Elijah David

Last week, I talked about how the Rankin/Bass and said I'd offer up my theory on what the cause of all that wintry magic is. (Or laugh at me for taking a bunch of animated TV specials so seriously. Whatever floats your goat.) The Players In case you've forgotten, I kept track of all the magical wintry folk last week and they are (with their original story/stories in parentheses): Lady Boreal ( Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July ) Winterbolt and the Genie of the Ice Scepter ( Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July ) Jack Frost ( Frosty's Winter Wonderland or  Jack Frost , depending on external or internal chronology) Father Winter, Snip, Gypsy, the snow sprites, etc. ( Jack Frost ) Winter Warlock ( Santa Claus is Comin' to Town ) Cold Miser ( The Year without a Santa Claus ) Mother Nature [as Cold Miser's mother, she presumably holds sway over winter] ( The Year without a Santa Claus ) Eon ( Rudolph's Shiny New Year ) [I forgot ...

If you're at all familiar with Christmas in America, you know that there are some old claymation and hand-drawn animation TV specials that come out of the woodworks this time of year. Rankin/Bass made quite a few of them, and even branched out into other holidays like Easter and New Year's, and more than a handful of them featured at least one of a trio of characters that these specials have (further) established in the public consciousness: Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus. A few years back, during our yearly rewatch of many of these specials, my wife objected to the disparity in Jack Frost's portrayal in the second Frosty special, Frosty's Winter Wonderland . I set about thinking up a way to bring this special into agreement with Frost's eponymous special and the seeds of this theory post were planted. The Rankin/Bass "trinity" of holiday figures Before I get into this, let me clarify which specials I'm including: Rudolph the Red-N...