I know I’ve posted this before but how many new readers check the archives for Christmas Spotlight? Rankin/Bass’ Twas The Night Before Christmas is one of those specials that fall under the radar. A smart alec mouse ruins Christmas for mice and humans alike in his small village when he gets them all on Santa’s bad side, and one clockmaker’s attempt to undo the damage and save Christmas. It’s one of their animated specials but it’s one I always enjoyed as a kid back when it aired on CBS. Hopefully you and your kids will, too.
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia from the Christmas Special Wiki (because of course there’s a Wiki for Christmas specials:
Junctionville, New York is a fictional community meant to honor author Clement Moore, who was born in New York. It is apparently a seaside community, as one little boy is shown sitting on a sea stack throwing a drawing of Santa into the ocean. The maritime nature of Junctionville may have been based on Newport, Rhode Island, where Clement Moore died.
It’s hard to fit all of the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials into one continuity because they didn’t really think about it, although we do know that the animated specials can be linked to some form of canon thanks to the Frosty/Rudolph theatrical crossover movie. That said, the lack of Rudolph (in keeping with the classic poem read at the end, so this special technically has TWO narrators) puts this before Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer at least. Yep, I’m one of those schmucks who thinks about things like that.
There is an official release for this special on DVD and Blu-Ray (and those are admittedly Amazon affiliate links, but I only do that for things I support), and it’s one you should consider adding to your Christmas media library.
BW Media Spotlight 