Holiday Cartoon Memories: A Christmas Special

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apply. Hey everyone, TFJU and Mike here, and

this is Tooncast episode 30, the Tooncast Holiday

Show. I just want to let everybody know, even

without audio that I've added into this show,

the actual discussion would have run two hours

and 38 minutes. You don't have to listen to the

show all at once, but my goal for this episode

was to have people listen to it as their opening

presents on Christmas morning. This episode will

air Christmas Day, and before we start the show,

I want to give some shout -outs to Clark, Red

Random Hero, Mike the Birdman Dodd, Steve Megatron,

and Pecan Court Michael for leaving the following

voicemails. Hi, this is a message for the Tooncast

Holiday Show. This is Clark, aka Red Random Hero,

and my favorite Christmas special of all time

is a Charlie Brown Christmas. I love that show,

it represents a little, and I'll keep loving

it. even the Scrubs version they did, I still

love it. And my other favorite is... that's how

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Learn more. And the classic Rudolph the Red Nosed

Reindeer. My least favorite is, well I don't

have a least favorite, it's just I never got

into grandma got ran over by a reindeer. But

you know, my other favorite I just remember is

a Garfield Christmas. That's my best two. So

have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Hey guys, how's it going? This is Mike the Birdman

Dodd from ThisWeekendGeek .net, and I'm calling

in for Tooncast. You wanted memories of my favorite

Christmas cartoon? Well, recently, thanks to

the Nostalgia Critic, I've rediscovered the He

-Man and She -Ra Christmas Special. Man, what

a shitload of crap. I can't even begin to describe

that. But, uh, upon watching it last year, I

discovered one of the best lines of all time,

said by Skeletor, And it's just incredibly amusing.

So I thought I'd call her in and share that.

I really can't think of a lot of other ones that

had Christmas specials, at least from my era.

I'm thinking, why was there never a Captain Power

Christmas special? But anyways, if you want to

see a really, really, really cool list, go over

to thatguywiththeglasses .com. Check out Doug's,

then it sounds great to himself, top 11 Christmas

specials. and his top 12 Christmas specials from

last year, but definitely his She -Ra. He made

his She -Ra Christmas special, definitely worth

checking out. So anyway guys, make sure you're

tuning in to thisweekendgeek .net, and as I'm

often fond of saying, live free or die hard,

and I'll catch you guys around the show next

time. Thanks guys, bye. Hey everybody, this is

Steve Megadron Phillips, and yes, I am calling

in for the Tooncast Christmas special in reply

to TFG1 Mike's post on his blog. I'd have to

say my favorite Christmas movie, cartoon wise

anyway, of all time, I'd have to say is The Year

Without a Santa Clause. I'd have to say that

movie because it's actually really, really, really

fun to watch. You get a lot of interaction between

the characters. You get to see what it's like

for than to visit Mother Nature, the Miser Brothers,

which to me are the best part of the whole clip.

I love especially the Freeze Miser, which those

two actually spawned a second movie about. But

yeah, I'd have to say that it's one of my favorite

Christmas movies of all time. I couldn't go really

a year without watching that one, next to Rudolph

the Red Nosed Reindeer, and of course the Grinch.

More of the traditional Christmas movies. But

yeah, I'd have to say that is one of the best

ones I've seen to date. I just like the whole

perspective it takes. He's sick, he takes a holiday.

But yeah, anyways, that's all I was calling to

say. That's a good movie or a good show to watch.

Check it out. It's on DVD. I think you can buy

it in a six pack or something at the store. pretty

cheap with like Rudolph and various other Christmas

movies. Anyways, Steve Megatron Phillips signing

off. Hello, this is Michael Wilson also known

as Pecan Court Michael on the Geekcast Radio

Network. I just wanted to add my two cents and

on the Christmas episode primarily for the Charlie

Brown Christmas Special. I was watching the Charlie

Brown Christmas Special with my three -year -old

son Aidan last week and I couldn't help but feel

that I was missing something. I used to watch

it every season as a kid, but I hadn't seen it

in the last 15 or so years. So I might have stopped.

Oh, probably around college maybe. Just didn't

watch it anymore. But now that I have kids of

my own and a copy of the movie on DVD, I thought

it would be a good idea to start up the tradition

again. But something had changed, I think, since

I'd seen it when I was younger. And to me, the

whole thing seemed to be about the commercialism

of the holiday. Charlie Brown complaining about

his dog, who's only in it for the money, and

his little sister who's only in it for the cash

and the gifts, despite not being old enough to

write her own Christmas list, and the implication

that you can't have a good Christmas without

a gaudy aluminum and expensive, I bet, tree.

Shiny tree. Shiny. It's not like rampant commercialism

has hurt their bottom line. I dig the Coralli

Jazz score, so I went out a few years back and

I bought the Snoopy Christmas CD. Love it. Listen

to it every year. Score one for commercialism.

My wife and I buy another Snoopy stuffed toy

every year from Hallmark, usually on a sled or

in a Santa suit or something. Score two for capitalism

and the original introduction of the show featured

Linus careening off the icy pond into a Coca

-Cola sign because Coke originally sponsored

the whole thing. So three, it's a commercialism

hack trick with some irony tossed in there for

good measure. Now, I wondered if the Christmas

marketing blitz and subsequent merchandising

started the day after Halloween in 1957, much

like it does now. And that would explain things.

But a lot of things were different back then

when the show first aired. Maybe I'm just too

old to get it out, like Charlie Brown. I just

don't get it. But look at my boy, and he's all

smiles. He loves it. He liked it so much. that

it really forced me to look and see what it was

that he was seeing. And he helped me to remember

what I loved most about the show, Snoopy. Snoopy

dragging Linus' blanket on the skating pond and

sending Charlie Brown into a tree. Snoopy decorating

his house with tons of lights and stuff. Remember

those things were. Snoopy dancing at the play

with everyone else. while they were all ignoring

Charlie Brown's direction. And Snoopy, again,

laughing at Charlie Brown's ridiculous tree.

You gotta love that Melinda's laugh. Yeah, I

do. I'd love Snoopy. I'd love Snoopy still to

this day. And although I'm older now and I have

a firmer grasp of the anti -capitalist agenda

of the show, I still find myself drawn in. Railing

against a cash -driven society is just a means

to close with a reminder of the reason for the

season. And that's a lesson that I'll gladly

pass on to my boys. So I'll probably watch the

Charlie Brown Christmas special every year from

now on, or at least until my youngest son goes

off to college. Thanks a lot. It was good being

here. Happy Merry Christmas. Okay, this is Christmas

morning. This is what this podcast is meant for,

for people to listen to on Christmas Day as they're

opening presents and fighting and shouting and

screaming and joy and happiness and laughter

and all that happy Christmas crap. Hello and

welcome to the 30th episode of Tooncast, brought

to you by the GeekCast Radio Network. I am your

host, TFG1 Mike, and today I am joined once again

by Kevin, Boss K Dog Thompson. Hello. Hello.

And making her return is the Televixen. The last

time we heard from her was episode 21 when we

talked about the Jetsons and the Flintstones.

Hello. Merry Christmas! Yes. So what have you

been up to, Televixen, since the last time we

talked to you? Oh, lots of blogging, lots of

baking, and just going to break out some of those

cookies that I haven't given away yet and make

some coffee and enjoy my Christmas day. Yep.

What about you, Kevin? Besides the obvious. I'm

gonna mention it no matter what. I've been making

my way through the complete Transformers series,

all 98 episodes of the movie. I'm down to episode

92 or 93, somewhere in there, so I'll be finishing

that up here in the next couple days and moving

on to the complete set of G .I. Joe. Yes, and

you painted your house pink. No, I didn't paint

my house pink, but I did paint my every wall

and ceiling in my house different. colors of

white and white and red and blue and stuff like

that. Well, you mix red and white, you get pink.

That's true. Good point. Good point. Other than

that, I have not been doing a whole lot. All

right. Yeah, it's been a busy end of the year

for me. Steve and I and Michael Wilson and Michael

ivy a bunch of other hosts that that that keycast

radio network uses on various shows We've just

been hitting the ground running when it comes

to podcasting We just launched the beast uns

podcast Which is a review show for beast wars

and beast machines that features myself Stephen

Steve Megatron and Michael Wilson It took me

six months to get Steve's Steve's birthday was

back on June 18th It took me six months to get

him the present that I wanted to get him. I wanted

to get him an interview with David Kaye because

he does an impression of Beast Wars Megatron.

And I finally locked that down about, I believe,

a week ago. Well, when this podcast record goes

up, it'll be about two weeks ago. So yeah, we

interviewed David Kaye for the Beast Unleashed

podcast, and that was really awesome. And we've

got just a whole bunch of stuff coming up at

the end of the year, and a bunch of new stuff

coming in 2010. So yeah, we are going to be talking

about a ton of Christmas cartoons in this episode.

This episode actually might even rival episode

10, which was our He -Man and She -Ra episode,

which ran four hours. I seriously doubt this

is going to run four hours, but... By the power

of Grayskull! We will be right back with a Charlie

Brown Christmas. There must be something wrong

with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm

not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed

to feel. I just don't understand Christmas, I

guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas

cards and decorating trees and all that, but

I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling

depressed. Charlie Brown, you're the only person

I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas

and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy's right.

Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're

the Charlie Browniest. It is now time for the

history lesson. Take it away, Professor. All

right. For today's lesson, we are talking about

a Charlie Brown Christmas, which is the first

primetime animated TV special based upon the

comic Sir Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. It was

produced and directed by former Warner Brothers

and UPA animator Bill Melendez, who also supplied

the voice for the character of Snoopy. Initially

sponsored by Coca -Cola, the special aired on

CBS from its debut in 1965 through 2000. and

has aired on ABC since 2001. For many years,

it aired only annually, but is now telecast at

least twice during the Christmas season. The

special has been honored with both an Emmy and

a Peabody Award. A Charlie Brown Christmas is

also one of CBS's most successful specials, airing

annually more times on that network than even

MGM's classic motion picture, The Wizard of Oz.

Oz was shown 31 times on CBS, but not consecutively

as the Charlie Brown special between 68 and 76.

And NBC aired them. That does it for the history

lesson, let's have ourselves a Charlie Brown

Christmas. Yes, before we get into the general

memories, I must... Charlie Brown Christmas,

this is the 44th year consecutively that it's

going to be running on television. It started

in 65 and we are now in 2009. For me... This

was this was one of the quintessential Christmas

specials that I watched every year as a kid It's

just good clean wholesome fun for the most part

I think my favorite part is Is when Snoopy gives

Lucy dog germs, I think that is hilarious What

about you Kevin I didn't watch it. I don't remember

watching it every single year at Christmas, but

It was the Charlie Brown special that I watched

the most. I watched it, obviously, like we talked

about before, more than the Thanksgiving one

and more than any of his other specials. So I

do remember it. It wasn't one of the ones that

I watched every single year, like a few of the

other specials that we'll talk about later. But

I do have a pretty good memory of it. I like

most of it, actually. I like Snoopy when he's

doing his doghouse up with lights and stuff like

that. Yeah, I like Charlie Brown's reaction when

he comes home after the Christmas play. First

prize! What the... Yeah. I guess I like all the...

Oh, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Say it. I like

all the nods. There are the little jabs that,

you know, obviously it's the whole point of the

whole show. commercialization of Christmas and

all that. I think that was a good idea. What

about you, Televix, and what were your general

memories of Charlie Brown Christmas? I've watched

this, I think, every year since I was two. It's

my second favorite Christmas special. And it's

just so many good memories that go along with

it. I remember putting up the Christmas tree

with my family while watching it, or having a

cup of hot chocolate and some cookies and watching.

Just really, really good memories. I've always

loved that wacky little dance scene when they're

working on their play. It reminds me of so many

things when I was in school. It's really timeless,

I think, and that's why it's still to this day

is such a big Christmas hit. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.

Very much so. And I know that this will probably

echo as you guys hear it. It won't be echoing

when the episode airs, but this was one of my

favorite moments. I ought to slug you. I think

that is my most favorite Lucy moment of any of

the animated specials. That is just so hilarious.

To me, in this one, Linus steals the show. Oh

yeah. Well, Linus is the only one that could

have read that Bible verse. I still watch that

to this day, like that scene, and I'm like, wow,

every child in the world that believes in Christmas

should watch this. Just because they get so caught

up in all the commercialization and the gifts

and the me, me, me and the selfishness. Just

sit down and watch that and get back to the basics

and the simplicity of the goodness that's behind

it all. Do we have anything else to say for General

Memories, Kevin? You got anything to add? No,

I'm good. All right, Grinchhead. As far as the

voice actors and the characters, I pretty much

cheated on getting the character list because

I pretty much used the exact same list as all

the other Charlie Brown specials that we've done

here on Tooncast because... It's pretty much

the same list for the most part. There are a

few Differences, I don't think Woodstock was

in this one. I don't remember seeing him No,

I just watched it like an hour ago and I don't

remember seeing him either Yeah, so out of the

top three Charlie Brown specials. He was only

in Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which kind of

sucks Yeah, you know you have The voice cast

for this one, I think... No, it wasn't Todd Barbie

that played Charlie Brown. I didn't change this

over. It was... What was his name? Peter Robbins

that played Charlie Brown and Christopher Shea

or Steven... I don't know. I honestly don't know.

I must not have changed this over afterwards.

Just going by the special, who are your favorite

characters in this one, Kevin? Probably Snoopy

and Linus, I'd say. I'm not a big fan of any

of the other characters, which is why I'm not

a big Peanuts fan. But yeah, I would say Linus

and Snoopy are my favorite in this one. What

about you, Televixen? Oh, go ahead, Kevin. I

have the voices just so I can go real quick.

Charlie Brown is Peter Robbins, Lucy is Tracy

Stratford, Linus Christopher Shea, Peppermint

Patty is Karen Mendelsohn, although it's not

really the same Peppermint Patty that we see

later. Sally Brown is Kathy Steinberg, and Violet

is Sally Dreyer Barker. Right. What about you

Tello Vixen, who are your favorite characters

in this one? Most definitely Linus and Charlie

Brown. I mean Charlie seems to have, you know,

kind of the real, you know, he's the one who's

trying to keep it real and everyone else is getting

caught up in all the extra things that go with

it. So it's definitely all about Charlie and

Linus for me. Yeah, I think this one is way more

characterization for Charlie Brown. And again,

we've actually reviewed these on Tooncast out

of actual release order, because I was going

by holiday. And this was actually the very first

ever Peanuts animated television special. So

it's kind of nice that they went from this to

Halloween to Thanksgiving, because in between

the Halloween and the Thanksgiving one, Once

they get to the Thanksgiving thing, Sally mentions,

I haven't even eaten all my candy from Halloween

yet. But you couldn't go back and say, I haven't

finished the Thanksgiving dinner in this at all.

And as we said, it's pretty much commercialization

versus the true meaning of Christmas, which is

being with friends and family and all that stuff.

For me, I would have to say favorite characters

in this one. I do like Charlie Brown. I don't

necessarily agree with him because everybody

wants presents, but anyway. I think I like Snoopy

the best out of all the Peanuts specials and

the strip itself. And again, they had child actors

do these and not really like famous child actors

or anything like that, but just regular kids.

I think that there was only one professionally

trained child actress or actor. I don't remember

who it was, but I think like one or two of them

had not really been in the business, but had

done other things previous to this. Just overall,

a great voice cast. I don't think you could have

the same effect that you do in this special without

having these people voice these characters. Yeah,

I'm talking about the children doing the voices.

The voice of Sally Brown, which is Kathy Steinberg.

She actually was so young that she hadn't even

learned how to read at the time of production.

So she actually had to have her lines fed to

her, often a word or a syllable at a time, and

you can tell in a couple parts why her little

choppy delivery was because she was getting her

lines fed to her, basically. Yeah, but I mean,

again, I know it's our job to review these things

and kind of look at them objectively, but it's

kind of hard as well, because really, honestly,

when I was watching this last night, or well,

by the time this airs two weeks ago, You know

when I was watching this I Wasn't really looking

for I mean I caught a few like animation flows

But I wasn't really you know I wasn't really

watching it for for analyzation. I was more watching

it for enjoyment and grabbing audio clips, but

You know that's just the way I work I guess do

we have any other thoughts on the voice actors

from either of you? So going into the behind

the scenes segment as far as the history, bringing

the Peanuts characters to television was not

an easy task. The Strip's creators, with funding

from sponsor Coca -Cola, presented the CBS network

with an idea for a Christmas television special

starring Schultz's characters. The production

was done on a shoestring budget resulting in

somewhat choppy animation style and from a technical

standpoint poorly mixed sound with the exception

of the actors who voiced Charlie Brown, Peter

Robinson, Lucy Tracy Stratford. None of the children

had any experience doing voice work. This was

especially challenging for Kathy Steinberg as

Kevin just mentioned. She was too young to read.

