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With the news that stores are already beginning a stealth campaign to promote the holiday season, I thought I would get in the spirit of things by making an Insanely Early Christmas Post. But actually, as I thought it over, I decided... you know what? If the stores are already jumping two and a half months forward, I need to do even better. I need to jump farther. I need to take this train all the way to the NEW YEAR.
So. Everybody loves the Rankin-Bass "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" special, or so it seems. It's a holiday tradition. CBS still runs the damn thing every year, even though it's been 40 years since it was first produced. Personally, though, my affections lie elsewhere. I've always felt "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was the superior holiday special. That's not such a strange thing to admit. What IS strange is admitting that I prefer one of Rudolph's oft-forgotten sequels to the original. And yet it's true. I love "Rudolph's Shiny New Year."
It's just ridiculously creative and much more hardcore than the original stop-motion show. A scandalous claim, you say? I will now prove the veracity of these statements to you, through the use of various screencaps from other sites that presumably appreciate this thing as much as I do.
Let's admit the obvious flaw right out of the gate. I've always been a continuity whore, and Rudolph's Shiny New Year has a clear problem in this regard. Despite the fact that this adventure is supposed to begin the night of the 25th, immediately after Rudolph's epic flight at the end of the prevoius special... well, somehow, somebody's shorn Rudy's antlers off. He's been de-aged for the purposes of our sequel. Even as a kid, this rubbed me the wrong way.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks. Santa receives a letter from Father Time warning him that the latest baby new year has gone missing. This is more serious than it sounds: Without the baby present at the official changeover to the new year, the new year simply won't happen. Our entire world will become stuck in a time loop. These are some major stakes. Some majorly cool stakes. But with a driving snowstorm raging around the North Pole, Santa doesn't know what he can possibly do to help out his fellow mythical being. Except, of course, send out the one creature that can see through any kind of weather — the reindeer with the luminescent schnoz.
"I'm gettin' too young for this shit."
Having safely entrusted the fate of all existence to one of his pets, Santa proceeds to kick back for the rest of the hourlong program. Nice work, St. Nick. While Father Christmas is relaxing by the fire and having the elves deliver peeled grapes to him, Rudolph trucks towards the Palace of Father Time. On the way, he meets some freaks with clocks for body parts. Just in case you weren't clear that there's a time theme going on here.
Couldn't he just eat them all in like, three bites?
He also has his first encounter with Eon. Eon, a very unpleasant giant buzzard, is going to be our appointed villian for the evening. The Clock Gang expositions to Rudolph that Eon was destined to live for exactly one eon, and when his time is up - which coincidentally will happen on the arrival of this coming new year - he will die. Or, uh, "turn into ice and snow." There's children present, you see. So anyway, Eon announces his intentions to capture the baby new year first as a means of ensuring that time stops and he will live forever. That's pretty hardcore. You know what ELSE is hardcore?
Rudolph's completely unmasked hatred for Eon. Look at him, he's not even trying!
Once he gets to the palace, Rudy meets Father Time and is forced to endure one of the creepiest musical peformances ever. Basically Father Time sings a minor-key song about the process of aging until you're old, infirm and pathetic. Thanks, Father Time. No wonder the baby new year ran away from your scary ass.
The definition of irony, screencapped.
Oh sorry, we learn via flashback that the baby (who is named "Happy") actually ran away because he was embarassed about his ridiculously massive ears. It seems that people keep laughing at him for looking like the goofball he is. Naturally, Rudolph feels the boy's pain.
Then Father Time illustrates why he and Santa are such good friends: They're both master delegators! Instead of using any of his army of living clock people to find Happy, or even doing some searching himself, he tells Rudolph to go check out an archipelago. We soon find out that this is the most awesome archipelago ever: The Archipelago of Last Years.
"As you can tell from this useless map, there have only been 7 years before this one."
Each of the islands in the archipelago represents a year trapped in time; a place where the population is stuck reliving the same year over and over. Though this is intended to provide a fabulous place for former baby new years to comfortably retire as they celebrate their chosen year for all eternity, it sounds like it's probably pretty hellacious for the rest of the people involved. That's got to be even more monotonous than living in Halloweentown. And how much does it suck to imagine that past versions of yourself are reliving single years of their lives endlessly somewhere? That would mean I have 27 Dougs in this archipelago, and I'm feeling sympathy pains for nearly a third of them.
