A Flintstone Family Christmas (1993)

The Flintstones is one of my favorite TV shows and Christmas is by far my favorite time of the year. Because of this it should be no surprise that have a fondness for Christmas specials starring my favorite stone age family. The Flintstones Family Christmas is no exception.

In this half hour made for TV short film, Fred and Wilma help take care of a caveless little boy named Stony. Because of his rough life Stony has started an early life of crime. Fred is at first apprehensive about taking care of a young criminal, but learns to care about the kid. The kid though learns the spirit of Christmas.

Ok this plot kind of sounds like a bad PSA. However it really isn't. There is plenty of classic Flintstones humor, and like the original show, much of that humor is more aimed at adults than kids (the all cave girl network, don't slow dance with someone named Bubba). Also this special has some real heart. As I stated before I think that sentiment after times is more effective in films when attached to Christmas and this is true here. Fred learning to like the kid never feels forced, and comes quite naturally. As does Stony's reformation. Fred's love of Christmas feels genuine as well. Of course the fact that we already love Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty helps make this work even better.

This short was directed by Ray Patterson. Ray had been working with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera since the 1943 Tom and Jerry short Baby Puss (he was an animator). Though his career started at Disney (he was an animator on Fantasia and Dumbo) he would spend most of his career with Bill and Joe, both as an animator and a director. Speaking of animation, the animators on this film included none of the classic Hanna-Barbera animators, as it was animated overseas by Fil Cartoons INC. (from the Philippines). Unfortunately because of this it is hard not only to find out who animated what, but even who all the animators were. However they did a pretty good job with this film.

Since Allan Reed, Mel Blanc and Gerry Johnson had passed by the time this film was made, Fred was voiced by Henry Cordon, Barney was voiced by Frank Welker (Hanna-Barbera fans probably know him best for voicing Fred in Scooby Doo, Where Are You?.) and Betty was voiced by B.J. Ward. Wilma was still voiced by her original voice Jean Vander Ply.

Overall a delightful little film.

So this is my last Michael's Christmas Movie Guide post for this year, but I will be back next year to write about more great Christmas films. I even saved some masterpieces of Christmas film history to talk about next year. So stick around. Christmas has always meant a lot to me and been very kind to me. Here's hoping it is just as kind to you. So spend time with those you love and make more great Christmas memories (I know I will). This is the best time of the year so god bless you all and have a very merry Christmas.

Love,
Michael J. Ruhland

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Christmas Vacation is a winner on every level. It is not only a very funny movie, but it is also surprisingly heartwarming and full of Christmas spirit.

The story centers around Clark Griswold (played by Chevy Chase), his wife (played Beverly D'Angelo), son (played by Johnny Galecki), and daughter (played by Juliette Lewis). Clark tries everything to make this the best Christmas ever for all of them. However as more family visits and everything that can go wrong goes wrong, this makes it a much harder task than he thought.

John Hughes had written a Christmas story for the magazine National Lampoon. Executive producer Matty Simmons, loved this story and wanted to make a movie based off it. After the success of National Lampoon's Vacation, he wanted this to be the next vacation movie. It took several years of pitching to get Warner Brothers sold on the idea and European Vacation  was made before this. When it was final sold, John Hughes (who also produced this movie) was working on Uncle Buck. Because understandably Warner Brothers wanted the film released by Christmas time, shooting began three days after Uncle Buck was completed.

Christmas Vacation was the first feature film directed by Jeremiah Chechik, who had worked on TV commercials before. He would later direct Benny and Joon. This was definitely a fantastic debut.

For the scene with the squirrel in the tree, a animal trainer and a trained squirrel were brought in. However the squirrel died before the shoot (Animal Trainer: Ya know, they don't live that long). Because of this an untrained squirrel was used. The director for some reason recalled this being a chaotic day of shooting. Diane Ladd, who played Clark's mother remembered the director telling her to get closer to the squirrel, and the animal trainer telling her to stay as far away from it as she could.

This film is fantastic. It is very funny. The humor is timed perfectly and will never date. What makes the comedy work is that it comes from simple understandable situations. It may go over the top, but it always has a foundation in our own Christmas memories. Because of this the film is pure Christmas. It is impossible for me to watching this film without remembering my own Christmas memories.

