The children of the world launch a big campaign to give back to Santa and send him gifts to show him how much they love him. He explains that Christmas is not only about receiving, but about giving. There is one boy, Ignatius Thistlewhite, who takes a stand and explains that even Santa needs a vacation. As the children of the world hear of this, they become very sad and cannot imagine a Christmas without Santa. The poem tells of a year where Santa decides to take a vacation because he is feeling old and worn out. In 1968, 6 years before the Rankin and Bass special, just a few months before he passed Boris Karloff (who narrated How The Grinch Stole Christmas) narrated an LP record version of the story/poem that was available on Capitol Records. It was so popular that it was turned into a picture book the following year with illustrations by Kurt Werth. In 1956, Good Housekeeping magazine published the poem “The Year Without a Santa Claus” which was written by Phyllis McGinley. The story is not based on a song, but is based on a poem/book.
#Year without a santa claus tv#
The Year Without a Santa Claus originally aired on the ABC TV Network on December 10, 1974. They all had very unique voices that were perfect for these characters! Think about the voices of Jimmy Durante, Jackie Vernon (who was known for his blue comedy work), Buddy Hackett, Shirley Booth, Mickey Rooney, Fred Astaire, and Burl Ives. They did have their own company of actors (Paul Soles, Larry Mann, Billie Richards, Paul Klingman, and Paul Frees), but they were able to get some “star power” for narrators and other characters. I read somewhere that they really tried to find unique voices for their characters. Along with the title songs, who can forget “Holly Jolly Christmas”, “We Are Santa’s Elves”, “Silver and Gold”, “There’s Always Tomorrow”, “Put One Foot in Front of the Other”, “No More Toymakers to the King” and so many others?!įinally, and maybe most importantly, the voice work of some very talented actors and actresses make the Rankin and Bass specials so very entertaining. He conducted and arranged so much of the wonderful music heard in these specials. Maury Laws, who sadly passed away in March of this year at age 95, was the music director for almost every Rankin and Bass production. Next, you have the wonderful musical score and additional songs throughout the specials. We know the story of Santa Claus – but the song doesn’t mention the Burgermeister Meisterburger (who is responsible for him going down chimneys) or the Winter Warlock (who gives Santa his magic snowball so he can see if you’ve been bad or good). We know the story of Rudolph – but there is no mention of Yukon Cornelius, Hermie, or Bumbles in the song (and we know Yukon saved Rudolph’s life). We know the story of Frosty – but the song doesn’t mention Professor Hinkle (and we know we need his magic hat). We know the songs and the stories, but the specials elaborate on them. Second, many are based on familiar Christmas songs. Compared to the advances we see in animation today, these specials shot with this primitive process still hold up and are entertaining. Animagic was used on shows like Puppetoons, Gumby, and Davey and Goliath. So what makes these specials so special? Here are my thoughts: First of all, many of them were produced using a stop-motion animation process called “Animagic”. Along with How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas, these holiday specials were something that I (and many children) looked forward to watching every year. Many of these were based on songs (1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 1968’s Little Drummer Boy, 1969’s Frosty the Snowman, and 1970’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town).
Rankin and Bass Productions produced many holiday television specials. While the rules state that the blogs should be about holiday “films”, I appreciate them allowing me to write on what is my favorite television holiday special – The Year Without A Santa Claus from 1974. You can check out all of the first day participants here: This is one of two entries that I am writing as part of The Happy Holidays Blogathon hosted by The Pure Entertainment Preservation Society (PEPS).
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