YOU CAN FLY YOU DUMBASS
Rudolph sets off in a crappy little sailboat to explore the islands for the missing baby. Given that there's presumably millions of islands to cover in less than a single week - and that he doesn't have HANDS to operate the sail with - his work is definitely cut out for him. Luckily for those of us who would rather not stay stuck in one place forever, Rudy seems to possess the innate ability to track his fellow outcast. He remains one step behind Happy at every turn.
The evolution of Barney.
As I said, the islands are a great concept. Very cool. However, the execution's a wee bit off. The first stop is 1 Million B.C., where humans and dinosaurs are performing musical numbers together. So I guess the humans here must've somehow kidnapped all these dinos from the 64 Million B.C. island, hauled them home to 1 Million B.C. and then domesticated them. This makes John Hammond look like an abject failure in every respect.
DID YOU KNOW: In the year 1023, wolves dressed like chicks.
Next we hit 1023, which is a place where all kinds of fairy tales have been brought to life. Apparently the stories of Goldilocks, Cinderella, Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood all actually happened in 1023. That... doesn't seem... entirely accurate.
That flag wasn't adopted until 1777! Rankin-Bass sits atop a throne of lies!
The last major stop is 1776, which is the most plausible of the featured islands. Here, the people celebrate America's freshly declared independence on a regular basis.
Everywhere he goes, Happy tries to hide his ludicrous ears beneath a top hat, and everywhere he goes, someone winds up ripping it off. Which is always followed by the howl of derisive laughter. And thusly Happy learns that humanity was cruel to those who are different all throughout history.
That concludes our tour of highly inaccurate history. Eon finally gets ahold of Happy and whisks him off to his home, a nest high atop the ice-covered Island of No Name. Our posse of heroes has no choice but to bring the fight to Eon. And since Yukon Cornelius is nowhere to be found, Rudolph is forced to confront the bad guy himself for once. This goes about as well as you'd expect, with Rudy winding up encased in a ball of ice and Eon taking a nap to celebrate his triumph.
MREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Unfortunately for Eon, Rudolph's nose doubles as a lightsaber. The plucky reindeer busts out of his frozen prison, sneaks up to Happy and decides to break down the sitch for the new year's baby. You might expect that this would entail expressions of sympathy and brotherly love due to their shared experience as outcasts. Not so. Instead, it devolves into one of the best parts of the entire special...
HATE-OFF!
Happy busts out laughing at Rudolph's crazy-ass nose. Rudolph returns the favor by cackling hysterically at Happy's big, dumb ears. After spending so much time as the source of other people's heartless mirth, neither one of these protagonists has learned ANYTHING!
And that's amazing. But not as amazing as how Rudolph pulls it out in the end: He simply explains to Happy that mocking and laughing at someone else is a GOOD thing, because it shows that their appearance brings you joy. And thus Rankin-Bass delivers the single worst moral in the history of children's stories.
Anyway, Eon finally catches a glimpse of Happy's ears and laughs himself silly, tumbling down the mountain and leaving our heroes free to flee for the hills. But it's almost midnight on New Year's Eve. How will they make it back to the Palace of Father Time promptly enough to ensure that time continues on its merry course?
You lazy asshole.
Oh. Hey. Look who decided to show up.
With the aid of Santa's patented Lightspeed Sleigh, everything turns out as it should. Rudolph is once again declared a hero, time churns forward, and even Eon gets to survive because his laughter fills him with such warmth that it becomes impossible for him to turn into ice and snow. Everyone wins!
Obviously this story doesn't have the warm and fuzzy message of the original Rudolph production. What does it have? Well, without the benefit of a song to base the basic progression off of, it certainly provides more originality. The reason I dig it so much, however, is really the way it plays with the convention of time. I'm always a sucker for alternate realities and time travel. This is as close to "Rudolph's Sci-Fi Journey" that I ever got as a kid, so I naturally developed an unreasoning affection for it. I think I saw it for the first time when I was six or seven, and I still flip to it whenever I see it pop up in the holiday cable listings. Besides... it's totally hardcore.