Network executives are not all keen on several

aspects of the show, forcing Schultz and Melendez

to wage some serious battles to preserve their

vision, and the executives did not want to have

lionists reciting the story of the birth of Christ

from the Gospel of Luke. The network, orthodoxy

at the time, assumed that viewers would not want

to sit through passages of authorized version,

commonly called the King's James Version of the

Bible. The story reported on the Whoopi Goldberg

hosted version of the making of the programs

Okay, another complaint was the absence of a

laugh track a common element of children's cartoons

at the time You know, I have me and I'll I'll

talk about the DVD a little bit more Once we

get down to that segment, but I have the the

deluxe remastered edition that came with the

peanuts holiday deluxe edition three -pack And

it says on here that it's, you know, it's remastered.

So honestly, unless it was like something, as

far as animation flubs, unless it was like something

that, oh, one thing I noticed is that, you know,

sometimes Charlie Brown will be in his normal

yellow or, yellow and black or orange and black

shirt, and sometimes he will be in this, this,

red coat and blue pants with his hat. Same thing

with Lioness. Lioness will have in one scene

he'll have like an orange shirt on and in the

other scene he has his classic red and black

striped shirt on. Now I don't know if that was

outdoors versus indoors. I don't remember. I

could have sworn I saw Lioness outdoors in his

classic look and not have his jacket on. I'm

not really sure. But overall, for the remastered

edition, it's probably much better than the original

broadcast one was. Yeah, a lot of the animation

mistakes were fixed before it was made into DVD,

so you'd have to get an old copy of the VHS tape

to see most of the mistakes. Let's see, in January

2000, one month before Schultz's death, the broadcast

rights were acquired by ABC as part of the deal

between the network and Schultz, which is where

the special currently airs and has aired there

since CBS's final airing of the special on December

25th, 2000. On September 12th, 2000, the special

was released to DVD and had previously been released

on VHS through Shell Oil. What? Oh crap. Charlie

Brown is being sold at a gas station, ladies

and gentlemen. That's just wrong. That's just

wrong! The show enjoyed its 40th anniversary

with this broadcast of Tuesday, December 6, 2005.

This broadcast had the highest ratings in its

time slot. On December 6, 2001, a half -hour

documentary on the special entitled, The Making

of a Charlie Brown Christmas, hosted by Whoopi

Goldberg. aired on ABC in 2002. It was replaced

by Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales. This documentary

was released along with the special Charlie Brown's

Christmas Tale as a bonus feature with the special

I Want a Dog for Christmas Charlie Brown October

26, 2004. There are different versions of this.

The special has not been seen in its original

uncut form since the first three telecasts in

1965, 66 and 67. Much of this is due to the opening

and closing credits containing references to

Coca -Cola. The show's original sponsors specifically

acknowledge cuts are the main titles have Linus

crashing into a Coca -Cola sign, complete with

main titles and creator of this cartoon after

Snoopy has spun both him and Charlie Brown around

with Linus' blanket. In the versions currently

available, the viewers never see where Linus'

trajectory lands him. Instead, they see Charlie

Brown landing towards a pine tree which causes

more snow to fall on top of him. In the fenced

scene where several of the Peanuts Gang are attempting

to knock cans off the fence with snowballs, Linus

is seen knocking down a can with his blanket.

In the original airing, this was a Coke can,

but it was later replaced with a nondescript

can. The final end credit originally had a voiceover

saying, Chorus sung at the end of the trails

off on labor for the song would normally end

as an announcer Originally did the voiceover

at this point in the credits to repeat and re

-emphasize the local bottlers well wishes to

the TV audience Oops who pressed a button damn

it not me Yeah, exactly don't you have a headset

now I Do I accidentally hit the button when I

was moving? Uh -huh excuses excuses Does anyone

find that this whole show about trying to make

it not commercialize, you know, let's take the

commercialization out of Christmas and let's

make it about the true meaning was just completely

brought to you by Coca -Cola and they put their

logo and their stuff everywhere. Yeah, but that

was only for the first three years. I know, but

it just seems ironic that they're supposed to

be about the true message and they were like,

product placement everywhere. Yeah, exactly.

Well, everything nowadays is product placement

everywhere. I mean, you can't throw a quarter

and not find product placement from something

in something else. And most shows back then couldn't

go unless they had a major sponsor. Right. You

know, it was sponsor first, then the show, I

think in most cases. Yeah. What I would have

liked to have seen on this remastered edition

DVD, if at all possible, not really the original

cut, but if they took the scenes from the original

cut and put them as deleted scenes, that would

have been really cool, I think. So, let's see.

As far as directors and writers, we have, it

was written and created by Charles Schultz, directed

by Mel Melendez and Phil Roman. It's produced

by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez. The original

score composed and performed by Vince Beraldi,

which we will talk about that a little bit later.

Yeah, it's just overall a great, great thing.

So getting into the actual show, why don't you

read some of the plot there, sir? I would, if

I could. Oh, wait. You don't have the plot pages?

No, I don't have any. Oh, god. All right. Basically,

we're going to try to apply our USA Salvation.

I've got it here. OK. Well, if you would like

to summarize the plot for us, that would be greatly

appreciated. OK. You don't have to read everything.

Just, I don't know. Kevin and I, when we did

our, we started a Disney animation spotlight

where we're reviewing Disney films and it's our

goal in some of those films to have a less than

five minute synopsis. So whatever you want to

say about it is more than fine or I can read

some of the stuff, it doesn't matter. Okay, well

the basics of the plot is Charlie Brown on his

way to going skating confides in Linus that even

though Christmas is approaching he still feels

depressed despite all of the presents and the

cards and the decorating and it only gets he

only gets further aggravated with what's going

on in his neighborhood all the pressure of giving

the cards to people and then the whole nativity

play that's becoming less and less about the

nativity and more and more about becoming almost

a Broadway production. Charlie Brown walks away

from the auditorium and once Snoopy finally gives

in to the whole commercial aspect to Christmas

and then gets accosted by his sister who wants

her brother to take a dictation on her letter

to Santa and what she asks Santa, and this gets

me all the time, just send money, particularly

10s and 20s. Okay, and I have to add something.

What kids back then would ask for 10s and 20s?

I mean, that's quite a bit... a while before

I was born and the most I ever would have dreamt

of asking for was a block or two. The other thing

you've got to realize is that a lot of these

cartoons back then were meant for the people

that were making them so they're like the only

way I can equate it is like when one of Jeff

Dunham does his little shows with his puppets

coming from the puppets mouth it's okay but if

Jeff said something you know, controversial,

it would be bad. But it's the same thing with

the adults writing for the animation and everything

else, it's okay coming from a kid's mouth. But

like when we were doing our Halloween special,

I said, who, you know, Sally says all this stuff

about, you know, being, you know, cut out of

going for tricks or treats and I'm like, who

talks like that? What kid says 20th century in

any sentence? You know, it's the same thing here

Yeah, yeah It just always strikes me as really

funny though. Yeah it does Yeah, and then we

get into the whole You know Charlie Brown in

pursuit of the perfect Christmas tree and we

all know how that turns out he comes back with

the most homely sparse bear tree and is the subject

of mockery as a result of, you know, his incompetence

in trying to find the perfect tree. But eventually

it turns into the perfect tree. Well, it does

turn. Well, after they do their little hand waving

hocus pocus, it turns into the perfect tree.

So what else do we need to know about the plot?

I think the only other thing is just the thing

that turns it all around, which is, like you

mentioned before, Linus' recital, recitation

of the actual Bible verses, and kind of turns

the action around, and then the Charlie Brown

trip back to his house or whatever with all the

cast following him, and ending with the little

final, oh, you're greater than we thought you

were. you're okay turned down the tree it's fixed.

One thing I must point out when I was watching

this when I was watching this before the record

you know they talk about doing a play doing a

Christmas play are they doing it for themselves

because if you look at the scene right before

lioness asks for the lights to be turned down

you can see the auditorium seats there's nobody

sitting in them So they're basically just doing

this for themselves. And I mean, I kind of get

it. But if you're going to put a play on, aren't

you supposed to have audience members? I kind

of took it as they were still just doing rehearsal

and they never got to the actual play part. Oh,

OK. Well, you know. But yeah, you're right. It

is completely empty. There's not anybody even

like. I've been in a lot of plays before and

usually, even when you're doing rehearsal, there's

some people in the audience, whether it's your

costume people or your makeup people or your

people helping the directors or set people. But

yeah, it was completely empty. Yeah. I guess

we can go into some trivia here because we've

already talked about the fact of the themes and

the commercialization of Christmas and all that

stuff. I got a couple. You know, there's some

that are, we've already talked about it, there's

some that are kind of a little more pointless,

but I got a couple that I wanted to point out

specifically. Second one, which is basically

that this show remains the second -longest running

Christmas special on U .S. network television.

So there's only one other show that has... been

on longer, which we'll talk about next. Well,

no, that show was actually last on the agenda

today. Okay, but we will talk about it later

today, so we'll bring it up then. It's also the

best out of all the Christmas ones that we're

talking about today. Put my two cents in there.

The other one I wanted to point out is a little

bit further down, which is just before her remarks

about Christmas being a big commercial racket,

Lucy refers to Charlie Brown simply as Charlie.

This is the only time she does this in any of

the TV specials. Every other time, she always

calls him Charlie Brown, the full name. You can

watch for that the next time you watch the special.

And then I just had two little mistakes that

I wanted to point out just because they're fun

to watch. If you have an older VHS tape, but

during the final scene, the peanut stand gathers

around the little tree and begins to sing Hark

the Herald Angels sing, singing the loo, you

know, the ooh -ooh -ooh moment. By the way, it's

my least favorite part of the whole thing. I

don't mind it when they sing it, but when they're

doing the humming, it drives me nuts. But then

everyone takes a breath, takes time, his head

disappears briefly, and Patty's orange dress

takes its spot. So his head becomes an orange

dress for a shot there. That's funny. And the

last one I wanted to point out was basically

when Lucy is doing her I'm a doctor type thing,

or you know, I'm a... Oh, yeah. Whether it was

intended or not, she messes up just about all

of them. The best one for me is, Lucy claims

that pantophobia means a fear of everything,

when in fact, pantophobia means a fear of nothing.

Oh. The correct term for fear of everything is

pan -phobia. Oh, okay. I need to point some...

Go ahead. No, go ahead. No, I'm just saying,

most of her phobias are wrong. She says it means

something, but really she's got the wrong word,

which... probably is more just intentional stuff

because she's not a real you know psychiatrist

so they're trying to make fun of that it's still

kind of fun to um it says like when you first

look at that shot of of the stand it says the

doctor is real in and then at a at a diagonal

angle it just you can just barely make out doctor

in And then when it comes back around it shows

the same thing on the on the frontal shot. It

says the doctor is real in So I I I don't know

what that they were doing there if it was I know

I know it's a mistake But that they must have

just you know, I don't know Yeah, that always

kind of threw me off too. I'm like the doctor

is real and I'm like You know, it's for a kid.

I'm like I don't get it. Yeah, I don't I didn't

get it either Yeah, I did notice that even today

when I watched it. I'm like, I don't like that.

That's just crazy. And then, of course, Lucy

being the gold digger, or the silver digger,

as she is, first of all, you must pay first.

Five cents, please. Charlie Brown is digging

into his pocket like, oh, okay, here you go.

Overall, this is... It's one of my favorites.

I can watch it every year around Christmas time,

but it's not my most favorite. I'm not saying

that it's bad or anything. I would say it's in

the top five, but it's not my most favorite,

no. I agree pretty much with all that. I would

put it up there. It's probably in the top five

or top ten. No, it's probably top five of Christmas.

specials, but there's definitely a few others

that rank above it for me. Yes. Do we have anything

else that we would like to say before we go into

the music portion? No. Okay, going into the music

segment. As we all know from the earlier episodes

of Tunecast, all of the Peanuts music was done

by Vince Giraldi. They mentioned in the special

feature of the behind the scenes that's on the

on the on the remastered DVD that They wanted

to go for a non -traditional Christmas music

they wanted like a lighter toner jazzier sound

and they also mentioned that when Vince Beraldi

came up with lioness and Lucy which is as we

all know is the the main theme for peanuts That

just took off. Everybody loved it when it first

got released. It's just... Yeah, it is. It is

very much so. Do you guys have any comments about

the music? I love the fact that when they're

on stage and they're getting ready to do everything,

they buff out the main, you know, the main peanuts

theme song like you're talking about instead

of any type of... Christmas whatever and of course

Charlie Brown goes nuts and he'll cut and all

that type of stuff. No, no, no, no. I just think

the music was great throughout the whole thing

except for the hominid Parker Herald angle thing.

Yeah, what about you Tella Vixen? To me, it's

not Christmas unless I hear this soundtrack.

It's become such a big part of the holidays for

me. I could be anywhere and I just hear the music

and I'm immediately taken back. That's the sure

way to get me into the Christmas spirit every

year. I hear that music and I'm there. It's actually

very funny. If you buy, and of course some people

are like, buy? What's that? I can just download

it. But if you go out and you buy that that holiday

deluxe edition three -pack of It's a Great Pumpkin,

Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The Christmas DVD

comes with a Charlie Brown Christmas six -song

sampler CD, comes with My Little Drum, Linus

and Lucy, Heart the Herald Angels Sing, Christmas

is Coming, For Else, and Greensleeves. The only

reason why I even like the CD is because it has

a full track of Linus and Lucy. And each of the

DVDs, as I mentioned before in the other Charlie

Brown episodes that we've done, each of these

three DVDs comes with a little insert and you

can get two free download tracks for iTunes.

Well, actually, yeah, it is for iTunes. You can

get Heart to Hero Angels Sing and Christmastime

is Here, which is, I'm trying to think. Who wrote

it? I think it was Bill Melendez that wrote it.

I don't know. It was either Bill Melendez or

Lee Mendelson that wrote it, and then they had

to put lyrics to it. I'm not sure who actually

sang, you know, Christmastime is here. Yeah,

I don't know just overall just great music in

the entire peanuts video collection I guess going

into the legacy segments for home video releases

for this one In 1992 the special was released

for limited time on VHS through shell oil as

we said in September 1994 the special was released

by paramount on VHS high top video maker of Baby

Song Videos has also released a Charlie Brown

Christmas on VHS. Also released in September

of 2000, it was released on DVD. Bonus features

included the 1992 special It's Christmas Time

Again, Charlie Brown. On September 23rd, 2008,

it was released by Warner Home Video, to which

the rights of the Peanut Specials were reverted

earlier in the year due to Melendez's connections

to WB. As a remastered DVD, bonus features include

a restored version of Christmas Time Again and

new documentary titled Christmas Miracle The

Making of Charlie Brown Christmas. It is also

available in a four disc box set in Great Pumpkin

Charlie Brown and Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,

also including the audio CD of Charlie Brown

Holiday Music. It was yet again released by Warner

Home Video on July 7, 2009 on a two disc box

set called Peanuts 1960s Collection. which featured

all the Peanuts TV specials from the 1960s. Since

the rights to the special have been reverted

to Warner Brothers Television, this has become

available as a download on the iTunes store and

PlayStation Network video store. Also includes

Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, it's a Flash

Beagle, Charlie Brown, I don't think I've ever

heard of that one. What in the hell is that?

It is also available on high definition blu -ray

disc on one of home video and remastered Dolby

5 .1 surround. The disc also contains it's Christmas

time again, a Christmas miracle, a DVD of the

special and a digital copy. According to Bill

Melendez, some of the child actors could not

read. Yeah, we've already mentioned that. Let's

see, musical soundtrack Charlie Brown Christmas

by jazz composer Vince Garaldi has become well

known. as the story itself, particularly the

instrumental Linus and Lucy. Sequels. Lesser

known sequels were produced decades after the

1965 original. It's Christmas time again, Charlie

Brown, 1902. This special was 30 minutes in length

with commercials and aired on CBS. It was abandoned

by CBS shortly after it was released on DVD as

a bonus feature with Charlie Brown Christmas.

Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, and I Want a

Dog for Christmas Charlie Brown. While not true

sequels, three other Charlie Brown holiday season

specials were produced. 1973's Charlie Brown

Thanksgiving still aired annually on ABC. 1966's

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown also aired

annually on ABC. And Happy New Year Charlie Brown

from 1985 also aired on ABC in 2008. I don't

think I've ever seen that one. No. I've never

even heard of it. Yep, I guess we can do our

our final thoughts now before we move on to the

next the next topic of discussion Why don't you

go first televixen one of your final thoughts

on a child around Christmas? Christmas isn't

complete without watching it. Yeah, that pretty

much sums it up That that's that's pretty much

it everything about it, you know the the message

You know deep down at the heart of it the music

the characters, you know kind of the underdog

being the hero at the end of it all it's it's

just It captures the spirit of Christmas in a

really good way in a really fun way. Yes, it

does and Kevin what are your thoughts? You know,

I think the good thing about Christmas is that

you want one of the many good things about Christmas

is that basically you celebrate it for I mean,

you start celebrating Christmas right after Thanksgiving,

at least most people seem to do when the lights

go up and everything like that. And the reason

I say that is because it gives you a month of

time to watch different specials and to watch,

you know, have different Christmas moments or

decorate and they're doing this or that. And,

you know, during that month you should watch

this at some point, or at least every kid should.

