Even when I was just a kid, it always struck me that it would be a no-brainer homerun to produce merchandising for the perennially popular Christmas Specials. After all, the Rankin/Bass Animagic puppets were just a step away from being toys themselves. I suppose it took my generation growing up, getting nostalgic, and seizing the reins of construction to make that dream come true. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer came out in 1964, and it wasn’t until 2001 that Memory Lane produced action figures and sets for the franchise.
A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered in 1965, but we’ll get to THAT later. In 1966 came How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and (skipping over the toys made for the live action adaptation in 2000) it wasn’t until 2007 that we got Chuck-Jones-accurate depictions by McFarlane. They were more for display than actual playing, though.
Then came Frosty the Snowman in 1969. With that special my four big primeval Christmas shows were set; they stretched beyond memory and seem to have always existed. Frosty was followed by Frosty’s Winter Wonderland (1975) and Rudolph and Frosty’s Winter Wonderland (1979), the last two legitimate entries in the franchise as far as I’m concerned. The company Forever Fun began making figures from all three specials in 2000.
Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town came in 1970, but now, at the ripe old age of 7, I was beginning to develop some rudimentary critical thinking. If it was new, I felt, it must be met with some suspicion before I could allow it into my heart, and in fact it was quite a while before I would fully accept it. After Memory Lane made action figures for the show in 2004 I did not find them readily at local retailers, and so missed the Miss Jessica and the two versions (good and bad) of the Winter Warlock.
1974 brought The Year Without a Santa Claus, and I remember as a child being less than pleased with it. It seemed to my conservative tastes to be messing with the Rankin/Bass Christmas lore. It has since come to be something of a favorite of mine: the Snow Miser/Heat Miser theme is played in rotation along with my regular daily music. NECA/Palisades brought out the figures in 2002, and it was once again Z’s Toys and More that brought them to me in 2008.
Mickey’s Christmas Carol came out as a theater release in 1983 and became an annual TV special the following year. Uncle Scrooge starred as Scrooge, naturally, voiced by the great and good Alan Young. Memory Lane came out with toys in 2003, but I was unfortunate enough to miss the multipack of the three Ghosts of Christmas.
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