Favorite Rankin-Bass Santa?

[A.Magik]

Like Ranger Smith, St. Nick from the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials has gone through a number of physical changes. What is your favorite Santa Claus incarnation in the Rankin-Bass specials?

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER

LIFE ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN

T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

The Mickey Rooney version (SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN, YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS, RUDOLPH AND FROSTY'S CHRISTMAS IN JULY)

I choose Mickey's St. Nick, if only for his feisty youth in SCICTT (though I love his "I believe in Santa Claus" ditty from YWSC). Of course, I like them all except for the St.Nick in T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

A.Magik

[TnAdct1]

You forgot one Santa: the Santa that appears in the First Easter Bunny.

[Brainatra]

I vote for Mickey Rooney's version, old or young....

-B.

[Eddie G.]

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER
Santa was an ass in this, I mean I understand the reindeer being mean to Rudy... but not St. Nick

LIFE ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS
Over complicated things, Santa Claus doesn't die because he's Santa not because some one granted him immortality.

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN
Even as a kid I was like haawaaa? I never got why Santa was in Frosty but to wrap up the whole story with out too much effort. Anyway Santa's okay in this, the usual nice guy.

T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Pretty good.

The Mickey Rooney version (SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN, YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS, RUDOLPH AND FROSTY'S CHRISTMAS IN JULY)
My favorite, they're just cool. Especially Santa Claus is Coming to Town it easily explained the Santa myths and treated St. Nick with depth and respect.

[Bubblegum Girl]

What about the MADTv parody Santa? :p

[Slagar]

I've always liked the Rudolph version the best. He just had a really neat, simplistic design, and I thought the whole "eat, Santa, eat" subplot was great.

I actually think that the design of Santa Claus in "Year Without a Santa Claus" is more true to his classic portrayal (in that he's more jolly and altruistic), but if you're lumping it in with "Santa Claus Comes to Town", then forget it. :p (That's the one with the mailman, right? Because I hate that one.)

[DianaGohan]

The only one I've really seen was the "Life And Adventures Of Santa Clause" which had a pretty good version of santa, even though I still prefer the Santa origin story in ATHF's "Cybernetic Ghost Of Christmas Past From The Future".

[SlyBoy]

The Mickey Rooney version, hands down. :)

[dth1971]

Mickey Rooney voiced Santa in 3 different Rankin Bass specials (SCICOT, WYASC, Rudolph and Frosty). For the others...

Paul Frees - Frosty the Snowman, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Rudolph's Shiny New Year

Allen Swift - Twas the Night Before Christmas

Stan Francis - Ruldolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

But I don't know who voiced Santa in Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

[Brainatra]

>>RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER
Santa was an ass in this, I mean I understand the reindeer being mean to Rudy... but not St. Nick


Yeah, well, he was, um, uh... suffering from whatever low-carb diet he was on to explain his scrawny physique? :-) Yeah, that's the ticket...


>>LIFE ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS
Over complicated things, Santa Claus doesn't die because he's Santa not because some one granted him immortality.


My guess is they wanted to make a special that explained why Santa's so long-lived (which could've been tossed off as a line or two in some other special)... but I was wondering what was up with Santa's "origin" purportedly tied to some weird Earth elemental-pagan deities-rejects from "Middle Earth" gang war thing?! :-\


>>]FROSTY THE SNOWMAN[/B]
Even as a kid I was like haawaaa? I never got why Santa was in Frosty but to wrap up the whole story with out too much effort. Anyway Santa's okay in this, the usual nice guy.

Santa here was OK...

>>T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Pretty good.

Well, technically, Santa was sort of a jerk here, too--- he blacklists a whole *town* just because *one* resident there doesn't believe he exists (when in their universe, there's still plenty of people who for whatever reason don't believe in Santa's existence, so you'd think he'd be used to such behavior anyway)?! Talk about petty... ;-)

Still, I liked this special anyway...


>>The Mickey Rooney version (SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN, YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS, RUDOLPH AND FROSTY'S CHRISTMAS IN JULY)
My favorite, they're just cool. Especially Santa Claus is Coming to Town it easily explained the Santa myths and treated St. Nick with depth and respect.[/QUOTE]

See my vote above. Liked the Burgermeister Meisterburger/the various myth explanations, Heat Miser and Snow Miser, the comic-book-crossover feel of the Rudolph and Frosty one, Mrs. Claus in the "Year" and R&F specials, etc...

-B.

[A.Magik]

See my vote above. Liked the Burgermeister Meisterburger/the various myth explanations, Heat Miser and Snow Miser, the comic-book-crossover feel of the Rudolph and Frosty one, Mrs. Claus in the "Year" and R&F specials, etc...


Don't forget Mrs. Claus in SCICTT, or rather Jessica the repressed schoolteacher whose shell Kris breaks, culminating in her showstopper "My world is beginning today!" (sadly excised on most TV showings).

A.Magik

[radiocnoc]

I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or if society is changing, but the Rudolph Santa needs to be smacked a good one with the "naughty" list.

The wife and I were watching it the other day, and we looked at each other at the same time and said -- has he ALWAYS been that mean?

Best? Rooney, hands down.

[Gary L Thompson]

>>RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER
Santa was an ass in this, I mean I understand the reindeer being mean to Rudy... but not St. Nick


Yeah, well, he was, um, uh... suffering from whatever low-carb diet he was on to explain his scrawny physique? :-) Yeah, that's the ticket...


>>LIFE ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS
Over complicated things, Santa Claus doesn't die because he's Santa not because some one granted him immortality.


