The ‘80s Christmas Special In Danger Of Being Lost Forever
Ask people of a certain generation to name iconic Christmas movies. Most of them will mention the classic 1964 stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Still, while those became famous with annual airings (and yes, before streaming, we’d wait to see a show the one time a year it was broadcast), there’s another stop-motion Christmas special that isn’t as famous, but it’s still a classic. A Claymation Christmas Celebration, another stop-motion TV special filled with musical numbers, and most notably, The California Raisins, first aired in 1987 and became the favorite of a younger generation.
A Claymation Musical
Created by the talented animator Will Vinton, A Claymation Christmas Celebration starts with its dinosaur hosts, Rex and Herb, and the introduction of the running joke of the two arguing over how to pronounce “wassailing.” They then introduce different musical numbers, including anthropomorphic bells performing “Carol of the Bells,” a walrus couple ice skating to “Angels We Have Heard On High,” and then the two crowd-pleasers, “We Three Kings” mixing the classic song with R&B camels, then “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as performed by the California Raisins.
The off-kilter stop-motion performances are evened out by “O Christmas Tree,” with the camera flowing into different ornaments to show celebrations around the world, and “Joy to the World,” which is not stop-motion and instead is a series of gorgeous, moving paintings. Every sequence is someone’s favorite, and the banter between Rex and Herb that bookends each segment ultimately pays off in the end. However, it’s clear that A Claymation Christmas Celebration is greater than the sum of its parts.
From Marketing Campaign To Christmas Classic
The California Raisins were a marketing gimmick for Sun-Maid, exploding into pop culture with a cover of “I Heard it Through the Grape-Vine,” but there was something about them that resonated with people, leading to Raisins merchandise, albums, and multiple television specials. Will Vinton, the creator of the Raisins, would go on to also create the M&Ms mascots, The Noid, and The PJs, among dozens of others. Arriving one year after the debut of the Raisins, A Claymation Christmas Celebration earned Vinton one of his multiple Primetime Emmy awards for animation, a category he dominated for the following decade.
The big draw to A Claymation Christmas Celebration was the California Raisins, and while they were created by an ad agency for mass appeal, they fit right in alongside the rest of the stop-motion creatures. Their segment was always my favorite as a kid, but now, I can’t pick one favorite, as they each have great things about them, even “Joy to the World,” which was my least favorite growing up because it didn’t have any claymation.
A Claymation Christmas Celebration was released on DVD back in 2003, and to date, that’s the most recent release of the TV special in a physical format. As for streaming, the special has ceased to exist, with even YouTube uploads getting ripped down on a regular basis. It’s a shame that the special, one of the best examples of 80s stop-motion, has become, like so many of The Muppets projects, lost media because it deserves to be watched every Christmas.
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