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Episode: N/A
Year: 1976
Writer(s): Romeo Muller
To any one of you who'd dare say every sequel is inferior to their original kin, I'm going to show you this and LAUGH! Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer may be the most beloved Rankin/Bass special of them all, but this is sadly the most overlooked and underappreciated one. Even The Year Without a Santa Claus gets more street cred than this! I CANNOT let that injustice go on! New Years is almost as important as Christmas; without it, we'd never grow as people, and everything would stay the same forever!
I see the whole thing with the Baby New Year Happy as a much better take on the story of Dumbo, who as you know was ridiculed for his big ears like this little guy. Now Dumbo is a great movie, but it hasn't aged the best of the Disney canon (for obvious reasons). Anytime Happy shows off his big ol' ears, everybody laughs at the poor baby. Happy didn't know they're not trying to be nasty, how could he? He's a newborn after all! Now some people may misinterpret the moral as "If your deformity makes people laugh, use it since it makes them happy"; that's absolutely BS. The special obviously was saying to be proud of what made you unique and to cherish it. To quote the Green Fish from Courage the Cowardly Dog's series finale "Perfect": "There's no such thing as perfect. You're beautiful as you are, Courage. With all your imperfections, you can do anything."
The supporting cast is one of the best I've ever seen with these dealies as well. Each supporting character we get comes from a different island of the Archipelago of Last Years, which as you can imagine must be huge as it encompasses all time past. My favorite? It's a toss-up between Sir 1023 and One Million B.C. ("O.M." for short) because they’re both so damn funny! Speaking of which, the island of 1023 is the best: I love the concept of it having been where all the legendary nursery rhymes and fairy tales we know of came from; it's also where I firmly believe Disney's Silly Symphonies took place! And the vulture Aeon the Terrible is the best of the Rankin/Bass baddies since Professor Hinkle of Frosty the Snowman, since his motive for kidnapping Happy is very sympathetic and kind of understandable in a way; after all, who hasn't feared their own death?
I'd give all the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials a watch myself since, in my mind, most anything made by them is admirable. So I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas and may your New Year be shiny too!
Rudolph's Shiny New Year is owned by Warner Brothers and Turner Broadcasting.
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