One of the most popular of the Rankin/Bass animated specials, The Year Without a Santa Claus, premiered Tuesday, December 10th on the ABC TV network, just days after another R/B special, Twas the Night Before Christmas,” made its debut on CBS the previous Sunday. Both specials touched on the belief in Santa Claus. In 1976, Twas the Night was released commercially as a soundtrack album by Disneyland Records (please read more about that in this previous Animation Spin).
Sadly, there was never an official, law-abiding soundtrack album produced for The Year Without a Santa Claus, despite its stellar voice cast and outstanding musical score. Several Rankin/Bass specials were either released on commercial records or as promotional discs for the entertainment industry, but others were never legally sold to consumers.
This changed a little tiny bit during the golden age of compact discs, when Rhino Records released its second volume of animation-related songs, 1997’s Nick at Nite: A Classic Christmas, Too. “The Snow Miser/Heat Miser Song” was now officially available, along with “The Brightest Christmas” from Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (more about that precious gem in this two-part Spin). One of my motto’s is “never say never,” so as Year Without and other Rankin/Bass masterworks annually accrue status and profitability, perhaps we will see more soundtracks in our lifetimes. In the meantime, there are of course the video versions and rebroadcasts, as well as the fine albums described herein.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet/author Phyllis McGinley’s original version was published in 1957 with illustrations by Kurt Werth, illustrator of Sid Fleishman’s McBroom Tells the Truth, which your author read to his fourth-grade class in 1967, along with the not-yet-legendary Roald Dahl book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964).
McGinley’s verse-style text was adapted for the Rankin/Bass special by William Keenan, one of the few alternate scenarists for Romeo Muller, who was likely working on many other projects. Keenan wrote for the R/B series Kid Power, Jackson 5ive, The Osmonds, and Festival of Family Classics, as well as other TV shows like Smurfs, Land of the Lost, Laverne and Shirley, and Fantasy Island.
Keenan crafted a Muller-worthy script that largely bookended McGinley’s gentle, thoughtful verse, and fleshed out with one of the best one-hour Rankin/Bass original storylines and characters in its history. In the book, Santa decides to stay home, and Ignatius Thistlewhite implores his classmates to give Santa the Christmas he always gave to kids.
The animated film added Jingle, Jangle, “Iggy’s” parents, plus Mother Nature, the Miser Brothers, Southtown, and poor little Vixen, as well as that magnificent score that includes a personal favorite of Maury Laws, I Believe in Santa Claus, sung to perfection by top New York singer and vocal arranger Ron Marshall.
THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS
Read by Boris Karloff Plus Musical Holiday Selections
E.F. McDonald Incentive Company/Capitol Creative Products SL-6588 (Stereo 33 1/3 LP); 509996-48842-26 Compact Disc Reissue) Story segment currently available on streaming services.
Released in 1968; reissued in 2000. Spoken Word Producer: Ernest K. Dominy.
1968 Musical Selections: “The Christmas Waltz” (The Lettermen); “Old Toy Trains” (Glen Campbell); Don’t Forget to Feed the Reindeer” (Peggy Lee); “The Little Drummer Boy” (Al Martino); “I Sing Noel” (Sandler & Young); “Jingle Bells” (Roger Wagner Chorale).
2020 Musical Selections: “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Up on the Housetop” (Alvin and the Chipmunks); “Don’t Forget to Feed the Reindeer” (Peggy Lee); “The Man with All the Toys” (The Beach Boys); “Mister Santa” (Amy Grant).
Six years before the film version and nine years after the book was published, Capitol Creative Products produced a recorded performance of McGinley’s book by none other than Boris Karloff. In the late fifties and sixties, he was a prolific narrator of spoken word records for such labels as Cricket (Pickwick), Mercury, and especially Caedmon.
Every bit as delightful as his Grinch narration, his reading of Year Without a Santa Claus is accompanied by “needle drop” cues from various libraries, almost as if the host of TV’s Thriller was in an early Hanna-Barbera cartoon, or an episode of Father Knows Best. Thanks to the infinitely knowledgeable Don Yowp, you can listen for some of these cues as you enjoy the recording: [https://open.spotify.com/album/0EBbK2srq2B6fYfhgpeUp6?si=rHC0Gi5VTnan0LTlkdHfVA]:
5:34 – C-1 Domestic Children by Bill Loose
6:35 – GR-253 Toyland Parade by Phil Green
8:41– GR-257 Bedtime Story by Green
9:27 – EM-107D Light Movement by Green
The 1968 album was produced for the customers of the E.F. McDonald Company Incentive, an Ohio-based global marketing organization that specialized in the kind of retail incentives still used today, like bonus bucks and purchase points. Remember Plaid Stamps? The company made several holiday albums of original and reissued material.
Since Karloff’s track would not fill an entire LP, a few selections from the Capitol label were added. These were changed for the CD, except for the “Don’t Forget to Feed the Reindeer” sung by Peggy Lee. The 2010 disc cover by veteran illustrator John Manders ties in with the 2014 reprint of the McGinley book.
THE YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS
And Other Stories for Christmas
Read by Carol Channing
Caedmon Records TC-6588 (Stereo 33 1/3 LP).
Released in 1969; reissued ca. 1974.
Stories: “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” and “How Mrs. Santa Claus Saved Christmas” by Phyllis McGinley; “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clark Moore; and “The Gingerbread Man’ (Traditional).
Tony winning and Oscar-nominated entertainment legend and frequent Merv guest Carol Channing was, like Boris Karloff, a welcome presence on Caedmon Records. As distinctive as it would be for her to simply perform the texts in her much-imitated voice, she does each character as a separate voice.
For her popular recordings of the A.A. Milne books, she assumed an amusing British identity for Pooh, very different from Sterling Holloway or Maurice Evans. When I asked her about this particular approach, she explained, “Well, that’s the whole comedy.”
Channing also reads another of Phyllis McGinley’s Christmas books, 1963’s How Mrs. Claus Save Christmas. This story is about a Christmas without Santa, and like Angela Lansbury’s delightful TV musical Mrs. Santa Claus, she does the famous ride. In this case, she adds a decidedly different touch to the selection of the presents for the children receiving them.
Caedmon reissued this album several years later with a new cartoon-like illustration, perhaps as an indirect tie-in to the TV special. It was common for record companies to reissue or re-promote their archival titles by “leveraging” the appearance of a new, high-profile version that relates to their product.
Arnold is Too Much
The highlight of the 1997 film Batman and Robin was hearing and glimpsing the actual “Snow Miser Song,” appropriately a Mr. Freeze fave.
Just a few folks who made the film such a holiday treasure. (Top row from left): Shirley Booth (Mrs. Claus); Mickey Rooney (Santa Claus); Bradley Bolke (Jangle, Police Officer, Dogcatcher); Middle row: Bob McFadden (Jingle, Elf Doctor); Dick Shawn (Snow Miser); George S. Irving (Heat Miser); Rhoda Mann (Mother Nature, seen here with Howdy Doody); Ron Marshall (Mr. Thistlewhite, Mayor); Bottom row: Maury Laws (Composer, Musical Director), Jules Bass (Lyricist, Producer, Director), Arthur Rankin, Jr. (Producer, Director).
