Episode 25: Cricket on the Night Before Christmas

Welcome to ranking on bass and off hand choke that became a podcast. I'm your host. Bike quite joined me as an insect, not a bug, mister Chris Asher. Oh, I was hoping you would introduced me as the one and only Albert the asshole mouse. Asshole, asshole mice, ruining holidays since next nineteen seventy four.

Also along for the ride as a mouse with very thick glasses. There you go, Chris Richard Adam, I didn't hear that at all. Were you able to hear it? Hold on, let me let me play that again. It's my favorite line.

I'll play it again. Here we go. Here's the first example of how you ruined everyone's Christmas with your opinions. I thought I thought that the asshole mouse had ruined the holidays because of his lack of belief in Santa Claus coded Jesus coded is Santa Claus? Yeah?

Lived card left. You know these kids, they get a little book learning well, sometimes a miracle needs a hand. On this podcast, we discussed the works of Arthur and Cojunior and Jewels Best, specifically some of their stop motion and animated work. And yes we are back in animation. Territory.

Yes, we were last month and this is that really not very pleasant to look at style of animation that we're doing here. Nineteen sixty seven. We are on a We are on a Danny Thomas TV show, and this is a segment of that. We've got Danny Thomas doing a voice, Marlow Thomas doing a voice. Ed Ames, most famous for his tomahawk throw on the Johnny Carson Show.

Hans Conried. Our old friend Paul Freeze is back here. But none of them should be outdone by Roddy McDowell, the bratt who tried to blow up Colombo with some bad cigars. As Cricket Crockett, the titular cricket on the Hearth from nineteen sixty seven. I don't have a hearth.

I don't have a cricket for that hearth. Apparently it's supposed to be very good luck that Roddy McDowell is here. It doesn't feel like he brings luck to this family though at all. I had never seen this one before. How about you guys who has Why would I have seen?

That's the real What do you think would have compelled me to watch something that is as ugly and as strange and as literal literal as Cricket on the Hearth because the story in question, based on Charles Dickens, there is no cricket in sense story. Really, yeah, it's not about an actual cricket. That's just the term. Oh so you're saying in the Charles Dickens story, which I don't know there, what is it about. It's it's it's a it's similar to what we get on the screen, but there is no cricket narrator, framing device.

They said, oh, the story is called the Cricket on the Hearth, a fairy tale of home, and they were like, it doesn't have enough actual crickets in it. We're gonna put an actual cricket in her. It's like a story called Cricket on the Hearth and there's not gonna be a Cricket on the Hearth. Feels like a missed opportunity. It totally missed opportunity.

Charles Dickens is an idiot, clearly a substandard storyteller, and it took the magic of Danny Thomas and Aaron Spelling covered with ranking on bass to bring us what we want out of Cricket on the Hearth. We want a cricket, and it better have a vague British accent, and and it better be working behind the scenes to bring luck to somebody. I don't know, Yeah, it was. It's kind of weird, this one who came out in like sixty seven I think, which was like I was one year old when this came out, so and I don't know that. I mean because it was shown and produced as part of this Danny Thomas hour.

I don't know what kind of life it had outside of that, like it like did it just I don't think it became like a Hollywood I'm sorry, a holiday perennial. I just I don't remember, because it's weird. It's suddenly like, hi, my name is Danny Thomas. I guess it's not that weird, but the fact that it's live action. I don't know.

It just it seemed like these were two things getting pushed together. It's like Danny Thomas needed to fill an hour of television. Rankin and Bass had you know, a contract to do a special. Hey wait a second, guys, I think we can you know, we can clear two line items off this year's uh flow chart and uh you know uh by by combining them and and and that, then that's what we get lost Marlowe Thomas, who, by the way, I've always had a bit of a thing for home, not just both. We're both Lebanese.

That might have something to do with it. That doesn't that mean that she only goes with women though? Is it Danny Thomas Lebanese as well? Wow? Yeah?

Yes? As Weirdly her father is also. I didn't know what Danny Thomas's real name was. Really, it's Danny had him? Yeah, I did not.

Well, I mean a kid, I will tell you. Danny Thomas does look Middle Eastern, which is which is funny when he has such a like white Anglicized, you know, stage but here but he but he is. He cracks me up. He's like, I bet you know the story of Charles Dickens. I bet you know that story, don't you Where here's the story you've never fucking heard of.

I don't know why we didn't combine this with the stingiest man in town. I don't know what we were thinking or weren't thinking, but I'm kind of glad we didn't because I'm very familiar with was the Night before Christmas and It's heads and shoulders above this cricket on and the hearth crap. But oh my god, we gotta talk about this cricket on the earth here. It's not is there. It's just like a poor fac simile of the Ebenezer Scrooge story.

Right, It's like, let's just do the Scrooge story, but but not Scrooge. It's well, it's weird, okay. So he wrote a Christmas carol, which then became like his most popular thing. Like like he had written a few things. It was it was not at the end of his career that he did it.

It was sort of a little bit before the halfway point. He was still but he was very popular. But he writes a Christmas carol, it becomes, you know, his thing. So then and he was also publishing a magazine. So then every year after that he would he tried to, you know, hoping the lightning would strike twice.

So he wrote the chimes and he wrote it. Maybe this was part of his Yeah, yeah, it's like every year a new Charles Dickens, the new Christmas classic. Well, of course, none of them ever were anywhere near as popular. But I think that's also part of why that's got made. It's like well ranking in Bath.

Their first time out of the gate, they made Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. So they kept going back here. Now it's three years later and it's like, look, we got to do another Christmas thing. Christmas is our thing. So then they went digging through Charles Dickens, you know, kind of you know, b sides picked out Cricket on the Hearth, you know.

Book ended was Danny Thomas us and again and Marlo Thomas, who was already like famous now because of that girl. So she was a like a known quantity at this point. And uh, and then you get this, which just isn't that fun. It's like not anything. Yeah, it's definitely not fun at all.

I mean, first off, the storytelling itself. Like I'm I watch a few things on occasion. I think I'm pretty well versed storytelling. I've seen a movie is what you have seen a movie? Just one?

Uh, and it's it's um Rema Williams, isn't it? No? No, it's over. And if you're only going to see one, that's the one to see. It's Boondock Saints.

I just watch that movie. That's it. So no min how could you not like that? That's the only movie for me anyway. I didn't realize that Bertha Bertha, that the Marlo Thomas character Bertha.

I didn't realize for about ten minutes that she's blind. Yes, yeah, they're First off, there had to be three songs within the first ten minutes, and then something about what they were saying triggered it where I was like, wait, is she's supposed to be blind? I don't know she was. She struck blind when she hears the tragic news. Oh okay.

I didn't realize that she was struck blind because hysterical blindness brought on trauma of hearing that her boyfriend has been how Dickenzie and her boyfriend, yes, Edward, who's played by Ed Ames, Yes, who? I think he always portrayed Native Americans, but I don't think he actually was Native American? Is that true? Well? No, why would you get an actual Native American?

Yeah? It was, it was. It was the fifties and the sixties. You will hire a middle aged Jew and they take care of it for you. Ranks canceled the right.

He's that's right. It was Ukrainian Jew as opposed to iron eyed Cody who was a I think he was from Sicily. Yeah, is Italian? Italian? Like, I'm surprised that that Will Sampson isn't uh you know, I don't know, from from Peru or something.

I don't know. I think I'm sorry, let's just go back a second and confirmed that Ed Aims isn't a Ukrainian Jew. Yes, yes, I just just verified it. Yes, the most Ukrainian Jewish name of all Aims. Yeah.

I have a feeling a publicist was involved early in his career. Well, what was what was Bronson's real name? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I mean you just it's like, okay, all these people, it was like no, no, no, no, you're American. Let's just no questions.

You're not one of them. Ruski's their real last name was Uric. You are c K and it was I think his parents already had changed their names because they were part of um well, I think the sons were part of the Eames Brothers singing group. But yeah, so I think the parents probably changed their name when they came over. And I mean the songs in this in this movie are so memorable and good that I'm glad we have talented people I mean that one song where they're talking about seeing how gay everything is through that one character's eyes.

Just that's what he says. It's not my fault. He says, look at how gay everything. I know what he means. I'm not making a joke.

I'm making a joke. Juke that song sound because it is the It is a goofy song that they play not once, but twice two performances in this about how the world looks different. He's singing it to the blind woman, that chross. That's the point. It's like, if only you could see, if only you could see?

Yeah, let me. Are you really going to put me in the position of defending this? Okay, go right ahead, Richard, if you feel you must. She gets struck blind because he can't handle the truth of her boyfriend dying at sea. So she goes blind, at which point I would have appreciated if the animators would put little x's over her eyes.

She went blind, Richard, she didn't die or just like this white or daring, deadly eyes. You're right, but um, But now her father, Danny Thomas, also known as Caleb, now has to see for her, don't you get it? So he's describing everything being beautiful even though it isn't, and their living situation being great even though it isn't because things are going so bad, but he loves his daughter so much much, he's going to create a reality for her. And because she's blind, if he tells her they're living in a mansion, that's what she thinks is happening, even though he never leaves the one room and it's freezing and it smells like suet. And also she was struck blind late in life.

She wasn't born blind, and she knew their situation the entire time. It makes no sense this whole It's again. It really is just kind of a limp retelling of the Scrooge as an act. It's like, it's like if we never saw Scrooge's story and we just interacted with the Scrooge character, that's essentially what we're getting. Well, there doesn't seem to be a story.

There only seems to be a plot, which is which is she's in love, her boyfriend goes away, he is presumed dead, their fortunes fall until he reappears, and then everything it's good again. I mean that that's basically the structure. No one's opinions change, no one's worldview changes, which of course is the big case in a Christmas Carol. It's just I mean, this is pure melodrama. You know, there's no other way around it.

We should talk a little bit about Hans Conried as the Tackleton character, basically the Ebenezer Scrooge of the piece who runs a toy factory but has no one working there. I didn't understand this one, well doesn't. But but Caleb works there, right, Well, now he does. But they came to his office. They're like, hey, you know, he's like, I want to be your toy maker.

He's like, okay, great, yeah, and he's like, well, where all the others. He's like, yeah, no, there are no others. Like what does he always been the caretaker? So he will? Well, I think is the idea that he makes the toys himself and now by having an employee, his workload will be cut in half.

Maybe it doesn't seem like he's doing jack shit, I mean seems so yeah. Oh, I'm so happy to hear the Hans Conrid's voice. I was so happy to hear Paul Freeze's voice in this. Do you gentlemen remember the last time the three of us discussed Hans Conrid. Frankly, no, it was a little episode of The night Stalker entitled The Nightly Murders.

That's what I was like, it's got to be cold check. Otherwise Richard wouldn't be bringing it up. Either that or what's the other one? Guys, Oh yeah, yeah, what's what's not Mattlock? What's the other one?

You always bring up? Richard Rockford Rockford Files? It was Rockford Files. Well, we you know, unfortunately the Rockford Files podcast, as you know, is being done. Of course, no one says we can't do ours too.

If you guys really want to, where are you doing? Ranking and mass? I have the entire series on DVD. So we're talking a cricket on the hearth and in story about a cricket who narrates a story that he doesn't get involved in any in any formative way. Okay, but here's here's the weird part.

He but but the Okay, you're correct, the cricket is the one who sort of figures out the mystery of the old man. He's like, wait a second, you're the boyfriend in disguise and you you came back and you dressed up to find out like this is I mean, this is pure you know, two hundred years ago storytelling. You dressed up to spy on your old girlfriend to see if she still loves you or something, or if she's moved on. And it's like, well, yes, she moved on because she thought you were dead. If you were just shown up and said hi, I'm alive, don't you think that would have had an impact.

I guess his fear was if she's already in love with somebody else, if she's gone on with her life. Now, I'm going to bow the fuck out. But boyd is he hangs around a lot, and he just doesn't seem to get it that she's being four into this marriage with Hans conried, and it's like you could step in whenever you want and you could help the squirrel out, but instead you're just hanging around with this faky looking beard. And I'm like, as soon as I see the guy, I'm just like, well that's him. And she doesn't recognize his voice, like of all things, like he's dressed up with a physical appearance disguise, he's not disguising his voice.

Well, this is why you don't ever just write plot because there's a lot of stories that are just as contrived as this, but because there's an actual emotional story behind it, about a person you know struggling and changing, you forgive it. But when the only thing is this sort of stagecraft, it doesn't compel. It's not enough. And I think there's one more problem. I think there's another reason that this particular one is not a perennial because look, I mean a lot of the Rank and Bass Christmas specials are known to us all when they play every year, but this one has a problem.

And the problem is there are no kids in it. It's all about grown up concerns. It's like if I was a little kid watching this. I mean even as an adult, I'm like, the only thing this is about is about romance and a girlfriend and a boyfriend and getting married and who you're gonna marry. And as a kid, I don't care.

Like that stuff is not fun to watch. And so if I was ten years old watching this, I'd be like, yeah, I'm never watching this again. The cricket isn't entertaining enough to capture my childhood imagination, and that, for me is the big issue is why they just slapped a cricket on it and said, good like that is what it feels like, right, It's just that's enough. Yeah, yeah, and it wasn't. Can we talk about the character design for the cricket himself, because this whole thing is like everything else, it's all being told as a flashback and the cricket in present day.

I guess he you know, I don't know how long crickets live for, but this cricket looks like he's seeing some shit. When this starts off, he looks horrible. Then he looks a little bit better in the past, though it's still very strange. The legs and everything. The legs are upsetting, yes, thank you, I'm glad.

No the let you know what. The legs are upsetting because it looks like the most gentle of breeze would snap his legs off. It's like, that's the crunch. I mean, I know that he's a bug, so if he gets stepped on at all anyways, he's not a bug. He's an insect.

Oh sorry, sir, why is serious? Apologies to the cricket contingent, our cricket listeners. You can put your pens down. We already we can read the letter stop rubbing your legs together. We get it.

Yeah, we heard it, We heard it. And yeah, at some point this movie just goes off the fucking rails, I mean, and all of a sudden, it's like, I'm okay with the talking cricket, but all of a sudden we get thrown into a world where there's a singing cat and all of these other animals at this club. It makes perfect sense to me, I had reminded. I was like, what the hell just happened? What did I walk into?

What fresh hell is this that this cat is singing this song? And yeah, I was just really taken aback by that cat sing songs in Pinocchio. Well, yeah, that makes sense. However, it's not Pinocchio, said said the man who has a cat named Figure out. There is a Christmas special by Ranking and Bass Richard called Pinocchio's Christmas.

So we're not done. There's another on the Heart. There is a cricket in that too, Really, Jim, I watched that too. I watched that along with this because I want to see the other cricket bass thing dude, just to take him one at a time. I don't think it's safe to double up the ranking in bass does love to Uh you mentioned it, Mike.

I don't know how many times it is now where they've gone, Hi, you know who I am. I'm the cricket on the hearth. I was waiting for that. I was so waiting, said I got Hi, I'm Danny Thomas. Yes, well yeah, first Danny Thomas does it.

Then the cricket does the cricket does do it. He does do it, but it's always but they always do the fake ass sort of It's like, you know, Hi, I'm the cricket. What you don't know the cricket on the right of a blinking cricket on the blinking pull up a share for forty nine minutes. It's so patronizing. It's like, fuck you, No, I don't know you.

And frankly, by the end of this, I'll wish I hadn't. No, you have fucking pervert. I don't know he's you know what. By the end of it, I don't care what he is because he's not in the original story. This this this story for me would be like going and seeing the movie The Peanut Butter Falcon and they're having to be a bird covered in peanut butter in the movie.

It's a cute. You don't have to take the title literally, you know, wait, hold on, you know they did the Scrooge story. It stress like this. Hello, I know you've all heard of a Christmas Carol. You haven't.

Will allow me to introduce myself. I'm Carol. Oh wow, I am the Christmas Carol. My story. I was born at Christmas and my name is Carol.

God, it's it, you know what I get it from a storytelling perspective of trying to find a way to adapt this for kids. And oh look a cricket. No kid in sixty seven is excited that it's Ronnie McDowell doing the voice. Nobody cares like. At the end of Danny Thomas is what just happened?

I don't know, Mike, are you okay? I'm fine? The fun was that? Oh did my Oh? My audio is all fucked up?

Okay, just like from the magical world of Ranking and Bade, get over to Mike's house right now, something is wrong. Mike is being kidnapped by the by the Ranking and Bass people, right yeah, actively yeah, we're right next to the cracked me up. At the end, Danny Thomas is like telling like rattling off all these people who did voices. Nobody gives a shit, man, Like, nobody watching this is gonna have any idea. The people that this is made for are not excited.

And then the people who know who the adults are in this not gonna watch this like they're just not well, you know, but that But that makes me wonder what you just said. Suddenly, Now maybe it makes sense now why they weren't like like it was a little more adult oriented, because I wonder who the original audience for the Danny Thomas Hour was, I mean probably adults, and maybe it was sort of like, well, we're gonna do animation, but it can't. Maybe that's the reason why it wasn't so kid focused, is because, well, it's got to be for sort of adult people, so we'll make it a bit more of adult interest. Plus we know for a fact we're gonna jam Danny Thomas in there and Marlow Thomas and they have to have the main roles, and they can't.

Neither one of them is going to play you know, an eight year old. So maybe there was a reason for this, but I tell you, it makes it really uninteresting outside of that context. From fifty five years ago. I just wished it had shown up on the title of the original Danny Thomas show was Make Room for Daddy. Oh yeah, that was quite a popular show.

Yeah, that's just that a hell of a title for the show. I'm gonna say, well, what's this is a strange title? Make Room for Daddy? What's it about? We gotta make room for Daddy?

That just saying it again and then and putting emphasis on different words doesn't explain it for daddy, Chris, think of it this way. There is a room. Oh my god, there's a predetermined amount of space within that room. Okay, all right, now to use room in a different context when Daddy enters, that would be Danny Thomas. You got you gotta make room for him.

Oh, now, do you get it? Okay, got it understood? Heart disease for Daddy? Got it? Yes?

Basically, make it sound really creepy, yeah, bake Room for Daddy. That's not my fault. I didn't. I'm not the one who made that show, because like I'm not the one who made Cricket on the Hearth up Make Room for Granddaddy in the nineteen seventy and seventy one. That is not true.

It is absolutely true. Yes, it is so true. Why would you think that's fake? Why was that like after Marlo Thomas had kids and now Danny Thomas's grandfather. Yea, now the answer today.

Yeah, if we do the math, I'm I'm guessing Marlo Thomas has got to be pushing eighty at this point now. Yeah, like now she's got to be seventy five, because if that was baby eighty five, she's eighty five years old. Yeah. Man, wow, Okay, now I would I would go on a date with her, Okay, I mean if I was not happily married to the host of eighties TV ladies. Okay, let me just be super clear.

That girl was nineteen sixty five to seventy one, and she was playing one of the friends is or two of the friends as parents back in like ninety six, so you know that's twenty almost twenty years ago. Well, I mean, yeah, if I'm fifty six and she was starting in a show the year I was born, basically, yeah, she had to be at least I mean, that character had to be at least twenty five. Yeah, she was born in nineteen thirty seven here in Detroit, Michigan. So oh seven, Oh my god. So she was more like she was like thirty once she did that show.

Yeah, you're going to have to beat off Pil donahue to get to her though, because that's they've been married since nineteen eighty Buddy, did you just say I had to beat off and Marlo Thomas would have something in common? Wow? How did we get here? This is a wholesome family podcast, and now I'm eating off Phil don He was like fall on to his eighty five year old wife. Yeah you're yeah.

All the while Vladimir Lenin is turning his back on you. Because the other point of note for this Cricket on the Hearth piece of literature is there. Vladimir Lenin walked out of a performance of it because he found it too dull and saccharin so early. We all have something in common with Lennon, Yes, yeah, are wrong, Yeah, but I don't think he watched this animated version though. Something tells me he would really be by that, an animated cricket.

Yeah, they'd be like, oh, I want to hear that song again? What was that one? Fish and chips? I want of your fish and chips one more time? His well, no no.

When when he walked out, his translated comment was revealed to be where is the cricket? There is no cricket. Cricket was promised, that cricket was not delivered. Yes, that's the reason they put the cricket in this version is they were they were better suiting it for Vladimir Lennon's taste. They wanted it to appeal to a Soviet audience.

So they had many things to do. They, being Rink and Bass, had many things to do with Danny Thomas, including an animated version of That Girl also known as That Girl in Wonderland from nineteen seventy three. So, oh, now Richard wants to talk about something. Oh, I see, now we've found something that piques your interest. So how much I think we got at least another year of this podcast?

Yep, and it's all available out on YouTube. It is. But there's also the other is the other thing was Danny Kay, Right, the Danny Kay musical. He's been very they've been very into the Danny's Yeah. Yeah, they did a Danny Kay.

What is it Emperor's New Clothes? Right? Well, I mean all those guys at the time, right being Crosby, bur Alives, Danny Thomas, Danny Kay. These are the people you want doing this. It's just give them something better to do than this.

My god, even Paul Freese enhanced con reader above this, this is just the actually, unequivocally, the animated Rank and a Bass stuff is the worst of the Rank and Ambass stuff, right, Like, this animation is just ugly and kind of boring. Yeah, this was um yeah, And I know we're going to talk about twas Night before Christmas pretty soon, but to me, the most entertaining part was the live action Danny Thomas on that set sort of the nineteen you know, the late sixties, early seventies ish, looking like, oh, look at the mirror in the background, look at that decoration, look at his tuxedo. It was just fun to sort of see that. So I was like a thing that it feels there's like a there's like a thing miss to it by having Danny Thomas there, right, Yeah, I think because that's what a lot of the specials were.

It would the premise would be it's in Bing Crosby's home, and the various guest stars would enter through the front door and there'd be snow falling behind them, and they'd come in and there'd be some joking around, and then they'd all sing a song, and then the doorbell would ring again. And so you you sort of you know, had the Christmas party. And so he's now we're in Danny Thomas's home, where he wears a tuxedo every evening to you know, take dinner with his family. He just wants that to talk about that. He wants to share a story with you that he just discovered about a cricket on the hearth.

I just heard about it myself. That's that's why it's my favorite line. The entire rap rod is. I think I just heard about it myself five minutes ago. Like you're inspiring confidence here.