Totally. Hardcore.
So. Everybody loves the Rankin-Bass "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" special, or so it seems. It's a holiday tradition. CBS still runs the damn thing every year, even though it's been 40 years since it was first produced. Personally, though, my affections lie elsewhere. I've always felt "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was the superior holiday special. That's not such a strange thing to admit. What IS strange is admitting that I prefer one of Rudolph's oft-forgotten sequels to the original. And yet it's true. I love "Rudolph's Shiny New Year."
It's just ridiculously creative and much more hardcore than the original stop-motion show. A scandalous claim, you say? I will now prove the veracity of these statements to you, through the use of various screencaps from other sites that presumably appreciate this thing as much as I do.
Let's admit the obvious flaw right out of the gate. I've always been a continuity whore, and Rudolph's Shiny New Year has a clear problem in this regard. Despite the fact that this adventure is supposed to begin the night of the 25th, immediately after Rudolph's epic flight at the end of the prevoius special... well, somehow, somebody's shorn Rudy's antlers off. He's been de-aged for the purposes of our sequel. Even as a kid, this rubbed me the wrong way.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks. Santa receives a letter from Father Time warning him that the latest baby new year has gone missing. This is more serious than it sounds: Without the baby present at the official changeover to the new year, the new year simply won't happen. Our entire world will become stuck in a time loop. These are some major stakes. Some majorly cool stakes. But with a driving snowstorm raging around the North Pole, Santa doesn't know what he can possibly do to help out his fellow mythical being. Except, of course, send out the one creature that can see through any kind of weather — the reindeer with the luminescent schnoz.
"I'm gettin' too young for this shit."
Having safely entrusted the fate of all existence to one of his pets, Santa proceeds to kick back for the rest of the hourlong program. Nice work, St. Nick. While Father Christmas is relaxing by the fire and having the elves deliver peeled grapes to him, Rudolph trucks towards the Palace of Father Time. On the way, he meets some freaks with clocks for body parts. Just in case you weren't clear that there's a time theme going on here.
Couldn't he just eat them all in like, three bites?
He also has his first encounter with Eon. Eon, a very unpleasant giant buzzard, is going to be our appointed villian for the evening. The Clock Gang expositions to Rudolph that Eon was destined to live for exactly one eon, and when his time is up - which coincidentally will happen on the arrival of this coming new year - he will die. Or, uh, "turn into ice and snow." There's children present, you see. So anyway, Eon announces his intentions to capture the baby new year first as a means of ensuring that time stops and he will live forever. That's pretty hardcore. You know what ELSE is hardcore?
Rudolph's completely unmasked hatred for Eon. Look at him, he's not even trying!
Once he gets to the palace, Rudy meets Father Time and is forced to endure one of the creepiest musical peformances ever. Basically Father Time sings a minor-key song about the process of aging until you're old, infirm and pathetic. Thanks, Father Time. No wonder the baby new year ran away from your scary ass.
The definition of irony, screencapped.
Oh sorry, we learn via flashback that the baby (who is named "Happy") actually ran away because he was embarassed about his ridiculously massive ears. It seems that people keep laughing at him for looking like the goofball he is. Naturally, Rudolph feels the boy's pain.
Then Father Time illustrates why he and Santa are such good friends: They're both master delegators! Instead of using any of his army of living clock people to find Happy, or even doing some searching himself, he tells Rudolph to go check out an archipelago. We soon find out that this is the most awesome archipelago ever: The Archipelago of Last Years.
"As you can tell from this useless map, there have only been 7 years before this one."
Each of the islands in the archipelago represents a year trapped in time; a place where the population is stuck reliving the same year over and over. Though this is intended to provide a fabulous place for former baby new years to comfortably retire as they celebrate their chosen year for all eternity, it sounds like it's probably pretty hellacious for the rest of the people involved. That's got to be even more monotonous than living in Halloweentown. And how much does it suck to imagine that past versions of yourself are reliving single years of their lives endlessly somewhere? That would mean I have 27 Dougs in this archipelago, and I'm feeling sympathy pains for nearly a third of them.
