Guh. Buck Rogers

Santa Claus
(not to be confused with Santa Clausewitz, the seasonal military strategist)

Nope.

The Lone Ranger?

Bob Hope?

Jonathan, that guess belongs to Scott.

And...no. To the Lone Ranger as well.

Rudolph, the Red-nosed [strike]alcoholic[/strike] reindeer.

Peter (of "and the wolf")?

>Jonathan, that guess belongs to Scott.

I know, but he hasn't regained consciousness yet and still smells of egg nog.

Gollum?

Nothing yet...I'm off to the company pagan-solstice-feast in a few minutes, so more clues will have to come later, so...

Andy Griffith and Jimmy Durante have also narrated his adventures.

Paul Bunyan. Who blew the ox babe.

B.J. Stryker.

Kermit the frog?

Johnny Appleseed?

Gay Cowboys from Brokeback Mountain?

Buffalo Bill?

Butch Cassidy?

Robin Hood?

Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Hannibal Lechter.

As in: "MIES VAN DER RHOE, I HANNIBAL LECTURE YOU!!!"

Zorro.

Man, they better have gotten Jamie Farr for the "Cannonball" prequel or I'm boycotting.

frosty le snowman?

dirk diggler?

Holden Caulfield?

(The Winters one is my favorite.)

Anyone seen the rest of Mies Van Der Rohe's face?

Meantime, um, Scarlet Pimpernel?

(In the previous post I put a bunch of "m"s at the end of um, to indicate a long pause, and the post was rejected because the "m"s meant I am clearly a robot! Awesome!)

LOL no, this is not a virus

As the S.P. would say, "Sink me."

My money's on Scrooge.

Although "Gay Cowboys from Brokeback Mountain?" is my personal favorite answer to this or indeed any question, Art nabs the prize by recalling this dreadful Xmas tune (written for Autry in 1950, after he had scored a blockbuster hit with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer") and the apparently endless series of uninspired animated specials that it later inspired. Rankin-Bass had already adapted "Rudolph" in 1964, and they returned to the same screenwriter for the adaptation of Frosty, but went with a different and more conventional animation style than the stop-motion animation that made Rudolph so famous.

This was a fatal move, aesthetically, since once you go to flat animation, you've lost anything other than the stinkeroo of a story. And what a rotting sardine it is! Professor Hinkle? Karen? Hocus Pocus the bleeding rabbit? And the main guy himself is, quite literally, a drip. Even with a bona-fide legend on hand -- Durante narrates -- the thin quality of the whole production is obvious.

It's interesting to note that by contrast the other famous Rankin-Bass specials have quite a few nice touches -- the Burgomeister and the whole imprisonment drama in Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and the Island of Misfit Toys and Abominable Snowman in Rudolph. All very satisfying in terms of drama, and they all make for memorable visuals.

Would "Frosty" have been saved if R-B had gone for the stop-motion approach there, too? I doubt it. I think the script was simply too weak. And I'll note that the bar for well-written Christmas specials had already been raised by 1965, when A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired. So there's no excuse at this point for the undercooked mess that is Frosty.

Anyway, the lameness apparently didn't stop Rankin-Bass from attempting to stretch the already insipid stew a bit further: Frosty's Winter Wonderland (narrated by Andy G.), the baroquely plotted Frosty and Rudolph's Christmas in July, Frosty Returns (Jonathan Winters), and finally The Legend of Frosty the Snowman, featuring a singing Burt Reynolds.

I quote from the Wikipedia summary of the plot: "Increasingly desperate to deny the existence of Frosty and keep Evergreen magic-free, Principal Pankley tricks Walter Wader into helping him lure Frosty for some ice-skating fun, then tricks Frosty into venturing onto thin ice."

That's enough -- I think you get the idea. Anyway, congratulations, Art!

Well, congrats to Art, and I feel pretty stupid, first for having missed it, then the Pimpernell incident.
Frosty (and Rudolph, and the Little Drummer Boy, et al.) were written by a friend of my family, Romeo Muller. As a boy in High Falls, NY, I knew him as a big friendly man who drove a Cadillac convertible and had written Rudolph. Visually, this was a bit of a leap, since no one ever saw his face associated with the art as they did Walt Disney, and it wasn't like he had Rudolph painted on the side of his car or handed out Rudolph stickers.
For what seemed like several years but for all I know was one summer or two, he showed his collection of films on Saturday nights in the firehouse, charging a quarter to see Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or some avant garde stuff (I remember a piece that I think was Alexander Calder playing with a circus of wire-frame figures). It was cool, but he got flak from some copyright holders and stopped. We moved to the next town and I rarely saw him after the early '70s. He died in 1992. I agree with Bill that Frosty in retrospect has problems, but at the time I didn't care. He had some other clinkers, but overall he had the knack.
http://www.rankinbass.com/romeo1.html

...so, now I've gone and crapped upon the good name of Jonathan's childhood friend.

The Wombat will be spending the weekend wearing the appropriately scratchy hairshirt.

Excellent story, Jonathan. However, when I was back in the US last holiday season, I caught Frosty on TV (in a fit of nostalgia) and was impressed at just how badly it sucked (Bill's reference to its flatness, visually and dramatically, is apt). Still, the song was a fave way back when, so let's honor the memory of your childhood hero. Pass the hairshirt.

Thin story!? It parallels the Christian Messiah (Frosty as the Christ, Santa as the Father)!

The animation is bad, but the original Frosty special's story is among the most compelling in the genre.

Romeo Muller was a great writer.

It's weird, too, how in a sequel (the one with John Goodman as Frosty's voice) the story parallels the second coming, with Frosty ending up being throned after defeating Satan/the snow-removal guy.

Does everyone know Romeo Muller?? I have a friend whose brother's girlfriend was Romeo's neice. Is there a more close connection? And, by the way, I am fond of Karen of Frosty fame just because.

make that niece...or whatever you want.

The Wombat File -- where the christ-figures of your childhood are slandered by a boring old coot.

Could you do Aslan next?

I think Pullman already did that one, Scott...

http://books.guardian.co.uk/guardianhayfestival2002/story/0,11873,726818,00.html