''Frosty's Winter Wonderland'' is a 1976

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

Christmas television special Christmas themes have long been an inspiration to artists and writers. A prominent aspect of Christian media, the topic first appeared in in literature and Christmas music. Filmmakers have picked up on this wealth of material, with both adaptatio ...

and a

standalone sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the sam ...

to the 1969 special ''

Frosty the Snowman "Frosty the Snowman" is a popular Christmas song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and later recorded by Jimmy Durante. It was written after the success o ...

'', produced by

Rankin/Bass Productions Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known as Videocraft International, Ltd. and Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.) was an American production company located in New York City, and known for its seasonal television specials, usual ...

and animated by

Topcraft Topcraft (トップクラフト ''Toppukurafuto'', also written as "Top Craft") was an animation studio established on February 1, 1972 by former Toei Animation producer Toru Hara, and located in Tokyo, Japan. It was famous for the production of ...

. It is the second television special featuring the character Frosty the Snowman. It returns writer

Romeo Muller Romeo Earl Muller, Jr. (August 7, 1928 – December 30, 1992) was an American screenwriter and actor most remembered for his screenplays for the Rankin/Bass holiday specials including ''Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy ...

, character designer Paul Coker, Jr., music composer

Maury Laws Maury Laws (December 6, 1923 – March 28, 2019) was an American television and film composer from Burlington, North Carolina. Biography In his teens, Laws performed in local country, jazz and dance bands as a singer and guitarist in his home st ...

and actor Jackie Vernon as the voice of Frosty, while

Andy Griffith Andy Samuel Griffith (June 1, 1926 – July 3, 2012) was an American actor, comedian, television producer, southern gospel singer and writer whose career spanned seven decades in music and television. Known for his Southern drawl, his characte ...

stars as the narrator (replacing

Jimmy Durante James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced song ...

, who had been incapacitated by a stroke three years prior and retired from acting) with the rest of the cast consisting of

Shelley Winters Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress whose career spanned seven decades. She appeared in numerous films. She won Academy Awards for ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959) and ''A Patch o ...

Dennis Day Dennis Day (born Owen Patrick Eugene McNulty; May 21, 1916 – June 22, 1988) was an American actor, comedian, and singer. He was of Irish descent. Early life Day was born and raised in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx, New York City, the ...

, and

Paul Frees Solomon Hersh "Paul" Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986) was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass, and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during ...

. The special premiered on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

on December 2, 1976.

Plot

Years after Frosty left for the North Pole, the children long for the snowman's return after the first snowfall of the season. Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Frosty, who is equally lonesome for the children, hears of the snowfall and decides to return. The children are overjoyed when Frosty comes back to play with them, but then

Jack Frost Jack Frost is a personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold. He is a variant of Old Man Winter who is held responsible for frosty weather, nipping the fingers and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, ...

sees the fun that the children are having with Frosty and becomes jealous of him. When he learns the origin of Frosty and his magic silk top hat which brought the snowman to life when placed on his head, Jack decides to steal it from Frosty so the children will love him more. But that night, while Frosty and the children are ice-skating at a frozen pond, Jack unknowingly and mistakenly captures a horse's old top hat with his ability to blow snowy winds. Believing it to be Frosty's top hat, he disappears with it. However, Frosty becomes sad and lonely at the end of each day when the children go home for the night. At his friends' suggestion, Frosty decides to have a "snow wife" to keep him company; he helps the children build a snow wife for him, and they name her Crystal, but to their dismay, the group cannot find a way to bring Crystal to life. Late that night, Frosty presents Crystal with a bouquet of frost flowers. His gift of love brings her to life, and the two joyously frolic through the snow, until Jack uses a gust of icy wind which blows Frosty's top hat off, turning him back to his lifeless state and taunting Crystal that he is gone for good. To prove Jack wrong, she sculpts a corsage out of snow, places it on Frosty's chest and gives him a kiss which immediately brings him back to life. Befuddled by his reanimation, Jack throws Frosty's top hat back on his head in disgust. Frosty and Crystal run through the town announcing their

wedding A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vo ...

to the children. The children recruit Parson Brown, the local preacher, to marry them, but Brown cannot perform the ceremony as he can only marry humans. To ensure the wedding still takes place, he assists the children in building a "snow parson" whom he brings to life with his Bible. When Jack decides to spoil the wedding with a blizzard, Frosty and Crystal decide to reason with him and ask for him to be the best man at the wedding. Finally feeling appreciated and accepted, Jack agrees, and Frosty and Crystal are finally married. Frosty, Crystal, and Jack have fun with the children all winter, but they notice the weather is starting to grow warm again. Jack uses his powers to extend the winter to allow Frosty and Crystal to stay, but when Parson Brown warns them of the dangers of an everlasting winter, the three realize they must return to the North Pole. The group skates to the train station, and Frosty reunites with the traffic cop he met in the previous special, who is shocked to hear Frosty has a snow wife. Frosty, Crystal, and Jack board the train for the North Pole and bid farewell to their friends, and the three return to the town the following winter.

