I’ve been meaning to revisit a Rankin-Bass (yes, of The Hobbit animated film fame!) classic stop-motion film, “The Year Without a Santa Claus” (1974). I grew up on it, and now I can share it with my daughter because she’s of an age at which it now won’t scare the shit out of her. Rankin-Bass also did that uber-classic Crimbo flick with Rudolph and the Abominable Snowman– they knew how to handle cold-themed programming, those folks did!
I still think of the “Bumble” almost every freaking time I reach up high to grab something for someone that is vertically challenged– i.e. this scene:
I’m OK with being the Bumble. He’s pretty cool.
ThunderCats was rambunctiously rocking, too– snarf. The Last Unicorn, too. Rankin-Bass, R.I.P., sniff… Anyway, back to “The Year Without a Santa Claus”, and the topic for today.
The film has some fabulous big band music, especially in this sequence with smooth operator Mr. Snow Miser (and that blowhard Heat Miser; you know who this blog favours!). If you’ve never experienced it, or like me it’s been >25 years since you’ve seen it, check it out via the magic of YouTube:
Summer is coming to our northern hemisphere, and winter is coming to the south, so let’s all celebrate the cold/hot dichotomy together now.
Here is the whole film (50 min):
(for once I agree with a YouTube commenter: the Misers steal the show!)
No scientists were harmed in the making of that film. But there was no science in my post, either…
I’m writing my talks for the ICVM conference and need some breaks, for which social media is very therapeutic. But I’ll be sharing at least one of my talks from that conference here on this blog, so stay tuned– the blog will be featured prominently in that talk!
Sneak peak here, of the intro slide, to whet your appetites I hope–
Extra bonus plug: Dr. Monica Daley, Senior Lecturer at the RVC’s Structure & Motion Lab, has a team that is blogging about their research-in-progress on using experimental studies of living birds to help build better legged robots — and using the robots to understand the birds, too! Check out their new ATRIAS blog here– http://atriasatrvc.wordpress.com/ and the wonderful video just posted, of Greg the Guineafowl’s excellent running!
(video by Dr. Yvonne Blum, postdoc with Dr. Daley’s research team; I take no credit)
What's In John's Freezer? 
For a moment I thought you were going to link to the hideous live-action version that came out recently.
(so I am relieved!)
I gave that a miss. Fundamentally flawed concept!
Lovin’ the video of Greg, lot of interesting wotsits in there to enjoy and ponder.
However, I am perturbed. I’ve never heard of the Rankin-Bass film of The Hobbit, obviously a gaping hole in my cultural knowledge. I’m going to find a copy now. It looks similar to the Ralph Bakshi LOTR film (which I love) at first glance. How the heck did I miss that?
The bog bodies are superb, I’m going to check them and the NHM out (between Irish trad music sessions) next time I’m in Dublin.
The Rankin-Bass Hobbit is less psychedelic, no live action, vs Bakshi LOTR. More childish, like the book. Very breezily paced! I like the animation quite a bit though, and the songs IMO are superb (much better than in the Jackson Hobbit).
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Wow. I love how completely untroubled Greg is by the various impediments.