It's Christmas time. It's time to cut down trees and hang up ornaments, decorate the house, buy presents and send your love to those most important. But it's also the time of year when all the "Rankin & Bass" holiday specials come out. Most people grew up watching these movies, but for me, they defined my childhood. My mom has almost everyone on DVD.
WE'RE A COUPLE OF MISFITS ~ Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeerwww.youtube.com
Most of you might be thinking, that's not that impressive, there's only a few. No, there's a lot. Ever hear of "The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold," "Pinocchio's Christmas," or "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus"? Well, we have them. I grew up in a Christmas Wonderland thanks to these movies. I still regularly quote these films, not just at Christmas time but throughout the year.
With the tradition being to watch these movies, we started to go through the list. We stated with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." The movie tells the story just like you know it. Rudolph was born with a red nose, and the reindeer picked on him. But after his coming-of-age tale, he guides Santa's sleigh.
Rudolph's Shiny New Year - Trailerwww.youtube.com
But then "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" comes out. It's a sequel of sorts, and Rudolph is sent on a new adventure, where he has to save...well, he essentially has to save the world, because the new year baby, dubbed Baby New Year, ran away. And without the baby, the new year can't happen!
An unrelated story, that takes our hero back into the swing of things.
Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, We're a couple of misfitswww.youtube.com
And like any real trilogy, the third installment in Rudolph's legacy, "Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July" dives deeper into his origin. Like any trilogy of today, the third film tends retcon, and re-establish the hero's beginnings.
In this movie, we learn of Winterbolt, an evil Wizard who terrorized the world with the winter cold. In order to stop him, The Queen of the Northern Lights, Lady Boreal puts him in a deep slumber. In order to combat his potential return, Lady Boreal visit's newborn Rudolph and gives him the power of his nose and places a winter mark on his hoof of a snowflake.
This wasn't established in the first movie! He was just born with a red nose! But like true, superhero fashion, his origin story gets deeper.
Not only that, however, did you notice the title of the movie? Rudolph and who? Frosty. This is also Frosty's third movie. That's right. 37 years before Marvel released "Captian America: Civil War," which not only acts as another "Avengers" movie, as well as a sequel film to both "Captian America" and "Iron Man" franchises, so does "Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July."
Dean Valentine - Sharks Don't Sleep ("Captain America: Civil War" Trailer Music)www.youtube.com
The last time we saw Frosty, you might assume was in "Frosty The Snowman." You would be incorrect. We last saw him in his second film, "Frosty's Winter Wonderland." In that, Frosty is made a bride by the town children and gets married. In this third film, we meet his and Crytal's (his wife) children, Chilly and Milly.
We even see the hero's pitted against each other (kind of). Winterbolt comes back and tries to set the heroes against each other. Frosty's family turns on Rudolph, and Rudolph takes the fall for something he was tricked into doing (I'm intentionally being vague so that you go see it!) and he loses his winter mark. This mark, Lady Boreal exclaimed would fade if he ever used his powers for evil and he would lose his red-nose. Winterbolt managed to trick him into doing so, but rather than admit this, allows everyone to think he "broke bad" in order to keep Frosty from melting! (Like the "Breaking Bad" reference?).
Breaking Bad Main Title Theme (Extended)www.youtube.com
More than that, Frosty then sacrificed himself so that Rudolph can have his powers back. There is heartache! There's drama! There's emotional turmoil!
This movie serves as possible not only the first double third installment but has crossovers of two prominent characters and establishes the Rankin/Bass Cinematic Universe as taking the same strides Marvel takes today. It's safe to say that this movie is rather ahead of its time. It acts as a third act in a trilogy for two separate film franchises, and it dives deeper into the origin of the superhero, like any third installment. In this movie, Rudolph is the troubled aged Batman, and Frosty is the young and ready to sacrifice Robin. Yes, Batman and Robin are different from the MCU, but that analogy works better here, while the MCU analogy makes the most sense to describe how great, the Rankin and Bass Christmas movies really are.
The Batman Theme Songwww.youtube.com
