Frosty's Winter Wonderland
Frosty's Winter Wonderland is a 1976 American 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 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 the Snowman left for the North Pole, but 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 Jack Frost sees the fun that the children are having with Frosty and becomes jealous of him. When he learns about Frosty and his magic hat which brought him to life, he 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 steals a horse's hat with his ability to blow snowy winds. Believing it to be Frosty's top hat, he disappears with it.Despite the fun he has, Frosty feels lonely when the children go home each night, making him cry for the first time. To cheer him up, the children decide that Frosty needs a wife and they build one the next day, and name her Crystal. However, the group is unable to bring her to life.
Late that night, Frosty presents Crystal with a bouquet of frost flowers, which magically brings her to life. Just then, Jack uses a gust of icy wind to blow Frosty's hat off, making him inanimate, but Crystal makes a corsage out of snow, places it on Frosty's chest and gives him a kiss, bringing him back to life. Befuddled by Frosty's reanimation, Jack throws the hat back onto Frosty’s head. Frosty and Crystal run through the town and announce their wedding plans to the children. Parson Brown, the local preacher, assists the children in building a snow parson whom he brings to life with his Bible. When Jack tries to spoil the wedding with a blizzard, Frosty and Crystal reason with him and convince him to redeem himself under the condition that he has to be the best man at the wedding. Jack accepts and Frosty and Crystal are married. Frosty, Crystal, and Jack have fun with the children all winter, but they notice the weather is starting to grow warm. Jack uses his powers to extend the winter. After Parson Brown warns them about the dangers of everlasting snow, the three decide to return to the North Pole. They skate to the train station where Frosty meets the Traffic Cop, whom Frosty has encountered before, and introduces him to his wife, which surprises him. At the train station, Frosty, Crystal, and Jack bid farewell to the children.
The seasons pass through spring and summer, and Griffith promises that "on one not so far away day, that first snowflake will fall."
Cast
- Jackie Vernon as Frosty
- Shelley Winters as Crystal
- Andy Griffith as himself
- Dennis Day as:
- * Parson Brown
- * Snow Parson
- Paul Frees as:
- * Jack Frost
- * Traffic Cop
- Shelly Hines as Elsie
- Manfreed Olea as a Child
- Eric Stern as a Child
- Barbara Jo Ewing as a Child
- The Wee Winter Singers as Children
Production credits
- Producers/Directors – Arthur Rankin Jr., Jules Bass
- Writer – Romeo Muller
- Based on the Song "Frosty the Snowman" – Steve Nelson, Jack Rollins © 1951 Hill & Range Songs
- "Winter Wonderland" – Dick Smith, Felix Bernard © 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 – Maury Laws
Television rights
The rights to this special are held by Warner Bros. Television Distribution via Telepictures, which used to license the show to Freeform. The latter aired the special annually on its "25 Days of Christmas" marathon. In 2018, AMC took over the license for the special.Because the ownership of the television rights to the Rankin/Bass library was split into two parts after the company's dissolution in 1987, Frosty's Winter Wonderland was separated from the original Frosty the Snowman special. As a result, CBS, the longtime broadcast rights holder to the original special, produced a companion sequel of its own, Frosty Returns, with a totally different cast, style and production staff. Today, the broadcast rights to the original are held by NBC, a sister company of the pre-September 1974 Rankin-Bass library owner, DreamWorks Classics.