Cast

* Jackie Vernon as Frosty *

as Crystal (also credited as Mrs. Frosty) *

as Narrator *

as Parson Brown, Snow Parson *

as Jack Frost, Traffic Cop * Shelly Hines as Elsie's brother * Manfreed Olea as Child * Eric Stern as Child * Barbara Jo Ewing as Elsie * The Wee Winter Singers as Children

Production credits

* Producers/Directors –

Arthur Rankin Jr. Arthur Gardner Rankin Jr. (July 19, 1924 – January 30, 2014) was an American director, producer and writer, who mostly worked in animation. Co-creator of Rankin/Bass Productions with his friend Jules Bass, he created stop-motion animatio ...

Jules Bass Julius Bass (September 16, 1935 – October 25, 2022) was an American director, producer, lyricist, composer, and author. Until 1960, he worked at a New York advertising agency, and then co-founded the film production company Videocraft Interna ...

* Writer –

* Based on the Song "

Winter Wonderland "Winter Wonderland" is a song written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard Bernhard Smith. Due to its seasonal theme, it is often regarded as a Christmas song in the Northern Hemisphere. Since its original recording by Richard Himber, ...

" – Dick Smith,

Felix Bernard Felix William Bernard (April 28, 1897 – October 20, 1944) was an American conductor, pianist and a composer of popular music. His writing credits include the popular songs "Winter Wonderland" (with lyricist Richard B. Smith) and "Dardanella". B ...

© 1934 Bregman Vocco and Conn, Inc. * Sound – John Curcio, Don Hahn, Dave Iveland, Tom Clack * Animation – Toru Hara, Tsuguyuki Kubo * Key Animation – Kazuyuki Kobayashi * Background Design – Minoru Nishida * Design – Paul Coker, Jr. * Music Arranger/Conductor –

Television rights

The rights to this special are held by

Warner Bros. Television Distribution Warner Bros. Television Studios (operating under the name Warner Bros. Television; formerly known as Warner Bros. Television Division) is an American television production and distribution studio of the Warner Bros. Television Group division of ...

via

Telepictures Telepictures (also known as Telepictures Productions; formerly known as Telepictures Distribution and Telepictures Corporation) is an American television show and filmmaking company, currently operating as a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Television S ...

, which used to license the show to Freeform. The latter aired the special annually on its "

25 Days of Christmas Freeform's 25 Days of Christmas is an American annual seasonal event of Christmas programming broadcast during the month of December by the U.S. cable network Freeform. The event was first held in 1996, and has been an annual fixture of the chann ...

" marathon. In 2018,

AMC AMC may refer to: Film and television * AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain * AMC Networks, an American entertainment company ** AMC (TV channel) ** AMC+, streaming service ** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company *** AM ...

took over the license for the special. Because the ownership of the television rights to the Rankin/Bass library was split into two parts (one including all productions prior to 1974 and one including all productions from that point onward) after the company's dissolution in 1987, ''Frosty's Winter Wonderland'' was separated from the original ''Frosty the Snowman'' special. The telecast rights to the original are now held by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, who produced a companion sequel of its own, ''

Frosty Returns ''Frosty Returns'' is a 1992 American animated Christmas television special starring the voices of Jonathan Winters as the narrator and John Goodman as Frosty the Snowman. The special was directed by Bill Melendez and Evert Brown and features musi ...

'', with a totally different cast, style and production staff.

Home media

''Frosty's Winter Wonderland'' was first released on a compilation VHS tape with the 1981 special ''The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold'' by

Vestron Video Vestron Video was the main subsidiary of Vestron, Inc., a home video company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that was active from 1981 to 1993, and is considered to have been a pioneer in the home video market. The name is now used for a collecto ...

's Lightning Video label in 1985. The same double-feature release was also available in Australia in 1989.

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...

Warner Bros. Family Entertainment Warner can refer to: People * Warner (writer) * Warner (given name) * Warner (surname) Fictional characters * Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner, stars of the animated television series ''Animaniacs'' * Aaron Warner, a character in '' Shatter Me ...

(owners of the post-1973 Rankin-Bass Productions library) distributed the special for its second VHS release in 1992, and also released it on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

in 2004 paired with the 1974 special '' 'Twas the Night Before Christmas''. The DVD was re-released in 2011.

Culture

In the 1998

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

film ''

'', Charlie Frost (

Joseph Cross Joseph or Joe Cross may refer to: People * Joseph Cross (actor) (born 1986), American actor * Joseph Cross (cartographer) (1821–1865), English cartographer * Joseph Cross (cricketer) (1849–1918), English cricketer * Joseph Cross (judge) (1843� ...

) shows his father Jack Frost (

Michael Keaton Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), known professionally as Michael Keaton, is an American actor. He is known for his various comedic and dramatic film roles, including Jack Butler in ''Mr. Mom'' (1983), Betelgeuse in ''Beetlejuice'' ( ...

) some scenes from the special while changing television channels.

References

External links