Never heard of that one before, but watched it last night. The intent was good, I suppose, but it is very uneven, and I can see why it did not become a beloved classic. (Also, I see that it is an early work by the same studio that made the Boba Fett segment of The Star Wars Christmas Special.)
I had heard about that for years before I saw it. So when it came on, I settled down to watch it.
I wasn’t disapointed.
The Night the Animals Talked. (Wikipedia link.)
Shown only four times on ABC, from 1970 to 1973, never since; and never released on VHS or DVD. But apparently, now available on YouTube.
Hooves of fire (Robbie the reindeer).
It’s not as old as most of the others mentioned here, but it managed to go from being shown to being not shown, without going through ‘classic’.
Perhaps it didn’t age as well because it references “Chariots of Fire” instead of “A Christmas Carol”, but I liked it. (Never heard the American voice-overs, only the English version).
Hey, Earl, just so I can be sure I’m not going loopy, that wasn’t animated, right? I mean, I was a sprout when I first saw it, but I would swear it was live action.
Cartoon Network used to show this one several times every December up until a few years ago. Probably lost the rights, and as far as I can tell, no other network has picked them up. It was our family’s viewing tradition, and it’s gone. (No, going to Target, buying the DVD and popping it in at home doesn’t count. Just like A Charlie Brown Christmas just isn’t right without ads for Dolly Madison snacks.) I search the channel guide every December, and it’s just not there.
I remember watching a number of Dr. Seuss adaptations from the 1970s. None of them had the staying power of The Grinch. There was The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax (which got reissued when the CGI adaptation came out a few years ago), and several others.
I dimly remember a Ziggy adaptation in the early 1980s. Ziggy didn’t talk.
Yeah, I think you’re right. I think I’m conflating it with a ‘Gumby’ ep where he (somehow) encounters a triceratops (named ‘Trixie’).
you can get all of the Rankin bass Christmas specials from warner’s in various multi disc collections
I thought you must be mistaken on that, since it was only made a few years ago. So I googled, and it was made in 1999? Holy crap, Olive the Other Reindeer is old enough to vote!
There’s also Horton Hears a Who. I have that one on DVD, because it was a double-feature with How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the originals of both, not the remakes.)
(As an aside, I’ve always if “lorax” was supposed to be a pun on “hyrax.” Never found an answer, though.)
It’s one of your favorites, and you didn’t notice that the lyric is “hand”? 
Damn, I thought this thread was going to be about some new series of animated TV movies spun off of Lost.
In this episode Scooby and the gang investigate the mystery of the bunker.
(emphasis mine)
You should have been, if you made a big tub of popcorn, and pop, and candy.
Be forewarned though, most DVD versions of “Frosty the Snowman” also contain the abomination that is “Frosty Returns”.
They gotta get rid of it somehow…
The big build up could have spoiled the experience, but I hadn’t understood/processed the critical structural point of the story arc…
…so I got to appreciate it without the weight of accurate preconceptions
There was Cricket On The Hearth, a pretty lame Christmas cartoon with the voices of Danny and Marlo Thomas – and one startling scene of totally unexpected violence.
The Mad, Mad Mad Comedians was a half-hour collection of animated versions of several living funnyfolks doing their familiar routines.
The Man Who Hated Laughter starred animated versions of several then-popular characters from newspaper comics; all I really recall of it is that Little Iodine sang a song.
Lastly, I think there was a Fat Albert special long before the series; my memory of it is that it had really original art and animation which looked very urban and gritty.
This one looks like it really is lost.
*Cricket on the Hearth was another of Chuck Jones’ efforts. I never saw it.
I recall watching The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians. it was a Rankin-Bass effort, and better than most, although to much of its run time seemed to be the chorus singing “The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians”. The Smothers Brothers were among those used, but the highlight was a Marx Brothers routine that used Groucho’s voice, although Paul Frees had to dub in Chico and (according to imdb) Zeppo (nobody, of course had to do Harpo). It was the “Napoleon” sketch from their 1924 comedy “I’ll say she is”.
it was their highest-rated show ever (according to Wikipedia), and was supposed to be a pilot for a proposed series, but the series never took place. in those post-Flintstone, pre-Simpsons era, prime time animation didn’t get off the ground – all the attempts I recall fizzled.