The Legend of Frosty the Snowman is a 2005 Christmas animated television special film which was simultaneously released direct-to-video, and produced by Classic Media, Studio B Productions, and Top Draw Animation. [1]
The film is narrated by Burt Reynolds and features Bill Fagerbakke as the voice of Frosty the Snowman and voice actress Kath Soucie as Tommy Tinkerton, with background music composed by Jared Faber. It is the fifth and last television special to feature Frosty to date.
Frosty the Snowman travels to the town of Evergreen, which is seemingly idyllic but full of unhappy children who must follow harsh rules. Frosty tries to play with Mayor Tinkerton's son Tommy, but he is afraid of displeasing his uptight father, who keeps the family and the town on a strict schedule and favors Tommy's devoted older brother Charlie. Seeing he cannot reach Tommy yet, Frosty finds Tommy's best friend and neighbor, a nervous boy named Walter Wader, and convinces him to play in the snow with him one night. Walter has so much fun that he walks into school confidently the next day.
Word spreads about Walter breaking curfew and having fun, prompting the school's principal Hank Pankley to complain to Mr. Tinkerton. Walter and Charlie get into a food fight at lunch period and are immediately placed in detention. Tinkerton takes a pin marked "#1" from Charlie and interrogates Walter, who replies that he was "playing with a magical snowman", causing Tinkerton to react nervously. Pankley assures Tinkerton that Walter's story is not true, secretly desiring to take Tinkerton's job as mayor.
As school ends, Charlie mocks Walter for believing in Frosty, but Frosty arrives outside the school and the two join him. Tommy leaves to follow Sara Simple, a schoolmate he has a crush on, but instead Frosty's hat leads him to the library, where he discovers a comic book about Frosty. The comic tells of a boy whose father is a stage magician (Professor Hinkle) who denounces magic, yet the boy brings Frosty to life using his father's hat. Tommy reads that the boy spends the rest of winter looking for Frosty, but the rest of the comic's pages are blank.
An increasingly disturbed Tinkerton finds Tommy and gives him the "#1" pin, confessing that Charlie and the other children have told him the same story about a magic snowman and wanting Tommy to tell him if anything else strange happens. Tommy wears the pin to school but is ignored for being Tinkerton's new favorite. Tommy discovers his mother scrapbooking old photos of his father, revealing that the boy in the comic is Tinkerton.
Frosty continues to play with the children, including Sara, until they begin disobeying rules, appalling their parents and causing Tinkerton to break down. Pankley convinces Tinkerton to make him mayor at the next town meeting, promising to restore order. He also notices Walter feeling left out of playing with Frosty and tricks him into helping him lay a trap for Frosty. Walter goes ice skating with Frosty on a frozen pond until Frosty falls through the ice and melts, allowing Pankley to steal the hat.
As Tommy attempts to read the comic, the blank pages restore themselves. Pankley is revealed to have stolen the hat and locked it away the same winter Tinkerton was looking for Frosty, warning that Pankley will take over Evergreen completely if he is allowed to succeed. Tommy regains the trust of his friends when he shows them the complete comic, and they successfully retrieve the hat from the school and revive Frosty.
The adults notice their children's absences and head into the woods to find them dancing with Frosty despite Pankley's attempts to stop them. Tommy returns the "#1" pin to Tinkerton, and apologizes for disobeying the rules, but Tinkerton assures his son he did the right thing and happily recognizes Frosty and his father's hat. Tinkerton reinstates himself as mayor after he realizes Pankley's treachery and Walter hits him with a snowball, leading Frosty to involve the other adults in a snowball fight.
The children and adults reconcile and Tinkerton starts believing in magic again, not wanting his sons to grow up without magic as he did. He also removes the rules and curfews from the town. The film's narrator is revealed to be an elderly Tommy who now lives together with Sara long after marrying her, hearing her call him home from the cold.
