basically serving as the first foray for Mickey and his friends into computer animation (along with the Mickey’s PhilharMagic attraction at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World). As far as the animation goes, both are solid (as far as direct-to-video projects are concerned) and feature just the right amount of Christmas spirit and heartwarming moments that one would normally expect in a Christmas special. Actually before I begin I just want to talk about something interesting that happened to me when I was younger. One of the first DVD’s I ever remember owning (that my parents bought for me) was ‘Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas’. But here’s the thing… while the DVD had the correct packaging and the front of the DVD itself was for ‘Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas’, that DVD was for a completely different movie; ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’. This is the only time this has ever happened to me and to this day I’m still baffled over why this happened. Sound off in the comments section below if something like this has ever happened to you as well.

Anyway, there are three stories in ‘Once Upon a Christmas’. In ‘Stuck on Christmas’, Huey, Dewey, and Louie make a wish that it would be Christmas every day. Their wish comes true but it just ends up being that the same events of that Christmas day end up repeating themselves over and over and over again a la ‘Groundhog Day’. In ‘A Very Goofy Christmas’, Goofy tries to prove to his son Max that Santa does exist when Max’s faith in Santa starts to falter when their neighbor Pete tells him that he isn’t real. Finally, there’s ‘Mickey and Minnie’s Gift of the Magi’, which follows the same general plot of the short story ‘Gift of the Magi’ by O. Henry. Mickey and Minnie are looking to get each other Christmas gifts that go along with their prized possessions, Mickey’s harmonica and Minnie’s watch, respectively. But due to their financial troubles, both end up selling their prized possessions just to get each other their gifts but they realize that their love for each other is all that they ever need. The animation is really nice and while it admittedly can be a bit overly sentimental at times, that doesn’t bother me too much (I guess you can say I’m a fairly sentimental guy). My favorite segment of the three is probably the ‘Gift of the Magi’ story for its heart and emotionally poignant moments.

‘Twice Upon a Christmas’ ups the ante by having five stories, which are as follows. In ‘Belles on Ice’, Minnie and Daisy get into a fairly heated rivalry when the two perform in a local ice skating competition. ‘Christmas: Impossible’ centers on the trio of Huey, Dewey, and Louie who realize that due to their constant troublemaking, they are sure to end up on Santa’s naughty list this year. So with little time for them to clean up their act the old-fashioned way, they sneak up to the North Pole to try and put themselves on the Nice List. In ‘Christmas Maximus’, Max, now grown up after the ‘A Very Goofy Christmas’ story from ‘Once Upon a Christmas’, finds himself continually embarrassed by Goofy when he brings his girlfriend home for Christmas. ‘Donald’s Gift’, as the title suggests, focuses on Donald, of course, as he becomes more and more agitated by the holidays (specifically due to the constant playing of the song ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’), wishing only for peace and quiet and a good hot chocolate. ‘Mickey’s Dog-Gone Christmas’ closes out the group of stories with Mickey and Pluto, the latter of whom runs away to the North Pole after getting into trouble with Mickey while he was in the middle of decorating the house.

As far as the animation is concerned, I can’t really say it’s ‘as good’ as the animation in ‘Once Upon a Christmas’, which I mainly attribute to the fact that this is one of Disney’s first attempts at computer animation after taking a hiatus in regards to doing hand-drawn animation. I don’t think the animation is bad, for the record, it’s just that it’s more or less what you would expect from a direct-to-video release. As for the individual stories, ‘Belles on Ice’ was probably my least favorite as a kid (in fact, sometimes when I watched this, I skipped over it) and looking back on it, it still is. There’s not really anything wrong about it as it has some colorful animation/visuals but I realize that there’s not much about it related to Christmas unlike the other four segments. On the flipside, ‘Christmas: Impossible’ was my favorite growing up and it still very much is with its solid pacing and fun premise. One that is slowly becoming one of my favorites of the five is ‘Christmas Maximus’, which gets across a lot of heart and emotion which is impressive given that it might be the shortest of the five segments and is mostly non-dialogue as a song plays over the story. ‘Donald’s Gift’ and ‘Mickey’s Dog-Gone Christmas’ are also pretty solid too, with the former having many unique ways of playing the song ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ (watch the movie and you’ll know what I mean by that). Ultimately, I kind of prefer ‘Twice Upon a Christmas’ (mostly due to the fact I’ve watched it more times than ‘Once Upon a Christmas’ given the whole mislabeled DVD scenario I mentioned earlier) but I do feel that the first one is slightly better. Still, I do watch these two movies every year and I’m always a fan of watching stuff with the classic Disney characters.

Two Christmas specials from two of my favorite shows while I was growing up are on this list and the first comes in at Number 9 from one of my all-time favorites… SpongeBob SquarePants.

9. SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: CHRISTMAS WHO?

On paper, the idea of a SpongeBob SquarePants Christmas special seems a little preposterous given that this is a series about a group of sea creatures. But even with that in mind, SpongeBob delivered a really nice little special in ‘Christmas Who’ which really looked into the idea of what a Bikini Bottom Christmas would be like. In this special, SpongeBob first learns of Christmas and Santa Claus through his friend Sandy Cheeks, the only land creature living underwater. So then he tells everyone else about it and they all get excited for Christmas, all except Squidward who of course is his usual grouchy self as he feels that it’s all just ‘a scam’. But everyone else in Bikini Bottom ignores this and goes on with their celebration… that is until Christmas Day when Santa doesn’t appear. With their enthusiasm now gone, Squidward initially revels in being right for once but after seeing how depressed SpongeBob gets about the whole situation, Squidward finally sees the error of his ways and works to set things right. This special features a nice little arc for the usually bitter Squidward, who I think it’s safe to say has some similarities to another famous Christmas figure (who we’ll get to in a little while) and despite the strange notion of sea creatures celebrating Christmas, it is still pretty fun to see everyone in Bikini Bottom get into the holiday spirit. And that is why ‘Christmas Who’ is another solid Christmas special, coming from one of my favorite animated shows of all time.

(P.S. I haven’t watched the other SpongeBob Christmas special, ‘It’s a SpongeBob Christmas’, at the time I’m writing this and, to be honest, given the current run of the show, I don’t really plan on checking it out, despite the fact that it was made in a style similar to Rankin-Bass with the stop-motion animation).

I’m going with a little more ‘mature’ Christmas special at Number 8. The best of this series’ Christmas specials for one primary reason that I don’t even want to spoil.

8. SOUTH PARK: WOODLAND CRITTER CHRISTMAS

There have been quite a lot of ‘South Park’ Christmas-themed episodes, a lot of which centered on the character Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo. But the episode that easily takes the cake for being the best of South Park’s Christmas specials is Season 8’s ‘Woodland Critter Christmas’, which is currently the most recent Christmas episode of the show… and it first aired a decade ago. Why is this one so great? Well, I can’t even tell you the main reason for this because I fear that doing so would spoil the episode. The plot involves Stan (referred to by the narrator (because it’s a Christmas special, of course and the reveal of who the narrator is truly is comedic gold) as the ‘boy in the red-poof-ball hat’) who comes across a group of talking woodland creatures who are celebrating the holidays. One of them is having a baby who the animals refer to as their ‘Savior’ but they reveal to Stan that they constantly come into conflict with a mountain lion who always eats the expecting mother so Stan tries to help them out. And really that’s as far as I can go with the plot without giving anything else away. The big twist revolving around the Woodland Critters is so hilarious showcasing how this special may seem like your average light-hearted Christmas special but in reality it isn’t and like with many of the other great South Park episodes, you really have to hand it to creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for their writing. Sure, it gets incredibly dark and sick at times, something you really don’t see with most Christmas specials, but like many of the other ‘South Park’ episodes, it’s also incredibly funny, which is why it’s at the Number 8 spot on this list.

Going back to the shows of my childhood, we have Number 7, a special that offers a very unique take on the concept of a ‘time loop’ story like ‘Groundhog Day’, ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, or the ‘Stuck on Christmas’ story from the aforementioned ‘Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas’.

7. FAIRLY ODDPARENTS: CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY

Like the ‘Stuck on Christmas’ story from ‘Once Upon a Christmas’, the first Christmas special from ‘The Fairly Oddparents’ also had a plot centered around what it would be like if Christmas happened every day. For those who haven’t seen the show before, it’s about a ten-year old boy named Timmy Turner who is granted a pair of Fairy Godparents in Cosmo and Wanda, who are able to grant his every wish allowing him to deal with his everyday problems. In ‘Christmas Every Day’, Timmy is incredibly eager about Christmas given that it is one of the only times of the year where he can spend time with his parents, who are rather neglectful towards him most of the time leaving him with his ‘evil’ (literally) babysitter Vicky. So Timmy ends up wishing that it could be Christmas every day. But the key thing about this special is how it handles the whole ‘Christmas Every Day’ concept. In ‘Stuck on Christmas’, it was done in a way similar to ‘Groundhog Day’ in which the day kept repeating over and over again. But here the day doesn’t actually repeat; instead, it’s just that every single day is Christmas which as we see soon starts to take its toll on everybody. Schools, banks, and supermarkets remain closed, Christmas Carolers have to make up new lyrics for the song ’12 Days of Christmas’ once they go past 12 days, and everyone tries to prevent Santa from delivering presents to them. Even the military tries to take him out, which is easily one of the funniest moments in the entire special.

