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The Year Without a Santa Claus/Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey/Rudolph's Shiny New Year

The Year Without a Santa Claus/Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey/Rudolph's Shiny New Year

List Price: $14.97
Your Price: $11.23
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Funny . . . So funny
Review: I love this movie! I remember watching this as a kid and thinking it was just so great. I watch it now and realize how cheesy it is but it really is so bad it's fabulous. The miser brothers are, of course, wonderful and what the flick is known for but you'll also love Mrs. Claus and the elves.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Year with out a Santa Claus good, Nestor Great!!!
Review: Year without a Santa Claus is a good story with some catchy tunes. The story has some memorable characters like Mother Nature and her two sons, the Heat and Snow Miser. The voices are done very well and the music is great.

The Gem in this collection is Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey. This is a story about a misfit donkey who longs to find his place in the world. Lo and behold he finds his niche and of course it is a very important one. This story is about the true meaning of christmas. Caution! You will need a box of tissues to make it through this one. This is a must have for all families.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Comest thou with me - We searcheth! Clang, Clang, Clang!
Review: For entertainment value for the kids (and those of us who are kids at heart), this DVD is TOUGH to beat. Three classic Rankin-Bass stop-motion films together on one DVD. A great testemonial to the DVD format.

The Year Without a Santa Claus is the "main" feature of the DVD. If you've never seen it, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. As others have stated, Heat Miser and Snow Miser have to be the highlight of this special. Their songs are hilarious little vaudeville-type tunes, made all the more catchy by each brother's little army of "Mini-Me"-like clones that perform the back-up vocals. I think these bits are also the best of R-B's stop-motion, from a technical point of view. The part where Snow Miser is spinning around in a blur, then suddenly you see his head stop and he sings out "that's right!", is VERY well done. Of course, Snow Miser and Heat Miser are not the focus of the special, though they steal the show. The basic plot is this - Santa has a cold, and he's tired and feelng worn out. So, he decides to take a year off. Well, Mrs. Claus won't have this, so she sends out the bumbling elves Jingle and Jangle, plus the reindeer Vixen, to find some Christmas spirit. Naturally, they immediately get themselves in trouble, so first Mrs. Claus, then Santa himself, have to get involved in order to straighten the whole mess out. While he's traveling incognito out in the world, Santa finds out that he IS appreciated after all. Besides the Heat Miser and Snow Miser tunes, this special contains more great music, including the classic "I'll have a blue Christmas Without You."

Also here is Rudolph's Shiny New Year, another fond favorite of all of us who were kids in the '70s. It's a little bit short in the music department, but overall very enjoyable. Happy, the Baby New Year, is missing, and Father Time sends for help to his old buddy Santa Claus. SC decides to send a search party, and who else is better equipped for a nighttime search that a flying red-nosed reindeer? Rudolph joins forces with a large bunch of characters as he combs the Archipelago of Last Years to find the missing kid. Complicating matters, the evil buzzard Eon is also trying to find Happy for reasons for his own, and he does NOT want Happy to make it home.

Finally, this DVD includes Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. This tale, set in Roman Empire-dominated Palestine, chronicles the adventures of Nestor of the long ears as he is thrown out of his home, loses his mother, and generally suffers through life until he meets his destiny helping a certain young couple on their way to Bethlehem. A very moving and touching story, but I highly suggest you keep the supply of tissues handy, as this one is a real tear-jerker.

A great DVD with three holiday classics. It's fun for both the thirty-somethings and today's kids. Don't miss it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not just for kids
Review: You might think that stories about Santa and Rudolph and Nestor the Donkey are just for kids. Year Without a Santa Claus appeared on TV while I was in grad school, and my friends and I were immediately fans of it and watched it year after year as we tried to complete our Ph.D's. As other reviewers have mentioned, it has a great cast, worthy of a Broadway hit, all of whom obviously took their work seriously. Nothing shoddy here. Lots of humor and cleverly written songs. The Mini-Me version chorus lines of the Miser Brothers are hysterical. The song "Believe in Santa Claus" may well bring a tear to your eye. Ditto the other two entries on the disc. Red Skelton was well into his 60's when he starred in Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and his touching rendition of "The Moving Finger Writes", concerning the inexorable passage of time, was particularly poignant for me, who just turned 50 in 2001. Great, sophisticated family entertainment, never dumbed down for the kids.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Adorable Classic Holiday Special!
Review: I love the Year Without A Santa Claus it is adorable and entertaining, I love the Snow Miser and Heat Miser songs but I especially like The Snow Miser song. I like every song in this holiday classic and I hope to find a soundtrack, that is if they made one. I definitely recommend this classic!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Heat Miser and Snow Miser
Review: A classic. What else is there to say?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ugh....all the reviewers are right!
Review: For some reason, I didn't remember seeing TYWASC feature and was skeptical about all the reviews of how enjoyable the Snow vs Heat Miser songs were. They were all correct, those are catchy[...] songs! I must have used the "skip to a scene" option 5 times just to rewatch it! The sequences involving those two are wonderful! For the record, I'm with those that prefer the Snow Miser just a tad more. And since we are playing this game, I see John Lithgow as Snow Miser but not sure who would play his brother. This episode is worth the price on its own.

RSNY I do remember seeing, and still enjoyed seeing it again. With a unique cast of characters and some interesting ideas, it's worth a watch also, although the songs aren't that great. But seeing Rudolph a part of the action in another episode is just plain fun.

NTLECD is ok. It's a little too depressing for me despite the upbeat ending and I didn't find it as fun, but it's still very watchable.

Overall, the DVD package is really good as far as the films go, but it's all in standard versions with no extras at all. Still, at this price, you might as well buy it and enjoy it. BTW, does anyone remember the Rankin/Bass episode that featured the Norse mythology gods(I think)? Or did I imagine that? Sorry to post that hear, but I have no idea where a good place to pose that question would be. Thanks, and happy holidays to anyone reading this :)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Year Without A Santa Claus
Review: Fantastic! The antics of the Misers, especially Mr. Green Christmas (Heat Miser) is a must have. As I get older, this remains my favorite (and I'm in my mid 30's.) The Misers are pushing 30 themselves; they have aged well and are appropriate for all ages.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's too much!
Review: Santa Claus, who has an awful cold, decides to cancel Christmas one year (before you were born) until he sees some of the Christmas spirit left. Well, Mrs. Claus won't hear of it so she sends two elves and vixen down to go find some of the Christmas spirit from last year. One thing leads to another and makes for a fabulous Christmas special I've watched every year since I was a kid. By far the best part was the Snow Miser/Heat Miser sequences. The songs for those two are so catchy and hillarious to see played out. (The Snow Miser was my personal favourite character, he definitely had the best lines!) The Christmas spirit still lives, and this video is proof of it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My Facorite Christmas video of all time
Review: Just buy it. Watch it, and the watch it again. It is in the same classic class (although vastly different) as the black and white version of Miracle on 34th street and It's a Wonderful Life. I have to spend time with Mr. Heat Miser and Mr. Snow Miser every year - for the past 30 years.


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