I feel it should be done earlier on in the month

and then save the better specials for closer

to Christmas. Since you have so much time, you

should definitely give it a watch. Almost every

holiday season, it only takes a half hour. For

me, I'm glad it's still running on TV. I think

that's great. I will say that about all of the

specials that we are covering today because I

honestly do think it's great that for the most

part they're still on TV every year. For me,

having the DVDs, while I'm not prone to, say,

pop in Charlie Brown Christmas in July to watch

it, but you know I mean just having them and

being able to watch them whenever I want and

Not really having to wait for the television

special itself Is great because I'll probably

end up doing is I'll probably end up watching

all of them again later You know Christmas morning

or Christmas afternoon or Christmas night But

that's just the way I am and before we move on

Here's what Lioness has to say. This is not the

Bible verse, but just listen to this. This is

not only getting too commercial, it's getting

too dangerous. And that was a scene right after

Lucy threatened to pound him. Oh, that Lucy.

So we are going to be moving on. We will be right

back. On Sunday, December 4th, Burl Ives again

tells the exciting new story of Rudolph the red

-nosed reindeer on the General Electric Fantasy

Hour. The date, Sunday, December 4th. Join Rudolph

in a trip to the island of misfit toys. Meet

Yukon Cornelius, the funniest prospector of the

North. Meet Santa's elves and hear seven original

Christmas songs. Burl sings. It's a holly jolly

Christmas special for the entire family. Don't

miss Rudolph, Sunday, December 4th, in color

on most of these stations. If I live to be a

hundred, I'll never be able to forget that big

snowstorm a couple of years ago. The weather

closed in and, well, you might not believe it,

but the world almost missed Christmas. Oh, excuse

me. Call me Sam. What's the matter? Haven't you

ever seen a talking snowman before? Nice around

here, isn't it? I call it Christmas Town, better

known as the North Pole. Christmas tree forest.

Yep, here's where we grew them. Nice place to

live, you know. Christmas seals. Of course, the

number one citizens up here are the clauses,

Santa and the Mrs. They live right over there.

First castle on the left. Matter of fact, the

only castle on the left. Papa, you haven't touched

them? I'll have to take this suit in eat. I'm

busy mama. It's almost Christmas Whoever heard

of a skinny Santa eat eat Now don't any of you

worry your heads about Santa mrs. Claus will

have him plenty fattened up by Christmas Eve

It's always the same story I Love this Christmassy

time of year Especially when everything is running

happy and smooth like it is this season. Nothing

like that year of the big snowstorms. I don't

know what we would have done without Rudolph

to pull us through. Anyway, Rudolph? Could it

be that some of you are not acquainted with the

story of Rudolph? Well, pull up an ice block

and lend an ear. Now, you know how Santa uses

these flying reindeer to pull his sleigh. You

know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,

Comet and Cupid, Donner and Glitzen. But do you

recall the most famous reindeer of all? We are

back, and it's time for Rudolph the Red -Nosed

Reindeer, which is a long -running Christmas

television special produced in stop -motion animation

by Rankin Bass with Thundercats people. It first

aired December 6, 1964 on the NBC television

network in the USA and was sponsored by General

Electric under the umbrella title of the General

Electric Fantasy Hour. The special is based on

the song by Johnny Marks, which was in turn taken

from the 1939 poem of the same title written

by Marx's brother -in -law, Robert L. May. Since

1972, this special has aired over CBS, which

unveiled a high -definition, digitally remastered

version in 2005. As with The Charlie Brown Christmas

and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph no

longer airs just once annually, but several times

during the Christmas season. It has been telecast

every year since 1964, making it the longest

-running Christmas TV special. and one of the

only four 1960s Christmas specials still being

telecast. The others being A Charlie Brown Christmas,

Halle Green Stole Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman.

And again, as with the Charlie Brown special,

Rudolph has now been shown more than 31 times

on CBS, although in this case, CBS was not Rudolph's

original network. That's the history lesson.

We're going to move on to the general memories.

It's funny, in the earlier part of this episode,

when we're talking about Charmer on Christmas,

Kevin, you had mentioned that the longest running

one was next up. And at first, I was like, because

we were going about the Grinch, and I'm like,

wait, no, the Grinch is last in this episode.

But Rudolph is the longest running. I thought

the Grinch was. Oh, Rudolph. OK. I love this

one. This one is one that... First of all, you've

got burlives which I mean we'll talk about this

once we get to the characters in the voice act

You got burlives as Sam the snowman, you know,

just telling, you know, narrating the story and

singing a couple of songs You know Even though

it is stop -motion animation and it's kind of

it's not really like true animation It's still

a great great special. I remember watching this

every year I was a kid What about you, Kevin?

This would, you know what I was talking about

earlier on at Charlie Brown Christmas would probably

be in the top five or top ten. This one is usually

in the top two or maybe three of Christmas specials.

It's probably in the top two for me. I absolutely

love this one and unlike Charlie Brown Christmas,

which I had seen when I was a kid, I never made

it a point to watch Charlie Brown Christmas every

single year. Our whole family made a point to

watch Rudolph every year which is a real testament

to the fact that Even in something that wasn't

animated like we were used to when we were kids

But you know we're growing up in the 80s or whatever

we're seeing lots of cartoons and stuff like

that with you know much better animation To have

a show like this, but you know sub quality sub

par quality as far as the stop animation and

stuff goes capture you and make you want to watch

it every single year is a pretty good testament

of how good everything is. You know, the music,

the voice acting, the characters, the story,

everything about this is awesome. Yes, very much

so. And the one clip, and the reason why I grabbed

this was because I can use it in a bunch of other

things, but the one clip I got is from the elf

boss. Can you hear me? Okay. Was gonna say why

that's not playing it's not playing on my end.

Oh, well I'll insert it somewhere the clip that

I had gotten from the elf boss was the When when

he when Herbie's telling him that he wants wants

to be a dentist. He's like what? What are your

general memories tell away son this I have a

love -hate relationship with this um I had to

watch it every year as a kid, but at the end

of every time I watched it, I realized, yeah,

I don't really like it all that much. But then

it's like I automatically forget about it, and

Christmas would roll around, and I'd be all excited.

Oh, it's Rudolph time again, and I'd watch it,

and then I'd be like, yeah, I really don't like

this. And I rewatched it for the first time in,

I'd probably say, about 15 years. I watched it

this weekend. Still don't really like it. There

are little bits of it that I love the song I

love I love the Rudolph story, but there's parts

of it that I'm just like I Don't know. It just

doesn't I don't like the abominable snowman.

I don't like I understand I was like that because,

I don't know, maybe it was growing up with the

types of toys I had, you know, Transformers Break

all the time and stuff like that, but I could

relate to the Island of Mystic toys being kind

of like that drawer that you had or that place

where you had when you were a kid of all this

stuff that had been broken or stuff that, you

know, didn't quite work how it did when you first

got it and... And watching Rudolph and the island

in midst of the toys and all that always made

me think of all those toys that I had that weren't

quite in the pristine shape. And I'd go back.

The only, all right, I'm just going to say this

now before we go any further. The only Rudolph

special I will ever watch is this one that we

are talking about today. The Burl Ives Rudolph

the Red Nosed Reindeer special. The other ones

don't count. I'm sorry, they don't. Rudolph and

Frosty Christmas in July, no. I don't think so.

But I don't know why I didn't like the Allen

and Misfit toys. I didn't mind when Santa went

back, but just the whole, when they get there

and seeing the Lion King and everything else,

it was just kind of weird for me. What else did

she say you didn't like about Toe Wixen, besides

the Allen and Misfit toys? I don't like the whole

abominable snowman angle and Yukon Cornelius.

I mean, I kind of like the character, but I just

don't like the way he was put into this show.

To me, if they cut out all the Island of Misfit

toys, it'd be perfect. I can agree on the Island

of Misfit toys, but the abominable, you had to

have something. That would cause Like okay, you

had obviously the kids and everybody shutting

Rudolph that drove him away But you have to have

something to bring him back You know as as he's

growing up to have him realize holy crap. I have

to save my family Yeah, I mean I do like but

the whole ending and it's like pulling out his

teeth and everything and I'm like As a kid, I

used to watch that part and go, oh, really? Give

me a break. Do we have any other kids we want

to talk about before we go into the voice actors?

Oh, OK. All right, so in the... No, I'm in Shaq.

So, well, what's controversy, anyways? Anyway,

you know, so going into the voice actors thing,

the character of Rudolph was voiced by Billy

May Richards. Later credited as Billard Richards,

the story by Romeo Mueller or Miller or whatever

introduced several new characters inspired by

the song's lyrics. Mueller told the interview

shortly before his death that he would have preferred

to base the teleplay on May's original book,

but could not find a copy. The show features

Santa Claus and the eight reindeer mentioned

in the song. of them Donner is identified as

Rudolph's father and is finally referred to in

passing like a joke as Donner party. The incumbent

is presented as the coach of the reindeer team,

Mrs. Claus is also incorporated in the story.

The show also introduces Sam the snowman, the

narrator, voiced and styled to resemble folk

singer Burl Ives who also contributes several

tunes throughout the show among the most famous

numbers from the special. As Johnny Marx's 1962

Holly Jolly Christmas which became Christmas

standard in its own right? Hermi the misfit elf

I Liked him at the end, but I did not like him

in the beginning. I don't know what it was I

just couldn't get behind that character whatsoever

Clarice the doe voiced and sung by Janet Orinstein

the only deer at the beginning of the movie who

accepts Rudolph's red nose and helps him to fly

at the reindeer games by telling him he's cute

that they're walking home together after Rudolph

had been teased because of his nose, cheers him

up by singing there's always tomorrow. Yukon

Cornelius voiced by Larry D. Mann. Um, Yukon,

I like him at the end, but when we first meet

him, I'm not too keen on him. He's not like the

worst character. in the thing, but he's not the

best either. Let's see, Hermes immediate supervisor,

who is by Alfie Scott. I love the elf boss, the

elf boss is awesome. He's just so, so awesome.

The Bumble, aka a borrowable snow monster of

the north, a yeti who pursues Hermes and Rudolph

throughout their adventures. since the sight

of Rudolph's glowing red nose drives him into

a rage. Um... I'm not sure who voiced, uh...

Crap. I'm trying to think who voiced, uh, Comet.

I forget. Uh, the coach. Whoever voiced Comet

the Reindeer Coach? I love that voice. For some

odd reason. I always loved that voice. It was

just an outstanding voice. And the same thing

with Santa and Mrs. Clot. I think I like all

of the main characters that are shown in the

beginning of the film. And it's the ones that

are shown in the middle, close to the end of

the special is ones I don't like, like Yukon.

Yukon, I can stand, I can put him aside or whatever,

but he's not my favorite, but he's not my least

favorite. The Alan and Misfit toys is just ridiculous.

And the only reason why I think it's ridiculous

is because you have a lion as a king ruling over

it. I mean, come on. Give me a fucking break.

Oh, God. What do you guys have to say about the

voice actors? Tell her, Vixen, you can go first.

I really like the main, kind of the core characters.

I really like Rudolph. I couldn't have pictured

or visualized that or... Heard that voice any

other way except for how it is. It's like perfect.

All the reindeer, I think, are really great voices

and Santa. Santa's a really good Santa. And I

think what's most adorable and probably, I don't

totally hate this, but the one part that I really

love is when they first show Rudolph and he's,

you know, saying mommy and daddy. I just think

that's just so cute. Just kind of the whole innocence

of it all and he doesn't realize he's different

yet. He's just cute. I do love that part. I think

the voice acting overall is pretty consistent

across the board. I think it's good just about

from every character. As far as characters go

though, I'd say my three favorite characters,

it's flying in the face of what everybody else

is saying, but my third favorite character is

probably Yukon Cornelius. I really liked him

in the whole thing. My second favorite is gotta

be Rudolph, even though that's kind of cheating

since he's the main character, but the character

feels the whole show for me and makes the whole

special. You know, one of the best Christmas

specials ever. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not

going to disagree with that because I really

enjoyed saying the snowman myself. I mean, it's

a good narration. You know, bro lives does the

voice. You know, I actually, it's funny. I haven't

mentioned this yet, but I will now. Hopefully,

I can get my buddy Steve, who is the co -founder

of GeekCast Radio with me, to... Create special

tune cast holiday art where every single main

character for the most part will be Not really

clubbed together in one image, but like brought

all together in one image kind of like what the

the the tune cast art is now and That will be

the art for this episode. So whatever the main

character like I think I've got a picture of

Sam snowman I've got a picture of Rudolph got

a picture of Charlie Brown picture of the grinch,

a picture of grandma from when grandma got run

over by a reindeer, and a picture of Frosty with,

oh, what's his name, Finkel, Hinkle, whatever

the hell the evil magician's name is. Overall,

for the most part, the characters are really

good. Yeah. I like how they have Sam the Snowman.

Like, why are these scoots across the snow? How

they have the snow actually, like... Yeah, the

only thing I don't like about the beginning part

of the film, it says after the cast listing here,

it says, several new members of Santa Claus's

herd of reindeer include Fireball, a young buck

with a distinctive shock of blonde hair. If you're

gonna name your reindeer Fireball, shouldn't

he have red hair, not blonde hair? Yeah, really.

And of course Clarice was a new character that

was introduced. Most of the... Go ahead. I know

they named that after a real -life girlfriend

of somebody that was involved in the incident.

After the whole Silence of the Lambs trilogy

and stuff like that, I can't deal with a girlfriend

being named Clarice. This episode is taking a

really horrible dark turn. When I watch it, I'm

like, no. Oh my god. Actually, it's funny. I

wasn't sure who voiced Comet and Donner, but

a note at the bottom of the thing here says most

of the male reindeer, including Donner, Comet,

and Clarice's father, were voiced with similar

voices by Paul Freeze. So, Carr from Nightride.

Oh yeah, and Paul Freeze is awesome. He would

actually be the most famous voice actor in the

whole show that if he was involved even I know

burlap I'm deleting that off the script so I'm

not even bringing up the Lion King and then the

Charlie in the box and I think the spotted elephant

was the one I Liked out of all of them. He was

all right, but the rest of them kind of suck

Viewers were so taken by these forlorn characters,

many complained that Santa is not seen fulfilling

his promise to include them in his annual delivery.

In reaction, a new scene for the subsequent rebroadcast

was produced with Santa and with Rudolph in the

lead making his first stop at the island to pick

up the toys. I've never seen an original broadcast

version of this, so I don't know what the original

version was. I've always seen this with that

scene in there where, you know, that's part of

the story. Once they get to the island and the

king says, you know, hey, you can stay here for

a night. Whenever you get back to Christmastown,

you can tell, you know, tell Scent about our

unwanted toys and, you know, he'll be able to

find homes for them. I've never not seen this

without that additional scene at the end where

they stop and pick up all the toys. Yeah, doesn't

it all? So going into the behind the scenes segment

here, the original 1964 NBC broadcast edit. This

version is included in the original end credits

where elves are seen delivering boxes which explain

the technical credits. It also includes the commercials

and closing network bumpers. It does not include

the Misfit Island finale that was filmed for

the following years telecast. This version exists

only in 16 millimeter black and white print recently

discovered by film collectors. No extra material

derived from this original telecast is available

other than what is included in the 1998 telecast

below. 1965 to 1997, the later broadcasts from

1965 through 1997 were changed from the original

in response to viewer protests as we said before.

CBS telecast the above 1965 deletions were returned

to the film and obviously fame and fortune was

not included this edit has been made available

in the original color form by current rights

folder classic media I don't think I've ever

I mean I've got the DVD right here and I didn't

even get the directors and writers for this Yeah,

pretty much that's that's really all you need

to know looking at the DVD here It has no special

features, I mean it has Spanish and French audio

tracks that that's it It doesn't even have like

a oh no it does it has the It has The original

and for it The original television ad December

4th 1960 some night than 1964 or something like

that So for the plot here plot is very short

for this one. Thank God. So I will just read

it Rudolph is a reindeer who is tormented by

his dad Donner and fellow reindeer because of

his shiny nose the only reindeer who liked his

nose was Clarice a doe Rudolph meets Hermi an

elf who quits his job so he can be a dentist

and is facing problems with the other elves They

run away and meet Yukon, a man who wants silver

and gold. They are attacked by the abominable

snowman and they escape, go to the island and

misfit toys. They are told by the toys to tell

Santa to find kids who want them. Rudolph leaves

his friends because he fears the Bumble will

find them because of his shiny nose. Rudolph

looks for his missing mother and father as well

as Clarice. He finds them trapped by the Bumble.