That’s the biggest strength of this special, as it offers a really unique spin on the whole ‘Christmas Every Day’ storyline, showing that although the idea of every day being Christmas might sound nice, it will start to get on your nerves. Not only that, but this special shows that even Santa can be pressured by this due to the fact that he constantly has to make new toys for kids to the point where he has to try and combine various objects when he starts to run out of ideas. The first day of Christmas, Timmy has an ‘ocean’ of presents to open but a few days later, that ocean becomes just a tiny ‘puddle’ of toys. Also, it’s worth noting that all of the fairy godparents in the world give most of their magic to Santa during this time of the year so Timmy just can’t wish things back to the way they were. And then to top it all off, the other holiday mascots, like the Easter Bunny and the April Fool, try to get rid of Santa by basically ‘banishing’ him to the imaginary date of ‘February 33^rd’. Yeah this show can be pretty weird when you really think about it but as far as Christmas specials go this is another one of my personal favorites as it has the fun and imagination that made ‘Fairly Oddparents’ such a great show along with plenty of Christmas spirit.

Like I said before, I made sure that this list wasn’t going to be entirely dominated by Rankin-Bass specials. But at Number 6 we have the first of the three of their Specials that did make this list and while it may not be Number 1, I feel that this special is pretty much a masterpiece.

6. THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY

Growing up, I usually just watched the big 3 Rankin-Bass specials; ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’, ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, and ‘Frosty the Snowman’. It wasn’t until I got a little older when I really started to watch the other Rankin-Bass specials and ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ is easily one of the best of the non-Big 3 specials of Rankin Bass, if not the best of that group. Pretty much everything about this special is terrific. The animation is solid (as usual) and the narration by Greer Garson is excellent as is the performance of the title song by the Vienna Boys Choir, which is easily the best rendition of this classic holiday melody. Also, as is typical with many Rankin-Bass productions, the characters are of course incredibly memorable, from the Three Wise Men (all voiced by the same actor, Paul Frees, who also voiced Kubla Kraus in ‘Jack Frost’) to the ‘villain’ Ben Haramad to the Little Drummer Boy himself, Aaron. One of the best things about this entire special is that Aaron has a nice little arc in this as he learns to trust all humans once again after bandits killed his parents some time ago. All in all, it’s a really touching story with a heartwarming finale where Aaron performs on his drum for baby Jesus, which is a truly mesmerizing moment. All in all, this results in one top-notch effort from Rankin-Bass. It was followed by a sequel 8 years later in ‘The Little Drummer Boy Book II’ and while I can’t say it’s as good as the original, it’s still a pretty solid special highlighted by a scene-stealing performance by Zero Mostel as the leader of a band of Roman soldiers.

Another Holiday Classic takes up the Number 5 spot. We’ve all seen it and it’s fairly impossible not to like it.

5. A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS

In some ways it’s fascinating to see this special become one of the most iconic Christmas specials of all time given that on paper it seemed like it was going to be a disaster. It was produced on a fairly minimum budget of $76,000 (later going $20,000 over-budget) and made in a very short span of time in just six months. But as Doug Walker (AKA The Nostalgia Critic) rightfully put it, this may be the reason why it is so good; because it isn’t trying to be something it’s not. It’s a very straight-forward story but one with a lot of heart critiquing the whole commercialistic side of Christmas, like how most of Charlie Brown’s friends get angry at him because when he told to go get a big aluminum Christmas Tree (which by the way I must ask… was that ever really a thing?), he go gets a small fir tree. But of course it was the thought that counts and as Linus puts it at the end, ‘all it needed was a little love’. To paraphrase something Doug said, this is a ‘No BS’ special and because of this, it leaves quite a lasting impression on everyone and is quite timeless. What more can be said about this true Christmas classic?

And yet another Holiday classic comes in at Number 4, this one from the minds of animator Chuck Jones and author Dr. Seuss.

4. HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS

Animator Chuck Jones has quite an impressive filmography. He’s worked on multiple Looney Tunes shorts and was also responsible for the creation of iconic characters such as Marvin the Martian, Pepe Le Pew, and Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. He also directed the first major TV special based on the works of author Theodor Geisel AKA Dr. Seuss with ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’. It’s the tale of a surly curmudgeon known as the Grinch who lives on a mountain and hates Christmas, especially due to the fact that he has had to deal with the Whos living down in the town of Whoville, who, in contrast with him, absolutely love the holidays. Fed up with it all, he decides to ‘steal their Christmas’ by disguising himself as Santa Claus and sneaks down into the town stealing all of their presents, decorations, etc… There are plenty of good things about the special; the animation, the music, the writing of Dr. Seuss, and the dual performance of Boris Karloff in the roles of the Grinch and the narrator. Of course, I’m sure that many of us grew up with the works of Dr. Seuss so this might be one of the first specials most of you have ever seen and needless to say it’s another timeless Holiday Classic.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about my thoughts on the other major adaptation of this story… well… I’ll get into that next time… needless to say a lot of you are going to disagree with me when it comes to what I think about that one.

