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Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
''Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey'' is a 1977 Japanese-American Christmas stop motion animated television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. It premiered on ABC on December 3, 1977. The story is based on the 1975 song of the same name, written by Gene Autry, Don Pfrimmer and Dave Burgess. Plot Santa Claus' donkey Spieltoe tells the story of Nestor, his ancestor who lived in a stable during the days of the Roman Empire. Nestor is teased by other animals and mistreated by Olaf, the stable owner, for his unusually long ears. One night when Roman soldiers come to the stable to buy donkeys, they dismiss Nestor as an imperfect misfit and leave him behind while taking all the other donkeys for free. Enraged, Olaf casts Nestor out into the frigid cold. Nestor's mother finds him and shields from the harsh weather with her own body, freezing to death in the process. The next day, Nestor meets a cherub named Tilly, who says that they need to travel to Bethlehem. When th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American actor, musician, singer, composer, rodeo performer, and baseball team owner, who largely gained fame by singing in a Crooner, crooning style on Radio in the United States, radio, in Cinema of the United States, films, and on Television in the United States, television for more than three decades, beginning in the early 1930s. During that time, he personified the straight-shooting hero — honest, brave, and true. Autry was the owner of a television station and several radio stations in Southern California. From 1961 to 1997, he was the founding owner of the California Angels franchise of Major League Baseball (MLB). From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 motion pictures. Between 1950 and 1956, he hosted ''The Gene Autry Show'' television series. In many of them, he appeared with Champion the Wonder Horse, Champion, his Morgan horse. Autry was also one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robie Lester
Robie Lester (March 23, 1925 – June 14, 2005) was an American voice artist, actress, and singer, best known as the voice of "Miss Jessica" in the Rankin/Bass animated special ''Santa Claus is Comin' to Town'', the singing voice of Eva Gabor in Disney's ''The Aristocats'' and ''The Rescuers'', and the original "Disneyland Story Reader" for Walt Disney Records read-alongs. Early life Lester was born in Megargel, Texas, and raised in Northern Ontario, Canada. After a few years in Detroit, she joined the US Army Air Corps before attending UCLA with a major in music. In Hollywood, she worked with Henry Mancini and Herb Alpert, recorded for Liberty, Warner Brothers and A&M, and sang demos for songwriters. At A&M Records Lester recorded one of her most frequently heard, though uncredited, contributions—singing in Spanish behind the narrated portion of the Sandpipers' 1966 hit "Guantanamera". Career Work in commercials Lester was one of the busiest voice-over artists in early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frosty's Winter Wonderland
''Frosty's Winter Wonderland'' is a 1976 animated Christmas television special and a standalone sequel to the 1969 special ''Frosty the Snowman'', produced by Rankin/Bass Productions and animated by Topcraft. It is the second television special featuring the character Frosty the Snowman. It returns writer Romeo Muller, character designer Paul Coker, Jr., music composer Maury Laws and actor Jackie Vernon as the voice of Frosty, while Andy Griffith stars as the narrator (replacing Jimmy Durante, who had been incapacitated by a stroke three years prior and retired from acting) with the rest of the cast consisting of Shelley Winters, Dennis Day and Paul Frees. The special premiered on ABC on December 2, 1976. Plot Years have passed since Frosty left for the North Pole. When he hears about the first snowfall of the season, he decides to return. The children are overjoyed when Frosty comes back to play with them, but then Jack Frost sees the fun that the children are having with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burl Ives
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American Folk music, folk singer and actor with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own radio show, ''The Wayfaring Stranger'', which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlin's ''This Is the Army'' and became a major star of CBS Radio. In the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as "A Little Bitty Tear" and "Funny Way of Laughin'". Ives was also a popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s. His film roles included parts in ''So Dear to My Heart'' (1948) and ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958 film), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' (1958), as well as the role of Rufus Hannassey in ''The Big Country'' (1958), for which he won an 31st Academy Awards, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the film noir ''Day of the Outlaw'' (1959). Ives is often associate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Morse
Robert Alan Morse (May 18, 1931 – April 20, 2022) was an American actor. Known for his gap-toothed boyishness, he started his career as a star on Broadway acting in musicals and plays before expanding into film and television. He earned numerous accolades including two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. For his roles on Broadway, Morse won two Tony Awards; the first for Best Actor in a Musical for playing J. Pierrepont Finch in '' How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying'' (1961), a role which he reprised in the 1967 film adaptation; the second for Best Actor in a Play for portraying Truman Capote in the one-man play '' Tru'' (1988), a role which he reprised in the 1992 television production, earning him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. Morse was also Tony-nominated for '' Say, Darling'' (1959), '' Take Me Along'' (1960), and ''Sugar'' (1973). Morse acted in his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The First Easter Rabbit
