The Year Without a Santa Claus
Even Santa can suffer a case of the holiday blues. In this 1974 stop-motion holiday family favorite, a sparkly eyed Mrs. Claus (voiced by Shirley Booth) sings and tells about the year her hubby felt too weary and too unappreciated to prepare for his annual Christmas rounds. Mickey Rooney stars as the voice of Santa, a rosy-nosed puppet who travels incognito to Southtown in search of his tiniest reindeer, Vixen, and two well-meaning elves. Seems Mrs. Santa sent them to find proof of Christmas spirit--but all they've discovered is ambivalence about Santa's year off. Luckily, when Santa arrives and befriends a buck-toothed lad named Ignatius Thistlewhite, spirits begin to lift rapidly. Adult fans of this cousin to the 1970 television special Santa Claus Is Coming to Town will remember it as the Heat and Snow Miser movie. Their vaudevillian theme songs, complete with trombone and piano riffs, are hard to forget, but other treasured musical moments include "I Believe in Santa Claus," "I'll Have a Blue Christmas Without You," and "Here Comes Santa Claus." --Liane Thomas

Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
The wondrous story of Christ's birth is told by an unlikely source: Nestor, a gentle donkey with incredibly long ears and a first-hand knowledge of life in a stable. This simple tale, which takes place in the days of the Roman Empire, is about a humble couple about to take a long journey to Bethlehem and a small, insignificant donkey that is destined to help them along. By all outward appearances, Nestor does not deserve such a privilege. Stable animals tease him incessantly for his long appendages until, finally, he is cast out of the barn into the winter cold. Snow and ice bring about even greater calamity for Nestor until he receives a dose of divine goodness. Nestor meets Tilly, a heavenly cherub (voiced by Brenda Vaccaro) who imparts guidance to the despairing burro and tells him that soon he will be chosen to participate in a miracle involving a star, a baby, a lowly stable, and some travelers named Mary and Joseph. Short and sweet, this stop-motion Christmas gem from Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass is narrated by Roger Miller. Get out the hanky for an understated holiday classic that will appeal to families of all ages. --Lynn Gibson

Rudolph's Shiny New Year
Rudolph is legendary for saving Christmas, but did you know he saved the New Year as well? While Santa Claus is recuperating from his December sleigh ride, he receives a letter from an old friend, Father Time. Seems that Baby New Year is missing, and if the little tyke isn't found, Old Year will continue forever--a catastrophe for Father Time, whose job it is to keep things moving forward. A search party is essential, yet with such thick fog, there's only one reindeer fit for the job. "Rudolph with your nose so bright, you've six days left to set things right," says Santa. Trouble hits immediately when Rudolph discovers that Aeon the Terrible, a big-beaked monster bird, is also searching for the missing baby. Rudolph gets help from a giant whale and a good-natured caveman, who dish up plenty of song and dance in between narrow escapes in their race against the end of the calendar year. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps, but it contains as much magic as its predecessors, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, all produced and directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr., and written by the esteemed Romeo Muller. The same stop-motion animation we've grown to love is here as well, and narrator Red Skelton has as trusted a voice as Burl Ives and Fred Astaire. While the New Year holiday will never be as celebrated as Christmas, this title is a welcome addition to any Rankin and Bass collection of holiday films. --Lynn Gibson

The picture on this disc is unbelievably bright and sharp -- undoubtedly worlds better than it looked when we all watched the original CBS transmission in 1974. It makes me wonder if they did any digital processing and cleaning up of the original print. I really enjoyed the "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" DVD release earlier this year, but the picture quality on TYWSC is far superior both in terms of clarity and vividness, and the animation and set design are also more detailed and elaborate than in "Rudolph." While not of Nick Park caliber, perhaps, the stop-motion animation is more than adequate: Both our 7- and 3-year old were transfixed throughout the whole show. You will be surprised by how great the picture looks. The original mono soundtrack is well balanced, with no audible hiss; both the characters' speech and the (many) musical numbers come through very clearly.

The "extras" include two additional Rankin-Bass holiday specials, making this disc a triple feature and a great value. They include "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" and "Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey." Both are of similarly high technical quality. Notwithstanding its goofy name and lower profile in the Rankin-Bass pantheon, "Nestor" is a half hour, animal-based gem that gives a welcome nod to the religious underpinnings of the Christmas holiday.

Whether for nostalgia value or your own youngsters, this DVD is a fine purchase.

"Year" is great fun from start to finish. The producers achieve a nearly perfect balance of musical numbers, fantasy, sentiment, and humor. Booth is outstanding as Mrs. Claus (who also narrates the tale). She gives a particularly spirited rendition of the fun song "I Could Be Santa Claus" (in which Mrs. C contemplates taking the reigns of Santa's sleigh on Christmas night). The vocal performances are excellently complemented by the whimsical stop-motion puppets and other superbly realized visual elements.

This film also introduces two of the most unforgettable characters of the Rankin-Bass mythos: Heat Miser and Snow Miser, the respective overseers of hot and cold weather phenomena. Each one is accompanied by his own chorus line of look-alike mini-Misers, and each gets his own outrageous theme song.

"Year" has a subtle feminist twist, since Mrs. C is such a pivotal character, and also because Mother Nature emerges as perhaps the most powerful figure in the story. Religious fundamentalists will probably dislike the fact that this special seems to distance the Christmas holiday from its traditional religious implications (some may even see a touch of goddess-worshiping neo-Paganism in the character of Mother Nature). But for most audiences, I believe that this holiday special will be an entertaining delight.

As everybody knows, the true show stealers in this perennial favorite are Mr. Heat Miser and Mr. Cold Miser, Mother Nature's feuding sons. They sing the best songs ("I'm mister Green Christmas, I'm Mr. Sun, I'm Mr. Heat Blister, I'm Mister Hundred and One." "I'm Mister White Christmas, I'm Mister Snow, I'm Mister Icicle, I'm Mister Ten Below.") and they have the best lines. They also have a chorus of little copies of themselves to sing along. This one reigns as my favorite Rankin/Bass Christmas special. Also features the classic tune "I'll have a blue Christmas without you."

And let's not forget what else is on this DVD! "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" features the adventures of Happy the New Year's baby ("those ears!") as he journeys through the Archipelago of Last Years. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer follows in hot pursuit accompanied by Big Ben the Whale, the knight Sir 1023, the caveman 1 Million B.C., and 1776 (looking like Benjamin Franklin). "Nestor the Long Eared Donkey" is inspired by a Gene Autrey song, and tells the tale of a donkey with VERY long ears, who is turned out by everyone. He finally finds his destiny with a man and his pregnant wife on their way to Bethlehem.