The Little Drummer Boy

Hey, hey, I was royally disappointed because I had memories of the earlier version with the voices of Jose Ferrer and Greer Garson. Alas, this although longer is far less satisfying. A large part of my disappointment was in never hearing a full rendition of the song. The animation in this Australian version is substandard with some of the good guys, especially in the case of one of the wise men, having "bad guy" expressions at times. The coloring was typical for cartoons and there was none of the classic look of the earlier version. The theme of the story certainly deserves a far better worked representation than this one turned out to offer.

I do like Burbank Animation Studios' output generally, but was disappointed in The Little Drummer Boy, considering the subject matter. The music is good though, with a great main theme, and the main backbone of the story is timeless. However, it is cheapened by the animation quality, which consists of flat colouring and very crude character designs. While the idea is wonderful, the storytelling just doesn't have the charm or moving quality it could've done and if anything it could've done with being less rushed. The script is often stilted and corny, and at the end of the day I just didn't care for any of the characters, the wise men visually had very villainous characteristics and didn't come across as noble enough. The voice acting for me ranged between passive(the protagonist) to overdone(the wise men). All in all, a big disappointment, while a different kind of animation quality and feel the very moving Jose Ferrer/Greer Garson version is indeed infinitely better. 3/10 Bethany Cox