Christmas is over, but we still have New Year's Eve & Day later this week, and a pair of New Year's specials are on the ABC docket tonight.
The 2nd half of the double-bill is an encore of 1976's Rudolph's Shiny New Year, a sequel to the 1964 classic, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This time, Rudolph (Billie Richards) returns from his annual Christmas Eve tour with Santa Claus (Paul Frees), only to be called on by Father Time (Red Skelton) to locate Happy, the baby New Year, who has fled to the Archipelago of Lost Years, unhappy because of his oversized ears (think "Dumbo"). Aeon the Terrible, a vulture, wants to keep Happy from succeeding Father Time so that the current year can continue uninterrupted, but you can't stop the normal nature of things, can you?
Morey Amsterdam and Frank Gorshin are also in the cast for this one, which moves back to ABC this year after airing on ABC Family the last several years.
For a sequel, there is a bit of a continuity error, and it has to do with Rudolph's antlers. Unless they regenerated after breaking, they should be bigger than they appear in the show. Also, around the same time this aired, DC Comics had released an oversize Rudolph comic book, which now is a prized collector's item.
Rating: B-.
4 comments:
Love this one! Morey Amsterdam is such a bright spot :D
They were playing this one on ABC Family even before Christmas! Not that I mind. They were even playing Rudolph & Frosty's Christmas in July special!
I agree about Rudolph's antlers - it seems like they wanted to keep him looking more youthful like he was in the original special.
Listen closely when you get to 46:33, and you can just catch a smidgen of Frank Gorshin's nefarious high-pitched Riddler laugh!
I think I did pick that up when I watched it on TV one year.
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