My guess is they wanted to make a special that explained why Santa's so long-lived (which could've been tossed off as a line or two in some other special)... but I was wondering what was up with Santa's "origin" purportedly tied to some weird Earth elemental-pagan deities-rejects from "Middle Earth" gang war thing?! :-\


>>]FROSTY THE SNOWMAN[/B]
Even as a kid I was like haawaaa? I never got why Santa was in Frosty but to wrap up the whole story with out too much effort. Anyway Santa's okay in this, the usual nice guy.

Santa here was OK...

>>T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Pretty good.

Well, technically, Santa was sort of a jerk here, too--- he blacklists a whole *town* just because *one* resident there doesn't believe he exists (when in their universe, there's still plenty of people who for whatever reason don't believe in Santa's existence, so you'd think he'd be used to such behavior anyway)?! Talk about petty... ;-)

Still, I liked this special anyway...


>>The Mickey Rooney version (SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN, YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS, RUDOLPH AND FROSTY'S CHRISTMAS IN JULY)
My favorite, they're just cool. Especially Santa Claus is Coming to Town it easily explained the Santa myths and treated St. Nick with depth and respect.

See my vote above. Liked the Burgermeister Meisterburger/the various myth explanations, Heat Miser and Snow Miser, the comic-book-crossover feel of the Rudolph and Frosty one, Mrs. Claus in the "Year" and R&F specials, etc...

.

I didn't like Rudolph the first time I saw it, I'm still stumped as to why this is considered a classic, when so many of the characters are unpleasant, including and especially Santa. To me, the best presentation of Rudolph was when Casey Kasem abridged the Fleisher cartoon on Rudolph to make a music video of Gene Autry's original song.

Actually, "Life and Adventures" was not Rankin-Bass' concept (you might note the very same story is done in 2-D animation on Cartoon Network), it was Lyman Frank Baum's! This "origin" of Santa Claus was done by Baum as one of his books following the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (and unlike the adapting it did of the "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings", Rankin-Bass followed the original story fairly faithfully this time). Matter of fact, Baum followed up with a short story of Santa being kidnapped and his workers doing their best to step into his place in delivering the toys to the children, and also guest-starred Santa in one of his Oz books (he attended Ozma's birthday party in the "Road to Oz"). After Baum's death, another book "Voyage of Captain Santa" was brought out with the Oz book line (done by Ruth Plumly Thompson and John O'Neill).

I may have hated Rudolph's Santa, but I liked him in Rankin-Bass' own version of his origin (I agree with you that it's a pretty good story), and I liked him in Frosty as well.

[Brainatra]

Don't forget Mrs. Claus in SCICTT, or rather Jessica the repressed schoolteacher whose shell Kris breaks, culminating in her showstopper "My world is beginning today!" (sadly excised on most TV showings).

A.Magik

Speaking of "excised on most TV showings", ABC Family has plenty to answer for... (see: last night's hacked-up rerun of "Frosty's Winter Wonderland") :-\

-B.

[Cullen]

Mickey Rooney voiced Santa in 3 different Rankin Bass specials (SCICOT, WYASC, Rudolph and Frosty). For the others...

Paul Frees - Frosty the Snowman, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Rudolph's Shiny New Year

Allen Swift - Twas the Night Before Christmas

Stan Francis - Ruldolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

But I don't know who voiced Santa in Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
Earl Hammond was the voice of Santa in the Rankin Bass version of the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. Earl had also voiced Mumm-rah, Vultureman, and Jagga on Thundercats.

[Cullen]

I think Mickey Rooney was the best Santa Claus in all three of those specials. It's amazing how that young red headed man became the old and round white haired Santa the world knows today. :) And I wonder if those Kringle elves are still around? I haven't seem them in any other specials.

[Steve Carras]

Paul Frees as the FROSTY Santra.Jimmy DUrante, Frees as other characters (like thart hilairous cop who sdwallows his whistle when he's realized that..."A SNOW MAN CAME TO LIFE"), June Foray (who recalled in R-B historian Rick Goldschmidt's book THE ENCHANTED WORLD OF RANKIN/BASS that she was replaced as that one little gilr,Karen..it definitely doesn't sound like June. THe June-like little gilr voices at that studio were usually done by Susan Conway, who was on KING KOING and Dorothy in WIZARD OF OZ), Billy DeWolfe ("Bizzee-Bizzie-Bizzie" sic) as tre evil Professor Hinkle, and Jackie Vernon as Frosty.

[anime fan]

T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
i love that one.

[greg!]

Mickey Rooney is hands down THE best of all the Christmas Specials. He brought a warmth & sensibility to the character. I also love the song "I Believe in Santa Claus", I also loved the kind of continuity within the specials because of Mr. Rooney.

[Captain C]

Mickey Roonies. The Rudolph Santa would have to be my least favorite. I mean, dude, even HE was being discrimitive against Rudolph. What kind of Santa is that?

[Merilee]

I personnally think it's because of society that Santya shuns Rodolph at first, cause that still happens today. I mean, when I was in school I was shunned and made fun of, and even the teachers didn'tdo anything to help me cause I wasn't rich and te people who teased me were. Their Mothers were class mothers and all that, while my Mom had a baby to take care of and couldn't be one. So, I was shunned,not only by the students but by the teachers.
That's probably what they were trying to show with Rudolph, that even authority figures can shun the less popular if they're pressured to do so.
Merilee
:cool:

[One Radical Dude]

Well, I enjoyed Frees's version in Frosty the Snowman because of the personality. To me, he was THE Santa! :p Another all-time favorite was Francis's version in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I thought that Santa was pretty amusing. I didn't care for Swift's Santa in Twas the Night Before Christmas, though I really enjoyed that special.