Rudolph tries to stop him, but is knocked out

by the Bumble. Hermy and Yukon stop the Bumble

by taking out his sharp teeth. Yukon pushes the

Bumble into a pit, but the Bumble pulls Yukon

into the pit with him. Rudolph and the others

go home sad, yet once they get home, they soon

meet Yukon and the Bumble, and Yukon tells them

that Bumble's bounced. Outside of the island

of misfit toys, that is the most ridiculous friggin'

thing ever. If you are going to be thrown off

of a cliff, With any kind of monster, you're

not a bounce back up. You're gonna fall to your

bloody friggin death I understand it's it's plot

Kevin's like what the hell have we gotten ourselves

into it's uh I understand its plot for the movie

because obviously, you know They have to have

those characters come back because yeah, but

still Anyways, the toys on the island get children

who love them, Hermy gets his own dentist shop,

Yukon finds a mine of peppermint, and Rudolph

gets to lead Santa's sleigh who needs his help

because the weather is foggy out and he cannot

see without Rudolph's shining nose. There are

several trivia points, actually there are a lot

of trivia points here. I got four specific trivia

ones that I thought were kind of interesting

here. Although Eucron Cornelius says he needs

gunpowder and he has a revolver tucked in his

belt, the toys that came out later had to be

of course physically corrected in 1999 and he

had a knife instead of a revolver because that's

much more civilized. How about for this, since

you guys are not fans of the Island of Mystic

Toys, how about a dolly for Sue? was apparently

a perfectly ordinary doll. Why is she living

on the island of Misfit Toys? This gripping debate

raged on for decades until official word from

Rankin -Bass recently decided the issue. Dolly

pursues the initiative because she has psychological

problems. She feels unloved. That's kind of lame.

The voices for Rudolph and Hermy are now neighbors

in an Ontario retirement community. Really? That's

kind of funny to me. Ontario, California or Canada?

This is an Ontario retirement community. I'm

assuming Canada because most of the, there's

a lot of voice actors and stuff that was done

in Canada during this time. So that's interesting

they're still together. How about this one, when

Yukon Cornelia throws his pickaxe into the ground

and takes it out, he wicks it. And you're probably

wondering, why did he lick his axe when he was

searching for silver or gold? Because the original

concept was that he was not searching for silver

or gold. The original concept was that he was

licking his axe. OK, again, sorry to interrupt

you here. But again, hello, bloody tongue licking

a pickaxe. Come on. Your tongue would be sliced

friggin' open. That's like if I go into my kitchen

right now and put my tongue on my sharp knife,

my tongue is going to get cut. No, we're not

going there. We already went there in episode

21 of M -Wire, so we're not going there. I had

one factual error that I wanted to point out,

or kind of a goof type thing, and that is kind

of, it's not a big deal, but I found it interesting.

When Rudolph, Hermy, and Yukonpreneurs are inside

their cabin, in spite of the Arctic breeze that

is all around. Maybe there aren't the flowers.

So, I mean there's a lot of other things. You

can definitely search for a lot of different

facts that you can find and different trivia

things. Yeah, some of it is. The Reindeer Rudolph

was actually created by Chicago State Street

Marshall Field's department store in the 1950s.

Copies of both Santa and Rudolph puppets were

recently found in storage in the attic of a woman

that used to work for Rankin Bass. The puppets

were in remarkably good condition. considering

it was estimated that they were in storage since

the late 1960s with only a little yellowing of

Santa's hair, beard, and white trim on his coat.

The pair now travel the country to various trade

shows and conventions. Going into the music,

it's actually very funny. When I got the information

in the script, there is the CD album cover for

the soundtrack. I was looking for Christmas music

the other day. I was just searching iTunes for

Christmas music in general. I was in a Christmas

music mood. And I found this, and I'm like, well,

what is this? Because as we all know, and Kevin

has pointed out several times before, I never

actually read over the scripts before we actually

record a show. I read them as we go along. That's

why I'm sometimes like, oh, wow, I never knew

that. But yeah, I found this on iTunes. bought

some of the songs. I didn't buy at all. The track

listing is as follows. Overture and Holly Jolly

Christmas, which is done by Burl Ives, Jingle

Jingle Jingle, which is done by Video Craft Chorus,

also done by them, or We Are Santa's Elves, Janet

Orstein, which is, I didn't buy the whole album.

I only bought mainly stuff by Burl, like the

Rudolph song and... What else? A Holy Jelly Christmas,

Silver and Gold, stuff like that. You know, the

music really fits the special, I think. And I'm

glad that there is a soundtrack for it. Oh yeah,

music is great on that show. You can't beat Burl

Ives. That is. You thought he was Stamford Snowman?

I never realized Burl Ives was like a person.

Well, like when I was when I was really young

and I don't know what show it was Some show that

my family was watching and I heard the voice

and I'm like he sounds like the snowman from

Rudolph And that's who's the voice of the snowman

and that's when I put Actually, I always got

him and Jean Autry confused because I had a cassette

of Jean Autry's Christmas and he has on there

a a Rudolph rendition I believe I always got

them confused until I started watching the special

morning realized. Oh, yeah, that's burr lives.

Okay, Sam the snowman yay Going into the legacy

segment for the video release When Rudolph was

first issued on video by previous owner of Broadway

video in 1965? Re -broadcast print was used with

the changes listed above under 1965 is All current

video prints of Rudolph by Classic Media are

compendium of the two previous telecast versions

of the special. All footage in the current versions

follow the original NBC airing without the original

commercials, of course, up until the end of Peppermint

Mine scene, followed by the final act of the

1965 edit with the Misfit Island finale and the

1965 alternate credits in place of the original

end credit sequence. This is also the version

currently airing on CBS albeit in edited form

to accommodate more commercial time Damn television

bastards less commercials more show anyway And

teens for sequels and other film versions of

Rudolph in 1964 ranking mass classic was not

the first animated version of Rudolph story Max

Fleischer created an eight -minute animated short

in 1948 for Jam handy that has since fallen into

public domain currently being available on budget

-priced DVDs and video cassettes. The Rankin

-Bass special, which currently airs on CBS, inspired

numerous television sequels made by the same

studio, the best -known Rudolph sequel is Rudolph's

Shining New Year, from 1976, which aired on ABC

and is still aired annually on ABC Family. The

feature -length Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas

in July paired Rudolph with another famous a

creation inspired by the song Frosty the Snowman

and was released in the summer of 1979, which

Arthur Rankin Jr. would later acknowledge was

a bad idea. Yeah, I would say so. That was the,

I saw that and I'm like, what in the hell is

this? The animated feature length film Rudolph

the Red Nosed Reindeer, the movie was released

to theaters in 1998. However, it was produced

by Good Times Entertainment. at a significantly

lower budget using traditional cell animation

and did not feature any of Romeo and Muller's

characters. A direct -to -video CGI animated

sequel to Rudolph the Red -Nosed Reindeer and

the Allen and Misfit Toys was released by Good

Times in 2001 but broke continuity with the 1998

film and reintroduced Romeo and Mero's characters

instead. Parodies and homages to Rudolph, the

television specialist's familiarity to American

audiences through its annual rebroadcast, compiled

with its primitive stop -motion animation that

it's easy to recreate with modern technology,

and it's lent itself to numerous parodies over

the years. Films by Corky Quackenbush. Wow, sounds

like somebody from DuckTales. Animator Corky

Quackenbush has produced parodies of Rudolph

for several American television shows. December

16th, 1995, episode of Fox Network's comedy series,

Mad TV, aired Raging Rudolph, which parodied

Martin Scorsese's films. In it, Sam narrates,

in a Joe Pesci -like voice, how Rudolph and Hermy

got violent mafia style revenge on their tormentors.

This was followed by two sequels, The Rainfather,

oh my god, spoofing the Godfather trilogy. and

a pack of gifts now, spoofing apocalypse now.

Um, yeah, yikes. I'm not sure I'd want to see

these at all, whatsoever. Oh, it's just horrible.

In December 2005, the George Lopez Show featured

an animated segment in which Lopez sees stop

-motion version of himself on television in Rudolph

-style special morning mirroring, theme of the

holiday episode. In Christmas episode Eek the

Cat has a scene with Wendy Elizabeth and JB watching

the Christmas special Rudolph the Red Nose Rambo.

And it's Rudolph the Red like it's normally in

nose as in K -N -O -W -S and then Rambo. Oh my

god. Oh good lord. I'm not going through all

these. There's just too many. There's just too

many to note. I will say one more Apple Lake

parody Rudolph the windows reindeer in a holiday

2007 indirectly by featuring Rankin bass likenesses

of the Macintosh and PC characters What you're

featured as people a cool guy is Mac and a nerd

is PC on many commercials earlier in the year

used to advertise Macintosh computers It is on

DVD a lot of the sometimes a lot of these like

40 minutes well 22 minute without commercials

but I mean these these half hour specials sometimes

they will be clumped together in collections

I don't like that if I want say Rudolph and Frosty

and whatever I want them individually and Rudolph

does come in an individual one disc DVD set as

I said before there's not many special features

on it but at least you have a a good a good version

of Rudolph and you can watch it there. Okay,

so before we get into the next segment here,

what are your all's final thoughts on this one?

Why don't we go with Kevin first? I think basically

as far as my family went and you know Christmas

time and traditions that we had, when it came

to actual television programs there was probably

only I would say there's only two shows, slash

movies, slash specials, whatever. There's only

two things that we tried to make sure we watched

every single year. One of them was Peter Paul

and Mary's Christmas concert music thingy or

whatever, because it was just great. And the

other one was Rudolph. I would put Rudolph right

up at the top of the list for Christmas. Traditional

specials or shows or whatever. I mean, obviously

there's other movies that... I would have to

say so myself. Rudolph is at least in the top

five, if not number one. What about you, Tella

Vixen? Again, like I mentioned, it's kind of

a love -hate relationship with this one. I probably

will watch it again in the future, but it's not

on my must -watch list every Christmas, and I

don't know. Maybe I'll just watch it and fast

-forward through the parts I don't like. But

you know what, I do see how important it is to

Christmas. I mean, the song's a classic, and

Burl Ives as the narrator is great. She's ruining

Christmas, everybody. I probably won't have those

tears on this one. You love everything else.

All right, so we are going to take another quick

break. But I love everything else! I suppose

it all started with the snow. You see, it was

a very special kind of snow. A snow to make the

happy happy and the giddy even pitty. A snow

to make a homecoming homier and natural enemy

friends. Natural. For it was the first snow of

the season. And as any child can tell you...

There's a certain magic to the very first snow,

especially when it falls on the day before Christmas.

For when the first snow is also a Christmas snow,

well, something wonderful is bound to happen.

We're building a snowman, Karen. You make the

head. The head is the most difficult part. Yeah,

shall we call him Harold? Uh, Bruce? Nah! What

the fuck a rabbit? Oh no! Oatmeal? Oatmeal! we

are now going to be talking about frosty the

snowman we will only be talking about frosty

the snowman we will not be talking about that

Crap, Frosty returns whatsoever, so take it away

with the history lesson. All right, Frosty the

Snowman is a 30 -minute animated television special,

just like Charlie Brown's there, based on the

popular song on the same title of the program,

which first aired on December 14, 1969 on CBS,

where it has aired ever since, was produced,

again, for television by Rankin Bass and featured

the voices of comedians Jimmy Girante as narrator

and Jackie Vernon as a title character. This

special marked the first use of traditional cell

animation for Rankin -Bass. Arthur Rankin Jr.

and Jules Bass wanted to give the show and its

characters the look of a Christmas card. So a

greeting card and Mad Magazine artist was hired

to do the character and background drawings.

The actual animation work was done in Japan.

Rankin -Bass veteran writer Romeo Miller adopted

and expanded the story for television just as

he had done with Rudolph the Red Nose Ranger

in 1964. So that does it for the Frosty history

lesson. Let's get some general memories about

him. Yes. Again, actually all of the ones that

we are talking about today, I love them all.

Honestly, I really do. And I think what makes

Frosty stand out for me is Jimmy Durante narrating

it. It's kind of like Burr Lives as Sam the Snowman.

You couldn't have this cartoon without Jimmy

Durante's voice singing the song and and narrating

I mean granted it's the song is broken up throughout

the entire film to match the story But I I absolutely

love this one What about you Kevin? I would put

it ahead of you know most of the other ones we're

talking about today except for Rudolph I think

it's a I think I like Rudolph a little bit more

But I think it's still a good quality. And like

you said, the narrator makes it. As a kid, you

hear all your stories about characters like Rudolph

and Frosty and all that stuff. So it's just good

to see an actual movie or special that brings

some of your characters to life. And I think

they did a good job. Rankin and Bass are a two

for two. Yes, they are. What about you, Tello

Vixen? Frosty is one of my all -time favorites.

It was when I was a kid and I still love it to

this day. I hadn't watched it in quite a while

but I rewatched it this week and I still loved

it as much as the first time I saw it. The story

is great, the characters are great, there wasn't

really any where's with Rudolph. There wasn't

all this extra stuff thrown in to beef it up.

It was just simple and sweet and perfect in every

way. Yeah, it's pretty much... Love, trust and

hate Rudolph. yeah well no I know I won't even

go where my head just no I was gonna I might

as well go ahead and finish the thought seeing

as I already thought I was gonna say well loving

a big fat snowman is way different than trying

to go bestiality with a reindeer You took an

even worse turn. The deep, dark side of Christmas

cartoons. Yes, exactly. This story, this cartoon

has a beginning, middle, and end. I mean, that's

the basis of all stories anyway. But I mean,

this story isn't convoluted. It doesn't draw

away from the plot at all. There are no plot

devices outside of the hat. which makes Frosty

come alive. Just an overall... I love this cartoon.

This is just one of the greatest Christmas cartoons

ever. And so we are going to be moving on to

the voice actors and characters. I actually don't

have any character listings other than who played

who. But we all know what the characters are

like Jackie Vernon has said before plays frosty

the snowman June for a it was the voice of Karen

which wow yeah Billy the wolf was the was professor

Hinkle Paul freeze as the policeman the ticket

man and Santa Claus And Jimmy Durante as the

narrator again Paul freeze holy crap Yeah, this

is actually probably the best voice cast out

of all the shows. We're talking about today as

far as veteran voice actors go with Paul Freeze

and Jim Carrey and Jimmy Tarantino and everything

else. I mean, this is a great cast. Yes, and

Paul Freeze especially because the policeman

is just... I love that scene. That is so funny.

Yeah. It's like, oh, well, if he just came to

life, that's all right. And the kids and Frosty

walk off and he's holding his waltz and he's

like, Snowman? Come to life? And he swallows

the whistle, he's like, I can't make the whistling

noise, but he's like, wow, that is just so funny.

I don't think, even Hinkle is a redeemable character.

At first I don't like him, but by the end when

he becomes redeemable, when Santa tells him he

has to go home and write, I will not be mean

to Frosty, or I am sorry for what I did to Frosty.

I think Santa said like one billion, zillion

times or whatever it is. You know, even that

character is redeemable in my eyes. There really

is no true villain in this one. Well, outside

of the thermometer. Oh boy, what are your thoughts,

Tela Vixen, on the casting and stuff and the

characters here? I couldn't have imagined it

any other way. It's just perfect for everything.

Jimmy Durrani, unbelievable. That and Christmas

are just synonymous for me. And Frosty, such

a gentle and fun kind of voice. I don't know

a lot about the actual voice actors themselves,

but I... I don't think I could imagine this any

other way. If they even changed one voice, it

would not be as great as it is. Oh, okay. Even

Hocus. Yeah, I love Hocus. He was like my favorite

character in this. Totally my favorite character.

Yeah, he's easily the most animated out of them

all. Yeah, and whoever did the voice for him,

I'm assuming there was a voice actor behind him.

I don't have it listed. It probably is in the

credits. I'd have to go back and look. They did

a fantastic job. And seeing as how Hocus was

mainly sound effects, I would assume it's either

it's one of these sound effects geniuses like

say Frank Welker or Mel Blank or somebody like

that because it is mainly just voice effects

more than an actual talking voice. But yeah,

just overall, what are your thoughts on them,

Kevin? I think, like I said before, the voice

acting is, you can't beat it in this show, especially

for its time period. I mean, it was a who's who.

Character -wise, I think that's one reason why

I like Rudolph better than this one, because

no character in this show really stands out that

much to me. I mean, they all kind of are... You

know, they're all alright, but I don't know,

there's none of them that really just captured

my imagination as a kid. I think they're all

just too good or too, you know, whatever. Nobody

had that little element that really grabbed me.

