I have always loved the Rankins/Bass *Year without a Santa Claus*. The scenes with Heat Miser and Cold Miser were hilarious, and Shirley Booth did a wonderful job as the voice of Mrs. Claus. So I was excited when I saw the Heat Miser/Cold Miser clip that NBC placed on youtube.
It turns out that NBC placed the only decent moments of this demeaning remake on youtube. Almost everything else disappointed when it didn't outright offend. I was tricked.
Many of the jokes seemed to be focused on telling the current generation how much better the previous generation was -- and even then, the jokes were outdated. With the complaints about life of the past twenty years and the rosy-glasses nostalgia, the focus of this version seems to be one long Baby Boomer whine.
The people behind this version are so clueless they seem to consider "goth" jokes to be cutting edge fifteen or so years too late! The jokes about "Extreme Santa" might have been clever a decade ago, but now they only show the viewer how out-of-touch these people are if they still think such jokes are clever now. The "hep African-American elf" jokes may have been funny fifteen years ago but are an embarrassment to modern racial relations. The demeaned role of women in this version is nauseating.
In the Rankins/Bass tale, Mrs. Claus is an active, intelligent woman determined both to help out the world in general and to bring her stubborn husband to his senses. In this remake, she is nothing more than a passive and obedient wife with an attractive figure. Who could have imagined wasting Delta Burke's talent playing a woman who does nothing except coo in worry? They completely disempower the character of Mrs. Claus: it isn't even her idea for the elves to go down to earth in this version! The disempowering extends to Mother Nature. In the Rankin/Bass special, Mother Nature is an awe-inspiring figure of dread, and Mrs. Claus is courteously cautious about speaking with her. In this tepid remake, Santa Claus is able to summon an obedient Mother Nature with three claps as though she were one of his harem dancing girls! The tale ends with a father guilt-tripped into destroying the hopes of hundreds if not thousands of jobs in a small town for the sake of sticking to old town values. Merry Christmas to his son who now gets a dad who will build snowmen with him, and Merry Christmas to all those workers who discover the day before Christmas they will be unemployed!
It turns out that NBC placed the only decent moments of this demeaning remake on youtube. Almost everything else disappointed when it didn't outright offend. I was tricked.
Many of the jokes seemed to be focused on telling the current generation how much better the previous generation was -- and even then, the jokes were outdated. With the complaints about life of the past twenty years and the rosy-glasses nostalgia, the focus of this version seems to be one long Baby Boomer whine.
The people behind this version are so clueless they seem to consider "goth" jokes to be cutting edge fifteen or so years too late! The jokes about "Extreme Santa" might have been clever a decade ago, but now they only show the viewer how out-of-touch these people are if they still think such jokes are clever now. The "hep African-American elf" jokes may have been funny fifteen years ago but are an embarrassment to modern racial relations. The demeaned role of women in this version is nauseating.
In the Rankins/Bass tale, Mrs. Claus is an active, intelligent woman determined both to help out the world in general and to bring her stubborn husband to his senses. In this remake, she is nothing more than a passive and obedient wife with an attractive figure. Who could have imagined wasting Delta Burke's talent playing a woman who does nothing except coo in worry? They completely disempower the character of Mrs. Claus: it isn't even her idea for the elves to go down to earth in this version! The disempowering extends to Mother Nature. In the Rankin/Bass special, Mother Nature is an awe-inspiring figure of dread, and Mrs. Claus is courteously cautious about speaking with her. In this tepid remake, Santa Claus is able to summon an obedient Mother Nature with three claps as though she were one of his harem dancing girls! The tale ends with a father guilt-tripped into destroying the hopes of hundreds if not thousands of jobs in a small town for the sake of sticking to old town values. Merry Christmas to his son who now gets a dad who will build snowmen with him, and Merry Christmas to all those workers who discover the day before Christmas they will be unemployed!