On December 6, 1964, Americans settled down in front of their televisions for what they didn’t know would become an essential part of holiday culture. Animated holiday specials were nothing new, but this was something a little different, something a little weird.
Rankin/Bass Productions hired a Japanese animation studio to produce an adaptation of the classic Christmas song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” using a revolutionary technique called “Animagic”, a form of stop-motion photography in which figures made of wood and plastic are photographed one frame at a time. The results were odd, jerky, some might even say creepy. Yet, it’s a look that has become as essential to Christmas in America as presents under the tree, ugly sweaters and dads falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon.
By the time Christmas 1970 rolled around, the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials were already a staple of ABC’s holiday lineup. Their newest special was an adaptation of the Depression-era classic “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”, a pretty straightforward song laying out the rules of how Santa Claus works for children who ask too many questions.
How, you may be asking, did the filmmakers turn this two-minute song into a 51-minute feature-length film? By taking every word and line of this simple children’s song and interpreting it into a piece of lore so obscure it would make even the most hardcore comic book fan’s head spin. It makes perfect sense, if you think about it. On a literary level, Santa Claus is ultimately a superhero, a mythical demi-god. And while this film at times makes you feel like you’re watching Looney Tunes after ingesting hallucinogens, it reveals a lot about the world it comes from. Watching Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, you can’t help but see a connection between the Depression-era America that inspired it, the global paranoia of the 1970s, and whatever the hell this is that we’re living through now.
Get in the sled, losers. We’re doing film analysis.