I mean, they were all good, but I just didn't

think any of the characters were, you know, fantastic,

I guess. I'll be the grinch for this show. I

actually really like this show. I don't want

to make it sound like that. I really like the

show and I like the characters. There wasn't

one that didn't grab me like there was. I think

for me, like I said before, Hocus Pocus the Rabbit

is easily the most animated and has the most

fun parts for me. Actually, it's funny. I have

a clip here and hopefully it will play. where

Jimmy Durante calls Frosty a belly whopper. Get

on my shoulders, Karen! You see, Frosty, since

he was made of snow and snow, he's the fastest

belly whopper in the world. Okay, first of all,

does Burger King have anything to do with the

special? What the hell is a belly whopper? I

don't think I've ever had that kind of burger

before. Yeah, you know, just overall great casting,

great voices. Going into the behind -the -scenes

segment here, you know, again, really the only

three names you really need to know is Arthur

Rankin Jr., Jules Bass, and Romeo Muller, who

was the writer. Rankin and Bass produced and

directed it. Just great, great stuff. Outside

of... And I know they've tried to do other specials,

but I think Rudolph and this were their main

good ones. Who wants to summarize the plot on

this one? Because it's quite long. I think television

does, because she likes the show so much. Yeah,

let's not impose on the person that hates it.

If you want to, tell the question you can. Well,

it's the story of some children who build a snowman,

and a magician has come into their, I believe

it's their classroom, and his hat lands on the

snowman's head, and the snowman is brought to

life. Happy birthday! Yes, happy birthday. And

the children begin to laugh and play and march

around with Frosty and then the temperature starts

to go up and Frosty starts melting. So they're

trying to find a way to keep Frosty alive and

decide he needs to get to the North Pole. So

it's the children led by Karen trying to find

a way to get Frosty to the North Pole so he can

live. Yeah, the the scene when they go to the

train station With the the ticket taker and he's

been all that is just so so funny He's like,

yeah take it to the North Pole. That'd be like

I know he says three thousand, but I forget the

other part of the he says like something like

three thousand four four Three thousand dollars

and four cents. Oh, we don't have any money,

sir No money, no ticket. Shuts down the screen

in front of his lens. This is so funny. So, so

funny. Go ahead. I was going to say, later on

in that one part, something that even struck

me as strange as a kid, when Karen decides to

go along with Frosty to make sure he gets there

safely. The line that she says, I'm sure my mother

won't mind as long as I'm home for supper. That

just gets me every time. I don't know why. It's

just, yeah, my mom won't mind me going off to

the North Pole. But at the same time, it's kind

of like the whole innocence of kids, like tying

into their imagination and that a snowman can

come to life. You also think that you can go

to the North Pole and back by train and be home

in time for dinner. It's actually very funny.

I have a severe problem with how this film ends

and it's not it's not really anything I mean,

I'm not gonna take you know likeness points off

of it But at the very end of the film after you

know Frosty is saved and he's in the sleigh with

Santa and they're gonna bring Karen home They

drop her off on the roof She gonna drop through

a skylight or something to get into her house?

I mean as the film closes she is left We are

left with seeing her on the roof. And it's like,

okay, is Spider -Man gonna come along and swing

her down to her door? You know, what's the deal?

She could go down the chimney like Santa? She's

too short and too skinny. She would end up falling

flat on her ass. Breaking something. Santa has

padding. She doesn't. I never even really paid

attention to that before. It's actually very

funny. It's just a couple of trivia things here.

This was Jimmy Durante's final film, not including

documentaries and one short film appearance,

which, wow. Before he passed away, he ended his

career with what is probably one of the best

Christmas specials of all time. Wow. Voice actress

June Foray was cast for both Karen and the teacher

and had recorded vocals for both characters.

However, only her recordings for the teacher

made it to the final special as another actress

was called in to replace Foray's Karen for reasons

that even Foray herself to this day does not

know. No changes remain to the credits so the

actual voice actress we hear as Karen remains

unknown. and on credit for Ace Karen can be heard

on the vinyl records soundtrack. Wow, I didn't

even know that. Holy crap, that's not... It doesn't

make me not like the character of Karen at all,

but it just makes me wonder who the hell did

they get? Right. We'll never know. Do you want

to mention some of the goofs? Kev? Let's see.

There's there's some just simple animation goose

that you see in a lot of animation like Times

where they're talking and their mouths aren't

moving or this is probably my favorite one is

when frosty attempts to count to 10 He starts

counting to five other fingers and he has five

fingers on one hand and four on the other Then

after he finishes in both hands at four fingers

So I thought that was kind of funny and I never

Maybe I just didn't pay attention but this seems

kind of odd after the magician drops the eggs

on the floor in the classroom. There's One half

of an eggshell on the ground to the right. When

he covered the mess, the eggshell all of a sudden

turns into a dice piece and flies off the screen

and disappears. That's kind of creeped out there.

As far as the finger thing, you know, he's a

snowman. His fifth finger probably melted. That

works. Yeah. So that's all I have to do. Yes.

What are your, Tilo Wixen, what are your overall

thoughts on the story for this one? It's short,

sweet, and simple, so it's perfect in my eyes.

It's fun. It's fun. It just reminds you of when

you were a kid, and even when I was a kid, all

the best parts of being a kid, making your own

fun. At that time, the whole... Your world could

incorporate a talking snowman a snowman that

comes to light just the whole Imagination and

you know you you don't want to lose that and

then you know kind of coming to terms with the

fact well He's gonna have to go for now, but

you know with the next Christmas snow our friend

will be back You know it's just I just I like

the overall message in it And probably the only

thing that I still don't get to this day Why

on earth is Karen in her bare legs in the middle

of winter? I don't know. Good point. That's the

only thing that bothers me of the whole of the

entire show. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm

looking at the DVD case here, you know, Frosty

and then Karen and then the other kids. The other

kids are shown to, the three boys are shown to

have like shorts on. And the other girl, the

other blonde -headed girl in the pink dress.

is shown to have no pants on. So I don't know.

One thing I have to ask is, where are the owners

of the greenhouse in the middle of the woods?

I mean, it's like Ted Bundy's going to pop up

at any moment, for Christ's sake. Unabomber.

No, seriously. Like, where are this greenhouse

at the end of this hill in the middle of this

forest? Where are the owners? Yeah, you know,

I mean of course I'm not trying to take away

from the overall greatness of the story But I

mean, you know that there has to be some nitpicking

somewhere in in all of these But yeah, yeah,

I don't know I Think the biggest problem I have

with You know, I like the film. I don't watch

it every Christmas like I do he's lying folks.

I Watch it occasionally but The thing that disturbed

me most about it as a kid I remember even you

know being disturbed back then was the fact that

Proxy melts and goes away at the end of the show.

I know that's what happened to Snowman, but you

don't want to picture that as a character that

you've just watched for the whole special. It's

almost like he dies at the end. I mean it was

somewhat disturbing and you know I didn't like

that as a kid. It's a good special. I enjoy watching

it from time to time, but like I said, there's

no Utah Cornelius or Valhalla Snowman, so I can't

watch it every year. Yeah, yes. No, no, I mean,

you know, I don't know, it's each their own.

There is a soundtrack that was released by Roner,

Rhino, on October 1st, 2002. The entire audio

portion of Frosty the Snowman is available on

CD along with the entire audio portion of Santa

Claus is coming to town. and the Rankin -Bass

special produced in 1970. This edition contains

the full dialogue and song audio of both specials,

which is pretty cool. I'm not really sure who

did the music for this. Rankin -Bass probably

found somebody. So going into the legacy segment

on this one, there are edits for this, which

is very... that actually surprises me. The special

originally aired in 1969. But in 1970, several

edits were made, including the addition of yellow

and orange checkerboard scarf to Frosty's neck

and the replacement of June Ferre with an uncredited

voice. The current restored version, which debuted

in 2005, removes the scarf but does not restore

Ferre's voice. At the time, there was implied

a controversy over copyrights and over royalties

as the reason behind the change. But the reason

remains unknown. Ferre has remained listed as

Karen's voice. in the show's credits even though

the voice is not hers. The original soundtrack

with Frosty's original voice track is available

on CD. As far as the television rights in the

United States, CBS continues to hold the telecast

rights to the original program under license

from the current copyright holder Great Britain's

Entertainment Rights Classic Media Division in

honor of much of the pre -1974 Rankin -Bass Library

and still airs it yearly with the CBS produced

sequel, Frosty Returns. The CBC holds broadcast

rights in Canada. The special also airs on ABC

Family in some territories. However, CBS does

not own the telecast rights to the 1976 sequel,

Frosty's Winter Wonderland. That film currently

airs on ABC Family, which prompted CBS to produce

its own sequel of so it's Frosty Returns. I have

never seen Frosty's Winter Wonderland, so I can't

comment on that one. Frosty Returns, I watched

like the first maybe four and a half minutes

of it. While I like John Goodman as an actor,

no. Just no. Never. Not as frosty. For a sequel,

The Winter Wonderland Special is a 1976 sequel

by Rankin -Bass, also written by Romeo Miller.

Narration is provided by Andy Griffith. Holy

crap. I think that's an actual person, Andy Griffith.

I don't think that's... Oh, no way, yeah, Andy

Griffith. I'm weird. Yeah, Matt Locke. Whatever.

That would be weird. Jackie Vernon reprised his

role as the voice of Frosty. Rudolph and Frosty's

Christmas in July. We already talked about that.

I don't care. Frosty Returns. The 1992 half -hour

special is not truly a sequel to the 1969 classic...

As it was produced not by Rankin -Bass, but by

CBS, the characters, setting, and voices are

different, and the animation by veteran Peanuts

director Bill Melendez is vastly different. Despite

this, it is shown with the original special every

year on CBS and was even included as a bonus

on its DVD release. John Goodman provides the

voice of Frosty in the special, and as Jackie

Vernon, the original voice of Frosty passed away

in 1987. Okay. I understand that they couldn't

get Jackie Vernon, that's fine. But John Goodman

sounds nothing. I mean, when I first watched

this on CBS one year, like a number of years

ago, it was so jarring for me hearing John Goodman's

voice as Frosty. Of course, back then I didn't

know that Vernon had passed away, but yeah, that's

kind of weird. And then you have the legend of

Frosty the snowman in this 2005 made for TV or

made for video frosty returns yet again this

time an animated film produced by classic media

the current rights holder for the original ranking

best special and the remainder of their pre 1974

library this movie has also been bundled with

the original 1969 ranking best special and the

CBS sequel it also aired on Cartoon Network the

appearance of frosty resembles much more the

Rankin -Bass character design. From an original

animation and another character, Professor Hinkle

returns as a cameo shown in the picture during

this special. This may be an attempt to tie the

two shows together or perhaps an in -joke for

those who have seen the original classic. Frosty

is voiced by Bill Fagerbake? Is that right? I

don't know. I've never even seen that one. I

haven't seen anything. Yeah, I've seen Frosty

Returns. But no. And as I said before, Frosty

himself is on DVD. It doesn't include Frosty

returns, but whatever. What are you going to

do? Kevin, why don't you go first on final thoughts

for Frosty? Just like I said before, it's a good

Christmas show. You should watch it every once

in a while. I myself do not make a point to watch

it every Christmas. Just because I like some

of the other ones I grew up a little bit better,

but that doesn't take away from the outstanding

voice cast and an overall good Christmas special.

Yes. What about you, Televiction? Still one of

my favorites, and I think I'm going to restore

the tradition and watch it every year after re

-watching it this Christmas. I fell in love with

it all over again. Yeah. I've said this before.

lot of people have heard me say this before sometimes

when I look at my DVD shelf and I'm trying to

find something to watch and I'm just like you

know fingering through my DVDs and like no no

no and half the time it's like I don't feel like

watching anything but you know almost every like

December I will even right before Christmas like

the beginning of December I will break this out

and I will watch this again because It is such

a classic. It's such great fun. The voice acting

is superb in this one. The animation is good.

It's not the best, but there were very few animation

errors that I noticed outside of reading goofs

from IMDB. So I think we're going to move on

to the next one, which will be a very, very short

segment for this episode. We'll be right back.

Handball got run over by a reindeer Walking home

from our house Christmas Eve You can say there's

no such thing as Santa But as for me and Grandpa,

we believe She'd been drinking too much eggnog

And we begged her not to go But she forgot her

medication And she staggered out the door into

the snow When we found her Christmas morning

At the scene of the attack She had hoof prints

on her forehead And incriminating Claus marks

on her back Grandma got run over by a reindeer

Walking home from our house Christmas Eve You

can say there's no such thing as Santa But as

for me and Grandpa, we believe Now we're all

so proud of Grandpa He's been taking this so

well See him in there watching football Drinking

beer and playing cards with cousin Mel It's not

Christmas without Grandma All the family's dressed

in black And we just can't help but wonder Should

we open up her gifts or send them back? Send

them back! Grandma got run over by a reindeer

Walking home from our house Christmas Eve You

can say there's no such thing as Santa But as

for me and Grandpa, we believe Now the goose

is on the table And the pudding made of fig And

the blue and silver candles That would just have

matched the hair in Grandma's wig I've warned

all my friends and neighbors Better watch out

for yourselves They should never give a license

To a man who drives a sleigh and plays with elves

Grandma got run over by a reindeer Walking home

from our house Christmas Eve You can say there's

no such thing as Santa But as for me and grandpa,

we believe Sing it grandpa! Grandma got run over

by a reindeer Walking home from our house Christmas

Eve You can say there's no such thing as Santa

But as for me and grandpa, we believe Merry Christmas

Look out! The all -time favorite Christmas hit,

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, is now crashing

it on video. It's the world's most famous case

of hit -and -run. Grandma, watch out! Then the

Spankenheimers learned Grandma was missing. Get

looking for the old Brad. Grandma's shoes. Her

medicine. Her fruitcake. Evil cousin Mel was

the only one not looking. You just make sure

Grandma stays missing. Now it's up to one courageous

boy to stop one mean cousin I hate the goody

-goody feelings of Christmas from giving Santa

a bad rap. I might as well shave my beard and

cancel the holidays in Sunnyvale. I have a better

idea. Would you like to find your grandma? Jake

will have to prove that Santa is innocent. Santa's

been arrested! Or Christmas is a thing of the

past. We are back and the fourth special that

we are going to be talking about today One of

us has only watched 16 minutes of it because

she couldn't get it to buffer. I don't know if

Kevin's actually watched it all the way through.

I found this in 2000. Now, this special actually

goes against my rule for Tooncast because it

was released in 2000 in Tooncast. We're not supposed

to cover anything past 1999. But I will overlook

that because Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

is just awesome. Go into the history lesson,

sir. All right, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

is an animated direct -to -video TV special directed

by Phil Roman, produced by SF Aram Entertainment,

and released, like you said, in 2000. It airs

every year on Cartoon Network and recently on

the CW Network during the Christmas season. Since

the WB Network produced this special, the CW

has the broadcast rights to the special and Time

Warner owns the copyright. And that's all I have

for a history lesson, so that's a fairly recent

show. So let's move on to general memories for

Mike's show. Well, all right. I'm not going to

try to sell this to anybody, but we all know

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, the song.

And this is basically where that comes from.

They basically put a story around the song and

they tell what actually happened and how it happened.

and all that stuff. I will actually be having

the song in this episode. The song itself, not

audio. I'll have audio from the DVD, but I'll

actually have the original song on the episode

as well. I really enjoyed this. When I first

saw this, I'm like, what? They made an animated

special out of the song? Really cool. And this

is like back in 2000 when I first saw it. I enjoy

it. For one thing, really, mainly, they got...

Sue Blue to do the voice of Grandma. And as we

all know, Sue Blue has done Transformers. She

is the longest running person to be in the Transformers

cartoon franchise. And Grandma actually kind

of resembles Sue herself, outside of white hair.

But I mean, just the whole character modeling

and the face and stuff, it pretty much looks

like Sue Blue does in real life. I really, really

enjoyed this. What about you, Kevin? I kind of

had the opposite reaction at first because when

I was in, I think the song became real popular.

I want to say while I was in middle school, junior

high, or maybe my first year in high school,

somewhere in there, or at least when our group

of people started, the people I hung out with,

listened to it and kind of caught on a little

bit. I remember hearing later on, a few years

later, when they were doing a movie on this song,

and I just thought, what an awful idea. I could

see a story being made out of a certain song,

but I was like, how are they making a story out

of that song? So for a long time I resisted having

anything to do with it, but I don't know if I've

seen it from... First minute to the last minute

ever in one sitting, but I have seen little segments

here and there and it's it's alright, you know,

it's alright It's good for what it is. It's just

for me to be a Christmas special that I watch

on a consistent basis that has to be something

for my childhood and since this was more Seen

during my teenage years. It just doesn't have

the same effect for me. I guess it's the main

thing see for me I always you know, I don't let

television go here in a second, but me, you know,

I kind of kind of disagree with you a little

bit because I always remember the song like from

when I was younger like but I don't even remember

when the song I think the song came out in like

the 1960s or something I don't know the original

version of the song came out before I was even

born but I remember hearing it as a kid and as

a young teenager and I always liked the song

I always thought it was very very cool so when

I heard about this I was like oh that looks pretty

cool And, you know, granted it's not a quote

-unquote classic Christmas special, for me it's

become one of the yearly ones that I will watch.

