Somewhere in my Memory: CHRISTMAS CARTOON CLASSICS!
Christmas is the only holiday specifically built off the backs of memories.
Sure, everyone has memories of all kinds of different seasonal occasions. I can remember several Halloween costumes I wore as a kid, and there are a bunch of July 4th memories I look back on fondly. Of course, I’ll never forget the plethora of Bastille Day parties I attended in college. But it feels like Christmas is the one holiday where the building of memory and tradition are actively the point, as opposed to merely a lovely side effect. The creation of traditions, both old and new, over the course of a lifetime means that almost anything Christmas-related can trigger a memory, even some you forgot you had.
I mention this because I discovered a YouTube upload of a collection of classic Christmas cartoons, cleverly titled “Christmas Cartoon Classics”, a random hodgepodge of toons from the 30s, 40s and 50s, most of them a creation of either Dave or Max Fleischer. At a glance, this collection would seem to be something that time had completely passed by, a series of old and depressing herky-jerky cartoons with stilted voiceovers and odd pacing, a YouTube upload that is meant purely as nostalgic bait for old people and nothing more.
I think this is probably a fair assessment. The reason I think this is because if my grandfather were still alive, he’d be baited by this particular nostalgia, hook, line and sinker. As it happens, “Christmas Cartoon Classics” was a VHS that my grandparents readily had on hand, and it was a fundamental cornerstone of my Christmas experience growing up.
(When I say VHS, by the way, that most likely meant a bootleg copy that was essentially “stolen” from the video store. My grandma owned two VCRs and had developed a habit of putting a rented video in one and a blank cassette in the other. Hit “play” on VCR One, and “record” on VCR Two, then repeat over the course of ten or fifteen years, and you have yourself a pretty impressive library. This was likely against some law, but she’s since passed away, so good luck prosecuting, biiiitch.)
For whatever reason, my grandfather fucking loved “Christmas Cartoon Classics”, and one segment in particular: “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”, where Grampy from BETTY BOOP saves Christmas for a whole building full of destitute orphans. If that sounds like an intense and vaguely strange premise (why exactly does it star a side character from another cartoon?), well, a couple of things:
Basically every single cartoon in this collection has a premise along those lines
This particular cartoon manages to be heartwarming BECAUSE it leans into the darkness.
We’ll talk about both 1 and 2 in a second, because I did end up recently watching the whole “Christmas Cartoon Classics” collection over the course of a day or two, and I had a good time both enjoying the cartoons I remembered, and being baffled by the ones that I didn’t. If I may, I’d like to just talk through it both as a way to get a Christmas article up and to reflect on a collection that managed to every single year warm the heart of my grandfather, one of the more surprising people I ever knew.
To the collection!
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I thought about just going through each cartoon and writing a little blurb, but I decided against it for a couple of reasons. For one, as mentioned, there is admittedly a bit of a sameness to the dozen or so cartoons in the collection. In general, the stories star a kid or animal whose Christmas is endangered, either through hubris or (more often) poverty, until a saintly stranger comes around to save the day. Some are really good, some are schmaltzy, and all have at least some air of creativity to them. I just envisioned myself writing “this one is another depressing entry with the Great Depression on its mind!” over and over. No fun.
For two, the main event (at least for me), “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”, is placed smack-dab in the middle of the collection, which seemed like it would be making for an anti-climactic article, especially since, for three, as often as this collection was on at my grandma’s house….I don’t think I’ve ever actually watched the last half of this before? We’ll talk about that too!
So, instead, I wanted to reflect on a couple of common characteristics among these twelve cartoons. For instance, they truly are weird, and not always in obvious ways. Take “Hector’s Hectic Life”, the only-lightly Christmas themed short starring a dog named Hector, who is left three puppies on the doorstep, and must keep them away from the lady of the household, who will throw him out if one more mess is made. The name “Hector” is in the title, the dog is clearly the lead of the short, every indication is there that this dog is named Hector.
It shocked me to my core, then, when it’s revealed the dog’s name is actually “Princie”. His owner calls him “Princie”. In a fantasy, Santa gives him a gift addressed to him as “Princie”. So who is “Hector”? It’s never explained and, frankly, there are no other options. As far as I can tell, Hector/Princie never appeared in another cartoon, so we can only speculate. My guess is that the title “Hector’s Hectic Life” was a late addition, but who knows.
Then there’s Mr. Piper, a live action creation who sets up one of the cartoons (“The Tale of the Tin Soldier”) and appears at the end to wish us a Merry Christmas or something, I didn’t really hold onto it because the mere presence of Mr. Piper really threw me. I looked it up later and Mr. Piper was the host of a self-titled Canadian series, and he was played by Canadian opera singer Alan Crofoot. I’m sure Mr. Crofoot was a nice guy, but his presence bumped me so hard after an hour of Fleischer cartoons. The footage is grainy and bad, his singing voice is overly sincere, I’m not certain why they felt the need to even keep his intro or outro in this collection…sorry, Mr. Piper, I wasn’t into you. It’s not you, it’s me.
The strangest one of all is “Hardrock, Coco, and Joe”, the three-minute tale of Santa’s three dwarf helpers, named…well, you can guess. It’s the kind of short that feels like it was created to build around a novelty song. This song in particular appears to have a very specific punchline; when the elves sing their names, Hardrock and Coco sing in a relatively higher-pitched voice, while Joe sings in a deep male bass. Didn’t see that coming, eh? I do not know why their names were selected, nor why Santa appears to be an unfortunate Asian stereotype. All in all, I prefer the Robert Smigel version of the song.
