Happy New Year, Charlie Brown, have some Chex party mix!

Did everyone watch Happy New Year, Charlie Brown last night on ABC? I’ve been wanting to get that I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown DVD because it has Happy New Year as a bonus feature, but luckily I saw it was going to be on TV last night so I made sure I sat down to watch it. I should’ve made some Chex party mix to go along with it.

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown is yet another animated special my family had on VHS recorded straight from a television airing (in fact, I think it was recorded from the 1986 premiere). Yet again, like many specials we had recorded, that VHS copy is lost somewhere in time & space. I haven’t seen this special since probably 1990 or so, but once songs and gags starting popping up it was like “Oh yeah! I remember this!”

Snoopy sniffing Lucy’s root beer and Rerun blowing up square balloons still made me laugh and I help but feel sorry for ol’ Chuck as he fell asleep and missed the girl of his dreams coming to the party. My girl wondered why he was the only one worrying about the book report when everyone else had the same assignment and were partying like it was 1999 and I told her its because worrying is what Charlie Brown does.

I’m pleased to say this classic from my childhood has held up well and I’m glad to see it making it to TV again. I don’t remember it being on TV for a long time, but maybe I’m wrong.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everybody!!!

Grow Rudolph! Grow Santa! Grow Bumble!, Part 1

Oh we’re not done talking about Christmas yet! On clearance, I picked up these three gems:

Officially licensed Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer “Grow Santa”, “Grow Rudolph” and “Grow Bumble”!

Don’t worry about the game on the back, its just a crossword puzzle and its the same one for each packaging. I’m a Rankin Bass freak, so of course I had to pick these up. Not that I have much use for them, but whatever, I wanna see them grow “up to” 600% their original size. Apparently, Buy-Rite Designs makes no guarantees for increase of size… just like those companies tell me in all that junk email I get!

So, hey, plop these bad boys in a glass of water and watch’em grow, right? It’ll probably take a few minutes and no more than an hour, right? Uh, no. Upon closer inspection of the instructions, I was informed that the growth process make take up to ten days. TEN DAYS ?! What kind of toy is that ?! Imagine being 6 or 7 years old and being told you have to wait TEN DAYS to see the finished product. Where’s the fun in this? Buy-Rite expects me to keep three Rudolph figurines sitting in three different glasses of water for TEN DAYS???

Fine. I’ll do it. But I won’t like it. I’ll keep these guys in water for ten days, until I get bored & impatient or until mildew starts growing in the glasses. Whichever comes first.

The instructions also go on to mention that the figurines may become bent out of shape during the growing process they assured me it was all “part of the fun”. So is the slimy feeling these guys have when submerged. I have to give them points for this though — once taken out of the water and once they figures start drying, they’ll shrink back to their original size and you can drown’em all over again! That’s neat. I guess. But I think I would rather have a really huge Santa, Rudolph and Bumble permanently.

Check back in 10 days or less for Part 2 of this experiment to see the finished product.

The Top 5 Rankin Bass Christmas Specials

Well, it’s Christmas Eve. What better way to spend it than by talking about Rankin Bass Christmas specials?

Though Rankin Bass Productions didn’t only produce Christmas specials, these are what they are most known and remembered for and let’s be honest — this is where they excelled. Sure, they put out some other enjoyable movies and specials, but there was a special spark to their Christmas output.

It all started in 1964 with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and ended (?) with Santa, Baby! in 2001 (which I haven’t seen yet). Here’s my personal top five.

5. The Year Without a Santa Claus

One of the greatest television stars of all-time made his debut in this special and yes I’m talking about the Snow Miser! So, this one making the list was a no-brainer. Soundtrack is great took featuring the classic Snow Miser and Heat Mister themes.

4. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town

The first special of Rankin Bass’ “Big Three” to make my list (Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer complete the “Big Three”). For a long time, I didn’t care for it. I think I was put off by the fact that this was an origin story for Santa Claus but I’ve come to enjoy it a lot over the last few years. I love the Winter Wizard!

3. Jack Frost

No, this isn’t the Michael Keaton movie and it isn’t about a killer snowman either — this is the original Jack Frost! It isn’t as fondly remembered as some of RB’s other specials, but maybe that’s because it was released in 1979 and it somehow falling into the public domain (it’s been featured on tons of low-budget DVDs over the years). Warner Bros. finally gave it a proper restored release, but no matter how you watch it — it’s a great tale. Believe it or not, it’s actually a love story!

2. Frosty the Snowman

I prefer Rankin Bass’ signature “animagic” stop-motion over the traditional hand-drawn animation style, but there’s no disputing Frosty the Snowman‘s place in the pantheon of Christmas specials. How could you not love a Christmas special that made “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!” appropriate for the holidays?

1. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Was there ever any question? It’s the greatest Christmas special of all-time! There’s so many great songs and great quotes and it set the tone for all future Rankin Bass specials. It continues to inspire and delight people of all ages.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

The Very First Christmas Crunch Commercial

In honor of scoring the very LAST box of Christmas Crunch at the grocery store the other night, I figured it would be nice to show off the very first Christmas Crunch commercial back when it debuted in 1988.

A Polaroid Christmas Commercial

Cute, but isn’t Santa kind of a jerk for this? I mean, these kids went to all that trouble for snap a picture of Santa Claus and he takes the photo with him and then proceeds to have a hearty laugh about it (no doubt his round belly shook like a bowl full of jelly while doing it too)!