It's A Very Special Cel Bloc Xmas... "The Unwrap-pening"

So, did you get everything that you wanted for Christmas?

What I wanted was a little reconciliation with a holiday with which I have increasingly lost touch, and perhaps to hide myself a bit from the rest of this truly substandard year. So I decided to dig into some old holiday Christmas cartoon "classics," some which I love, and some for which I run hot and cold depending on when I watch them.

In getting the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc restarted over the past three months (at the same time as The Cinema 4 Pylon, my main site), part of the reason was for me to really dive back into getting reacquainted with many of these cartoons after concentrating so deeply on feature films for the past few years. Cinematically, animation -- especially the shorts produced by Warner Bros. and Walt Disney -- was my first love, not surprisingly, since cartoons are how many kids first get a notion of popular entertainment. And honestly, when I was a kid, I thought Bugs Bunny cartoons were just made for seeing on television, until my parents explained to me that they used to see them in theatres when they were kids.

It wasn't until I started discovering, mostly under my own volition, the films of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, the Marx Brothers, Danny Kaye, Ray Harryhausen, Orson Welles, and Hammer and Universal horror flicks (for example) that I really started getting a sense of the true expanse of the history of cinema. And in gaining that sense, I began to learn more about animation, and how so many of the characters that I was seeing on Saturday morning television, as a wee child in the late '60s and through my true growing up period in the '70s, had their roots in movie theatres. I always kind of knew that about the Disney films. since some of my earliest movie-going experiences were Pinocchio and The Jungle Book, and in watching episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney (a mainstay of my youth) where they often had old intros by Walt himself, I was able to ascertain the connection between his film work and the television world into which he expanded his empire.

But apart from Disney, so many of the characters that I knew only from TV: Bugs, Daffy, the Road Runner, Popeye, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Woody Woodpecker, Heckle and Jeckle, Mighty Mouse, the Pink Panther, Tom and Jerry, Droopy, etc., had all been created initially to be seen on the big screen, not just by children in a ghettoized set of hours on a single day on the weekend, but in theatres on any day, with any showing, and by adults as well as children. I found books on animation at the local library and even in my school library, and also read biographies on Walt Disney (a book by Bob Thomas, which I know now was a suck-up job to the Disney family, but loved then) and Tex Avery (Joe Adamson's Tex Avery: King of Cartoons... find one). I was drawing a lot then, and made my own stupid attempts at animation, though not with using a camera. Finding flip animation too dull and having limited resources (i.e., no movie camera), I did have a very beloved and well-used typewriter at my disposal, and I got deep into writing screenplays for cartoons that would never get made.

And that was pretty much the deepest I got into animation as my teens came along. I became a bit of a lost cause to most people, my studies suffered greatly, and I concentrated more on the history of film in general rather than solely on animation. Through the early VHS years, I became a horror fanatic, though I still purchased nearly any cartoon collection that came along. Years later, with a massive stack of cartoons at my disposal, I would organize a couple of animation marathon sleepovers, where a passel of friends would crash on my living room floor and attempt to stay up all night watching hours and hours of cartoons. The fact that Anchorage, Alaska at that time had the world's first 24-hour cartoon channel on UHF also played a large part in the resurgence of animation in my life.

And through all of this, I always had a bit of a fascination -- almost like a sub-genre of fascination -- with cartoons that had a Christmas theme. There weren't a lot of them, surprisingly; most of what we tend to consider as the classics of Christmas animation, justifiably, were specials created directly for television, such as the Rankin-Bass multitude of shows, and the Charlie Brown special. But as for theatrical cartoons with holiday themes, they mostly tended to just get mixed in with the rest of the cartoons. Take the Warner Bros.' output as an example. With over a thousand theatrical released from 1930 through the late '60s when they ceased production, there are only a handful of Warner Bros. shorts that have a holiday theme, even in a light way. You'd think that with such a long run and success, that there would be annual Christmas shorts from their studio, but such was not the case. (Were they operating as such capacity today, they would undoubtedly do such a thing; the holidays are just too, too big a business now.)

