BCDB: Cartoon Reviews: Christmas Comes But Once A Year

What makes this cartoon work is the remarkable imagination that went into it. The improvised toys that Grampy makes are fantastic. Other than that, it is pretty standard stuff for a second-tier studio. The song is annoying.

... I think of this movie. As I sit here in 2005 and see all of the sad excuses for Christmas movies come on TV, I miss being 5 years old and curling up on the floor with my mom and 4 sisters and watching all the movies my mom had saved from her childhood. I'm only 22, but I have to this day never seen any Christmas movie as good as the ones we watched then and this one ranks at the very top of all the ones we watched.

This is a resubmission of a review I wrote almost a year ago, as best as I recall it. My original review was inadvertently deleted from the site.
This is one of the two best Christmas cartoons ever made, the other being Warner Brother's "Bedtime for Sniffles" (1940). Longer than the average theater cartoon, this one opens
and closes with a "depth" shot that was one of the new techniques being experimented with at that time, (similar to Disney's "Flowers and Trees") though the rest of the cartoon is standard animation. Orphans awake on Christmas morning to thrice-used toys that fall apart at a touch, and miserably go back to their beds. The sound of their crying alerts a cheerful Professor Grampy (a wonderful character), riding by. He comes up with an idea to help, and lets himself into the orphangae kitchen, where he constructs an amazingly inventive collection of toys from everyday objects (my favorite is the airplane hastily constucted from a roller shade!) Adding an improvised Santa costume, and creating a tree from umbrellas (with soap-flake snow falling), a merry Christmas is produced for the orphans after all. The closing scene shows the tree morphing into the 1937 Christmas Seal.
A tour-de-force for the writers and animators, this short contained as a bonus a song written especially for it: "Christmas Comes But Once a Year", which had a brief vogue in the late 30's and '40's. I've seen it many times, and it never fails to charm.

A remarkable cartoon in many ways. I first saw it on Ted Turner's WTBS
during a block of holiday cartoons. It is readily available, I found it on at
least two videos, and on DVD. One of the videos has in addition to this
a short film with a pair of mimes (!) in Elizabethian dress preforming "The
Twelve Days of Christmas." (Which is as dull as it sounds), and another
short film that features Santa giving out presents
to a group of wooden child actors. These poor kids couldn't act their way
out of this film. One boy asks Santa for a Punch and Judy show. Santa says
"Punch and Judy show appear!." It does and is about as violent as any Punch
and Judy show you've heard about. Basically they kicked and punched the er, um
stuffings out of each other. When it was mercifully over, Santa said "Punch
and Judy show disapear!", end of film...Pretty messy stuff for a holiday release.
Now on to this delightful Max and Dave Fleischer Color Classic. We see that
the animation is drawn by one of my favorite Fleischer artists, Seymour Kneitel,
and lyrics by the Popeye tunesmith, Sammy Timberg. You're guaranteed a good
time. The title song plays as a fan-fare during the credits, bright and rollicking
and reminding you of Grampy's theme songs. The cartoon proper opens with
the well know "Noel, Noel" carolling forth in a rich tenor voice. We see one of
Fleischer's famous miniture sets, which were mounted on turntables and moved
aganst backdrops. This is an orphanage, which turns the open gates to us, and
up to the front door. We see the scraggly tree with broken ornaments, the kid's
threadbare stockings and move to the dormitory. The kids are all asleep. At the
stroke of seven, Pudgy (!) jumps out of a koo-koo clock and wakes the kids.
They start in with the title tune, a very catchy song, that was released by the
Fleischers to very good sales. The kids are cute and likable and individual
attention is given to them. The kids collect their stockings and pull out their gifts.
One has a pop-gun which disintigrates in the poor kid's hands. Another, a patched
ball which deflates, a particularly sad scene where the tot's teddy leaks it's stuffing.
We leave as the kids sit on the floor crying over these broken second-hand toys.
We go outside and there's Grampy! He is joyfully singing the title song while going
about in his motorized sled. We see "Prof. Grampy, Inventor" on the sled. It is being
propelled with a fan in the way of a boat's outdoor motor. Grampy looks radiant with
his red nose and is dressed for the snowy weather, with a deer-hat, earmuffs, jolly
scarf, thick fuzzy coat and gloves. He is full of Christmas Cheer, ringing his sled-bells.
As he passes the orphanage, he hears the kid's sobs.He weighs anchor (!) and goes
to see what's wrong. He sees the kids crying and sits on the porch to think. Prof.
Grampy puts on his familiar cap and after a couple of false starts he's on his way. He
cleverly stacks footprints of snow up like a stack of pancakes so he can reach the kitchen
window. We hear Grampy's theme "Over at Grampy's house" played as
Grampy hums happily along and gathers up the stuff to make his "Rube Goldbergesque"
toys. Here Grampy is especially clever, making wonderful toys like an airplane out of
a window shade, a train out of a perculating coffee pot and a china set, and my
favorite, a little windup bird out of a duster, sock and forks for legs. The kids are crying
in their beds as we see Grampy then start to decorate the orphanage. He pops
continous popcorn stings with a sewing machine. For himself, he fashions a Santa
suit out of stove-pipes, pillows and a table cloth. He rings a cheerfull bell to wake
the kids up for their surprise. The kids are overjoyed with the novel toys. Meanwhile
Grampy spreads cotton (!) up the staircase. He paints (!) a snowy winter scene on
the staircase wall, and the kids now have a ski and sled ramp. A clock's pendulum grates soap and
blows the chips with a fan for snow. We then here Grampy's theme getting intense
as the cartoon draws to a close. Grampy stacks umbrellas into each other and
opens them up into a lovely tree. He places this on a record turntable. After more shots of
the kids playing Grampy leads the kids around the decorated tree. He and the kids
stand around lighted by the tree as it revolves. At this point we go to another brilliant
model of the lighted cheerfull tree. Grampy leads the kids singing the charming
theme one last time. The cartoon ends as the tree is replaced by the "Christmas Seal".
Many thoughts on this cartoon. Probably my biggest concern was who's gonna
clean up that orphanage? Grampy TRASHED the place. OK. Now let's look at the
Fleischer's minds. By this time Betty Boop's cartoons were being used as "Pilots"
to introduce other (Hopefully popular) characters like "Little Jimmy" (What a brat),
"Henry," billed as "The funniest living human" (He emphatically WAS not), "Whiffle
Piffle" and my LEAST favorite character in a Betty Boop film, that flea-bitten goody-
two-shoes mutt "Pudgy." Granted, the Fleischers struck paydirt with another of Betty's
introductions "Popeye the sailor" and were looking for another massive hit.
They released cartoon after cartoon with that pesky "Gabby" from "Gulliver's Travels."
They could have had it in Grampy. Here he is in his ONLY solo picture away from
Betty, but also in his ONLY color picture! The song was a big hit for the Fleischers,
and the cartoon is a delight. Well drawn, colorful and with charming kids. Grampy
has a real zest for life and it shows here. What a shame they did not continue
with more Grampys. I have this on DVD with some other
Fleischer holiday cartoons, and some other studio's, such as a "Little Audrey" you
probably WON'T be seeing on WTBS. Reviews for all will be shortly following.

Here's another example of a Christmas cartoon......from the old days, when they did it RIGHT.
Good, kind-hearted ol' Grampy!