The Year Without a Santa Claus

The Year Without A Santa Claus is a 1974 Rankin/Bass stop motion animated television special. It usually airs during the Christmas season on United States television. The story is loosely based on Phyllis McGinley's 1956 book of the same title, illustrated by Kurt Werth.

Summary

In the show, narrated by Shirley Booth (in the persona of Mrs. Claus), Santa Claus (voiced by Mickey Rooney) wakes up with a cold, and is told by his doctor that he should make some changes to his routine on Christmas. He decides to take a holiday, and it becomes up to the elves, Jingle and Jangle to search the world, finding people who still believe in Santa Claus. The elves, however, run into trouble along the way, when they get lost in a small town in the Southern United States and the baby reindeer, Vixen is mistaken for a dog and sent to the pound. Now, there's no telling if Santa will come out of his shell before Christmas Eve.

Figuring into the storyline are two of the most well-remembered Rankin/Bass characters, Heat Miser and his half-brother Snow Miser. Kind Mrs. Claus comes to ask both of them to help Santa bring back his good mood and to convince them that Christmas is not just about presents. At the same time, Santa gets into "civilian" clothes in an attempt to rescue Vixen and ends up finding that some people still believe in him, especially when children decide they will make him presents if he plans on taking a holiday.

When a little girl writes to him about having a "Blue Christmas," Santa finally comes out of his shell and insists on making his traditional delivery run on Christmas Eve.

The special premiered in 1974 on ABC, and still airs (as of 2006) on the ABC Family cable network. Warner Bros. Television is the show's current distributor, through their ownership of the post-1974 Rankin/Bass TV library.

Remake

The Year Without a Santa Claus
Image:YWS liveaction.jpg A scene from the 2006 live-action version
Starring	John Goodman Michael McKean
Distributed by	NBC
Release date(s)	December 11, 2006
Country	USA
Language	English

In 2006, a 120 minute live-action remake aired on NBC on December 11, 2006, starring John Goodman as Santa Claus, Delta Burke as Mrs. Claus, Michael McKean as Snow Miser, Harvey Fierstein as Heat Miser, Ethan Suplee as Jingle and Eddie Griffin as Jangle. A widescreen DVD of this new movie was also released on December 5, 2006 (UPC 085391115120). This one features Santa Claus where he doesn't want to go to deliver presents discovering how materialism has plagued the world (since he only delivers simple presents to children) but discovers that there are some who truly have goodness in their hearts.

Trivia

• John Goodman voiced a robotic Santa in episodes of Futurama, he also voiced Santa in the 1990s animated remake of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

• In the original stop-motion version, during the song "Snow in Dixie", you can see a puppet of Charlie Chaplin in the crowd.

The songs in the movie are:

1. The Year Without a Santa Claus
2. I Could Be Santa Claus
3. I Believe in Santa Claus
4. It's Gonna Snow Right Here in Dixie
5. I'm Mr. White Christmas
6. I'm Mr. Green Christmas
7. Blue Christmas
8. The Year Without a Santa Claus (reprise)

See also

• List of animated feature films
• List of stop-motion films

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