VHS was a good place to find a concentration of these cartoons, as I mentioned in one of my posts this month (the one on Snow Foolin'). However, these tapes were usually rather cheap and contained often terrible prints of the same public domain cartoons over and over again. But as the only way to see many of these shorts consistently, you took what you could get. (The same situation with cheap PD cartoons continues on DVD today; they are all over the Amazon site. Anyone can put one out and sell it.)

As for the cartoons that I selected for this month of Christmas/winter celebration, I tried to mix things up a bit, and not go too heavy on one studio or director. I also tried to mix a bit of the more obscure in here as well. Did I succeed in allaying my blues of the past year, and in reconnecting with Christmas? A bit of both, I suppose. Posting these articles allowed me to lose myself in the creative process as I prepared myself for the coming year. I got to put each of these cartoons under my microscope and get to know them more fully. The ones that I loved going in I now probably love a little more, and the ones that were on the fence mostly got off it in either direction, but I at least have a more definite opinion as to how I feel about each one.

Most of all, I came out of the experience still loving the holiday. And still loving cartoons. So if that is the best present that I will get this year (though the 50" Smart TV Jen's mom surprised us with last night is definitely in the running), then that is just fine.

Here are the holiday cartoons that I reviewed over the past month as part of this theme. Each photo and title are linked to the article for that cartoon:

Tom Turk and Daffy (1944)

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives (1933)

Toyland Premiere (1934)

Jack Frost (1934)

Santa's Surprise (1947)

Hector's Hectic Life (1949)

Snow Foolin' (1949)

Broken Toys (1935)

Ginger Nutt's Christmas Circus (1949)

Gift Wrapped (1952)

Bedtime for Sniffles (1940)

And if you are still in the mood for more Christmas cartoon goodness:

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948)

And finally, here is a Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse cartoon without a Christmas or winter theme, but has a pretty good Santa Claus gag right smack in the middle of it:

L'il Ainjil (1936)

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you have been enjoying these cartoons as I did.

RTJ

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948)
Director: Max Fleischer
Prod.: Jam Handy Organization
Cel Bloc Rating: 5/9

It's not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's fault that he isn't Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Well, what I mean is it's not this innocent, Max Fleischer-directed, animated short from 1948's fault that it isn't the stop-motion television special created by Rankin-Bass in 1964. Barring the occasional heckling from someone who is just sooooooo post-post-post-post-everything they have to kick such universally beloved things to the wall, the 1964 special is justifiably considered to be a Christmas classic. I would be lying if I said that simple hour of holiday silliness wasn't one of the most formative ingredients in the way that I have approached all art and entertainment since I first laid eyes upon it.

And yet, fun as the stop-motion version is, it's really a dramatic expansion (and often outright reconfiguration) of the original story written by Robert May for Montgomery Ward in 1939. For a closer look at the real story, look no further than the 1948 version, where Rudolph is just some punk kid reindeer abused by the neighbor kids who gets accidentally discovered by Santa one exceedingly foggy Christmas Eve night. Since headlights aren't in Santa's magical bag of tricks (and yet, he and his elven slaves can create electric train sets, racing cars and robotic toys), it's lucky he wanders into Rudolph's home to fill the little whippersnapper's stocking and gets blinded by the glow from Rudolph's abnormal -- nay! -- mutated schnoz.

Since Jam Handy released oodles of promotional films for Chevrolet and other big companies [click here and here for my reviews of their pair of Cinderella car commercials], I half expected Santa's sleigh to actually start shifting about and have panels slide and wheels maneuver into place, and then suddenly the right jolly old elf would be riding about in some sort of coach car. Instead, the film is merely there to entertain, and seemingly to promote the newly written -- but not yet famous at the time -- song version of Rudolph by Johnny Marks, May's brother-in-law. The next year, Gene Autry would reluctantly record it, and as these things go, the rest is history: one of the biggest-selling singles of all time. [The Autry version would later be edited into the credits of this already released cartoon; the version I am reviewing does not include Autry's voice, but rather a choral arrangement of the tune.]