I know this thing is so unpopular, right, no one has spoken of it since the day was published. I know you've heard of all these more exciting things. But let me tell you about this fourth rate, bottom of the barrel Christmas story you've never heard of. Let's find out together why it's so unpopular. Here we go.

The thing that really gets me is that the cricket is not very I don't care about the cricket. You know, It's not like he's very endearing. It's almost like he's not really actually part of the story, right right, Yeah, he feels there. You can create a character and insert them into the story and give them something to do. They just she's not to like.

It's like they're like cricket on the hearth and that's where he's staying the entire fucking time. He's staying on that lintel. Don't you fucking move well? And nothing for him or kind of almost anyone, nothing's really at steak. In fact, the only thing that's at steak is, oh no, she's gonna marry an ugly dude instead of what we have been introduced to as a tacitly hot dude, and so the tragedy will be.

But the funny thing is that character isn't necessarily a mean, horrible guy. You don't get the feeling he's going to be mean to her. There's a little bit of the old hey i'm blind, so I'm not judging you by your looks the lord of vibe, and he's like excited about that. He's like, finally a hot blind chick. This could work out real good.

Yeah, earld torkle sin or whatever. The guy's name, so, so we get we get a little of that. But but then even at the end, he's not a mean guy. He's sort of he's sort of sad because it's like, oh my one chance to get married. She's like, it's okay, you can still be like our uncle or something.

It will be nice to you. Still watch. Yeah, that's what it is. You can still watch. We got the chair in the corner for you.

Then there's a cricket on the heart. He's one watching the whole time. He's watching the whole thing, rubbing his legs together. Okay, guys, you know, look would have been bettered on what we got. I don't know who we think is listening, but this is not the sort of Christmas spirit anyone expected from this.

Are you talking about the cricket on the hearth? Ranking and bass special right? Not? Well? Work not us?

Oh no, no problem. You you talking about a cricket masturbating while watching too animated Colt. I did not say. First off, they wouldn't be animated in the cricket. He would be viewing them as real.

Secondly, secondly, there this film, this film, because it's fifty minutes long. This film didn't give us much to work with Richard where they gave us the scraps of the dough and said make a pie. Guys, you got you got this. Well, that's the other thing. This suffers from the forty nine minute time slot.

And and that's because it was the Danny Thomas hour, not that Danny Thomas half hour. This story could have easily I mean, anything it wanted to say, it could have said in twenty four minutes, No problem. What's what's fucking crazy about it is it's fifty minutes, and I, like you just said, I would contend it needs to be a half an hour. And then Twas the Night before Christmas, I would contend it needs to be five minutes because it's literally again but you mentioned Mike like, oh, we should have done stingiest Man and Cricket on the Hearth. Actually, Cricket on the Hearth and Twas the Night Before Christmas are two apt adaptations.

They take stories that don't have the parts that they're claiming they do and in injecting bullshit into the stories. There's none of that in Twas Tonight, just like there's no Cricket and Cricket on the Heart. Yeah, but that was ranking a bass's thing. It's like, okay, we're gonna take the you know, the nist of premise, and then we're gonna put the story in. I mean, all of Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer up until the literal final moments of that special, all of that invented.

That's not part of the song. It's just you know, it's fair, but it's at the beginning, in the end, and there's no there's no little dentist elf. There's no Ye don't compare to hermy the Elf, to random British cricket. You know. It's it's almost like they just with these animated specials, they just don't try that hard.

Have we really liked any of the animated specials aside from Frosty the Snowman, like the original Frosty the Snowman. No, they're without the one o'clock with the heat mines are in the snow mines. That's not animated. Yeah, well it is animated. No I'm talking like animation.

I'm talking this animation. We haven't liked any animation stuff. But part of that is sorry, I mean, okay, fair. If we're talking non Christmas, I think they're non Christmas animated stuff is okay. Yeah, and then like the last Unicorn, I forgot about that, or as Richard passes out in his chair, well you know what they say.

We could just go back and talk about the wacky world of Mother Goose again. Oh boy, no, no, are you a good time? I think we're I think we're transitioning now to towards the Night before Christmas and and income watching uh pick it on the hearth. First was The Night Before Christmas? Is a rollercoaster ride through, you know, a narrative that lies by with invention and heart and then gets off state just in time.

I've got nothing but good things to say about twas the Night before Christmas. I really like Twist the Night before Christmas. And I've seen this thing. I don't know how many times. This was kind of like an annual viewing for me.

It was not as much as like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but I definitely saw this one many, many times. I was very familiar with that mouse family and the human family, who really takes kind of a backseat. This is a strange one that we've got both the mouse family and the human family. They really live in a very symbiotic relationship because they're mis just all over this house and none of the humans seem to mind this whatsoever. And well, yeah, they have a relationship.

I mean clearly. At a certain point, the mouse just goes up to their guide and he's like, look, I'm sorry my son. My son has ruined Christmas for everyone, And the dad is sort of nodding his head, like, oh, yeah, you're the older one who goes to college. Uh you know, you know all the coded language for Joe. What wow, we went there?

Huh, I get it. Yeah, you're plinty, your pointy headed intellectual goes to the big city and comes back with a lot of atheist thoughts and ruins a Christian holiday. I think we got it. Dude, they're only begun son Albert, Oh my god, Richard. It was so odd to me that Albert was being voiced by Tammy Grimes, and like, why why of a woman voicing this male character.

But then at the same time, who cares? You know, it worked, it actually worked. What was it, Billy that Billy Richardson or who there was a woman who voiced Bart Simpson is And yeah, so I mean Nelson as a woman there are so many women that men's voices on cartoons, and Tammy Grimes has got that great husky voice, so it really worked. Oh yeah, that's it. Billy May Richards is the one who does uh yeah, going to my enchanted world of ranking and baths hey portfolio.

