28 November 2009

Rankin-Bass season

With less than 30 days to Christmas, it's the time of year we dig out the Rankin-Bass holiday specials. My niece had never seen Santa Claus is Coming to Town so I plunked in the DVD and hit play. A few minutes in, she asks, "Why is the bad guy called Burgermeister Meisterburger?"

I thought for a moment and said, "Because this show was produced at a time when there was still a lot of bad feelings towards Germans and Germany."

A few minutes later, during his anti-toy tirade, she says, "Oh, so toys were his Jews." It was impossible to watch the rest of the show without making Schindler's list comparisons.

Today, we were watching Rudolph and all we could think about was eugenics.

Hmm.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

dont ruin these specials by thinking of that stuff...you should be absolutley ashamed of yourself!!!!

Unknown said...

Sorry, Anonymous but (a) you cannot tell me what I am allowed to think and (b) next time, leave a name.

Anonymous said...

oh, im sorry Cheryl....I was going to try not to but since you insist I will post on here with my google account user name. Trust me, you dont want to mess with me...I've messed up some blogs in my time, I'd hate to see this one crash and burn like some of the others.

Mwahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Librarianguish said...

I haven't watched those shows in years, and won't be any time soon. But it's often strange to watch something created many years ago and see the various and sundry ideas of the times that are expressed.

It makes me think of all of the really old WWII Bugs Bunny cartoons...

Shawn DeWolfe said...

Really, the most disturbing thing with the DVDs: the original Rankin & Bass TV specials injected single frames from stag films into these. I thought they would have removed these from the films when they transferred them to DVD. They're still visible if you do a frame-by-frame advance during the scenes where Santa is on screen.

Ada Saab said...

Wow, Mike! I had no idea about that. Now I'll definitely be trying this out. Watch out Friday night!

Cheryl, I always have those thoughts about the older cartoons and specials. Things are so deliberately politically correct these days that anything overtly political just stands right out. Seriously, who wouldn't have noticed that the little dentist elf was gay and that the reindeer was a unapologetic artist?

Raven Winterhawke said...

Anonymous needs to get a life!

Shawn DeWolfe said...

Anonymous is a name passed down from its parents. Anonymous' mother looked at what she bore. The nurse wanted the name of the newborn's parents. So horrified, they both provided "Anonymous" and left their spawn for the trolls of the Internet to raise.

Anonymous said...

Nice Mike, thats very creative, I have to say that I've never heard a story about me...I've had many claims of people who say they know me but never of where I came from...btw: looks like your blog is in need of a little Anonymous too...MESS WITH ME BITCH!!!

Anonymous said...

btw: just a little update...Mike DeWolfe, among other things, is a censor. His blog has comment moderation and when I tried to comment he would not allow it. He trashes me on this blog but yet won't respond and won't allow me on his blog. I got it Mike, you can dish it out but you can't take it in!!

Librarianguish said...

What was your original point again?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

Please see comment in above post, outlining why I have censored Anonymous.

If it continues, I will be moderating future comments.

Thanks, all, for visiting my blog.