The animation is decent enough -- comparable to what was passing for quality at Famous Studios or Terrytoons at that time -- but the sound quality for the voices is abysmal, with the taunting reindeer sounding like they were recorded down the hall from Rudolph, their voices echoing harsher than their empty threats. I doubt the effect is stylistic, because such things just were not done. I should state here and now that the sight of reindeer walking about on their hind legs is just a tad creepy in my mind, and furthermore, even the male deer seems feminine within this aspect. In fact, they almost seem nude, like they lost their pants. Rudolph's mother, on the other hand, seems to be the only deer that dresses in actual human clothes, greeting her downtrodden son at the door in a smart housedress. (Is it just me, or is Rudolph's mom kind of a RILF? I think it is just me...) Unlike the cave in the Rankin-Bass version, Rudolph actually lives in a home with furniture, and he hangs a stocking on the end of his bed, imaging a boatload of toys and goodies that will be left overnight by Santa, the way in which all human children dream too. But then his conflict over the teasing he receives from his constantly shining nose gets the better of him, and he cries himself to sleep.

The next section introduces Santa, and he is a magnificent rotund figure indeed (if not a bit flouncy in his gestures). Sadly, whoever is doing the voice for the great man seems to not be aware of just how jolly Santa is supposed to be, and comes off sounding completely blasé about the whole project. Any exclamation points in his lines seem to have been replaced by stifled yawns. (He does a much better job with his speech at the end, but it's no excuse for an overall lackluster performance, especially for someone who should as loud and boisterous as Santa.) Claus encounters endless interruptions of his route -- crashing into trees and roofs, and almost getting done away with by a plane, which he and his reindeer negotiate by prancing across the wings. Santa finds Rudolph just in time, and the scarlet-schnozzed one leaves a note behind, beginning it "Deer Mommy and Daddy..."

Rudolph, naturally, saves the day, taking Santa all the way to Bunnyville (who knew all the rabbits in the world lived in one town?) and then the film concludes with Rudolph being honored before the entire population of his reindeer hometown with an elaborate ceremony in the town's stadium. His former taunters have been turned to admirers (though I like to believe that most of them are actually evil deer bullies who are jealous of his newfound fame and are plotting to spoil his reputation). Rudolph is named "Commander-in-Chief" of all the reindeer, and he blushes, causing his fur to equal his nose in intensity. He wishes us "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night", as the final lines of the song run out, and the film closes.

It's so hard to imagine a time when this wasn't an already established part of the culture. We accept holiday folklore as having always been around, and it is surprising to learn that these traditions, in the form we know them, aren't really all that ancient. We just accept Santa's antiquity as a child, and as far as we can surmise, Rudolph has always been there with him. I saw this film long after the Rankin-Bass, and I was offended by how boring it seemed against a film filled with a singing snowman, misfit toys of a dozen varieties, a flying lion king, and an abominable snowman who gets his teeth yanked by an amateur elf dentist and places stars on top of Christmas trees. Even though it was first aired just after my birth, I accepted the '64 film as gospel from the time that I first saw it when I could understand it. That was, and still is, tradition to me (in fact, I am watching it right after I conclude writing this).

But I then think of those that preceded the arrival of both myself and that film, and how perhaps they looked to this simple animation as its own sort of tradition, and even perhaps as new and hip as the later one must have seemed at first glance. It bore a popular song of that day (by the same songwriter as the later film), and animated to the standard of its time. If I had grown up seeing this one instead every year of my childhood, perhaps I would hold far more nostalgia for it.

As it stands though, I don't. It's cute, but this Rudolph's nose simply doesn't shine bright enough for me.

In case you haven't seen it,
this about the highest quality version that you will find on the internet: