Santa, Baby!
Told by
Patti LaBelle
Original
Airdate: December 17, 2001
Does not
currently air on TV
DVD Out of Print
Available
to watch in parts on YouTube as of 2017
Part 1:
In an interesting turn events, Rankin/Bass came
together to create one more Christmas special, 16
years after their previous one.
Ultimately though, it would end up being their most unknown special of
all. It’s never been re-aired after its premiere. No DVD
releases are available nowadays and older ones are near impossible to find. Above all, the only way to watch it without owning it is through a
low-quality YouTube upload recorded from a camera in front of a TV screen. Plus, with the death of Arthur Rankin Jr. in
2014, this is pretty much guaranteed to be the last Rankin/Bass special
ever. Personally, it’s a shame that this
is the case, for even if it’s not the most spectacular, interesting, or
creative special, it's quite good for what it is.
This is one of the company’s more down-to-Earth stories.
The focus is on a common family of Heptune Street, a city area sorely lacking the
Christmas spirit, or general friendliness. There’s a little girl named Dakota whose
biggest passion is to find homes for all the stray pets of the city. This is
made difficult by the jerk superintendent, Mr. Sweet, who wants
to close the shelter and doesn’t want them running around in the apartment
building Dakota’s family lives in. While
that’s going on, Dakota’s father, Noel, is struggling to come up with a perfect
Christmas song for his company, isolating himself
in the process. However, everything
changes when Dakota rescues a bird from the cold, and it turns out that she’s
the magical partridge in a pear tree called Melody Birdsong. She's thoroughly entertaining
with her witty one-liners and her ability to make the gifts from “12 Days of
Christmas” appear. Another magic power is granting people wishes, and since Dakota saved
her, she earns the wish. Thinking
considerately, Dakota wishes for Noel to write the hit song he’s desperate for. You’d think that Noel would just write a
great song right there. Then the story takes a more interesting turn,
showing that there’s more to him finding the right tune than one might
expect. Melody has Noel pose as a salvation
Santa asking for money from city citizens.
This setup just causes Noel a lot of humiliation at first. Then through
spending time with his daughter and wife in the process, with a fun cover
of the title song performed at one point, he reaches out to more of Heptune Street. With his family’s help, Noel performs many
acts of community service, which may not be the most exciting thing to
see. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see how
his little acts lead to one much bigger. It's an upbeat sequence where he sets out
to clean up a playground and decorate a Christmas tree, and the whole street
joins in to help, all set to a hip-hop cover of carols.
It’s an effective and exciting way to get across the theme of the
importance of community. Seeing this
street of join Noel in his
services and make what they do fun and exciting is perfectly
reflective of a neighborhood of different people. It's also incredibly nice to see
them all in one environment.
This is especially pleasing when you consider how harsh certain
characters can get at certain points.
Although this special has a great mindset on stressing the
importance of community, the harshness that surrounds Heptune Street really
gets overbearing at times. I mentioned before how the city citizens
aren’t all that friendly at first, but they later come around. However, it’s Mr. Sweet who
proves to be the most stubborn. It’s one
thing for him to be annoyed by the animals in the shelter, but his jerkiness goes way beyond just that. He’s always claiming ownership of everything,
not just the building, and dictates what people should do about Christmas
without any good reasons. They try to
make him sympathetic by talking about him losing his wife, but aside from one
mention, it’s never brought up again. Also, when he deliberately ruins the animal
shelter, forcing the homeless pets into the cold streets, his past does
nothing to make him more likable. Sadly,
even the main protagonist has a lot of unnecessary harshness to him. Noel isn’t nearly as bad since he clearly
tries to bond with his daughter. Regardless, his isolation from his family while
writing his song makes him come off as a big complainer which isn't
compelling. The worst
from him comes after Mr. Sweet wrecks the animal shelter. Dakota begs Noel to
help, and he shows no interest in the matter despite all the service he did for
the community, right down to calling the animals dumb. That is just not cool, showing no support for
what his daughter cares about. As harsh
as some of Noel’s moments are, they fortunately lead to a moment that
singlehandedly saves his portrayal. When
he finds out that Melody put him through everything because Dakota wanted him
to have a hit song more than anything, he admits family is more
important than his own desires. Then through attempting to rescue a
kitten despite running into all sorts of dangers, Noel once again brings the
whole community together. It starts when
Mr. Sweet also has a redeeming moment through realizing he went too far with
trying to get the animals out. He helps Noel rescue the kitten declaring that
the animals deserve a home. Then
everyone around decides to pitch in and restore the shelter further enhancing
the special’s community theme. Not to mention, this finally brings about Noel’s
song, “Heart and Soul of Christmas.” It
sells the theme, its tune is memorable fits the tone of the setting, and Noel
writing the music on the shelter walls fits the creative process of real life
songwriters. This final sense of
community brings all plot points together so well, the following scene of
Melody having Noel and Dakota fill in for an injured Santa feels unneeded. Melody claims what he was doing was preparing
him for this role which makes sense. However, the neighborhood being united, Noel
getting his song, and the shelter pets getting homes feel like a more appropriate
end result. Still, the scene is full of
Christmas spirit which is appropriate after everything Noel learned throughout
the special. Further, it sells the power of the holiday that the Rankin/Bass
specials have been known to demonstrate.
The story itself may not be all that creative or grand enough
for what would ultimately be this company’s final special and can get a little
harsh at times. It still has enough good qualities to refer to it as a forgotten
gem. The sense of community is strong.
The music is catchy and fitting for the setting. The hand-drawn animation has
the same Rankin/Bass charm as well as modern refurbishments. Best of all everything
amounts to an impactful feeling of Christmas.
It’s a little sad that this final work is so unknown, but it really
leaves us wondering how different today’s Christmases would be if this
led to Rankin/Bass producing more specials.
Recommended
The Ranking
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
- The Year Without a Santa Claus
- Frosty the Snowman
- The Little Drummer Boy
- Jack Frost
- The Stingiest Man in Town
- Rudolph’s Shiny New Year
- Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
- The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
- Santa, Baby!
- Pinocchio’s Christmas
- The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow
- Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July
- ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
- Frosty’s Winter Wonderland
- The Little Drummer Boy Book II
- Cricket on the Hearth
- The Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold
Final Thoughts
Going through all the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials this
month has certainly been an enlightening experience to say the least. It’s intriguing to note how much respect
their work has for Christmas, covering nearly every aspect. They include figures in
the holiday's popular songs and stories, the lifestyle and origins of Santa Claus, the beauty
and fun of winter, traditions, and even the religious
aesthetics. Each work has
a special Christmas feeling that will forever give you a positive outlook on
the holiday from the environments to the storytelling and
characterization.
Many leads of the stories they tell are likable and often
times sympathetic. Given the pleasing, Christmassy designs of the worlds
they live in, following them all throughout is something to look forward
to. Enhancing what the main characters
go through is a clear sense of imagination. It's felt in the versatile side
characters, the ways customs of holiday figures move the
plot forward, and especially the use of music. Almost all these specials, even the weaker
ones, are easily masterful when it comes to music. The background orchestrations are grand and
immersive for all the scenes they convey whether they’re light-hearted, slow
and intimate, sad, or intense and threatening.
Not only that, but you’re practically guaranteed to walk away with many songs
of a special playing in your head. The
songs created specifically for certain specials have a lot of spirit
and energy in their craftsmanship. Plus, all established Christmas songs many specials are based upon have the perfect talent to perform them,
making their covers the first ones I think of.
Like with many great animated works, music brings
everything strong about these specials together in ways you can’t
describe any other way than Christmas.
One other strong aspect of these specials is that in addition to being
cute, fun, and Christmassy, they’re not afraid to resort to dark and
threatening measures to tell their stories.
A good number of these plots, especially for the earlier specials, put
many of our heroes into serious situations. They know that life, even in
Christmassy settings, isn’t all fun and happiness. We see characters excluded for their
differences by society, dealing with harsh opinions from outsiders, constantly
being threatened by death, and getting their whole worldviews altered by traumatic experiences such as losing parents.
When the hearts of the specials are truly in it, these dark moments are
in perfect balance with the cuter and happier moments, investing the audience
with a believable tone. In fact, the
darker aspects are what make the happier and pleasing moments of Christmas
impactful. Without them, the specials
would end up too light-hearted and not as immersive. They also help display powerful messages many
specials share. Themes include how those who are different can still make a significant
impact, the importance of putting aside your needs for your friends, how the spirit of Santa Claus will always exist as long as there's generosity and giving from everyone, and always
putting faith and trust in God even through endless hardships. Overall, these specials are not just genuine
feel-good Christmas treats. With their daring storytelling decisions and
powerful themes, they’re also impactful animated works worth making a tradition
of watching.
As much as I praise these Rankin/Bass specials, I have to
admit that only a select few are worth making traditions of watching. For all the amazing specials, this company
also have a fair number of specials that don’t stand out nearly as much. It doesn’t have to do with the animation
quality of the specials which, even in their great works, can get awkward in
motion and lack good lip sync at times. This is especially not a big deal since it
does become smoother and more stylized with every new special. It all has to do with the storytelling
quality. For starting out with such
daring specials so close together, it’s hard to believe that many others are
rather uneventful. These are cases where
the overall stories aren’t all that creative and feature mostly fun and safe moments without any heavier or darker moments they can
incorporate. As a result, those kinds of
specials aren’t nearly as spectacular.
Other times, the stories can be fueled by unbelievable mean-spiritedness
that can prevent you from getting all that invested. Such examples include Santa ignoring a whole town because one resident doesn’t believe, the protagonist having
questionable morality, or residents acting jerky for no
good reason. There are also specials
that are hard to take seriously as Christmas specials preventing them from the
status of “traditional” viewing. At times the holiday is barely mentioned, the
customs feel more fitting of another holiday, and background on a holiday
figure doesn’t always feel like a good fit.
These detracting factors are especially prevalent in the sequels to the
more popular specials, and I’m not preferring those produced by other studios.
Even the ones Rankin/Bass themselves made have significant issues. They have a tendency to have strong continuity in some areas, but show no regard to the very thing in others,
especially when attempts at giving depth to lore from the predecessors end up devaluing what made certain parts of what came before so powerful. Now, even if a number of Christmas specials
are noticeably stronger than others, in my eyes, none of them are bad. In fact, each of them are worth viewing for
one reason or another. Some could be for
wholesome bonds, certain stand-out characters and/or songs, the spirit of Christmas shining through despite all weak points. Basically, not all
Rankin/Bass specials will be ones that you’ll want to watch traditionally. However,
they’re all capable of leaving an impact in some way, further demonstrating how
much they embody the spirit of Christmas.
It may be apparent that some, but not all, Rankin/Bass Christmas specials are amazing works , but those that do turn out strong are practically ones Christmas wouldn't be the same without. For that,
they deserve to be called a household name at that special time of year,
whether they’re works loved the world over, or lesser known ones. So, be sure to keep the best of Rankin/Bass’
holiday repertoire playing every year and be sure to track down the highest
ranked specials you may not know. Most of all, never hesitate to share
them with many generations to come, for Christmas is synonymous with the one
and only Rankin/Bass.
Recommended
With that, my look at the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials has come to an end. It was great sharing my thoughts on them with you this holiday season as much as it was looking into them. Be sure to come back after the holiday for the next set of reviews, this time on the first season of a Netflix-animated series, Voltron: Legendary Defender. Until then:
Stay Animated Folks,
And Merry CHRISTMAS!
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