Yes, I wouldknew that Tammy Grimes was once uh a married to Christopher Plumber and that Amanda Plumber is their daughter. I never knew that. I never did that math in any direction. Yeah, yeah, can we can we talk about the songs for a moment. The songs are the songs, and this are stranger than in the Cricket on the Hearth, right, but they're a little better.

Yeah, I like these better and like a in like I believe in Jesus kind of way. I don't think that's how miracles work. A miracle by definition is something that like, right, the song alone makes no I'm just pointing out how that makes no sense. It does because the entire episode is about the clash of faith and non faith, and so themselves in that situation intentionally. It's not like something happened that they couldn't control.

I mean, it's okay if he was trying oh God, okay, let me explain the Richard tell me Joel Gray, who hears out of Cabaret, does this abomination? That's what it is. And he's trying to explain it's dammy grime that you know. There's miracles, but sometimes the miracle needs a hand. So even godless atheists like you can participate in something that can be considered miraculous.

All right, I like like, I like the other song more than one about believing in Jesus. Which one will you give your heart a try? I'm trying. It's totally about believing God. I don't know what else.

Yeah, yeah, okay, believe in the things that you can't see. If you can't see it, still believe like what what Santa Claus? But right, you guys, yes, but Christmas is Oh my god, Richard is gonna quit because all of a sudden it turns out we don't believe in Santa Claus. I find your lack of faith in Santa. And I'm sorry you say that out loud on December eleventh.

You're taking a mighty big chance there. Yeah, never forget December eleventh. Um, this is pretty much another version of the year without Santa Claus because basically Santa gets a letter in that and it's just like, well, fuck these kids, I'm not gonna go down there. And then there's the whole like, no, no, we'll we'll make things better in this fictional town of Junction Junctionville. We'll build a clock that will to you, Santa, all the way in the north pole, proving that we are, you know, God's chosen people and that you should come back to us.

Please see, it's all. It's it's weird because nothing else that Rankin and Bass has done has been so overtly religious, and I feel like this is overtly religious. Right, It's pretty damn religious, but not so much that I don't like it. That's fair. Yeah, I mean, obviously I think that Nestor was probably the most religious thing, since we actually have Jesus and marrying Joseph in that little drummer boy too, Right, that's true.

That's true. I guess of the of the things that aren't immediately religious facing right, this is the most religious thing we've seen that's not like those where it's essentially copped from a story from the Bible, right, because they're essentially both stories. I guess Nestor's not a story from the book. I don't remember reading, you know, Nester Begat Nestor. Right, here's Nestor, Saith the Lord, but a whole lot of thing, but they all, all of them.

It feels like I have a song about belief in why it's important to believe, and you can apply that to Santa or Jesus. Jesus or Santa. It is Christmas, this is not I mean feel there was nothing I mean other than wanting Santa to come to our town. It had nothing to do with you know, well, there's another story, Arthur that you've never heard about a savior that your people murdered. Now of a sudden, I don't know how Arthur is Jewish when none of the other family members are.

Maybe it was adopted or something. I don't know, but it's pretty clear. I mean, even his mouse nose is longer and hooked, you know, I mean they really left, No, it's not longer. Come on a cricket on the heart. There is a character that looks like that, though we didn't mention that, but there is a character that feels that character is totally coded as Jewish.

Yeah, it's real bad. It's real bad. However, I will say this and correct me if I'm wrong. But in twas the Night before Christmas, there is an African American family, Yes, and I don't believe there was. I don't recall seeing a black character in the other specials, but they continually cut back to this family and the kid.

I mean, they make a big point of saying that in this town there's it's not just white people. And that's the first time I've seen that. Well this nineteen seventy four. Maybe we are really, you know, we're making progress here, I guess because there there was there was the slightest bit of representation here. So so I found that remarkable.

It's kind of funny because I didn't really like that year without a Santa Claus was the same year as was the Night before Christmas, and I think it like, I think it aired like two nights later. Wow. I think one was December eighth and one was December Town. So yeah, they were and I think, oh, no, one was Southtown. That was where it had never snowed.

It hadn't snowed in Southtown, Okay, right. I was like, aren't they all called like Junction City or something or Junctionville, but maybe not. I love the fake names. Junctionville, Yeah, Junctionville, New York. That is apparently it is New York.

Junctionville, New York's New York State. That's where the guy who wrote Twas the Night Before Christmas is from, right, Is that right? Oh well, that would be amazing if there was that much, you know, sort of like true trivia, kind of jammed in when you weren't looking. I didn't realize. So there is one more AnimagiC special for sure, which is the First Christmas the story of the First Christmas Snow.

So yeah, there is. We're gonna be pretty busy next year. Yeah, and we've we've got cone Heads, Smokey the Bear, oh yeah, Danny Kay, and the Emperor's new Clothes. I just wanted to see the That girl in Wonderland okay, yeah, Jackson Jackson five. Yeah, returned to Oz is the one I'm waiting to see.

Oh that's early. That was like the second one they ever did. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty early. I guess. I guess.

You know, on the topic of to Us the Night Before Christmas, a story that you know, I know because I was read it every year forever as a kid. I guess it is the kind of story that is able to have it kind of punched up. I just I just the actual story of to Us the Night before Christmas feels tacked on in this, do you know what I mean? Like the story itself feels tacked on, which should should this should have just been its own thing, because they did they did the what was it the east was there? What was the other thing with the mice?

The thanksgiving thing with the heathen mice? That this should have just been a mouse, you know, a mouse Christmas or something to that effect, because this, that's what this reminded me of more than anything else, was that thanksgiving mouse on the mayflower. I mean, obviously the mice is the obvious comparison, but that's what this reminded me of. And this should never have been to was the Night before Christmas, just because it says not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. And that's that's I mean, yeah, okay, that's fine, but well, you know what, I was stirring, and I'm very stirred right now, and I'm going to tell you this story about how my little boy, Albert almost fucked all of us you've never heard of my son Albert.

