Obscure Holiday Specials #1: Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976)

 

Ah yes, Rankin Bass. Now this is the good shit! Started on September 14th, 1960 as Videocraft International, Ltd and became Rankin/Bass Inc. sometime after because Incorporated is a better word than Limited. Sadly ended in 1987 when they were closed down by Lorimar Pictures. They were an company that made a whole hell of a lot of stuff, like Lord of the Rings animated movies, and helped make that Last Unicorn movie people talk about but I've never seen. Oh and Thunder Cats! Is ThunderCats one or two words? It looks weird written either way. Man I ask the important questions! Anyway what they are probably most famous for is their Christmas specials which they made all the way between 1964 and 2001 (I didn't even know about this last one called Santa Baby that has Eartha Kitt in it! Everyone talks about how she was one of the like 82 women to play Catwoman in the Batman 1966 TV show but she'll always be the old lady in Ernest Scared Stupid to me) and that's what we are going to talk about today. Not the most popular stuff, because really what can I say about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus is Coming to Town that most people haven't already said? Nothing. You come to me to talk about the weirdo shit no one remembers! 

This brings me to our first special and usually I babble on about my memories of these things from my youth and how I loved it then! Well, uh... I had no idea Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) even existed until I found a VHS tape of it at Value Village sometime in the past seven years or so? I don't know. I can remember dumb shit from my childhood but the adulthood is a blur. A sad boring depressing bore. Anyway I hope I still own that VHS tape because really I'm kinda tempted to start a new VHS tape collection and a VHS tape of this would be a great weird-o thing to own. I like weird-o things. Anyway this first appeared on December 10th, 1976 and was apparently a co-production with Japan's TV Asahi, with the special finally appearing there on December 24th, 1979. Now if that isn't a way to end the 1970s than I don't know what is! Also Japan likes Rudolph and American animation like that so SUCK IT ANIME FANS!!! (if any anime fans actually read this blog I'm sure they will mention this when I talk about how I like some animes later on in this stupid blogs future because they are dweebs who don't get my great comedy) (EDITORS NOTE: Apparently most of their 1960s stop motion stuff was done in Tokyo Japan by a guy named Tadahito Mochinaga who was credited as Tad Mochinaga, and there's nothing more in this world than I love then Japanese names.)

So this is clearly a sequel to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and I know some dweeb on the internet has seriously and geniunely complained that Rudolph was an adult at the end of that special and in this one that he's somewhere between a kid and an adult. The only reason I'm probably even going to mention that is because well I just want to make fun of people who get really angry about plotholes. My favorite horror franchise is Friday the 13th after all so I care about plotholes about as much as I care about I dunno something lame like comics made by Micah Curtis. I just care about having a fun time with something and it's gotta be an insanly impossible to ignore plothole for me to really care and that really isn't it.

This is a very goofy and weird little sequel though. The plot involves Happy who is the Baby New Year who has ran away because everyone laughs at his big ears (I would probably laugh at his big ears too just because of the goofy sound effect that comes along with them) and he went off to see the Archipelago of Lost Years. Archipelago is apparently a word for a bunch of islands near one another. What a cool word I just learned. The Islands are were Last Years go. So there's islands with Dinosaurs on them. A quick way to get me to enjoy anything is to put a dinosaur in it. An even quicker way is to put a cute stop motion dinosaur in it. I'm a simple man who enjoys simple things. Anyway this is bad because if Happy isn't around on December 31st to ring in the new year then DECEMBER NEVER ENDS! Oh shit son. To make things EVEN worse a giant ass vulture named Eon The Terrible (named because he lives for an Eon) wants to make it so that December 31st never ends because if he does he will turn into ice and snow. It's up to Rudolph and his new pals (including a Caveman, Ben Franklin and a giant whale with a clock on its tail!) to stop his evil plan...of not dying. I mean the Dude's apparently been a jerk for an Eon but I can't really blame him for not wanting to die.

The best part of these specials is the old timey stars that they get to narrate them. They always seem so happy to do it. One of them was Fred Astaire. Another was Burl Ives. This special has Mr. Red Skeleton. My old man likes Red Skeleton so you know he's an old timey kinda guy. The other members of the voice cast are Paul Frees (who did just as much work as Mel Blanc and people need to give the man more credit, damnit), Don Messick, Frank Gorshin (who voices probably my favorite character in the story, the Camel, and my least favorite, the Knight from the year all the Fairy Tales apparently took place in.) and the lady who wrote the novel Beaches. You know it was turned into some sappy movie with Bette Midler....not that I've ever seen it. The songs in this special are also pretty good but not as memorable or good as the ones in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Of course those probably have the best songs in any Holiday special so it's not exactly fair to compare them to this.

The Rankin/Bass specials are fun wholesome Christmas specials... even when they are doing other Holidays. It's weird to explain but they all feel very Christmassy. Although it's hard to really not connect Christmas and New Years. This has a lot of fun animation and puppets and I enjoyed watching it. Also he's not in the special but remember fuck Burgermeister Meisterburger. Nothing makes me happier to see his dumb ass portrait fall into the trash where it belongs. Fucker getting into Santa's shit.

Next Time: I think I'll stay with New Years and review the only other New Years special I can think of, staring the Peanuts gang! From the 1980s!