Rating: 
Summary: 3 Wonderful Reasons to buy this DVD
Review: Wow, 3 Rankin/Bass specials on 1 DVD, and they are such great stories individually.The First is "The Year Without a Santa Claus", when Santa gets the blues over humans attitudes towards Christmas. Narrated by Mrs Claus, it includes as usual a great soundtrack and excellent characters. Most fans loving the best, Heat Miser and Snow Miser. Jingle and Jangle, two of Santa's elves are pretty cute also. The Second is "Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey", which I think is the most touching movie of the R/B collection. It is a re-telling of the birth of Christ with a sweet twist. It brings tears every watching. If you haven't seen this, it is a must. Wonderful inclusion on this DVD, especially if you want a break from the commercialism of Christmas. And Thirdly "Rudolph's Shiny New Year", which tells the story of time, our calender year. Rudolph is asked to help Father time, when Baby New Year Dissapears. This is a must have to keep your R/B appetite filled. When Christmas is over, and you have watched all your favourite R/B Christmas specials......oh no.......but wait, there's one more to keep you entertained! This DVD is definitely coming out at my house this Season, and everyone there-after.
Rating:
Summary: Heat Miser, Snow Miser, and more!
Review: "The Year Without a Santa Claus" is one of the classic Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated holiday specials. In this installment, Santa Claus (voiced by Mickey Rooney), feeling poorly and convinced that people don't care about Christmas anymore, decides to cancel his annual sleigh ride around the world. Fortunately, Mrs. Claus (Shirley Booth) sets in motion a chain of events that restores Santa to his jolly self. "Year" is great fun from start to finish. The producers achieve a nearly perfect balance of musical numbers, fantasy, sentiment, and humor. Booth is outstanding as Mrs. Claus (who also narrates the tale). She gives a particularly spirited rendition of the fun song "I Could Be Santa Claus" (in which Mrs. C contemplates taking the reigns of Santa's sleigh on Christmas night). The vocal performances are excellently complemented by the whimsical stop-motion puppets and other superbly realized visual elements. This film also introduces two of the most unforgettable characters of the Rankin-Bass mythos: Heat Miser and Snow Miser, the respective overseers of hot and cold weather phenomena. Each one is accompanied by his own chorus line of look-alike mini-Misers, and each gets his own outrageous theme song. "Year" has a subtle feminist twist, since Mrs. C is such a pivotal character, and also because Mother Nature emerges as perhaps the most powerful figure in the story. Religious fundamentalists will probably dislike the fact that this special seems to distance the Christmas holiday from its traditional religious implications (some may even see a touch of goddess-worshiping neo-Paganism in the character of Mother Nature). But for most audiences, I believe that this holiday special will be an entertaining delight.
Rating:
Summary: Nestor
Review: If you haven't seen this movie, then you haven't experienced a true joy at Christmas. This is a wonderful movie. I own it and can't imagine not letting my children know how truly important little Nestor was to the creation of Christmas and its true meaning.
Rating:
Summary: Rankin/Bas tour-de-fource!
Review: "The Year Without a Santa Claus" is a true Christmas classic from the masters of "Animagic." Mickey Rooney reprises his role from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," voicing a tired ol' Kris Kringle who decides to take a year off. Well, Mrs. Claus (Shirley Booth) won't have that and sends two enterprising elves, Jingle and Jangle, out to find some Christmas Spirit. As everybody knows, the true show stealers in this perennial favorite are Mr. Heat Miser and Mr. Cold Miser, Mother Nature's feuding sons. They sing the best songs ("I'm mister Green Christmas, I'm Mr. Sun, I'm Mr. Heat Blister, I'm Mister Hundred and One." "I'm Mister White Christmas, I'm Mister Snow, I'm Mister Icicle, I'm Mister Ten Below.") and they have the best lines. They also have a chorus of little copies of themselves to sing along. This one reigns as my favorite Rankin/Bass Christmas special. Also features the classic tune "I'll have a blue Christmas without you." And let's not forget what else is on this DVD! "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" features the adventures of Happy the New Year's baby ("those ears!") as he journeys through the Archipelago of Last Years. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer follows in hot pursuit accompanied by Big Ben the Whale, the knight Sir 1023, the caveman 1 Million B.C., and 1776 (looking like Benjamin Franklin). "Nestor the Long Eared Donkey" is inspired by a Gene Autrey song, and tells the tale of a donkey with VERY long ears, who is turned out by everyone. He finally finds his destiny with a man and his pregnant wife on their way to Bethlehem.
Rating:
Summary: DESERVES MORE THAN 5 STARS!!
Review: This DVD is great, all three of the featured Rankin Bass Christmas Specials are gems! The Year Without A Santa Claus is my favorite. Santa Claus gets a bad cold and also gets a case of the blues when he is convinced that no one really cares about him or Christmas anymore and there is no good will so Mrs. Santa Claus with the help of two elves Jingle and Jangle goes off to try and find some good will and Christmas spirit to cheer him up. Mickey Rooney and Shirley Booth provide the voices of Santa Claus and Mrs. Santa Claus and are wonderful, also like so many other reviewers I like Snow Miser and Heat Miser and their songs, everyone seems to like the Heat Miser more than Snow Miser but my favorite is the Snow Miser. Rudolph's Shiny New Year is not as great as Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer but it is good and has Rudolph searching for Happy the Baby New Year who ran away because people laughed at his big ears and if Happy isn't there to ring in the new year December 31st will go on forever. Nestor The Long Eared Christmas Donkey is a wonderful story about the true meaning of Chrstmas and like Happy in Rudolph's Shiny New Year, Nestor is teased about his ears which are very long. I recommend this DVD set very highly to anyone who loves Rankin Bass Christmas specials, I even bought this set before I bought my DVD Player.