Well, give your heart a try, Ann, it's a slippery slope and we'll believe whatever you say. That's yeah, it's it's that same. You know, you don't know who I am or you're the mouse. I'm the mouse from the story. It's like, what the fuck the mouse from the story that has no name mentioned as just mouse?

Yes, okay, fine, yeah, but no, he's got a whole family you don't even know about. Yeah, a backstory, the stunning backstory. I don't mind that they have Twus the Night before Christmas at the end of this. And it was odd because as I was watching it, I just kept thinking about The Grinch, and I was just like, oh, I never realized that The Grinch is basically Twus the Night before Christmas, but like a nightmare version of that. Yeah, yeah, it's the it's the inverse.

Uh, well, that's that's why. You know. The Grinch is amazing and has survived all these years. And it's got that really cool song right in the middle. So it's got a couple of good songs in there.

Well, yeah, the Abu Dore or whatever I would pay money in here Richard sing that song from Memory, just Richard sing the song from The Grinch, just that, over and over again for an hour. Smith comes. But once a year this is gonna get We're not gonna be able to post this episode on YouTube because we have too much of a copyrighting song. But just kind yeah, I went, I went four notes to right yeah into a copyrighting French. They're really slacking on the music in this though, like a lot of these other non AnimagiC specials, they just don't try with the music.

I just don't. I don't understand it from the people who brought you really memorable songs to songs nobody's going to be singing. They're not always memorable. If you've seen a musical in the last twenty years, I mean there are there are giant musicals that have made more money than anything has ever made and you cannot name a song, and you cannot, and you leave the theater humming nothing, and I'm sorry. It's like it's hard to write a really good song.

So when you when you see people like Rogers and Hammers Fine who are putting out musical after musical after musical, or Frank Lesser or Learning or Low or whoever, it's it's miraculous that there's a handful of songs that are good. If we're all in the same thing, it's it's it's even more miraculous. But you know, sometimes a miracle needs a son of a bitch. He's right. And you know, if you'd like to know a Christmas movie that does have a lot of good songs, how about my favorite Christmas movie?

Forgive me if it's not Rankin and Bass, the musical Scrooge starring Albert Finney, the greatest Christmas movie of them all. I never seen it. No, I'm much more about an American Christmas Carol with Henry Winkler. No songs, I don't think. Is it crazy?

In twenty twenty two they're still adapting a Christmas story, a Christmas story or Christmas Christmas Kit, well both of them, frankly, But Christmas Carol? What is it? Ryan, Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. Oh is that a Christmas Carol version? I didn't know that.

I believe it's called spirited. Yeah, yeah, I had no idea. I just saw those two idiots on the cover and said, no, thanks, I'm good. It's it's an Apple movie. I'm good.

Okay, good, thanks, Well, come on, guys, it could be the next Elf. Yeah Elf El. You know, it's weird that we kind of have never mentioned Elf on this show, given that there is an whole AnimagiC thing in Elf that you have to do a little. Oh that's true. Yeah, I do like a whole It's I mean, I mean it's obvious.

It's all ranking and bass inspired like it's yeah, yeah, no, Elf is good. Elf is a contemporary Christmas classic, which I think is damn near impossible to do. Yeah, right, Well, that and Love Actually, yeah, Santa Claus, did you think we're going to disagree with you? I know I like that movie. We just just talked about this movie, didn't we Some people get really upset about Love.

Actually, I have no problems with that movie. I love that movie. I think it's great. But Chris, you gotta watch Scrooge. You gotta watch Scrooge.

It's delightful and the music is off the charts. If I watch Scrooge, you have to watch one of my favorite Christmas movies, which is Jingle All the Way? Is that? But is that really one of your favorites? Or yes?

You know I'm being dead serious. I'll have you never see Have you never seen it? No, I've never seen it? Oh my god. Yeah, Well when did it come out?

Was that like in the ninety nine yet? Phil Hartman, it's amazing in that. Yeah. And cookies, Oh, I've got to get the recipe from this. Put that cookie down now that you know.

It's weird because like my kids were a little I guess that was kind of right when I was kind of going into bad marriage territory and like my marriage was falling apart. But my kids might have been too young because they were like three and five. Were they like too young for Jingle All the Way? Or it's like a it's like an older kid, Yeah, like like eight to ten type thing. Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah, I mean it's not a good movie. I'm not sitting here and telling you it's a good movie. But it's a fun movie. Oh, I've seen the sequel featuring Larry the Cable Guy. What there's a sequel?

Yeah? Oh yeah, Jingle What do you think? Well, I thought it was gonna be like, you know, Jingle even further down the way. Or I still contend that the movie that I'm waiting to see is Jingle All the Way? Remade with Kevin Hart and The Rock, Like, why has that not happened?

I'm very well someone now you that'll have I've talked about it before on recording. But the smart thing to do is The Rock would be playing the Simbad role and Kevin Hart would be playing the Schwarzenegger role, So you can't you don't cast it one for one, you swap it would be Jason Stath would be eating the cookies. Well, you'd have that cookie. All these biscuits are so good. I would watch that movie.

Fuck, this movie sounds like more fun than most Chris You know what. Christmas movies need to be more fun. Stop making Hallmark movies. I guess those are fun for people, right, I don't want to drag those movies. People love those fucking movies like crazy.

Those movies are very popular. They pay those actors an enormous amount of money to do them, really and oh yeah, no no, I mean that's why they get these actors because typically if you walk up and go, hey, would you do one of these? You know, most actors are gonna go no, I don't want to, like get away from me. Well, it's sort of like it's a very particularized room in the movie Mansion and they're like, I don't know if I need that, and they're like, oh, I forgot to mention. If you go look in your mailbox right now, there is a check for nine million dollars or something that's sixteen times more than you've ever been paid for anything.

