Saturday, December 16, 2023

Animated Memories

Although you can find classic Christmas animated shows on streaming services, tonight Hubby Tony and I revisited our childhoods and watched some of them as they were first broadcast...on network television, complete with commercials.

The holiday programming was 25 minutes late starting because of a college basketball game, but eventually the familiar stop-motion animation of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer began.


The show first aired in 1964. All the characters I remembered were there-Rudolph, his father Donner, Clarice the doe, Sam the Snowman, Hermie the misfit elf, Yukon Cornelius, and the Abominable Snow Monster. There was Christmas Village, the Island of Misfit Toys, and the snowstorm that almost cancels Christmas until Santa realized Rudolph's red nose could guide the sleigh. Happy endings all around.

Next up was Frosty the Snowman, which came along in 1969.

This one had Jimmy Durante as the narrator, Frosty the Snowman, inept magician Professor Hinkle with his rabbit sidekick Hocus Pocus, the group of children with Karen as Frosty's human hero. We watched Frosty's ups and downs, including the scene where he came to life, a parade through town, the train trip towards the North Pole, the greenhouse where Frosty melted and came back to life once again, and more.

If we had wanted to, we could have continued our watching with Frosty's Winter Wonderland, a sequel to the original produced in 1976, but we decided two classic shows were enough for one night.

Five years ago: Chocolate Covered Anything Day

11 comments:

  1. Glad you enjoyed this blast from the past.

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  2. You'll see this again next Saturday...
    Did you know that Santa had a tenth reindeer, Olive?
    She's mentioned in Rudolph's song.
    "Olive the other reindeer..."

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  3. A wonderful trip down memory lane.

    God bless.

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  4. Such great memories and I do remember them especially loved Frosty The Snowman!

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    Replies
    1. I've had that song stuck in my head all day :-)

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  5. Oh my gosh, I love The Bumble!
    Great fun you guys watching these.

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    1. As a child he terrified me. Now I thought it was funny.

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  6. I've seen some remakes of the Classics and must say that tho' CGI had improved the Quality of the Visuals to a stunning degree, too many alterations were made to Update the Stories or change the Characters to make them more Modernized and it became an abomination of the Originals, which, can't be Improved upon IMO. I like the Original Grinch That Stole Christmas, all the remakes couldn't compare to the 1966 version... but I have tried to watch the remakes and assess them. I just blogged about it in fact.

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