Sometimes,
I get inspiration from some of the strangest places. And in the case
of today's edition of “The Pop
Culture Addict's Advent Calendar”,
I ended up getting the inspiration from several people on my Facebook
friends list.
Occasionally,
I will come across some rather interesting photos that are posted on
my News Feed right around this time of year. There are lots of
photos that wish people a Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, and
there are also some photos that are rather sarcastic, with a biting
wit to them.
And,
then I saw photos of these two charming characters.
Do
you recognize these two? It's okay if you haven't. I must admit
that I was completely confused myself. As it turns out, these two
are named Heat Miser
and Snow Miser.
The two men are stepbrothers, and both of them were literally polar
opposites of each other. Their mother? Mother Nature, of course!
Anyway,
as their names describe, Heat and Snow basically live up to their
descriptions. Heat Miser has his base around the Southern United
States, and he has the power to make hot summer days and perfect
beach weather any day you want it.
On
the opposite side of the world, Snow lives near the North Pole,
making sure that every place he goes is covered with tons of snow,
ice, and frost. The temperatures are always biting cold...just the
way he liked it.
Now,
you'd think that with two bi-polar personalities as Heat and Snow had
that they would not exactly find common ground. And, well...you're
right. Both of the Miser brothers seemed to have an extreme case of
jealous sibling rivalry. Heat Miser would try to melt Snow Miser
with heat rays, while Snow Miser constantly kept giving Heat the cold
shoulder...and then some.
Why,
it would take a Christmas miracle for the two brothers to reconcile
with each other. Like, say...if one of the key figures at the North
Pole decided to take a vacation and the children of the world lost
their faith in him. If there was only one way to convince this
person to come back to work, and that one way for that to happen was
for two sworn enemies to work together. Will Christmas be saved?
That's
the question that has to be answered in the 1974 Rankin-Bass
television special “The Year Without A Santa Claus”.
Now,
part of the reason why I have never heard of the Miser brothers is
the fact that I have never seen this television special until now.
It initially debuted on ABC on December 10, 1974, and aired annually
on that network until Christmas 1980.
Problem
was...I wasn't born until 1981.
Now,
reportedly it airs on the television cable channel known as ABC
Family...but I don't get that channel on my TV, so I went years not
even realizing that this television special even existed.
Thank
goodness for YouTube!
Now,
I imagine that a lot of you are like me, and have never seen this
television special before. So, I'll post the links to the whole show
HERE, HERE, HERE, and...oh yeah, HERE. I figure that we can watch it
together while I talk a little bit about the storyline.
By
the way, this Rankin-Bass special differs from previous ones, as the
narration is entirely done by a female. In this case, the narration
is performed by Mrs. Claus herself, voiced by the late Shirley Booth.
To round out the voice cast is Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus, George
S. Irving as Heat Miser, the late Dick Shawn as Snow Miser, the late
Bob McFadden and Bradley Bolke as Jingle and Jangle Bells, and Colin
Duffy as Ignatius Thistlewhite.
Ignatius
Thistlewhite. What a mouthful. Better call him Iggy from now on.
So,
our story begins at a time before any of us on Earth were born (well,
I suppose in my case, this was definitely the truth). It was
Christmas Eve in the North Pole, and all the little elves were busy
working away on toys for every boy and girl, and all was going well.
Until
Santa got sick.
You
know that nasty winter bug that is going around that is causing some
people to develop a serious cold that can turn into pneumonia (the
only reason I know about this bug is because everyone else in my
family seems to have gotten it except myself)? Apparently Santa
ended up coming down with it, and the end result forced him into bed.
Mrs. Claus called in the doctor to give him a check-up, and the
doctor forces him to make some changes in his Christmas Eve
activities. Apparently all of that riding around in an open sleigh
through heavy snow and sleet has done a number on Santa's body.
Is
Santa upset about this? Of course...just not for the reasons you
might have expected. Santa doesn't seem to think that the people of
Earth care about him anymore, nor do they believe in Christmas
anymore. Mrs. Claus tells him that he's being foolish, but Santa is
set in his ways, and feels that maybe a holiday will do him some
good.
Enter
the elves known as Jingle and Jangle, and their baby reindeer, Vixen.
Mrs.
Claus seems to believe that if Santa Claus was confronted with the
truth that the people do love him, and that they do care about
Christmas, it may snap him out of his depression. So, she sends
Jingle, Jangle, and Vixen out to find people who truly do believe in
Christmas.
It
was all supposed to go flawlessly...well, until poor Vixen got
distracted by the fighting between Heat and Snow, and ended up
getting zapped by one of the Heat Miser's rays. The impact sent all
three of them crashing down towards the village of South Town, USA, a
place where it feels like summer vacation all year long.
To
make matters worse, Jingle and Jangle end up getting ticketed by a
police officer for riding a Vixen down the wrong way of a one-way
street, crossing the White Line, and wearing strange clothes on a
Sunday! Even worse, Vixen's temperature seems to be spiking up, and
she is getting a bad fever. And, on top of all that, when Jingle and
Jangle try to disguise Vixen as a dog, the local dog catcher takes
her to the pound!
With
help from a young boy named Iggy, Jingle and Jangle make an appeal to
the mayor of South Town, begging him to release Vixen so that she can
get better. But the skeptical mayor laughs in their faces when they
claim that they are Santa's elves. Nevertheless, he agrees to free
Vixen on one condition...that they make it snow in South Town on
Christmas Eve.
A
challenge, considering that South Town hadn't had a single snowflake
appear in the town in well over a century.
Still,
the elves did have one chance. Mrs. Claus was sort of a figure of
neutrality between Heat and Snow, and both Heat and Snow held her in
high regard. All they would have to do is recruit Mrs. Claus's help
to get Snow Miser to make it snow in South Town. Problem solved.
Or
not. Apparently, South Town is out of jurisdiction for Snow Miser.
South Town is a community Heat Miser has had under his watch for a
hundred years, and there was no way that he would allow Snow to bring
a frosty chill over the community, even for one day. Although, he
did wish them luck in trying to convince Heat to let Snow play in
South Town for one day.
Needless
to say, when Mrs. Claus asked Heat to let snow fall in South Town for
Christmas Eve, the reception that she got wasn't the warmest. The
only way that Heat Miser would agree to let it snow in South Town
would be if Snow Miser would allow Heat Miser to create a lovely
Spring day in the North Pole. Since neither brother would allow the
other one to do what they wished, they found themselves in a
stalemate, and it seemed like there was nothing that could be done.
But,
Mrs. Claus still had one more ace up her sleeve. The question is,
would her plan work?
Meanwhile,
Santa is getting restless, and decides to disguise himself as an
average resident of South Town, and he ends up getting a bit of an
epiphany over the impact that he has on the people in
town...particularly from one little girl who likes to use blue
crayons...
I
suppose that I could tell you how this special ends...but then what
would the point be of posting a link to the television special within
this blog? Click on it, and watch it for yourselves! Trust me, you
won't be disappointed. And, believe it or not, there was a sequel made that starred the Miser brothers that was released 34 years after the original! Even better? Mickey Rooney and George S. Irving reprised the original roles they played in the original television special! Definitely be on the lookout for that one!
Coming
up on Day #23 of the advent calendar...two weeks ago, we looked at a
Christmas song by the late John Lennon. This time around, another
Beatle will be featured.
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