''The First Easter Rabbit'' is an animated Easter television special that premiered April 9, 1976, on NBC and later aired on CBS. Created by Rankin/Bass Productions, it tells the story of the Easter Bunny's origin. The special is loosely based on the 1922 children's book ''The Velveteen Rabbit'' by Margery Williams. Burl Ives narrates the special which also features the Irving Berlin song "Easter Parade". It marked Ives's return to a Rankin/Bass special for the first time since the company's 1964 stop motion television special ''Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer'' twelve years prior. Plot G.B., a rabbit, tells the story of Stuffy, who began as a stuffed rabbit given as a Christmas present to a little girl named Glinda. Soon afterward, Stuffy encounters Spats, Flops, and Whiskers, a trio of scheming live rabbits who mock Stuffy for not being real. One day, when Glinda becomes sick after contracting scarlet fever, her clothes and old toys, including Stuffy, are thrown away to be burned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George S
George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorgio Moroder * George, son of Andrew I of Hungary Places South Africa * George, South Africa, a city ** George Airport United States * George, Iowa, a city * George, Missouri, a ghost town * George, Washington, a city * George County, Mississippi * George Air Force Base, a former U.S. Air Force base located in California Computing * George (algebraic compiler) also known as 'Laning and Zierler system', an algebraic compiler by Laning and Zierler in 1952 * GEORGE (computer), early computer built by Argonne National Laboratory in 1957 * GEORGE (operating system), a range of operating systems (George 1–4) for the ICT 1900 range of computers in the 1960s * GEORGE (programming language), an autocode system invented by Charles Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Shawn
Dick Shawn (born Richard Schulefand, December 1, 1923 – April 17, 1987) was an American actor. He played a wide variety of supporting roles and was a prolific character actor. During the 1960s, he played small roles in madcap comedies, usually portraying caricatures of counterculture personalities, such as the hedonistic but mother-obsessed Sylvester Marcus in '' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963), and the hippie actor Lorenzo Saint DuBois ("L.S.D.") in '' The Producers'' (1967). Beyond his film work, he appeared in numerous television shows from the 1960s through the 1980s. Career Born in Buffalo, New York to a Jewish family, and raised in nearby Lackawanna, Shawn performed his stand-up comedy act for over 35 years in nightclubs around the world. His award-winning one-man stage show, ''The Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World'', was sometimes performed with a unique opening. When the audience entered the theater, they saw a bare stage with a pile of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth (born Marjory Ford; August 30, 1898October 16, 1992) was an American actress. One of 24 performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, Booth was the recipient of an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and three Tony Awards. Primarily a theater actress, Booth began her career on Broadway theatre, Broadway in 1915. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama ''Come Back, Little Sheba (play), Come Back, Little Sheba'', for which she received her second Tony Award in 1950 (she would go on to win three). She made her film debut, reprising her role in the Come Back, Little Sheba (1952 film), 1952 film version, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance. Despite her successful entry into films, she preferred acting on the stage, and made only four more films. From 1961 to 1966, Booth played the title role in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allen Swift
Ira J. Stadlen (January 16, 1924 – April 18, 2010), known professionally as Allen Swift, was an American actor, writer and magician, best known as a voiceover artist who voiced cartoon characters Simon Bar Sinister and Riff-Raff on the ''Underdog'' cartoon show. He took his professional name from radio comedian Fred Allen and 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift. Early life and education He was born January 16, 1924, in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and raised in Brooklyn. Swift graduated from the High School of Music & Art, after which he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces, where he served from November 1942 to November 1945. While in the Army, he was an entertainer and became a private first class. Career Children's television Allen Swift was an early television star who began his career by replacing Buffalo Bob Smith on '' The Howdy Doody Show'' while Smith was recovering from a heart attack. At various times, he played the characters of Clarabell the Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
'Twas The Night Before Christmas (1974 TV Special)
''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' is a 1974 animated Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions that features Clement Clarke Moore's famous 1823 poem '' A Visit from St. Nicholas'', the opening line of which is the source of the title of this animated special. The special first originally aired on CBS on December 8, 1974, and the network aired it annually until 1994, when The Family Channel (now Freeform) took over its syndication rights. AMC took over syndication rights for the special in 2018. Although the opening credits mention "told and sung by Joel Grey", it is really narrated by George Gobel, as there is more emphasis on the point of view of Father Mouse, with Moore's poem read by Grey as a secondary plot. Plot Santa Claus is offended by an anonymous letter printed in a Junctionville, USA newspaper claiming that he does not exist. In response, Santa returns all of the townspeople's letters unopened. Upon reading the letter, Father Mouse, an as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
