In the 1960s and into the very early 70s, Rankin-Bass made some amazingly timeless and lovely Christmas specials that rank among the best of the children's specials of the holiday season. However, despite this (or perhaps because of this), Rankin-Bass returned with another stop-motion film which brought back many of the original voices from these specials (such as Mickey Rooney from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "The Year Without a Santa Claus", Jackie Vernon from the "Frosty the Snowman" cartoon, and Billy Mae Richards from "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer"). The problem is that the company had not only made these classic specials but quite a few lesser ones in between...and now it just seems like they've run out of ideas. After all, this is set in July....and it just seems weird!

Although I dislike this film, I should take time to talk about what I actually liked. The stop-motion is really good....much smoother than the older installments. It also was nice how they brought back so many of the old voices...either as the original characters or as new ones (such as Paul Frees playing a NEW bad guy in this one even though he appeared as the evil Burgermesiter in "Santa Claus is Coming to Town").

Apart from these things, I honestly cannot think of any reason to have made this other than money. As for watching it, it likely will confuse kids and the plot is convoluted to say the least. This entire film just seems like a lovely looking and sounding desperate retread...which is exactly what it is. Overall, not a terrible film...but an unnecessary one!

I realize this is subjective. The only other Rankin/Bass effort I disliked was Jack Frost, and that's also personal taste, but at least that show is imaginatve. This movie is contrived, convoluted, bizarre, disjointed, and about 65 minutes longer than it had to be. There are a few good one-liners by Frosty, but other than that, this is awful... and I'm easy to please! I had to watch Rudolph, Little Drummer Boy, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, about three times each in order to get this ponderous, ill-conceived disaster out of my mind. Yes, it has a star-studded cast. So what? Shelly Winters couldn't sing, or in singing, she did it in character as the swimming lady who sacrificed herself to save the preacher in The Poseidon Adventure... after she was dead.

Sadly, the stop-motion is beautifully-done, but is utterly wasted on some of the worst writing ever made into film. A two out of ten is generous.