We’re heading back to Rankin-Bass for Number 3 and it’s a big one; after all, how can someone not love the one Christmas special that effectively made Rankin-Bass a household name.

3. RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER

You really can’t go wrong with this one now, can you? We’ve all seen it, we all remember the characters, the songs, the animation, the sad moments, the happy moments, etc. It was Rankin-Bass’ first major stop-motion animated Christmas special and even though it’s now been half a century since its original release, it is still an undeniable Christmas classic. It has a great message of non-conformity showing how it’s okay to be different than others, shown through Rudolph’s journey as he is initially teased by the other reindeer because of his glowing red nose (to quote his father Donner, ‘his beak blinks like a blinking beacon!!’) but soon finds his true purpose in life to guide Santa’s sleigh when it seems like the worst blizzard of all time might end up ruining Christmas. Of course, there’s the other great characters in the special, like Hermey the Elf, who just wants to be a dentist, and of course everyone’s favorite prospector, Yukon Cornelius, who’s on the search for gold (GOLD!!!!!!! YA-HOO!!!!... (licks pickaxe) Nothing!). Hopefully this special lives on for another 50 years and even longer after that because it truly is one of the all-time best Christmas specials of all time. But wait, you’re probably asking, then why is it only number 3 on this list? Well, that’s because while I do love Rudolph, there’s another Rankin-Bass special that I love even more.

There have been many adaptations of the classic story that my Number 2 pick is also adapted from, but quite frankly this is my personal favorite of them all.

2. MICKEY’S CHRISTMAS CAROL

‘A Christmas Carol’ has easily been one of the most adapted stories of all time when it comes to film. There have been many films and TV movies based on Charles Dickens’ classic story, some going the traditional route while others do some things different, like having the film be a musical or, in the case of something like ‘Mickey’s Christmas Carol’, have famous characters play the characters of the story. ‘Mickey’s Christmas Carol’ is perfectly cast in regards to who is playing who; Scrooge McDuck as Scrooge (obviously), Mickey as Bob Cratchit, Jiminy Cricket, the Giant from ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’, and Pete as the Three Ghosts, etc. Another great aspect of this special in particular is how it effectively condenses the whole story of ‘A Christmas Carol’ into a twenty-six minute short film. Sure, there are some elements of the story that aren’t in this version but it moves along at a solid pace and still has the emotional beats and heartwarming moments that show why this story is so iconic. Why else would it be adapted into either a film or a TV-movie so many times? I have a feeling this is possibly the first major adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carol’ that a lot of people saw when they were younger, hence why it’s so timeless and that’s why it’s my personal favorite take on ‘A Christmas Carol’.   

And finally we have Number 1, which is not only my all-time favorite Christmas special, but my personal favorite from the Rankin-Bass lineup (yes, even more so than Rudolph). To top the list, we have…

1. SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN

It can be argued over which is the absolute best Rankin-Bass Christmas special of all time and ultimately while I still very much love ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’, my absolute favorite Rankin-Bass special, as it has been ever since I was a kid, is 1970’s ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, narrated by Fred Astaire in the role of mailman S.D. Kluger. It’s the tale of Santa Claus back when he was known as Kris Kringle and how he became known as Santa Claus as we learn many things like how he got his famous red suit or where he got his flying reindeer from. This special is incredibly well-paced, features the usual great stop-motion animation that Rankin-Bass was known for, and a great cast of characters. There’s Kris Kringle/Santa Claus of course, perfectly voiced by Mickey Rooney who has the right amount of kindness and warmth for the role. There’s also Keenan Wynn as the initially evil Winter Warlock, who turns out to be a pretty swell guy when his frozen heart melts (no ‘Frozen’ pun intended) and the funny bad guy in Burgermeister Meisterburger, voiced by Rankin-Bass regular Paul Frees. And then there’s the iconic songs including ‘Put One Foot in Front of the Other’ and ‘First Toymaker to the King’. The bottom line is that I love pretty much every aspect of this special and I think the writing is superb giving us a really fun look at the origins of Santa Claus, which is actually a more traditional take in this special compared to the other ‘origins of Santa’ special from Rankin-Bass, ‘The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus’, which was more like something out of ‘Lord of the Rings’, which is fitting seeing how it was written by ‘Wizard of Oz’ author L. Frank Baum. Still, there’s no denying the timeless nature of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, hence why it is my all-time favorite Christmas special.

So those are my Top 10 all-time favorite Christmas specials. Check back in soon for part 2 of this post, in which I list my Top 10 favorite Christmas movies.