What about you, Tella Wixen? I still have to

get through the rest. I'm not exactly sure if

this has ever... I think it has aired in Canada,

but not often. Just started getting some of the

CW affiliates recently on the cable that I have

anyway, and we don't get Cartoon Network We have

our own version of it, and I don't recall it

ever being on there, but it's possible I may

have missed it Your version of Cartoon Network

is probably better than ours Nah, I don't know.

Teletoon? Yeah, it's probably better than ours

seeing as how Cartoon Network has gone real now.

I prefer Teletoon Retro. We've got Teletoon Retro,

which is one of the digital channels, and I tend

to watch that one because it's got all the oldies

that I like. We need that. We need something

to replace Cartoon Network because it doesn't

show cartoons anymore. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No,

what I did catch of it I thought was kind of

neat. I did remember the song from when I was...

It was more in like my... Preteen and teen years

that the song was became popular as a kid It

wasn't really anything we we listened to or heard

but um, I kind of what I did catch of it I don't

know how much of it if this is really a children's

Animated special it seemed to appeal a little

more to the to the adults and in my opinion it

could I think it probably did. I think it knew

who the song was most popular with, and I think

it knew that at that point they were older. So

I think it tried to gear itself a little bit

more towards that audience. Yeah, there was just

some little subtleties to what I did see that

I'm like, yeah, this is kind of cool. So I'm

anxious to catch the rest of it and see how it

all turns out. If you want to actually go out

and find it, it is on DVD. It does have a DVD

release, and I will mention that a little bit

later. Going into the cast and characters here,

Elmo Schrompshire, who was the, Dr. Elmo was

the person who did the song, plays the narrator

and grandpa. Alex Doduck plays Jake Spankenheimer,

the central character in this movie. He and his

grandfather are the only ones. in Cityville that

still believe in Santa Claus and is determined

to find his grandma, stop his greedy cousin,

and save Christmas. Susan Blue, as we said before,

plays grandma. Michelle Lee plays cousin Mel.

Maggie Blue O 'Hara plays Daphne Spankenheimer,

Jake's sister. Leonardo, Cam Clark, plays Austin

Bucks, the monopolizing store tycoon that wants

to buy the store from the Spankenheimers. Kathleen

Barr and Venus Tierzo are listed as additional

voices. I think my favorite characters for this

are Jake and Grandma. It really shows a family

dynamic between the two of them. And by the time

the film ends, it shows that the entire family

has a dynamic. I like Grandpa as well, but I

would have to say Jake and Grandma are my two

favorite characters. What about you, Kevin? Not

that I'm going to sound simple, but I have to

agree with what you just said. Same thing you

said. I don't think Taylor Vixen can really pick

a favorite character since she's only seen 16

minutes of the thing. Well, of what I did see,

I have to agree with you. Jake and Grandma are

fantastic. Keeping the Christmas spirit alive,

they both seem really... determined to do it.

I like that determination and I also have to

say I love the female police officer. She was

totally channeling Frances McDormand in Fargo

which is one of my favorite movies. She sounds

Canadian to me. She's supposed to sound like

she has a Minnesota accent. Yeah, which is like

Frances McDormand in Fargo. They're supposed

to be in Minnesota, even down to what she's wearing.

So I think that was a little nod to the adults

that would inevitably be watching it with the

kids. Here's something for you. I thought that

was an excellent touch. So let's see, going into

the behind the scenes segment we have the song

Grandpa's Gonna Sue the Pants Off of Santa was

a song written, actually all the songs were written

by Dr. Elmo and Rita Abrams for the most part.

Several of the character models appear to have

been recycled from Hysteria. I Am Slime looks

strikingly like Network sensor Lydia Karaoke.

Santa's head elf looks quite a bit like Bill

Strademan. The jury foreman resembles an older,

thinner, lucky Bob. The female cop seems to be

heavily influenced, like you said in the character

in the film Fargo, in appearance in her heavy

Minnesota accent. When the state's dis -returning

general heart -tongue tells the police to arrest

cousin Mel, the crimes spoken against her are

obstruction of justice and almost ruining Christmas.

Wow. You can be charged with almost ruining Christmas.

That makes no sense. The movie was made by a

team of animators famous for their work on Captain

Planet and the Planeteers in Action 52. Oh God,

I did not need to know that. As much as I like

this, I did not need to know that. The movie

portrays what had happened in the song. However,

the movie is censored out of the adult content.

This results by grandma not getting killed but

alive. Also, Santa is innocent. Basically for

the plot, I'm not going to read all the way through

it. The show begins by introducing Jake Spangenheimer,

the main character, along with his family, most

notably Grandma Spangenheimer, who owns a small

general store in the town of Cityville. Eventually,

what happens is they work in the fact that grandma

has been drinking too much eggnog and she doesn't

have her medication. Then, of course, the reindeer

hit her and she's missing and now becomes the

search for grandma. After a year, the entire

town of Cityville does not have any Christmas

spirit except for Jake and grandpa who still

believe in Santa Claus. Then Jake sends an email

to Santa. Again, it's incorporating new technology,

the new millennium and all this stuff instead

of writing a letter and mailing it to Santa as

an email. And the head elf comes down and they

go find Grandma at the North Pole, except she

has amnesia, she can't remember anything. Cousin

Melvin steals her back, hides her at a cabin,

Jake finds her again. in this whole trial with,

you know, suing Santa Claus and getting rich

and getting grandpa to sign over his rights to

the store to cousin Mal. One thing that puzzles

me about this, and I know Kevin can comment on

it, if you have amnesia, I'm sorry. It could

be the best damn fruitcake ever. Fruitcake is

not gonna bring your damn memory back. True cake

is definitely not going to bring your memory

back. Yeah, no. What the hell? True cake might

actually cause amnesia. Yeah, because you're

trying to forget very quickly how terrible it

tastes. Yes, exactly. I will read the end little

thing here. Jake becomes suspicious that Cousin

Mel may have involved in Grandma's second disappearance

and follows her to the cabin in the woods where

she and I .M. Slime have been keeping Grandma.

They rescue Grandma and also find the piece of

paper Cousin Mel had found at the site of Grandma's

accident, a note from Santa explaining what had

happened. In a vial of the ingredient Cousin

Mel had added to Grandma's fruitcakes, which

turned out to be reindeer nip. They then manage

to restore Grandma's memory by feeding her some

of the famous her own famous fruitcake, and rushed

to the courthouse to prove that Cousin Mal had

been behind everything that happened to Grandma.

Confronted with the evidence, Cousin Mal is forced

to confess and she is placed under arrest. Austin

Bucks then approaches Grandma again, this time

offering to franchise her store throughout the

country. The show ends with Grandma accidentally

picking up the tainted fruitcake instead of her

own recipe. We're the result that Santa hits

her again and he is trying to fly back to the

North Pole. And again, as you guys have said

before, this is pretty much for us that grew

up with the song. And I think when this song

became popular is the early to mid 90s, is when,

for me is when it hit, like by the time I was

12, 13, 14, 15, you know, that's when it hit

popularity. It was just so great. You can say

what you want about this film, if you want to

trash it, whatever. I like the fact that they

put a story behind it. I think it's really cool.

Mrs. Claus, when she sees that Santa has been

arrested, it's very funny. She has a Homer Simpson

doe moment. It's almost like she's saying doe

when she falls over after reading the newspaper.

I thought that was kind of funny. What are your

overall impressions on the story, Kevin? I think

it's good for what it is. I think it did a better

job than I thought it would of telling the story

of the song. I just think it's behind the eight

ball in the fact that it's just hard for me to

really grab onto a Christmas special that wasn't

around when I was a kid. The only Christmas movie

show special that has ever been able to do that,

that came out past my teenage years was probably

Elf. Elf? The movie with Will Ferrell. Oh, God.

It's the only Christmas thing that's been able

to make me really enjoy it past my teenage years.

But that's not to take away from this one. I'm

sure if I would have seen it when I was a kid,

it would probably have that special, you know,

Christmas feel to it. Yes. Televixen really can't

comment as I said before because she's seen the

first 16 minutes. Again, I'm pretty sure if you

go to whatever year -old's equivalent, I don't

know if you all have Best Buy's out in Canada,

but if you go to Best Buy or something like that,

I'm pretty sure you can find this in the $5 rack.

I remember getting it for I think seven bucks.

So seven bucks for this DVD is not that bad.

Going into the music, all the songs to this before

were done by Dr. Elmo. Going into the legacy

segment, it's on DVD. That's pretty much all

we have to say about it. For overall final thoughts,

like I said before, I enjoy it. It's something

I can watch once a year at Christmas time. It's

very funny, it's something I can watch for enjoyment,

but... If I have it like on Cartoon Network,

Cartoon Network always reruns stuff, so if it's

like past Christmas, like past Christmas Day,

like the week after Christmas, and they're showing

it like on a weekend or something, I will watch

it to fall asleep to. And I'm not saying that

as a bad thing, but that's just, you know, I'll

start watching it and enjoying it and then the

next thing I know, you know, something else will

be on Cartoon Network or whatever. Overall great

great addition to having the song as well And

that's the final thoughts for that. I think unless

you have anything else to say about it Kevin

No, I think that does it we will be right back

with the final special Has the jury reached a

verdict? Yes, we have your honor in the matter

of the state versus Santa Claus we the jury finds

Innocent, I'm grandma and I'm not missing I'm

right here That woman is a fraud grandma doesn't

know who she is Since grandma isn't missing I

hereby rule that Santa Claus is innocent of causing

her disappearance There are still the charges

of Slay Hickler hitting Ron and leaving the scene

of an accident. I can answer that, Your Honor.

If you and the jury would taste this fruitcake...

No! Don't! She objects! Overruled. Continue.

This one was made by Grandma using her special

ingredients. Taste it, and then compare it to

the pieces of cake found at the scene of the

alleged crime. State's evidence number 12. Do

we have to, your honor? Good question. Do we

have to? Yes, I think you will find a difference

between the two. All right. In the name of justice,

we eat fruitcake. Now taste states evidence number

12, found where grandma disappeared. Well, what's

your point? These pieces had an extra ingredient

in them from this vial of bad stuff found at

cousin Mel's cabin. You see, your honor, it had

the effect of reindeer nip. That's why the reindeer

knocked over grandma. It wasn't Santa's reckless

driving. I couldn't control myself. The boy has

done it again. I rule that Santa is also innocent

of the hit -and -run charge. And I suppose Jake

has an answer to the charge of leaving the scene

of an accident. Slahicular negligence. Doofus

does. He's my dog. What? I object. Let's have

it. This is a note Santa left at the accident

scene explaining everything. Dust it for fingerprints.

Alright, I admit it. Yes, yes, I did it. I hid

the note. And? And? I made Grandpa sign over

his rights to the store. And? I'm behind this

evil trial. And? And I hate the goody -goody

feelings of Christmas. All this caring and sharing.

So I kidnapped Grandma and made Santa Claus the

fall guy so I could get all his money. Hey, I

deserve to be rich. Arrest this woman for obstructing

justice and almost ruining Christmas. That's

what you get for being selfish and stupid. Babe,

you look great in stripes. Santa Claus, you are

hereby found innocent of all charges. You are

free to go. But the Grinch, who lived just north

of Whoville, did not. The Grinch hated Christmas

the whole Christmas season. Please don't ask

why no one quite knows the reason. It could be

perhaps that his shoes were too tight. It could

be his head wasn't screwed on just right. But

I think that the most likely reason of all may

have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

But whatever the reason, his heart or his shoes,

he stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the who's.

Staring down from his cave with a sour, grinchy

frown at the warm, lighted windows below in their

town. For he knew every who down in Whovillebunny

was busy now hanging a holly whoopie. And they're

hanging their stockings. He snarled for the sneer.

Tomorrow is Christmas. It's practically here.

Then he growled with his Grinch fingers nervously

drumming. I must find some way to keep Christmas

from coming. And the final! Christmas special

that we're going to be talking about in the Tooncast

Holiday Show is How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

This is probably my number one Christmas classic

film that I will watch every year. I will watch

all the other ones that we've talked about, but

yeah this is probably number one. So go ahead

with the history lesson, Kevin. Alright, How

the Grinch Stole Christmas goes back to 1966,

an American animated television special directed

by Chuck Jones. This is based on the children's

book, obviously, of the same title by Dr. Seuss.

The story of the Grinch trying to take away Christmas

from the town's folks below. The special, which

is considered a short film, as of within an hour,

is one of the very few Christmas specials from

the 60s to still be shown regularly on television.

Obviously, most of the rest of them from today

have also been from the 60s and are still shown.

Rudolph in 1964, Charlie Brown in 1955, this

one 1966. Boris Karloff narrates the film and

also provides the speaking voice of the Grinch.

The opening credits actually state the sounds

of the Grinch are by Boris Karloff and read by

Boris Karloff too. The 26 -minute short was originally

telecast on CBS on December 18, 1966. CBS repeated

it annually during the Christmas season until

1987. It was eventually acquired by PBS, which

now shows it several times between November and

January. It has since been broadcast on PMT,

Cartoon Network, and the WB. Most recently, it

has been shown on ABC, but with some scenes trimmed

down because of time constraints. The show was

made at a time when commercial breaks on television

were shorter than they are now. In any event,

as of the present time, it is usually the first

or the lead -off classic special that airs on

network television each Christmas season, before

things like Charlie Brown and the lead -off and

Frosty, etc. That does it for the history lesson.

What are your general memories of The Grinch?

My mom loves this thing and I in turn love it

as well. It's just one of those things where

you really hate the character at first of The

Grinch. He's this ugly troll looking thing and

lives in a cave above a town and pretty much

stalks these people during Christmas time. But

as he learns, again, the true meaning of Christmas

is being together and being healthy and having

friendship and family and all that stuff. It

even says in there, his heart is three and a

half sizes too small and then at the end he goes,

it's three and a half sizes too big or just right

or whatever. I'm very glad they made him a redeeming

character because if they didn't, Wow, this would

be a horrible Christmas film. What about you,

Tella Lixon? My all -time favorite. To me, this

is the Christmas animated special that I have

to watch every year, at least once a year. I

will never outgrow this one. And it's the whole

redemption, the whole, you know, sometimes...

the bad guy can become good and you know have

the whole realization like the real meaning at

christmas and giving and being together to me

this is just this is perfection yeah i completely

agree what about you kevin um i would probably

put every other show that we talked about today

ahead of this one um i think i would watch home

alone four before i watch this again what home

alone four what the hell is wrong with you I

didn't even know there was a Home Alone 4 until

last week, and I've never seen it, but I think

I would make myself watch it before I watched

The Grinch. I have never been a Grinch fan. I

just can't get past the character. I don't like

the live -action movie. I don't like this movie.

All right. Well, OK. I will give you the live

-action movie. I don't like that. But this is

a Christmas. What is wrong with you, man? I can

honestly say my family never watched this at

Christmastime. I don't know when I caught it,

but I was Basically felt that I didn't miss anything

not watching it at Christmas time. I'm kind of

glad we never watched it. Oh my god, there is

something if television can hate Rudolph I can

hate Grinch I've got a Grinch fan. I've never

liked I didn't even like the book. I didn't like

I don't like anything that has to do with the

Grinch. I'm anti Grinch Wow Just moving right

along. Just wow. Okay, yeah. Going into the characters

and voice actors, as you mentioned, Boris Karloff

plays the Grinch. June Farré voices Cindy Lou

Who, who is, she's actually uncredited for it.

And Thoreau Ravenscroft is the singer for the

song there. You know, Boris Karloff, you really

get the feeling of the Grinch with his voice.

I don't think anybody else could have voiced

him with the same feeling of dread that you get

with him. And then of course the feeling of enjoyment

at the end once he has a change of heart and

his heart grows. And again, June Farré is one

of the classic Looney Tunes female voice actors

and she's done a bunch of other stuff as well.

There's really only... Mean they say in the in

the DVD special which I will put it I actually

grabbed the audio from the special on the DVD

And I'll put it in this episode They actually

say really there's only two characters in this

entire film that you really see outside of Cindy

Which is the Grinch himself and his dog Max I?

Feel so sorry for Max Max is just The Grinch

basically deforms him with this giant antler

tied to his head with a string I don't know.

What do you think of these characters, Tela Vixen?

I love them. I just, I love the Grinch. I love

the whole, you know, his whole journey in it.