The film holds only a loose continuity with Rankin/Bass's 1969 television adaptation of Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins's 1950 Christmas song, "Frosty the Snowman", although Frosty's design by Paul Coker, Jr. is identical and Tommy's grandfather is clearly Professor Hinkle, the reformed antagonist of the original special. Although Santa Claus is mentioned, there is no direct reference to Christmas itself. Even so, this special has more in common with the original than the previous sequel in 1992, the Lorne Michaels-Bill Melendez collaboration Frosty Returns . The film was produced in late 2004, but like Rudolph's Shiny New Year , it was not released until a full year later.
The film originally aired annually on Cartoon Network from 2005 until December 11, 2011, when the special moved to Kids & Teens TV, which ceased operations in 2019. Following this, the special was acquired by AMC as part of their Best Christmas Ever event. Distribution rights to the film are currently held by NBCUniversal Television Distribution following its parent Comcast's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, which acquired the film's holder Classic Media in 2012. DreamWorks released the special for free on YouTube on November 30, 2017, along with the original Frosty the Snowman. [2]
Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment was an American production company located in New York City, and known for its seasonal television specials, usually done in stop motion animation. Rankin/Bass's stop-motion productions are recognizable by their visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts and ubiquitous powdery snow using an animation technique called Animagic.
"Frosty the Snowman" is a popular Christmas song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and later recorded by Jimmy Durante in that year. It was written after the success of Autry's recording of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" the previous year. Rollins and Nelson shopped the new song to Autry, who recorded "Frosty" in search of another seasonal hit. Like "Rudolph", "Frosty" was subsequently adapted to other media including a popular television special.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a 1964 stop motion Christmas animated television special produced by Videocraft International, Ltd. It first aired December 6, 1964, on the NBC television network in the United States and was sponsored by General Electric under the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour. The special was based on the 1949 Johnny Marks song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which was itself based on the poem of the same name written in 1939 by Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May. Since 1972, the special has aired on CBS. The network unveiled a high-definition, digitally remastered version of the program in 2005, re-scanned frame-by-frame from the original 35 mm film elements.
Mrs. Claus is the legendary wife of Santa Claus, the Christmas gift-bringer in Western Christmas tradition.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas is a 1974 animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions which features Clement Clarke Moore's famous 1823 poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, the opening line of which is the source of the title of this animated special. The special first originally aired on CBS on December 8, 1974 where it aired annually until 1994, when The Family Channel took over its syndication rights. AMC took over syndication rights for the special in 2018.
The Year Without a Santa Claus is a 1974 stop motion animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. The story is based on Phyllis McGinley's 1956 book of the same name. It is narrated by Shirley Booth and starring the voices of Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, and George S. Irving. It was originally broadcast on December 10, 1974, on ABC.
Frosty's Winter Wonderland is a 1976 Japanese-American animated Christmas television special and a standalone sequel to the 1969 special Frosty the Snowman, produced by Rankin/Bass Productions and animated by Topcraft. It is the second television special featuring the character Frosty the Snowman. It returns writer Romeo Muller, character designer Paul Coker, Jr., music composer Maury Laws and actor Jackie Vernon as the voice of Frosty, while Andy Griffith stars as the narrator with the rest of the cast consisting of Shelley Winters, Dennis Day, and Paul Frees. The special premiered on ABC on December 2, 1976.
Frosty Returns is a 1993 American animated Christmas television special starring the voices of Jonathan Winters as the narrator and John Goodman as Frosty the Snowman. The special was directed by Bill Melendez and Evert Brown and features music by Mark Mothersbaugh. The special was produced in 1992, and released on VHS by Family Home Entertainment in 1993. It was first aired on the CBS television network on December 1, 1995, and continues to be broadcast. It is the fourth special in a series beginning with Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment's 1969 television adaptation of Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins' 1950 holiday song.
Arthur Gardner Rankin, Jr. was an American director, producer and screenwriter, who mostly worked in animation. Co-creator of Rankin/Bass Productions with his friend Jules Bass, he created stop-motion and traditional animation features such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, and the 1977 cartoon special of The Hobbit. He is credited on over 1,000 television programs.