Rating:
Summary: A Christmas Classic
Review: When Santa sends down two of his best elves to see if there's any Christmas Spirit left in the world, with the youngest reindeer Vixen. They get in a bit of trouble. Wether it's getting stuck in the middle of a battle between the Heat Mizer and the Cold Mizer, or getting poor Vixen locked in the pound. Needless to say they don't come back with the best news and Santa decides it's HIM who's going to take a holiday. Can Jingle, Jangle, Mrs. Claus and a little boy named Ignatius Thistlewhite save the day. Even if it means creating a truce between the biggest sibling rivalry in the history of time, the Heat Mizer and the Snow Mizer? Well I'm not going to give the ending away! I feel in love with this movie when I was about 5, now that I'm 15 I still love to watch it every year it comes on. I have all the words to the songs memozied and am delighted that I can actually buy a coppy of this. I'll be sure to order one ASAP. I reccomend this video to anyone who loves Christmas specials and never gets to old for them.
Rating:
Summary: I Can't Believe I'd Never Heard of this one before!!!
Review: I'm 16. My mother and I were watching a Rankin/Bass Christmas marathon. For years we had known and loved "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Peter Cottontail," and we'd seen a few minutes of "Jack Frost" here and there, but somehow we had let "The Year Without a Santa Claus" get passed up. Luckily we saw it this year and were thoroughly delighted; it's now among our favorites. This story was totally charming. Right from the beginning, those two dumb elves were funny. Mrs. Claus was awesome...I recognized the voice of "Hazel" the maid! I ALWAYS knew Vixen was a female reindeer...the only one on Santa's team, I might add. And Vixen is a central figure in this movie. She's adorable. A feminist Christmas special?! COOL! Santa and the elves travel to a hot southern town in Dixie that never gets any snow. Santa helps a non-believing but still very good little boy change his mind and believe in him (even though the boy doesn't know it's him!) Okay, okay, so I'm going to say what everyone else already said and knows: The best part of this, the show-stealing scenes, were those with Snowmiser and Heatmiser. The two constantly bickering brothers who seem kind of villanous but are actually pretty nice. (They seriously reminded me of my own brothers.) Their songs are SO catchy, they had my mom literally up and singing them while dancing up a storm. (This was, mind you, the first time we'd ever seen this!) Soo...there you go. The children singing "Blue Christmas" to get Santa to come back to the job was a tender moment. And of course, the Mother Nature scene rocked the house. Again, we see a female taking the screen, and in her cute little house with a nice green lawn and rainbow too. Unlike some of the other stories in this 'family' of videos, this one doesn't-as someone pointed out-center on the historical meaning of Christmas. But it still gets its point across and manages to be a touching, enjoyable treat for all. And then there's the question, does it touch upon goddess-worshipping neo-paganism? Well, all I have to say is that never occured to me...but if it does...then ROCK ON RANKIN/BASS!! Or..well..you know what I mean. Keep being watched faithfully by fans each year. And the Miser Brothers can rock on, too. Ya gotta love it when Mother Nature starts talking about her two sons and they go calling her "Mother dear." She tells Mrs. Claus: "They gave you a hard time?" And Mrs. Claus says, "Yes, but I'm sure they didn't mean to..." And Mother Nature tells her honestly, "Oh, yes they did!" Great stuff. Great, great stuff.
Rating:
Summary: Most Awesome Christmas Cartoon
Review: The Year Without A Santa Claus is the most awesome Chirstmas show of all time. I have loved this one since I was a child myself. I was always disappointed that they didn't show it more often. Now that I have it on DVD I can watch it anytime I want and do. I love all the songs in the movie from the Heat Miser and Snow Miser songs to Blue Christmas although I absolutely love the I Believe in Santa Claus song and can't believe that someone hasn't recorded it on their Christmas CD. My family thinks I am crazy since I know every word of this show. I can recite it word for word and always do when watching it. It is totaly awesome. I give this show 5 stars. Everyone should see this show. It is the BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: 3 Wonderful Reasons to buy this DVD
Review: Wow, 3 Rankin/Bass specials on 1 DVD, and they are such great stories individually. The First is "The Year Without a Santa Claus", when Santa gets the blues over humans attitudes towards Christmas. Narrated by Mrs Claus, it includes as usual a great soundtrack and excellent characters. Most fans loving the best, Heat Miser and Snow Miser. Jingle and Jangle, two of Santa's elves are pretty cute also. The Second is "Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey", which I think is the most touching movie of the R/B collection. It is a re-telling of the birth of Christ with a sweet twist. It brings tears every watching. If you haven't seen this, it is a must. Wonderful inclusion on this DVD, especially if you want a break from the commercialism of Christmas. And Thirdly "Rudolph's Shiny New Year", which tells the story of time, our calender year. Rudolph is asked to help Father time, when Baby New Year Dissapears. This is a must have to keep your R/B appetite filled. When Christmas is over, and you have watched all your favourite R/B Christmas specials......oh no.......but wait, there's one more to keep you entertained! This DVD is definitely coming out at my house this Season, and everyone there-after.
Rating:
Summary: I LOVE these classics. And they me.
Review: Try this: walk into a public space singing "Nestor, Nestor, The Long-eared Donkey/He's a friend at Christmas for all the World To see" and I bet you that by the time you are at the "world to see" part the whole group of what-were-strangers is clapping and whirling. Let alone singing along! To me, these DVDs are about these things: happy, whirling happiness; love among long-departed friends; having fun. Watch these DVDs. Watch them in slow motion (if you must.) Sing along. Spray the words out. That is Christmas. For me. And for you.
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