By the way for my fellow cartoon fans, Aunt Betheny is played by Mae Questel, who was the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl for many years.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/untold-story-of-national-lampoons-christmas-vacation-20141222

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Okay, okay, this is not exactly a Christmas movie, but it is a Christmas tradition for me. Besides it brought us the amazing song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which has deservedly become a Christmas standard.

The story of the film is extremely simple. The Smith family lives in St. Louis and loves it there. Esther (played by Judy Garland) is in love with John Truett, the boy next door (played by Tom Drake). Rose (played by Lucille Bremer) is in love with Warren Sheffield (played by Robert Sully), but he has trouble proposing to her. Meanwhile Tootie (played by Margret O'Brien) gets in as much trouble as humanly possible. The father (played by Leon Ames) gets a chance to be promoted, but he must move to New York. The whole family is naturally very upset about this.

This film was directed by one of MGM's best directors of musical films, Vincente Minnelli, who also directed such classics as Cabin in the Sky, The Pirate and An American in Paris. He would also direct such great non-musical movies as The Long Long Trailer, Lust For Life and I Dood It. This film began his romance with the film's star Judy Garland. It was the first film they worked on together and they fell deeply in love. They married the next year and the year after that they gave birth to a daughter Liza Minnelli. Intrestingly Judy Garland almost didn't do the movie because, she didn't want to be typecast.

Despite how tight and simple this movie feels, things had to be cut out. In an early draft a subplot about Esther getting blackmailed existed. There was also a song called Boys and Girls Like You and Me that was actually shot for the film but later cut. This song came directly after The Trolley Song.

The songs for this movie were written by Ralph Blaine and Hugh Martin. The song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas originally had darker lyrics. These included "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last". Judy Garland felt it was horribly to sing this to such a small child as Tootie and that Esther should try to cheer her up with this song. The song writers listened and came up with the lyrics that remain in the film (and all the subsequent recordings). Speaking of the songs my fellow Tom and Jerry fans will recognize The Trolley Song, even if they had never seen this movie and that is because Scott Bradley, who did the scores for Tom and Jerry films, used the song as background music in those cartoons often (since they were also made for MGM).

This film is incredible good. The songs are fantastic, the performances are great, the story is very good and just everything works about this film. Along with the great music and romance, this film also stands up so well because of the characters and humor. The scenes with Tootie talking about her dead dolls, never fail to make me laugh. The characters here feel real and far from the movie stereotypes they could have easily been. When the films over I almost feel sad to leave these characters. Overall this film just has an amazing charm that to me is irresistible.

Meet Me in St. Louis became a huge hit both critically and at the box office. It remains as much of a classic today as it did in 1944.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/310/Meet-Me-in-St-Louis/articles.html

Toy Tinkers (1949)

Most Disney histories while having a very detailed history of the short cartoons made before the Disney features, skip over many of the animated short films made after the studio's first feature, and this is unfortunate because so many of these cartoons are great films in their own right. One of my favorite of these cartoons is the Donald Duck film Toy Tinkers.

This cartoon was directed by Jack Hannah. At this time there were three main directors for Disney short cartoons. These directors were Jack Kinney, Charles Nicholas, and Jack Hannah. While they directed for other characters as well, each had a character they can be more associated with then others. Jack Kinney worked heavily with Goofy, Charles Nicholas worked most with Pluto and Jack Hannah was associated with Donald Duck. Jack Kinney and Jack Hannah were very important directors who signaled a huge change in the style of Disney shorts. As Warner Brothers and MGM were now making the most popular cartoon shorts (just as Disney made the most popular of the 1930's) Kinney and Hannah were able to add this new fast paced chaotic cartoon style of humor, while still having the cartoons remain pure Disney, something very evident in this film.