Cindy Lou Who is just the sweetest, most adorable

little kid, and if anyone was going to change

this creature's mind, it was her. And just every

little thing about it the roast beast every little

detail in this is just I Couldn't imagine it

without any of it. It's it's just it's perfect

when he's stealing the gifts and I Get speechless

when I think about it. It's it's it's the definitive

Christmas cartoon in my opinion and Christmas

just isn't complete unless I watch it My only

problem with Cindy is what are the antlers or

antennas on her head? Well, don't they all have

them they're who's okay? I I don't know I didn't

I didn't notice that they all had them. I think

they do, okay? Okay, I don't know Yeah, just

good. No. I also love that like As someone who

really loved the Dr. Seuss books as a kid, I

loved that the Who's have more than one story.

Because I loved Horton Hears a Who. And then

to see this story too. The Who's are just such

a rich little group of creatures. It's fantastic.

And as Kevin said a second ago, he doesn't like

the story. He doesn't like the entire thing.

So I don't really think he can comment on the

voices anymore. I like, I like, I like Boris

Karloff as a voice. I like Boris Karloff and

just about everything that he does. I like Thurl,

Ravenscroft, so the voices I have no problem

with. I just, my favorite character is the Grinch

and that's why I don't like the show. Going into

the behind -the -scenes segment, I never, like

before I had the DVD, because I have the 50th

birthday deluxe edition DVD. Before I had that,

I never knew Chuck Jones directed this. I never

caught it. Never at all. Since I've been watching

this as, you know, from being a kid to now. When

I was watching it last night or this morning

or whenever it was or whenever, I don't even

remember when I watched it, but you know, I see

some nods to Chuck's other animations. Like it

has his style from like Tom and Jerry when he

was doing that a little bit. I like that they

pretty much keep accurate to the designs from

the book that Dr. Seuss had made. And then Ben

Washam was a co -director. Ben Washam was another

animator of Chuck's that he used a lot, a layout

guy. And of course, running credits go to Dr.

Seuss himself for the book. And for the story,

Irv Spector and Bob Ogle. Wow. I'd want to have

a name like that. Della Vixen, since you like

it so much, why don't you, I mean, I like it

too, but why don't you summarize the plot for

us on this one? Oh, goodness. That's a big feat.

There's this creature, the Grinch, kind of like

an Ebenezer Scrooge type character who is very

selfish and wants everything for himself and

goes into this little town and steals Christmas

from them and then through the help of a sweet

little who girl she helps him realize you know

what the true meaning of Christmas is and he

ends up you know saving the day and saving himself

and they all have a wonderful Happy Christmas!

I don't know if you can get much more detailed

than that. Yeah, yeah. I would not want to take

a sleigh. First of all, I would not want to ride

a sleigh down that mountain. Second of all, I

would not want to try to mush a little dog up

the mountain to get back to the cave. That is

just, uh, you know. No. No, no, no. Not at all.

I like the scene when he's sneaking around stealing

everything. Yeah. I think that's very funny.

First of all, you know, I don't think I've ever

nailed stockings to a fireplace. Because he uses

a magnet to take the nails out. You know, I think

people might have used to do that, but I've never

done that. I've never done it. I have no clue.

That was, I think, the only weird thing for me

out of that entire scene. Oh, and the fact that

he gets stuck in the chimney a couple of times.

I thought that was kind of funny. What are your

overall thoughts for this? Why don't we go with

Kevin first, seeing as how he doesn't like it.

Why don't you try to justify to us that like

it and the rest of the world that enjoys it every

year why you don't like it? I'm not going to

try to take away your fun and how much you enjoy

it. I mean, I love Dr. Seuss books. I have a

lot of them. I just, for some reason, have never

liked a Grinch character. And I think if you

don't like a main character, it's hard to get

past, you know, it's hard to get through anything

else. And that's basically what it comes down

to. I mean, it would be like not liking, if you

don't like Rudolph and Rudolph the Red Nose Ranger,

you're not going to like Rudolph the Red Nose

Ranger special. If you don't like Frosty, you're

not going to like his special. There's nothing

against the story, it's nothing against the voice

acting, it's nothing against Dr. Seuss and his

book. I just don't like the character, so I can't

get past that. That's the definition. I just

don't like the character. Here's some trivia,

which I did not actually know this first one.

Thorell Ravenscroft is perhaps better known as

the voice of Tony the Tiger in TV commercials.

I never knew that. I always thought that was

somebody else. No, there has been I think there

has been more than one But he he was I think

back in the 60s he was it and he was probably

it for a long time There have been at least one

other person that's done it I could have sworn

it was either Alan Oppenheimer or somebody like

that Yeah, it's I have a list of them because

I'm getting ready to where I Since I don't have

internet connection, I can't do much, but I haven't

plugged this for a long time. But I'm still an

administrator over at BehindTheVoiceActors .com,

and I'm actually compiling a list of TV commercial

figures like Tony the Tiger that we're going

to add to that site eventually. Dr. Seuss was

initially uninterested in animating this or any

of his books, but Chuck Jones managed to persuade

him. Dr. Seuss disputed casting Boris Karlo for

fear that he was... that he would make the Grinch

too scary. Dr. Seuss wrote the lyrics to all

the songs. Thorough Ravenscroft received no screen

credit for his singing in oversight. Dr. Seuss

attempted to rectify by sending letters to every

major columnist in America, identifying Ravenscroft

as the singer on your mean one, Mr. Grinch. He

was also part of the chorus on the other two

songs. Boris Karloff's voice changes when he

speaks for the Grinch. Originally, he spoke in

his narrator voice throughout. After the recording

was complete, the highs in his voice were mechanically

removed for the Grinch, giving him the gravelly

voice heard in the finished version. The lyrics

to the song Fa Hu Fores were made to imitate

classical Latin. After the special aired, the

studio received letters asking for a translation

from people who believed them to be real Latin.

The Grinch's green car was decided by director

Chuck Jones experiences renting cars in the Washington

Baltimore area, which he claimed always turned

out to be the exact shade. After the Grinch's

change of heart, his pupils changed from red

to blue, which I never noticed that, even watching

it before the recording today. I never noticed

that. I don't know if I have either. Well, when

you watch it this year, check it out. Though

all of the production and character designs were

based upon original artwork from the book, Dr.

Seuss thought that the Grinch more closely resembled

Chuck Jones rather than the original Grinch drawings.

Dr. Seuss's wife was a member of Sigma Kappa

sorority, and Seuss included nods to the sorority

in various parts of this film. Do you want to

mention any of the goofs, Kevin? No, I think

the Goose are mostly continuity. We are reviewing

these but we don't need to be nitpicky and a

lot of times when you do some stuff like that

listed on the internet, a lot of it's stupid

stuff like, oh, this person was on the right,

now they're on the left, which is a common animation

mistake. The eyes were red and then they're green

and then they're purple and then they're red

again. So there's not any major animation mistakes

in this one besides the little piggy -packs stuff.

Going into the music, there is a soundtrack for

this. On December 18, 1966, NGM released a soundtrack

LP in conjunction with a television special.

In October of 1995, Island released a CD duplicating

the 1966 LP release. On October 5, 1999, Rhino

released a new soundtrack for the special and

also included the soundtrack for another Dr.

Seuss cartoon, Horton, Here's a Who. on the disc.

Both story collections contain selected dialogue

and music numbers, although the isolated music

tracks are re -recorded. The dialogue excerpts

are from the actual soundtracks of the television

specials being voiced by Boris Karloff for the

Grinch and Hans Curried for Horton. And there's

the other track listings for both. You know,

the music for this... It's very character -driven

and I think a bunch of people that worked with

Chuck Jones on Looney Tunes and his Tom and Jerry

years as well helped out. I know I recognize

in the credits Eugene Podnany's credit. So for

me, even though this isn't, has nothing to do

with Tom and Jerry, when I would always hear

some of the music that wasn't directly related

to the Hoos and their singing. I always thought

of the Tom and Jerry, Chuck Jones cartoons because

it was kind of like the same tone of musical

Music was all right. I know it's hard to compare

it to some of the other ones that we've been

talking about today. It was good in its own right

though. I mean it's just completely different

than what we've been talking about I think. Yeah,

yeah. I like the music, I think particularly

because it's so distinct from everything else.

Yeah. There's nothing else that you can compare

it to. I agree. Some strange things pop into

my head. When you just said that, why does Sinead

O 'Connor's song pop into my head? Nothing compares

to you. Yeah, yeah. At the cartoon's original

release, the program received mixed reviews.

Critic Rick Dubrow termed it merely passable,

but it has since been recognized as a classic

with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 100 % fresh

rating on its website. Okay, now I have to comment

about that because the entire time that we've

been doing tune cast and and wire here at geek

cast radio I don't think I've ever seen a 100

% fresh rating for anything that we've reviewed

so far from Rotten Tomatoes and mainly I'm talking

about the movie we can review podcast Because

that's where we normally talk about the critical

reception as far as rotten tomatoes dot -com

goes I don't think I've ever seen a 100 % fresh

rating from them on anything that we've talked

about. Actually, if you look at them though,

you're right that it's not necessarily a common

thing to see 100%, but you do see a lot more

100 % ratings on there for kids' movies and for

animated movies. They tend to give them a lot

higher scores than they do the live -action type

movies. Yeah, true. For the original CBS version,

the film was originally sponsored by the foundation

for Full Service Banks, a full -service bank,

and ended with a short advertisement for the

FFSB. Presented in the mold of Dr. Sue's Poetic

Stories, the original print unseen since its

first telecast exists among film collectors.

The 1966 opening and closing sponsor tags are

officially unavailable on video by Turner slash

Warner Brothers. An otherwise main body of the

specialist first seen in 1966 is available on

DVD and Blu -ray. How the Grinch Stole Christmas

was released to VHS in 1995. The special was

released to DVD format in 2000. The DVD featured

another Seuss based special, Horton Here's a

Who. in the contained an audio commentary by

Phil Roman and June Foray, interviews with Albert

Haig and Thoreau Ravenscroft, and a special edition

documentary which aired alongside the special

on TNT in the 1990s. The DVD was well received

for these bonus features, but also criticized

for its subpar picture quality. Many critics

pointed out that the Grinch looked Euro in this

release. The special was released on DVD again

in 2006, labeled as 50th Birthday Deluxe Edition,

which is the one that I have. The 50th birthday

inaccurately refers to the date of the book's

publication. It was published in 1957, not 1956.

As the cover would have the buyers believe, and

not to the date of the 1966 TV special, this

DVD release presented the special in a better

quality digital transfer and contained all of

the bonus features from the previous release,

except for the audio commentary. The Grinch was

restored back to his original green color. This

DVD also features a new retrospective featurette.

I gotta talk about this DVD. Okay, granted, you

know, fine if it's not technically accurate to

the 50th birthday. Great. Whatever. But, you

know, as most everybody knows, special edition

DVDs tend to have a slip cover case over them,

like over the actual DVD case. This is probably

the most intricate DVD cover that I ever have

had in my collection. It has the Grinch, it has

the title How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and

it has Cindy Lou Who in the bottom right hand

corner. It is white background, and the white

actually, it's like a, I don't know if you can

hear it on the microphone here, but it's like

some sort of hard fabric, and it's meant to be

like snow. On the Grinch himself, the only parts

that are embossed are his legs, his face, his

head. and the title. His coat, his Santa coat,

is a fur. His Santa hat is a fur type of material

as well as his shoes are. The other pieces that

are embossed are Cindy herself. She is like a

plastic and the ornaments. I think this is probably

the best, one of the best DVD cases or covers

that I've ever had. I mean it's just so unique

to this special. And as I said before, it is

on Blu -ray for those of you who would like to

have it on Blu -ray. It was available October

6, 2009, containing all the bonus features from

the 2000 DVD, except for the Horton Here's a

Who, which was made available separately. It

also included a DVD of the special and a digital

copy. So why don't we go into final thoughts.

Why don't you go first, Televixen? I don't know

if there's much more I can say about it it's

just my my all -time favorite Christmas special

the whole you know bad guy turning good I don't

know why I'm a sucker for a story like that but

I am and that's probably the big reason why I

love this so much Boris Karloff was just such

a fantastic choice for for the voice for for

the Grinch and just the soundtrack, the voice

work, the story itself. I don't know if there'll

ever be another Christmas special quite like

this again. It was definitely a unique moment

in animation, in my opinion, and in cartoons.

So yeah, it continues to be my favorite over

the holidays and I think it will continue for

a long time to come. Yeah, mine as well. I completely

agree with everything you said. Let's go to the

hater. I don't want to, I don't want to roof

on it any more than I already have. I'll just

say, you know, it's my least favorite holiday

film or holiday special, but I understand that

a lot of people like it and I respect that. All

right. Well, we are going to take a quick break

and we're going to come back with a little something

extra for the holiday show, something that I

was going to include with the the original show

here but I'm going to add it in so we will be

right back. I first discovered the Grinch in

our bookshelf. I thought he looked like some

sort of weird mutant chimpanzee or something.

Dr. Seuss was born Theodore Geisel in 1904 in

a small town, Springfield, Massachusetts. And

the main thing that I think is so interesting

about Dr. Seuss is that he wasn't born Dr. Seuss.

It was a long process of him finding that identity.

I think Dr. Seuss is a cat in a hat. I think

Dr. Seuss is a rhymer. I think Dr. Seuss is a

writer and an illustrator. His mother, Henrietta

Seuss... always wanted her son to be a doctor.

That was her biggest goal. She wanted him to

be Dr. Geisel. When it came time for him to publish

his books, he wanted to get that doctor sound

that his mother had liked, and he also used her

maiden name, Seuss. When he was little, he started

doodling and drawing on everything. He was actually

voted by his college class least likely to succeed

because they said, a man. can't exactly doodle

for a living. In his first art class, he was

holding the artwork upside down and looking at

it for composition reasons. And the teacher said,

real artists never look at their artworks upside

down. So that was the last time he went back

to that class. He didn't need anyone else. He

didn't want anyone else. It was between him and

his thought. and the paper. He had a big drawing

board at his house and spent a lot of time doing

that and a lot of time thinking he was a very

brilliant man and a lot of things going on inside.

Ted was totally at home in a world of imagination.

He could take the pencil, the paper on that drawing

board and create something. that allowed the

rest of us to get inside that imagination and

become and see a part of this extraordinary world.

Then he slithered and slumped with a smile most

unpleasant. Around the whole room he took every

present. Soos always had the ability to connect

with his own child inside and children that read

his books connect with that. Dr. Soos rhymes

words so he can make the book. pretty funny.

A thumping, a bumping, a wild alive scratching

my egg, shouted Hornet. Children read in love

with them. But he said, you're right. What seems

to appeal be amusing to you, and you hope they

like it. And there are shrieks, squeaks, and

squeals racing round on their wheels. They'll

dance with jing tingles tied onto their heels.

Soos was always asked, where do you get your

ideas? And he hated that question so much, he

came up with an answer and his ideas came out

of Ubergletsch. And that's a town outside of

Switzerland, I believe, where he would go every

year to have his cuckoo clock fixed. And while

the clock was being fixed, he would mingle among

the townspeople and they would give him his ideas.

And you never really knew if Zeus was telling

the truth or not because he hated straight answers.

Were based upon Seuss's own trips to glock His

journeys exposed him to all sorts of creatures

Which in his books took on bizarrical features

From emu to meerkat, from ostrich to fish And

fluent -style Seuss books, my favorite, the Grinch

Seuss traveled to over 30 countries by the time

he was 30 years old. He loved to travel and he

went to Europe and he went to South America and

all over the place. He didn't take photographs

but he did like to sketch along the way and he

came up with some of his ideas while on vacation.

He would take things from other worlds so to

speak and other territories and incorporate them

into Seuss land. You've seen things that are

sort of like that, but not exactly like that.

I think that's where Seuss was a real magician,

was that he would take elements of real animals

and combine them in such a way that he had his

completely brand new zoology going on in there.

When you think about Axe and all the Grinch's

Christmas and the antlers on his head, we can

actually go back to the early 1930s and see Seuss

using antlers and horns and beaks in these sculptures

that he created when he was just in his 20s or

30s. So he makes these fun and funny, playful

sculptures with fantastic names like the Andalovian

Grackler. The Two -Horned Druber Hannes. The

Blue -Green Avalar. And it was a long process

of him finding his focus in life. And he didn't

really start publishing his children into his

thirties. And The Gritch Who Stole Christmas

was written when he was 53. Why for 53 years

I put up with it now. I must stop Christmas from

coming. Seuss was the Grinch in some ways. It

was part of his alter ego. Where he lives in

La Jolla looks very much like where the Grinch

lived. And to get to Dr. Seuss's house, you have

to take a winding road up a hill. And when you

reach the top of that hill, there's this old

tower and reminds you of the peak where the Grinch

lives. The Grinch lives on Mount Crumpet. Ted's

on Mount Soledad. It's gotta be one in the same.

