The best Christmas specials have this irreproducible inspired weirdness, the worst try to simply re-capture this, without the original inspiration and probably without any real budget, and it shows. Frosty Returns is just such a mess. There’s not much in common with the original, other than the fact that a few kids befriend a magic snowman. This time, it’s a lonely girl with only one hopeless nerd for a friend. That’s about all there is to say about her. Her relationship to Frosty has little point and is not developed; instead, the story ends up being about how great snow is, and how evil a local inventor is for developing an aerosol spray to get rid of it. Mostly the show has an environmental health message, that mindlessly spraying chemicals all over snow to get rid of it is ultimately not a good thing. The townsfolk are convinced of this through a song. Then Frosty feels his work is done, I guess, because he leaves. The whole thing is weird. The inventor’s sole motivation is that he wants to be King. Which seems an anacronistic yet overly ambitious reward for inventing a helpful spray, but later we find out that he just means King of the Winter Carnival. Only that’s still weird because how are you going to win Winter Carnival King points as an inventor of a spray that ruins winter? More baffling is that Frosty apparently just exists now, without the aid of any magic hat. He wears a hat, but evidently just for fashion because he freely takes it off to gesture with it while dancing, and even gives it away at the end. Overall: stay far away.
(Note: this is the second special so far involving Mark Mothersbaugh. He did the music (I liked it). He made a cameo on Yo Gabba Gabba! to draw stuff in the “Mark’s Magic Pictures” segment.)
A Charlie Brown Christmas would never get made today. (Even ignoring the dated things like a lack of diversity and inclusion of an actual Bible passage.) The animation is choppy and unpolished. It’s 90% depressing. There are no celebrity voices or potential hit songs. And ultimately, it’s a giant rant against commercialism. On network TV, mind you. Actually it’s a wonder the thing ever got made, but it did, and it’s totally unique on the Christmas specials landscape. There’s no Santa or magic or triumphs. Charlie Brown is feeling blah about the holidays, and eventually he finds a good reason not to. His peers (can’t really call them his friends, save for Linus) help him get there in the end, but most of the time they’re just making him feel alienated. Ultimately he just sticks to what makes him happy, like adopting a pathetic dying branch as a Christmas tree, and successfully dodges commercialism until he feels better again. Overall: a must-watch. (Do today’s kids still like this? Or is it now just boring and weird?)
Somehow I have become a total sucker for this movie. I feel no shame over it. No other film gets me closest to crying. (I have never actually cried at a movie. I am a robot.) The characters and story are just about perfect – it’s funny, touching, well-constructed. It’s still very modern. Now, some questions. I’m not religious at all, so why would I like a movie so much with such an overtly spiritual message, that angels will help you out in times of crisis and prayers are heard? Another interpretation is that it’s fantasy. The angels aren’t seen as heavenly beings, they are seen as galaxies talking to each other. One of these beings, Clarence, appears and the appropriate time and proceeds to bring George to an alternate reality in which he didn’t exist. It’s more than an illusion: George is really in that place that does not exist on our plane, no one knows him, and the town is entirely transformed. Clarence has the power to appear and disappear from that reality at will, and when George wants out, he’s returned just as easily. Clarence proclaims to be an angel from heaven but isn’t that just done for George’s benefit? George isn’t much inclined to believe even that story, but certainly it’s more plausible to him than a super-galactic being showing up to help him. I guess these beings are helping George out maybe because they’re universal peace-lovers and fighting against tyranny wherever it lurks, such as in Bedford Falls. It really doesn’t matter how you look at it, whatever suits you is valid I think. Overall: interpret it how you want, but it’s an all-time classic. Unless you think it’s corny.
I do cry at It’s a Wonderful Life. Pretty much every time George is about to get out of Bedford Falls and then his plans change, and then a big sob at the end when he finally comes to appreciate having stayed.
For some reason I had it in mind that you didn’t like this movie. I’m glad that is false.