YOU CAN FLY YOU DUMBASS
Rudolph sets off in a crappy little sailboat to explore the islands for the missing baby. Given that there's presumably millions of islands to cover in less than a single week - and that he doesn't have HANDS to operate the sail with - his work is definitely cut out for him. Luckily for those of us who would rather not stay stuck in one place forever, Rudy seems to possess the innate ability to track his fellow outcast. He remains one step behind Happy at every turn.
The evolution of Barney.
As I said, the islands are a great concept. Very cool. However, the execution's a wee bit off. The first stop is 1 Million B.C., where humans and dinosaurs are performing musical numbers together. So I guess the humans here must've somehow kidnapped all these dinos from the 64 Million B.C. island, hauled them home to 1 Million B.C. and then domesticated them. This makes John Hammond look like an abject failure in every respect.
DID YOU KNOW: In the year 1023, wolves dressed like chicks.
Next we hit 1023, which is a place where all kinds of fairy tales have been brought to life. Apparently the stories of Goldilocks, Cinderella, Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood all actually happened in 1023. That... doesn't seem... entirely accurate.
That flag wasn't adopted until 1777! Rankin-Bass sits atop a throne of lies!
The last major stop is 1776, which is the most plausible of the featured islands. Here, the people celebrate America's freshly declared independence on a regular basis.
Everywhere he goes, Happy tries to hide his ludicrous ears beneath a top hat, and everywhere he goes, someone winds up ripping it off. Which is always followed by the howl of derisive laughter. And thusly Happy learns that humanity was cruel to those who are different all throughout history.
That concludes our tour of highly inaccurate history. Eon finally gets ahold of Happy and whisks him off to his home, a nest high atop the ice-covered Island of No Name. Our posse of heroes has no choice but to bring the fight to Eon. And since Yukon Cornelius is nowhere to be found, Rudolph is forced to confront the bad guy himself for once. This goes about as well as you'd expect, with Rudy winding up encased in a ball of ice and Eon taking a nap to celebrate his triumph.
MREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Unfortunately for Eon, Rudolph's nose doubles as a lightsaber. The plucky reindeer busts out of his frozen prison, sneaks up to Happy and decides to break down the sitch for the new year's baby. You might expect that this would entail expressions of sympathy and brotherly love due to their shared experience as outcasts. Not so. Instead, it devolves into one of the best parts of the entire special...
HATE-OFF!
Happy busts out laughing at Rudolph's crazy-ass nose. Rudolph returns the favor by cackling hysterically at Happy's big, dumb ears. After spending so much time as the source of other people's heartless mirth, neither one of these protagonists has learned ANYTHING!
And that's amazing. But not as amazing as how Rudolph pulls it out in the end: He simply explains to Happy that mocking and laughing at someone else is a GOOD thing, because it shows that their appearance brings you joy. And thus Rankin-Bass delivers the single worst moral in the history of children's stories.
Anyway, Eon finally catches a glimpse of Happy's ears and laughs himself silly, tumbling down the mountain and leaving our heroes free to flee for the hills. But it's almost midnight on New Year's Eve. How will they make it back to the Palace of Father Time promptly enough to ensure that time continues on its merry course?
You lazy asshole.
Oh. Hey. Look who decided to show up.
With the aid of Santa's patented Lightspeed Sleigh, everything turns out as it should. Rudolph is once again declared a hero, time churns forward, and even Eon gets to survive because his laughter fills him with such warmth that it becomes impossible for him to turn into ice and snow. Everyone wins!
Obviously this story doesn't have the warm and fuzzy message of the original Rudolph production. What does it have? Well, without the benefit of a song to base the basic progression off of, it certainly provides more originality. The reason I dig it so much, however, is really the way it plays with the convention of time. I'm always a sucker for alternate realities and time travel. This is as close to "Rudolph's Sci-Fi Journey" that I ever got as a kid, so I naturally developed an unreasoning affection for it. I think I saw it for the first time when I was six or seven, and I still flip to it whenever I see it pop up in the holiday cable listings. Besides... it's totally hardcore.
Totally. Hardcore.
10 monsters destroyed | destroy all monsters