This is my all-time favorite Christmas special.

I first saw this special when I was six years old in 1970, and I laughed at the above scenes. Later in the special, I used to think the Burgermeister was pure evil when he arrested Kris, piled up the toys, said "Children of Sombertown, you will never, NEVER, play again!" and burned the toys while the children cried & the scene faded to black.

My all time fav as well, followed by:

Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer
Rudolph's Shiney New Year (Featuring the voice of the late great Red Skelton)
A Charlie Brown Christmas
How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Featuring the late Boris Karloff)
Frosty The Snowman (Featuring yet another late one: Jimmy Durante)
Frosty's Winter Wonderland
The Little Drummer Boy(Featuring the late Greer Garson)


Many UFO/ghost skeptics are actually afraid it's all true and don't want it to be.

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This was the best of the Rankin-Bass Christmas cartoons. The story, the humor and the songs. I'm amazed that the far inferior "Year w/o Santa Claus" (yes, the misers were great) is higher rated on IMDB. I saw that one when it first came on and even as a 9 yr old, I knew it was a shadow of this one.

I just don't understand the appeal of this film. Some of the stop-motion stuff is good, some of it is pretty terrible by any standards. The writing is choppy (ex. Narrator: "Kris eventually became a grown man." NEXT LINE--Kris: "I'm a grown man!"), the characters are one-dimensional, and the whole objective of the film explains away the mystique and mystery of Christmas.

And what on earth was the deal with the Prussian-era Germans marching around in pickelhaubes? The Germans practically invented Christmas in its modern form, but I guess it's easier to have a cliche villain than to really think about it. Same goes for the explanation of the stockings, the going down the chimney, the name Kris Kringle (which still makes no sense, even in the logic of the film), etc...

This film is basically a prequel to "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and we all know what prequels mean in terms of movies: BAD IDEA. Some things are sacred and should remain untouched and unexplained. Legends are magical stories; rationalizing them ruins them.