And then actors are like, oh, I'm sorry, when does my plane leave? And then they do them and they run. The residuals are crazy and people love Them's what's crazy about those movies for me when I watch them is that they are calculatedly without conflict. Oh yeah, the conflict, the stakes, all that stuff is so is just better touch. It's just oh they sort of are arguing a little, but not really.

And then they just have fun scenes that's like, Okay, now we're gonna have a scene where they're making Christmas cookies. Okay, now we're gonna have a scene where they're making a snowman. Now, now we're down in the town square at night and they're turning on all the lights. They're just like getting all these iconic moments but never stressing you out. And it's like this has to be on purpose, and it's kind of fascinating, but it makes me want to watch more of them because I'm like, yeah, I don't I don't need to worry about stuff.

I just want to watch people having a good time and falling in love. Yeah, and that's a cottage industry, baby, it really, it really is good for them. It's kind of like the modern day successor to Rank in bass. Huh do we get them? We get them once a year because they're not and I don't.

Again, I don't even hear, you know, people clamoring for Ranking and bass stuff. People want to watch the original stuff, But I don't hear anybody saying I want to watch a new Christmas anything like that new that No Ferrell Ryan Gossling movie came out. Only person I know who or yeah, Ryan Reynolds. The only person I know who would have seen it was went to like a special early screening of us, a preview of some movie, and they walked out instead of watching it. Our friend Adam over at Movie Geeks United walked out instead of watching the movie.

So wow, I you know, That's why I was saying the thing about Elf. It's weird, like iconic Christmas movies just seem to have only existed in a certain time and place, and we're still watching those movies. New ones aren't coming out other than these like Hallmark Channel movies. I've got to tell you guys something I'm I want to know if this is just me or if other people are noticing it. But Christmas isn't what it used to be for kids.

That's because like the War on Christmas, all those people died and now it's just nobody can even say Mary Christmas anymore. So every time you stop yourself from saying Marry Christmas and say Happy Holidays, an angel dies. Yeah, exactly. I feel like when I was a kid, Mike was a kid, maybe when you were a kid, there was a little bit more cachet on really, Like it's like you get things twice a year, your Birthday and Christmas. And if your birthday is in April, then anything you want you don't get.

You got to keep a list and maybe you'll get it in seven months. And I and again, you know, I don't know, maybe me or the people I know, but it feels like kids have so much access to so much of what they want, and so much of what they want isn't physical, it's digital. That the idea of I'm going to open a package under the tree and it's going to be that record album I want or that, or a physical item, an outfit or as you get older, or a toy the amazing physical toy, or or a bike or something like that. Like maybe that stuff exists. But kids going crazy for Christmas, like losing their shit for you know, an hour after Thanksgiving and then for the next month.

I don't know if that's as big a thing as it was forty five years ago. Have you guys, I mean, I know you don't have kids, but does that sound right? Christmas feels different now, it just does. I mean, I think even just as I mean, yeah, as an adult, it feels different. But I don't know.

I just the last couple of years, the Holidays have felt less like there's not like there's anything to get excited about. But I don't know, importance one day seems to be kind of missing the point. Frankly, the last couple of years have been weird, obviously because of cod and so if you associate Christmas with large family gatherings and going out and we're all gonna go Christmas caroling or we're going to go to that concert, or we're gonna go pack a church at midnight on Christmas Eve or something. It's like some of those things have taken on like a yeah, maybe that's not so hot though, Let's let's all just be apart from each other, which is weird. Like like, you know, if I go back three years it, you know, does that feel different than this year?

Yeah? Maybe, but I don't know. I just like when I watch a Christmas story and the first line is it was Christmas, you know, the day the entire kid world revolved around And I'm like, I don't know if the kid world revolves around it anymore, right, I don't know. I'd be interested to hear what the listeners think. I think.

I think you're right, as again, we're not kids, but I get what you're I get what you're getting at. Yeah, you know. And I'm a big Christmas guy and Christmas as magical as I could for my kids who like it but don't like it's not like they captured my crazy Christmas spirit. I mean, maybe it's impossible. Maybe you can't.

Maybe when your dad does that, it looks like, Okay, there's no air left in the room for me to breathe, Dad's inhaled every last bit of you know, cinnamon flavored air. But but yeah, yeah, I don't know. Okay, now I'm done. Now I'm done. Now I'm done.

Is there anything else we want to talk about? Twas the Night or Cricket on the hearth? I have a merry Christmas, everybody. This is year three of this show. Year three is that wild and no end in sight, no insight, and and you know what though, like for me, you know, we we did the Thanksgiving thing and it's Christmas.

And I do want to say as as as as kind of random as this show has been, the show is a lot of fun. I do enjoy every opportunity to talk about Christmas stuff because I don't talk about Christmas stuff. Christmas is not a holiday that I'm particularly enthralled with. So anytime we get to talk about Christmas stuff is great. So on to year four, as they would say, everybody, I agree, I agree, I agree, Mary, Christmas, God bless us everyone.

When we come back next month, we're going to be talking about return to OZ, going back to the very First Ranking on Bass, the very First Ranking and Bass Special all the way back in nineteen sixty four, the same year that they did Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Until then, I want to thank everybody for tuning in. I want to thank Abby Stabby for our artwork, as well as the Great Octopus for our theme music. Be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform, Leave us a review, leave us your thoughts about the spirit of Christmas? Is Richard Wright have we just lost it?

Is it because of all those darned atheists in the way that they throw people in jail for saying Mary Christmas? I think it might be Richard's just asking questions of the s