Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published
Ask people of a certain generation to name iconic Christmas movies. Most of them will talk about the 1964 stop-motion classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Anyway, while those are famous for their annual broadcasts (and yes, before the broadcasts, we were waiting to see the show at the same time in the year it aired), there is another Christmas special that is less popular, but still a classic. . A Claymation Christmas Celebrationanother stop-motion TV special full of musical numbers, and most notably, California Raisins, which first aired in 1987 and became a new generation favorite.
Claymation music
Created by the talented actor Will Vinton, A Claymation Christmas Celebration it begins with its dinosaur athletes, Rex and Herb, and introduces the ongoing joke of the two arguing over how to pronounce “wassailing.” Then they introduced a variety of musical numbers, including anthropomorphic bells singing “Carol of the Bells,” a pair of walruses skating to “Angels We Heard Above,” and two cheerleaders, “We Three Kings” mixing a classic. by the R&B camels, then “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as performed by California Raisins.
The off-kilter stop-motion shows are measured in “O Christmas Tree,” the camera pans over various decorations to show celebrations around the world, and “Joy to the World,” which doesn't stop moving and is instead a series of beautiful, moving paintings. Every sequence is someone's favorite, and the conflict between Rex and Herb that bookends each episode finally pays off in the end. However, it is obvious that A Claymation Christmas Celebration it is greater than the sum of its parts.
From Marketing Campaign to Ordinary Christmas
California Raisins was a marketing gimmick for Sun-Maid, bursting into pop culture with a cover of “I Heard it Through the Grape-Vine,” but there was something about it that resonated with people, leading to sales of Raisins, albums, and . many television specials. Will Vinton, creator of Raisins, will go on to create the M&Ms mascots, the Noid, and PJsamong many others. It comes one year after the first Raisins, A Claymation Christmas Celebration earned Vinton one of his many Primetime Emmy Awards for animation, a category he held for the next ten years.
Great result A Claymation Christmas Celebration it was California Raisins, and while it was created by an ad agency to appeal to the masses, it fits in among all the other animated creatures. Some of them were always my favorite when I was a kid, but now, I can't pick one favorite, as each one of them has good things about them, even “Joy to the World,” which wasn't my favorite when I was growing up because it didn't have any. have any clay.
A Claymation Christmas Celebration was released on DVD back in 2003, and to date, that is the latest release of the TV special in a physical format. As for streaming, exclusives are no longer available, even YouTube uploads are constantly decreasing. It's a shame that the special, one of the best examples of stop-motion of the 80s, has become like many projects of The Muppets, lost to the media because it deserves to be watched every Christmas.
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