Speaking of stereotypes, “Cartoon Christmas Classics” is unfortunately kind of chockful of them, although they sometimes manifest themselves in odd and unusual ways. “Santa’s Surprise” serves as a good example, where classic cartoon character Little Audrey collects a bunch of kids from around the world, to provide Santa a happy Christmas as payback for all he’s done for them. There’s a kid from Africa, from Hawaii, from Denmark, from China…you get the idea. This is handled with the same amount of nimbleness you’d expect from a cartoon made in 1947; just as an example, the Chinese child does Santa’s laundry. On the other hand, the only kid who’s actively portrayed as kind of a dummy is the lily-white Dutch kid. Progress?
Anyway, I’m not here to tell people how to feel about racial stereotypes. My endless note about old media is that it’s just always a possibility that watching something from the 30’s, 40’s, 50s and beyond will lead to something racially uncomfortable, in the same way that watching a comedy from the 00’s will often result in a homophobic sequence or so. Whether the overall artistry can triumph over this kind of stuff is up to the individual.
To this individual, the artistry is the champion here all throughout “Christmas Cartoon Classics”. The Fleischer style of animation can sometimes be abrasive (the faces can be really stern and scary sometimes), but the fluidity and creativity is so satisfying to watch, that it’s no wonder so many future animators drew inspiration from their work. The video game “Cuphead” and the recent Cartoon Network classic “Over the Garden Wall” would never be the same with the Flesicher “rotoscoping” technique (the tracing over of motion picture footage to create animation) that’s so on display throughout this collection. It’s what made their Superman and Popeye cartoons instant classic, but it’s a testament to their craft that even these admittedly B-tier shorts are always visually engaging.
“Christmas Cartoon Classics” are also often really clever and witty! As an example, “Snow Foolin’” is a more winter-themed short (this one not by the Fleischers) that is just gag after gag after gag, featuring anthropomorphized forest animals dealing with the season changes. Everyone grabs their winter coats, but someone actually gets the skunk’s, much to their chagrin. A pig makes a figure 8 in the ice, while a stork does the same by making two 4’s. You get the idea. They’re not all winners, but you get a ton in just 6 or 8 minutes, an impressive feat considering the short also features a long sing-along of “Jingle Bells”.
There’s a lot of stuff like that throughout the collection, especially in the first half, which had stuck with me waaaaay more than I had thought possible after something like 25 years. I was remembering things a split-second before they happened. You can imagine my surprise, then, when nothing seemed familiar after the 45 minute mark. Seriously, as soon as I got done with “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”, I recognized almost nothing that unfolded. I have to assume this is more a case of the second half not being part of my grandmother’s bootleg video, rather than me just forgetting about them. Believe me, the second half cartoons are wild; there’s no chance I’d lose these from my mind. Besides Mr. Piper, the second half also features “The Candlemaker”, a hideously depressing (and long) short about the son of a…well, candlemaker, who makes candles for the church in his father’s absence, but fucks them up because he was too busy screwing around with his pet mouse. Thus, the lesson of Christian stewardship is learned. If this sounds like church propaganda, it absolutely literally is, this time brought to us by the Lutherans. Maybe that’s why my grandma stopped recording.
But that’s okay. “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” makes for a fitting finale anyway. Let’s talk about it!
As mentioned before, many of the protagonists within the collection are children, although in one (“Jack Frost”) our lead is a baby bear. They typically have little to their name, and are doomed to a lousy Christmas, with either busted presents, minimal food, or literally just nowhere to go. Thankfully, a jolly savior inevitably swoops in to save the day. It could be Grampy, it could be a kindly baker (such as in the gorgeous “Somewhere in Dreamland”); in one instance (“The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives”), it’s Santa Claus himself.
I think the relevance of this is obvious. These cartoons were developed and created either directly during the American Great Depression or not long after. The devastating economic downturn created a lot of lonely, hungry, destitute people. In that sense, many of these Christmas cartoons are pseudo-fairy tales. Yes, children are starving, are having to lie to their mother that they’ve had enough, and can only dream of a better life. But, at Christmas, the kindness of strangers can come through. What happens on December 26th, when everyone inevitably returns to their crummy life, is neither discussed nor disclosed. It doesn’t matter; what matters is what happens on December 25th, the most magical day of the year.
All this is probably why my grandfather was so taken by “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”. It’s everything good about the collection in microcosm. It leans into the darkness; it takes place at an orphanage on Christmas Day, and the first half depicts the children trying to play with their shoddy presents, and watching every single last one break or shatter as the kids go back to their bedroom to cry. It’s animated beautifully; the early camera turn into the orphanage is an especially nifty effect. It’s filled almost exclusively with clever ideas; Grampy, ever the inventor, sneaks into the orphanage to start creating new toys for the kids using only the household and kitchen items he already has on hand. As the kids enjoy their new bespoke gifts, it’s hard to choose a favorite. For me, though, it’s the toy train made up of a china set and coffee pot.
Oh, and it has a catchy tune. Growing up, I knew we had arrived at the holidays when my grandfather started singing the refrain of “Christmas comes but once a year/now it’s here/now it’s here” around the house. And, man, at the end, when Grampy creates a Christmas tree out of umbrellas and the song kicks in with full gusto…it’s cathartic in a way that’s hard to explain. Because the short isn’t afraid to depict darkness, it fully earns its light.
And that’s what Christmas is all about.