Two more characters Jack Hannah grew to be associated with are Chip and Dale. Though these two had first appeared in a 1943 Clyde Geronimi directed cartoon called Private Pluto, most of their films were directed by Hannah. This began with the duo's second cartoon short released 3 years later called Squatter's Rights. Though this cartoon paired the two with Mickey and Pluto, the next year Hannah would team them with Donald in Chip an' Dale. The three characters worked perfectly together, and Hannah would make more films where he pit Donald against Chip and Dale, Toy Tinkers being one of them.

The cartoon begins as Donald unknowingly chops down Chip and Dale's home for his Christmas tree. As they follow Donald in they see Donald enjoying some nuts. Chip and Dale sneak into Donald's house to get some nuts for themselves. This leads to a slapstick battle between the three using toys under the Christmas tree.

This cartoon is laugh out loud funny. The slapstick is spot on and timed perfectly. Every joke works and they are all very funny. The humor is also displayed perfectly through the great character animation one should expect form a Disney cartoon. While Disney cartoons are often called sweet and cute in contrast to the hilarious antics at studios like Warner Brothers and MGM, the Disney studio could make slapstick cartoons as great as the rest of them (this is not an insult to Warner Brothers and MGM as I love there cartoons a lot as well). This stands as one of Disney's funniest shorts (a joke involving a telephone never fails to make me laugh out loud).

The animators on this film were Bob Carlson, Volus Jones and Bill Justice. All three of them worked on many Jack Hannah shorts. Bill Justice and Bob Carson also animated on various Disney animated features as well, such as Peter Pan, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, Fantasia and Pinocchio. However Volus Jones only worked on shorts.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used 
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041978/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt


  

A Christmas Tale (2008)

We all have a preconceptions of what a Christmas movie is. We usually think of it as something optimistic, simple and heartwarming. Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale is none of those things. The characters are not always likable, many points of the film are pretty pessimistic, and the story is not told in a traditional manner. Heck this movie even contains quotes from Neizche's On the Geneaology of Morality. This film is purely a French art film, and far from a Hollywood Christmas movie. However this film has a unique beauty all it's own.

The story involves the Vuillard family. After Junon (played by Catherine Deneuve) the grandmother of the family needs a bone marrow transplant. This happens just in time for the family to get together for Christmas. Two members of the family have the same blood type as Junon. These are the mental ill teenager Paul (played by Emile Berling) and Henri (played by Mathieu Amalric), her son. Paul is afraid that a blood transfer might reveal weather or not Claude (played by Hippolyte Girardot) is his real father. Meanwhile Slyvia (played by Chiara Mastroianna) finds out that along with her husband Ivan (played by Melvil Populaud), Henri and Simon (played by Laurent Capelluto) liked her as well and they decided Ivan should be the one to have her, this leads to an affair between Slyvia and Simon.

This story doesn't sound like your typical Christmas movie and it isn't. However what it is is a beautiful and thought provoking portirit of the type of family you don't see often in movies center around thid time of year. It is also a study of life and death. Well this may sound like  movie that has a lot of art but little entertainment that is not completely true. Moments such as the kids' play and a very akward giving of grace are actaully quite funny and add a nice contrast with the more serious and philosphical scenes. However this does not make the philosphical scenes any less profound or moving. It is clear that screenwriters Arnaud Desplechin (also the film's director) and Emmanuel Bourdieu (who also cowrote My Sex Life...or How I Got Into an Argument with Desplechin (Desplechian also directed that film) really were passionate about what they were writing. Add to this a great score by Mike Kourtzer, outstanding cinematography by Eric Gautier and great performances by the whole cast and you have got an amazing film.

This film is an incredible experince and one of the best Christmas movies and recent years.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Yogi's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper (1982)

I have stated before how much I love Hanna-Barbera cartoons and because of this just seeing all the characters together just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. This is completely true of Yogi's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper (long title isn't it). This made for TV short film includes more characters in it that most of the Hanna-Barbera feature films that combined characters, and it does it in a charming way. Of course this film revolving around my favorite time of year doesn't hurt at all.

