Everybody is familiar with the animated specials that are broadcast year after year, like A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and A Charlie Brown Christmas, but how about specials that were shown for a few years, then disappeared? Such as the Garfield Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas specials. You still see How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but not Halloween is Grinch Night. And then there were the specials not tied to a specific holiday, such as The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat, and Rikki Tikki Tavi, and Puff the Magic Dragon.
I nabbed a bunch of 80s Christmas cartoon specials once from somewhere. Like The Cabbage Patch Kids Christmas show, Pac Man, Fat Albert, The Smurfs, Yogi Bear, etc…
I sat down and watched a lot of them but came to realize that they are all pretty much scary and/or sad. Usually involving orphans or just plain cancelled Christmas.
Or they’re basically thinly disguised toy or other product placement commercials. :rolleyes:
Many years ago, I watched a very sweet half-hour children’s show called “Toy Pony” (that part I distinctly remember) that had some animation as well as special effects featuring acrobats, etc. and I cannot find evidence of its existence anywhere. It was probably in the 1980s as well.
For years I remembered The Point, the story of poor Oblio who was born without a pointed head, and was ostracized. It was the origin of the Harry Nilsson song “Me And My Arrow.” I remember liking it, and still like the song.
I finally found it on line and rewatched it. I understand now why it never became an annual favorite!
There were a LOT of Charlie Brown specials, many more than I remembered. I bought the DVD of It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown, on the strenght of my memories from its premiere broadcast. I now understand why many of the CB specials are no longer rerun.
It’s not an animated Christmas special, but the 1963 production of Amahl and the Night Visitors has not been broadcast since 1966, due to a production dispute between the composer and the network. Pity, as the 1978 version is markedly inferior.
46 of them! And that list doesn’t even include full-length movies such as Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown. I have copies of maybe 30-something, probably watched 20-something.
Jean Marsh used to host a show that ran late Saturday nights called International Festival of Animation. I remember watching this in the mid to late 70’s. It was the last thing on before TV shut off for the night. I remember Maxi Cat especially
When my kids were little, I rented The Point on Netflix having fondly remembered it. I too understand why it stopped being shown.
On the other hand, I also rented Rikki Tikki Tavi, and Puff the Magic Dragon mentioned by the Op and both were still quite good. They should bot be forgotten. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was a Chuck Jones production like so many classic Bugs Bunny cartoons and of course How the Grinch stole Christmas. The Cricket in Times Square is another forgotten special that was pretty good. Also Chuck Jones. I think originally it was shown with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Dunno if this is still the case, but Cartoon Network stopped running Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. Which is a shame because it’s a touching humanist piece. Definitely on my short list of animated features I’d like to see remade with better animation. Won’t be the same with Bradbury and Leonard Nimoy gone, though.
There’s also quite a number of Chuck Jones specials not really shown (The Halloween Tree was originally supposed to be directed by him). The Pogo special is generally considered to have indirectly killed Walt Kelly, who was so displeased with Jones’s he tried to make his own; he died before he could finish. Then there’s Norton Juster, also displeased with Jones’s adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth, he did like animated version of The Dot and the Line.
Also, Witch’s Night Out is a cute obscure Halloween special I only discovered via happenstance.
I rewatched Puff for the first time in decades just a few weeks ago, and agree that it is still worth watching. Kinda child psychology-ey, but not in an oppressive way. (I wonder if Jackey Paper would be considered autistic in today’s terms.) There is also one where he meets a habitual liar and one witha kid with an imaginary friend.
While poking around for a Christmas special I couldn’t quite remember, I found out that someone made a Christmas special featuring the characters from “For Better or for Worse.” :dubious:
Anyway…I remember seeing a special that involved an orphan, a talking/wishing/blinking doll, and possibly sponsorship by McDonald’s. I think it was “The Wish That Changed Christmas”…I don’t have time to watch it on YouTube right now though.
I have pretty much all of the Peanuts specials on VHS. Geez, some of those were depressing!
Are you sure that is “lost”? I remember seeing it a few years ago on a DVD from Netflix.
If you really can’t find it and want a copy, there’s a slight possibility I might have it in my DVD collection of 2000+ un-indexed disks. I used to copy all DVDs from Netflix before watching, but my library science is embarrassing.
When I was a kid, it seemed like the Nelvana animated specials “Romie-0 and Julie-8” and “The Devil and Daniel Mouse” were played all the time on Canadian TV, but they don’t get played much any more. (I watched them on Youtube a few months ago and they seemed kind of dated.)
