I liked it too. Is it available?
[quote=“BeeGee, post:9, topic:782635”]
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
[/QUOTE]Tuesday nights at 10:30 on KQED (San Francisco’s PBS station), which produced it; it was on right after Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which caused the occasional problem as some episodes ran so long that they cut the endings of the shows that followed them in order to start the next program on time.
I am assuming “lost” in this case means that it is not broadcast every year any more.
As has already been pointed out, it is definitely in color; I saw it about 10 years ago in syndication.
I have a feeling a lot of the specials end up on cable channels nobody bothers to check, or few people have. Something like Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July might air on ABC Family.
Here’s one that I only remember airing once; A Special Valentine With the Family Circus.
If you’re looking for lost Pogo animation, there’s the 1980 clay animation epic I Go Pogo (AKA Pogo for President) (some places claim 1984, but I read a piece about it in Cinefantastique in 1980). It had rotten distribution (I understand that at one point it was sold through those photo developing booths), and AFAIK has never been on TV or DVD:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087925/I loved the shit out of that when I was a kid. 70’s character designs and goose-peril aplenty. I have no idea how many times they aired it, but I’d guess three or four maybe? Last I looked, somebody had uploaded it to Youtube in three fairly low-quality chunks, but checking today I see the whole thing is up at much higher quality. Link.
I caught this unexpectedly at a holiday film festival last December … and it was great! It really held up.
The ones I remember from a kid that don’t seem to come up that much now (although everything, it seems, is available on youtube) are Free to Be You and Me (1974) and Really Rosie (1975). The latter freaked me out as a kid.
Somewhere around this time, I saw a short animation about the legend of John Henry, and I think it was shown on TV as part of a collection of shorts, but don’t remember anything else about it. Still a mystery, to me at least!
It was for me – I saw it the year it premiered (It was the first Animated Christmas Special, predating A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph), and I had no idea what to expect. The songs were by Jule Styne (who co-wrote Let it Snow! and Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, among others) and lyricist Bob Merrill (“Funny Girl”, “Sugar”, and a host of 1950s novelty tunes).
As I observe, I’ve got it both on VHS and DVD, and this still does occasionally show up on TV.
Geez, no one remembers that fondly and not animated.
I don’t know if it’s an urban legend or absolutely true, but: I heard that Styne & Merrill wrote a song for Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol that didn’t make it into the final cut, so they stuck it into their next effort. The song was: “People” from Funny Girl.
Which would actually fit perfectly in Mr Magoo as Nell’s break-up song – much better than it fits into the story line of Funny Girl.
Animalympics --great special, about an animal Olympics.
Saw it once, never again.
Bummer.
If you only want drawn animation, no soap for me…but if stop-motion animation a la Rankin-Bass is okay, then I miss “Rudolph’ Shiny New Year” and “Nestor, The Long-eared Christmas Donkey.” And come to think of it, there is a cel-animated special we never see anymore…a cartoon version of “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.” Among other things, that one got Fenris Ulf’s name right. No other production has ever done that. The animation was done in pretty simple lines, but that just made Aslan look more authoritative and a little scary.
Don’t they still show the Rudolph new year special on CBS? I remember seeing it again just a couple of years ago. Could have been a download, I suppose. The donkey one I had forgotten even existed.
There is short film called “Snowman in July” that I used to see occasionally on a local morning kid’s show. Haven’t seen that one in decades until I looked it up on Youtube. Never suspected that it was actually a German film made deep inside of WWII. Here’s the version I remembered, and here’s the original German.
Bambi Meets Godzilla, Marv Newland, 1969.
Me! Me! For our family, it wouldn’t be Christmas without the Raisins.
I concur! The scene with the skating walruses and the penguins never fails to send me into hysterics, and I also love Quasimodo conducting Carol of the Bells.
We had a VHS tape with bunches of holiday specials recorded off TV when our kids were small, and I burned it to DVD a few years ago. The Raisins was one of those, as well as 'Twas The Night Before Christmas with the mice and the smartypants mouse kid who almost ruined Christmas by writing a letter to Santa telling him he wasn’t real … nobody caught the logic flaw in that?
It would be on my annual viewing schedule, right after A Charlie Brown Christmas if I had it on DVD. Thanks for the link! Here we come a waffling…
He didn’t write the letter to Santa; he wrote it to the editor of the newspaper which published it and that’s where Santa read it.
One of my favorite Xmas special songs was from that show (sung by Joel Grey): “Even a Miracle Needs a Plan”
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The Enormous Egg (1968), about an egg that hatches into a triceratops.
Ahh, the good old days when Rankin-Bass dominated the Christmas special animation market with an iron grip.
Peter Jackson’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films were OK. But there was just a disturbing lack of rotoscoped orcs in them. And they didn’t even sing!
Pretty sure we’ll never see the 70s animated version of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardobe again (not Rankin-Bass).
D’oh! Of course that’s right. That’s what I get trying to recall an animated Christmas special from 1974 … (that I may or may not have watched as recently as last holiday season … don’t judge me!).
Marv Newland, produced by Mr. and Mrs. Newland. 
I used to see it on the old “Night Flight” - anyone remember that show?