The story of this film begins when Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Hokey Wolf, Snooper, Blabber, Augie Doggie and Augie Daddy decide to visit Jellystone to spend Christmas with their good friends Yogi Bear and Boo Boo. However once they arrive they discover Yogi and Boo Boo have gone to the big city to see them. While in the big city Yogi and Boo Boo meet a little girl who is running away from home. Her rich father loves her but has always been to busy to spend time with her. Yogi and Boo Boo befriend the little girl, but also want to bring her back home. After finding out her name is Judy Jones, they think they simply have to find where the Joneses live in town. They happen to quickly find out that there are many many Joneses in town. Their friends find the trio and help Yogi and Boo Boo find out which Joneses she belongs to.

The story may sound cliché and it is. However this cartoon works very well because the characters are so likable they make it work. Also the humor is often quite good and there aren't any jokes that fall flat (a laugh out loud moment involving a cameo by Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble that is fantastic). The sentiment is never too sugary as it easy could be, and this is again because the characters and the humor are so good. 

This film was directed by Steve Lumley, who also directed two other Hanna-Barbera made for TV films (both features), The Secret World of Og and The Bunjee Venture. He had been working at Hanna-Barbera as a layout supervisor since 1972. The writer was Mark Evanier, who may be better known for being one of the main writers for Garfield and Friends. The animators on this film were Sue Beak, Chris Dawson, Chris Codington, Dick Dunn, Peter Gardiner, Greg Ingram, John Martin, Henry Nevilleand Mike Stapleton. These were mostly a new wave of animators for the studio, none of them had worked with the studio since the beginning. The furthest back any of them worked for Hanna-Barbera was 1970 (Chris Cuddinton and Peter Gardiner (both started on the made for TV movie A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).

-Michael J. Ruhland        

Santa's Workshop (1932)

Anyone who reads my blogs, probably knows how much I love Disney features. After all I write a blog called The Feature Films of Walt Disney. However my passion for Disney is by no means just for the features. I love the short films just as much. This is especially true of the short cartoons from the 1930's. And since this is Walt's 115th birthday what better time to write about one of these great shorts. Since it is also the Christmas season, why not write about a Santa's Workshop, one of my favorite Silly Symphonies.

This film was the fourth color Silly Symphony. The first was Flowers and Trees released earlier the same year. That cartoon became such a huge hit that afterwards all Silly Symphonies would be in color.

This film was directed by Wilfred Jackson one of the best Disney directors at this time. He had directed such previous Disney shorts as The Fox Hunt, The Ugly Duckling, The Whoopee Party, The Spider and the Fly and Mickey's Follies.

This cartoon went through the assembly line very quickly. The story was completed in September 1932, and by October animation had already begun. The film was released on December 10th of the same year. Despite this the cartoon maintained a high quality. The animation was fantastic, the story was sweet and simple, and the humor was really good. On top of this the film just has a great sense of energy that is a joy to watch.

The story is very simple. Here Santa and his elves get ready for the Christmas Eve flight.

The animators on this cartoon include Les Clark, Art Babbitt, Norm Ferguson, Tom Palmer, Ben Sharpsteen, Jack King, Fred Moore, Eddie Donnelly, Jack Kinney, Ed Love, Clyde Germoni, Nick George, Jack Cutting, Joe D'Igalo, Marvin Woodward, Dick Williams, Harry Reeves, Louie Schmidt, Paul Fennel, George Drake, and Chuck Couch. The animators were not yet assigned specifically to characters as would be common in later Disney animation. For instance Santa is animated by Norm Ferguson when he is reading his list, by Jack King when checking the dolls, by Clyde Germoni when marching out the door, by Eddie Donnell when saying goodbye and by Louie Schmidt when flying off into the night. The only character to be handled by one animator was the bookkeeping elf, who was animated by Tom Palmer. Art Babbitt's scenes of the elves taking care of the reindeer are great examples of the animator at his best. In fact Art Babbitt and Norm Ferguson are probably the two animators whose work in this film would be most recognizable to Disney buffs familiar with their animators as both are completely in their element here and their work looks like them. Despite this every animator does a fantastic job in this cartoon and the whole film is lovely to look at.

Overall this is a fantastic cartoon, showing the Disney studio was at the top of their game before they ever made a feature. By the way listen to hear an elf voiced by Walt himself.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/disneys-santa-workshop-1932/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023422/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1