He's got to be thinking, God, here comes Chris

again, and La Jolla's just gonna go crazy, and

all the commercialism and all the hoo -ha, and

he's up there being grumpy. Yeah, he has two

sides, but the nice side is shy. I think the

Grinch could be a bad person, sometimes a good

person. I think there's fun seeing the Grinch

get irritated with Christmas, which we all do

once in a while. What Dr. Seuss did with the

Grinch is he basically took the same format of

Twas a Night Before Christmas and then set it

on its ear. Instead of a benevolent Santa showing

up all round and plump and jolly, you get this

scrawny old shaggy misanthrope who wants to take

things away from people. He's doing the exact

opposite of Santa Claus. There is something wonderfully

perverse about that and I think kids really love

the idea. The only other character we really

know is Max, who's sort of the Grinch's silent

accomplice in all this, and we get the idea from

Max's woe -begone expression that he'd rather

not be doing this. You know, he is the Grinch's

pet, so he's got to stick with him. I think Whoville's

in Alaska, because it's always snowy. I think

that Whoville is in the Arctic Mountains. I think...

Whoville is make -believe. The characters of

the Who's, Ted liked those characters so much

he said, you know, I'm gonna do another story

someday, somehow, and I'm gonna work those Who's

into it. And not only did he work them into it,

he created a town called Whoville. Oh no, the

Grinch! The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, actually

the legend is that that was the quickest book

that he ever wrote. Supposedly he wrote that

book in a week. He did have trouble with the

ending and it took him many months to come up

with the right ending for the book. He would

draw or write a thousand pages to get to 60 pages.

Then the Grinch, very nimbly, stuffed all the

bags one by one up the chimbly. Chimbly? A chimblee

is a chimney. Dr. Seuss worked really hard at

making every word count and making every line

and illustration count in his books. He never

gave up on trying to put on that piece of paper

what he already saw in his head. I love the lines

he uses and they're flowing. There's nothing

stiff about his work. The world of Seuss is curved.

Now look at that artwork. It makes me want to

be an adventurer. It makes me want to go into

places I've never seen before. And Seuss takes

us to all of those places. He was coming back

from a trip in the middle of the night when he

couldn't sleep. The ship was tossing up and down.

The engines were grinding into his mind. And

it was the rhythm of the ship tossing up and

down. That he couldn't get out of his head. Which

some say created that certain pattern of rhyme.

And he eventually wrote the book, and to think

that I saw it on Mulberry Street. And that was

the start of it. Say that makes a story that

no one can beat. When I say I saw it on Mulberry

Street. When Dr. Seuss' books first started coming

out, people noticed that they were different

from anybody else's books. Well, they were incredibly

funny. Now, now. Have no fear. Have no fear,

said the cat. My tricks are not bad, said the

cat in the hat. They're just waking up. I know

just what they'll do. Their mouths will hang

open a minute or two. And then the who's down

in Whoville will all cry. They use funny words

like who hash or roast beast. It was different.

You were listening to a very pure, unique spirit

when he spoke. But how did the Grinch end up

on TV? Well, that's a good question. Just listen

to me. Seuss had a friend who was exceedingly

funny, who directed cartoons for Daffy Duck and

Bugs Bunny. Let's make Grinch a cartoon, Jones

often would plead, until finally one day, Dr.

Seuss, he agreed. The book was made into his

TV special in 1966. Chuck Jones was working at

MGM at the time and they were making it as a

holiday special with Dr. Seuss' involvement.

Dr. Seuss had known the animator Chuck Jones

during World War II. They had both worked together

in a unit that was doing a series of morale films

for soldiers which kind of lampooned army life

called Private Snafu. Jones was the director

of many of those shorts and Dr. Seuss was the

writer. There was one Snafu cartoon called Rumors

that I believe he did a lot of design work on

and contributed a lot of crazy looking creatures,

kind of like the ones over there. And I think

it was two minds of a similar kind that saw kind

of offbeat way of thinking. Sideways look at

things. Zeus himself wrote the script, even expanded

it in a few places. Because you're dealing with

a book that can be told in a very short amount

of time, and you've got about 25 minutes to fill,

you're going to have to extend the length a little

bit, such as when the Grinch is complaining out

all the noise that the hoop girls and boys are

going to make from their presence, we actually

see them opening their gifts, and they're running

down, and they're wanging their pantumas, and

they've got their snoo... Noise! Chuck Jones

did a fantastic job of taking Seuss's two -dimensional

book and taking it into a completely different

medium. The drawings are sketches, really, and

when you get to animating, you have to do things

like, how does the Grinch move? I mean, he's

a sketch in a book. What are his gestures? Is

he confident? Is he shy? Chuck Jones was working

with artists that he worked on with the original

Looney Tunes team and they were so wonderful

at capturing a character's emotions just through

their their facial reactions and their body language

like when the top of his little Santa hat goes

like that that's masterful Jones was was famous

for doing that one of the best facial reactions

Jones has ever drawn anywhere is when the Grinch

gets his idea. Then he got an idea, an awful

idea. The Grinch got a wonderful, awful idea.

Dr. Seuss thought, especially the smile, looked

a little bit too much like Chuck. So there were

a lot of sparks that flew between two creative

geniuses. But it was wonderful because it came

together in a really classic story. The Grinch

finally learns when his brain gets smart that

Christmas is something you keep in your heart.

The children still love it, and so it appears.

This TV special will be with us for the next

50 years. And to make myself plain, you'll agree

it's a sin that you just don't have Christmas

if you don't have THE GREEN! Humbug. BABY CHRISTMAS

ISN'T A STRANGE! What's so merry about it? I'll

tell you what Christmas is. It's just another

work day. And any jack -o' -lantern who thinks

else should be boiled in his own pudding. But

sir, Christmas is a time for giving. A time to

be with one's family. I say BAH! Humbug! I don't

care! I say BABY CHRISTMAS! BAH -WING CHRISTMAS!

Well said! What are you doing? I was just trying

to keep my hands warm, sir. And what are you

doing here, nephew? I've come to give you a wreath

and invite you for Christmas dinner. We are back

with a special edition to this holiday show,

something that, until I went to Target, now it

would have been three, four months ago, I was

at Target one day looking for DVDs and I just

so happened to come across a DVD that said Mickey's

Christmas Carol. Walt Disney Animation Collection

Classic Short Films. And this DVD includes Mickey's

Christmas Carol, The Small One, Santa's Workshop,

and Pluto's Christmas Tree. Mickey's Christmas

Carol and Pluto's Christmas Tree are the two

specials that I remember the most. Mickey's Christmas

Carol is a 24 -minute animated short film produced

by Walt Disney Productions. It was originally

released in the United Kingdom on October 20th,

1983 by Buena Vista Distribution. The film was

released in the United States on December 16th,

1983 as an accompaniment to a re -release of

The Rescuers. Oh, another one of Kevin's favorite

films. I think it is anyway, isn't it? It's not

mixed reviews. Okay, well, whatever. An incineration

of Charles Dickens, a classic at Christmas Carol

featuring Scrooge McDuck and his namesake and

inspiration Ebenezer Scrooge and Mickey Mouse

as Bob Cratchit. This film was based on 1972

audio musical entitled Disney's A Christmas Carol.

Mickey's Christmas Carol was the first new Mickey

Mouse cartoon made in 30 years after The Simple

Things. It was also broadcast on TV on NBC from

1984 to 1990. CBS from 1991 to 1998 and ABC in

2000 and 2003. On December 10, 2008 it was shown

on ABC Family along with Winnie the Pooh and

Christmas 2 as part of their 25 Days of Christmas

but with several abrupt edits. It also premiered

on Disney now Disney XD. that same year. The

shirt also featured without its opening credits

in the direct -to -home release Mickey's Magical

Christmas Snowden at the House of Mouse. It is

also available in the ninth volume of the Walt

Disney Classics cartoon favorites DVD collection

as well as the Walt Disney Treasures set Mickey

Mouse in Living Color volume 2. However, the

latter is only a DVD release to retain the film's

widescreen aspect ratio. First of all, Mickey's

Christmas Carol is probably the outside of the

Muppets Christmas Carol with Michael Caine and

I know that doesn't really apply to Tooncast

because the Muppets themselves outside of Muppet

Babies are not animated but between that and

this are my two favorite versions of the Christmas

Carol story. I'm glad you mentioned the Muppets

one because I was going to try to get that in

there too but yeah the Muppets and the Mickey

Christmas Carol are for me I would even put them

ahead of some of the other shows that we've been

talking about. I put them up there with Rudolph

and Frosty. Yeah, yeah. You know, I agree. What

about you, Tilly Wicks? What are your thoughts

on Mickey's Christmas Carol? I saw this in the

theater with the rescuers. Wow. And I remember

enjoying it more than I enjoyed the rescuers.

Oh, yeah. But at the same time, it was a little

scary. It was probably one of the first scary

things I ever saw in a theater, you know, besides

Bambi's mom getting shot. Well, Disney is all

about scary. Look what they did in their very

first animated feature. But anyway, yes, people

will have to listen to Tooncast episode 29, which,

as of this, would have already been released.

It is a little bit scary, I will give you that,

with the creeping shadows. I think the scariest

one in this is obviously Pete. Well, it is Pete

from Goof Troop who plays the ghost of Christmas

future. It's some reasonable facsimile to Pete.

But overall, I think it's a good way to represent

that story, though, of Dick and the Christmas

Carol. outside of the Muppets doing it. Actually,

it's very funny. Outside of Mickey's Christmas

Carol being on this DVD, like I said, Pluto's

Christmas tree is on here. It's another short

Disney cartoon. This was the cartoon that I remember

the most watching at Christmas time outside of

the other specials that we've talked about today

because it introduced me to Chip and Dale. And

as most of our listeners would know, we covered

Chippendale's Rescue Rangers way back in episode

9 of, no, episode, wait, what episode was it,

Kevin? Oh, episode 11, episode 11. Episode 9

was Dexter, we're not going there. Episode 11

of Tooncast. Yeah, this introduced me to Chippendale,

and I love them in that little short. I like

the Muppet Christmas Carol a little bit better

than I like Mickey's Christmas Carol but I think

like you said they're both excellent versions

or excellent takes on that story which should

be no surprise because just about anything that

Mickey or the Muppets do tend to be a great version

of whatever that story is so I think they're

both worth watching. I think I need to track

it down because it's been quite a long time since

I've seen it and I think I would like to watch

it again. It made a big impression on me in the

beginning, so I think it's worth a rewatch. It

wasn't that hard for me to track it down, honestly.

The DVD case, it says at the very top, it says

Walt Disney, classic short films, animation collection.

and in big bold letters it says Mickey's Christmas

Carol and it has Mickey and Scrooge on the front.

It was like right there. I mean, the DVD could

have jumped off the shelf and smacked me in the

face. It was right there. And I actually, what?

Well, I'm just saying, and coming from someone

who worked at Target for a decade, every Christmas

season they have a whole... two sides of their

movies dedicated to all Christmas specials. So

you shouldn't be able to track down just about

every Christmas movie that's out there it seems

like. It's usually on one of the little like

four way type little ends of the aisle type thing.

Right. It was just there a couple days ago and

I saw there's two whole sides. One was dedicated

to more like kids and animation and the other

one was more like live action. Live action, yeah.

Okay. I'm just so, because I never knew it was

on DVD before. I mean I just... I remember watching

it on VHS way back in the 80s, but I never knew

it was on DVD, and I'm very glad that I grabbed

it. I think it was maybe $9, $10. I think it

was something like that. So it's not overly expensive

at all. No, none of that Christmas stuff is very

expensive, it doesn't seem like it. No, not at

all. So oh and the other good thing about the

Mickey's version of the Christmas Carol it has

Donald Duck as as as nephew Fred I thought that

was extremely hilarious and it has goofy as the

ghost of Jacob Marley In the beginning scene

when Scrooge is going home for some odd reason

the doorknob or the door knocker on on his on

his door looks just like Goofy and he always

grabs his nose and you're like, ouch! I always

thought that was really, really funny. So, again,

we're going to take another quick break. We're

going to go into the outro and then that will

be it for the big holiday show. Before we go

into the official closing just we've been giving

final thoughts on each cartoon as we go along

I know some of us I mean even though I like all

the ones that we've talked about I do have some

issues with with certain parts of each one But

overall I like all the ones we talked about today

unlike unlike my two Fabulous co -hosts who saw

one doesn't like one and the other doesn't like

the other which is fine I mean, I'm not I'm not

saying either way, but you know I think what's

good about this show though is we covered so

many that everybody has their own Christmas traditions

and everybody probably has a show or movie that

they watch every Christmas. And as far as the

animation goes, we should have been able to hopefully

hit at least everybody's one of their favorite

ones to watch, whether it's the Rankin' Bad stuff

like Rudolph and Frosty, whether it's the Peanuts,

whether it's the Grinch. Hopefully we hit your

favorite Christmas animation special. Yes, and

it's actually funny that you mentioned that,

Kevin. I went ahead and already made the blog,

or not the blog post, but the forum post over

at PredaconEmpire .com slash Nexus. Those are

where our forum topics are posted for this episode.

And in that forum posting, I said, hey, if you

want to interact with us, call the voicemail

line, which is 502 -526 -521. leave your name

and what show you're leaving the message for

and tell us what your favorite Christmas special

is out of the ones that we've talked about in

this episode. So if anybody wants to call in,

they're more than welcome to leave us a voicemail.

I will rip that out and put it into this show

so people can be a part of our holiday show.

Let us know which one your favorite is, too,

and more people call in about Rudolph on the

Grinch, please. Anyways, yeah, please let us

know out of the ones that we've talked about.

We've talked about Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph

the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, the

Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Grandma Got Hurt

Over by a Reindeer, and Mickey's Christmas Carol.

So if you let us know which one is your favorite

and tell us why, we will put your voicemail in

this episode. The deadline for this is December

20th. I don't know what... the actual date is

for that but the date is December 20th is the

deadlines to get those voicemails in. Again you

can either call the voicemail line which is 502

-526 -5821 or you can email me tfg1podcast at

gmail .com with an mp3 that you created by yourself

if you don't want to call the voicemail line.

As Kevin said we've pretty much covered all of

the classic holiday cartoons. I don't think there's

anything outside of these six things that aren't,

that we didn't talk about. And again, this is

probably gonna be one of our longest episodes

in a while, including all the audio in -betweeners

because the way that I'm gonna put this episode

together is for each show, if it has a special

feature, that will be after... the discussion

of that show and then the audio for the next

show will start in between our discussions on

them. Tella Rickson, do you have any final thoughts

or anything you would like to share before we

go into the official outro? No, just take some

time out of your busy holiday schedules and pop

one of these into the DVD player or the VCR if

you're going to go old school. And hopefully

some of the younger generation will discover

these and fall in love with them. Yes, very much

so. Thank you for joining us here on Tooncast.

There are some ways to get in contact with us.

We'll leave feedback for the show. The first

is that you can visit www .geekcastradio .com

and find all the other podcasts there. The second

is you can stop by www .predaconempire .com slash

nexus. Those are our new forums. We discuss all

the episodes there. The third is you can leave

the show feedback on iTunes. Excuse me, this

is the best way to help us out. Please leave

us positive feedback. The fourth is you can visit

yet another great geek culture website, www .earth

-2 .net. You can find our threads on their forums

in the self -promotion section for the shows.

The fifth is the email address, which is gcrintunecast

.gmail .com. We now have a voicemail line. Call

us and leave us your thoughts on each episode.

Be sure to say what show you're leaving the message

for and your name. The number is 502 -526 -5821.

Again, if people want to leave voicemails for

the holiday show for episode 30, you must have

them in by December 20th. You can follow us on

Twitter. The show name there is GCR in Tooncast

minus TFG1 Mike. Kevin, what is your Twitter?

And Televixen, what is your Twitter? The Televixen.

Yes. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Tooncast

and wish you'll join us next time when we will

be continuing the Disney Animation Spotlight

with Aladdin franchise. We will be talking about

all three films. For now, I am... Shut up! For

now, I am TFG and Mike with the Televixen and

the Professor Boss K Dog, singing the moral words

of Optimist Prime, Transform and Roll Out, and

thank you for listening. Until next time, happy

holidays everybody, or I should say, seeing as

how I started it off, to be politically incorrect,

Merry Christmas, dammit. It's the best time of

the year I don't know if there'll be snow But

have a cup of cheer Have a holly jolly Christmas

And when you walk down the street Say hello to

Fringin' O And everyone you meet Ho, ho, the

mistletoe Hung where you can see Somebody waits

for you Kiss her once for me Have a holly jolly

Christmas And in case you didn't hear Oh my golly

have a holly jolly Christmas this year Love a

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