Christmas in the 80s is in danger of being lost forever

Pa Jonathan Klotz
| Published 1 hour ago

Ask people of a certain generation to name iconic Christmas movies. Most of them will remember the 1964 stop-motion classic Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer or Santa Claus is coming to town. For now they’ve become famous for their annual broadcasts (and yes, before it aired, we’d wait to see the show once a year when it aired), there’s another Christmas special that’s not as famous, but still a classic. Claymation Christmasanother stop-motion TV special filled with musical numbers, and most notably California Raisins, which first aired in 1987 and became a favorite among the younger generation.

Claymation the musical

Created by talented animator Will Winton, Claymation Christmas begins with the dinosaur hosts, Rex and Herb, and the introduction of a tongue-in-cheek joke in which the two argue over how to pronounce “wassailing.” They then introduce a variety of musical numbers, including anthropomorphic bells performing “Carol of the Bells,” a pair of walruses skating to “Angels We Have Heard On High,” followed by two crowd-pleasing, “We Three Kings” , who mix the classic song with R&B camels, followed by “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” performed by California Raisins.

Offbeat stop-motion performances balance “Oh, Christmas Tree,” where the camera pans to various decorations to show the holidays around the world, and “Joy to the World,” which isn’t stop-motion but instead a series of wonderful, moving pictures appears. Each episode is someone’s favorite, and the banter between Rex and Herb that closes each segment pays off in the end. However, this is understandable Claymation Christmas greater than the sum of its parts.

From a marketing campaign to a Christmas classic

California Raisins were a marketing gimmick for Sun-Maid, who entered 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 several special television programs. Will Winton, the creator of Raisins, also created the mascots M&Ms, The Noid and Pajamasamong dozens of others. Arriving a year after The Raisin’s debut, Claymation Christmas earned Vinton one of his many Primetime Emmy Awards for animation, which he would dominate for the next decade.

Great attraction Claymation Christmas California Raisins, and although they were created by an ad agency for mass appeal, they fit right in next to the rest of the stop-motion creatures. Their series was always my favorite as a kid, but now I can’t pick one favorite because they all have great stuff, even the song “Joy to the World” which was my least favorite because they don’t have any claymation.

Claymation Christmas was released on DVD back in 2003, and is the most recent physical release of the television series to date. As for streamingthe special program has ceased to exist, and even YouTube uploads regularly crash. It’s a real shame that the special, one of the best examples of ’80s stop-motion, became like many of Muppets projects lost to the media because it deserves to be seen every Christmas.