A Miser Brothers' Christmas

Maybe "Anyone Can Be Santa" but not anyone can be Rankin/Bass! Though it (very poorly) replicates characters and stop-motion animation style from a R/B special, it does not not reproduce their knack for warm storytelling, enchanting character and set designs or fanciful catchy songs. The scenes involving Heatmiser and Snowmiser, along with the rest of the Mother Nature family are actually quite tolerable and work the best. Even their newly introduced bad-guy brother, North Wind is kinda cool. It's everything outside of that that stinks and stinks hard. Why they chose to drastically change the look of every character (and not for the better) other than the Miser Brothers is beyond me! The new elves are particularly annoying and bland. They totally dissed Jingle and Jangle. And just who are these bland imposters posing as Mr and Mrs Claus?! Everything in this one looks cheap cheap cheap ... and sounds! ... like a cheese grater on your ears! The songs are the worst part - scratchy annoying kids voices akin to a kindergarten class en-un-ci-at-ing each syl-la-ble to a song they are forced to sing in a school play backed by cheap electronic music. You can't even compare that to the wonderful, lush orchestrations by Maury Laws and co that populated the R/B classics. Just stick with the original Year Without A Santa Claus (and avoid that poor live-action remake as well!) Though this may be tempting to those aching to see more Heatmiser and Snowmiser ,watching this sequel will leave you feeling as you do when you have that extra hunk of cake that you really did not need or want.