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town is a 1970 American stop motion Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions in New York, New York. The film is narrated by Fred Astaire and stars the voices of Mickey Rooney, Keenan Wynn, Robie Lester, Joan Gardner and Paul Frees, as well as an assistant song performance by the Westminster Children's Choir. The film tells the story of how Santa Claus and several Claus-related Christmas traditions came to be. It is based on the hit Christmas song, "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", which was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie for Leo Feist, Inc. and introduced on radio by Eddie Cantor in 1934; and the story of Saint Nicholas.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys is a 2001 direct-to-video animated Christmas adventure musical film directed by Bill Kowalchuk for GoodTimes Entertainment. It was released on VHS and DVD on October 30, 2001. The film takes place after the events of the original special. The film thus revisits classic characters like Yukon Cornelius, Hermey the elf, Abominable Snow Monster, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, who is now famous in the North Pole.
Frosty the Snowman is a 1969 American animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. It is the first television special featuring the character Frosty the Snowman. The special first aired on December 7, 1969, on the CBS television network in the United States, airing immediately after the fifth showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas; both scored high ratings. The special has aired annually for the network's Christmas and holiday season every year since.
Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July is an American-Japanese Christmas/Independence Day film produced by Rankin/Bass Productions, featuring characters from the company's holiday specials Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and Frosty the Snowman (1969), among others. It was filmed in Japan using the company's trademark "Animagic" stop-motion animation style. The film was originally a theatrical film released through Avco Embassy Pictures where it ran for only 2–3 weeks and was considered a box office flop. Later that year, the film premiered on television in the US on November 25, 1979, on ABC.
Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey is a 1977 Japanese-American Christmas stop motion animated television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. It premiered on ABC on December 3, 1977. The story is based on the 1975 song of the same name, written by Gene Autry, Don Pfrimmer and Dave Burgess.
The Stingiest Man in Town is a 1978 animated Christmas musical television special based on Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. It was created by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, and features traditional animation rather than the stop motion animation most often used by the company. It was an animated remake of a long-unseen, but quite well received, live-action musical special which had starred Basil Rathbone, Martyn Green, and Vic Damone. The live-action version had been telecast on December 23, 1956, on the NBC anthology series The Alcoa Hour, and was published on DVD in 2011, by VAI. The animated remake first aired December 23, 1978, in the United States on NBC, and was telecast in Japan the next day.
Jack Frost is a 1979 Christmas, Winter, and Groundhog Day stop motion animated television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. It was directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr., written by Romeo Muller, narrated by Buddy Hackett, and starring the voices of Robert Morse, Debra Clinger, and Paul Frees. The special premiered on NBC on December 13, 1979, and tells the tale of Jack Frost and his adventures as a human. It airs annually on AMC as part of its Best Christmas Ever programming block.
Pinocchio's Christmas is a 1980 Christmas stop motion television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions that is a holiday adaptation of the 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. The special was originally aired on ABC on December 3, 1980. It aired annually during the Christmas season on Freeform and as of 2018 airs on AMC.
A Miser Brothers’ Christmas is a 2008 Christmas stop motion spin-off special, based on the characters from the 1974 Rankin-Bass special The Year Without a Santa Claus. Distributed by Warner Bros. Animation under their Warner Premiere label and Toronto-based Cuppa Coffee Studios, the one-hour special premiered on ABC Family on Saturday, December 13, 2008, during the network's annual The 25 Days of Christmas programming.
The First Easter Rabbit is an animated Easter television special that premiered April 9, 1976 on NBC and later aired on CBS. Created by Rankin/Bass Productions, it tells the story of the Easter Bunny's origin. The special is loosely based on the 1922 children's book The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. Burl Ives narrates the special, which also features the Irving Berlin song "Easter Parade". It marked Ives's return to a Rankin/Bass special for the first time since the company's 1964 stop motion television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer twelve years prior.
The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town is a 1977 American-Japanese musical Easter television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions, using their "Animagic" stop motion animation. The special reunites the writer Romeo Muller, designer Paul Coker Jr., and narrator Fred Astaire from Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, and stars the voices of Skip Hinnant, Bob McFadden, Meg Sargent, James Spies, and Allen Swift. It originally premiered on ABC in the United States on April 6, 1977.