Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July [Review]

Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July
Originally aired: November 25, 1979 on ABC

Well, if a Universal Monsters team-up is called a “monster mash”, I guess you could call Rankin Bass teaming up Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman an “animagic mash”?

1979’s Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July serves as a continuation of both Frosty’s Winter Wonderland and Rudolph’s Shiny New Year (each premiered on ABC in December 1976). Which themselves were sequels to the classic Frosty the Snowman (1969) and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964). While it premiered on ABC, it’s really more than just a Christmas special. It’s full-length movie that clocked in at 99 minutes. The poster above treats it like a theatrical release, and who knows, maybe it did get a theatrical run somewhere (or maybe was planned to have one).

Upgrading my Christmas collection to Blu-ray

I find my lack of Christmas movies & specials on Blu-ray disturbing. This year, I’ve started to do something about it. So far this season, I’ve picked up Home Alone 1 & 2 double-pack, the 50th Anniversary edition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Elf. Frosty the Snowman was given to me by a friend that knows me all too well.

There’s a couple of other Rankin Bass holiday specials on Blu-ray that I need to pick up as well as the Santa Clause trilogy and Christmas with the Kranks, but maybe they can wait until next year (or until there’s a good price drop). I already own Gremlins (as part of a triple pack with The Goonies and Gremlins 2), which is gruesome and disturbing at times but still a Christmas movie in my opinion.

Grow Rudolph! Grow Santa! Grow Bumble!, Part 2

Waaaay late on this one, but so what? To get caught up, read Part 1.

The package said ten days and they weren’t lying. That’s about how long it took for these guys to reach their maximum size. And then they continued to sit in those glasses of water. I even changed the water a few times as if they were fish who needed fresh water. I just didn’t want to deal with doing this post and I didn’t want to take them out and have them shrink up again. So every few days, they got fresh water until I was ready to take pictures.

Y’know, right before typing up this post, I realized I don’t really have a point of comparison for how much this things grew. I mean, seriously, they got pretty big. I didn’t think they would, but they did. Oh well. Too late now. The woman threw them out today. =\

These figures grew so big, their colors were fading from being stretched so much and their paint job was even cracking. Santa particularly took an awful beating looking like he had been chewed up, partially digested and then thrown up.

Awwwww… Isn’t a fully grown Rudolph the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? This shot makes having three glasses of water sitting on my kitchen counter for 2 weeks taking up space sooooooooo worth it. He looks kind of like a chihuahua. Notice the whites of his eyes and chest hair are barely holding it together.

RAWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRR~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!!!!

TA-DA!

Look at Bumble in the back, apparently, he’s being held up by a mugger stationed off-camera.

I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen a guy in a Santa suit passed out cold on the ground looking just like this while lying in a puddle of something or another. He looks gross and he felt gross. For some reason, he was completely slimy and the only figure to be so. Ewww….

The 2009 Christmas Haul Post

This was actually meant to go up on the evening of December 25th, but you know how that goes. I’d take pictures like this guy did, but it isn’t very interesting to look at gift cards. Even less so when you’re know they now have a zero balance.

Anyway, the Christmas blitz is over and here’s the fallout:

Assassin’s Creed II for PS3

Though there’s tons of games I want right now, this one was at the top of my list.

KISS Kompendium: The First Complete Collection

I don’t really ask for anything in recent years. In fact, this year I didn’t ask for anything at all because I feel guilty over getting free stuff. So my sneaky fiancee picked this one up after I showed it to her at Barnes & Noble and was gushing about how cool it was. I love comics and KISS is my favorite band so how can I go wrong with a hardcover over-sized 1,200+ page collection of all KISS comics from 1977-2002?

Ruby-Spears Superman: The Complete Series

I’ve been meaning to pick this one up for awhile. I know this is one of the more obscure DC animated shows, but I was a huge fan of it for the extremely short time it was on TV. I still plan on giving my thoughts on this collection… Someday.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Traditions: Designed by Jim Shore (Rudolph, Hermy & Yukon)

It has become a tradition in the fall for us to make the trek up to Frankenmuth, Michigan for the sole purpose of shopping at Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland. They sell a number of cool Jim Shore designed lines there but the Rudolph line is my favorite and this is the third year in a year I’ve received a piece.

Gift cards:

– American Eagle (bought jeans and a hoodie)
– Best Buy (which I combined with money from my parents to buy the complete Rock Band 2 band set, I was wanting New Super Mario Bros. but they were sold out)
– Cracker Barrel (my favorite restaurant these days)
– Target (blew it on junk food and Christmas clearance items)

Omaha Steak assortment

From my grandparents. Long story short– it arrived on December 14th, but was sent to the wrong apartment unit, sat in the hallway the floor below us and someone apparently took it so Omaha re-sent the package at no additional charge.

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