Little things take us back. That is heightened during the Holiday’s, as we normally have more and more family memories that are built around the many gatherings. One thing that always takes me back to my childhood is an unlikely Christmas icon for me…that, of course, is The California Raisins. Not because they are basically dried up old grapes, and those old dried nasty pieces of fruit remind me of every fruit cake ever made, but because they sang the single greatest rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer that has ever graced this tiny blue spinning marble that we call Earth.
Plot: Rex and Herb, two claymation dinosaurs, take the viewers on a tour of the festive offerings in and around a town during the Christmas Holidays. While playing host to the viewers we are given a look into the worlds of bells that play themselves for audiences, an argument to decide if the correct term is “to go wassailing” or “to go waffling” ,some amazing music and a lot of wholesome family entertainment. This is something that many will remember (once they see it) and that many of us have never been able to forget.
As an homage to many network offerings of parades, Christmas programming and choral offerings, Will Vinton brought to life a fictional town with this claymation (stop motion technology with characters made from clay) film. This is from a time when special effects were hard to come by for network television. If it was done at all, it usually looked so bad that you couldn’t take it seriously. Techniques like claymation were, by some viewers, considered to be part of that “bad” effect period. The truth is, claymation is a painstakingly time consuming art form that takes MUCH longer to produce than traditional special effect. From that standpoint alone I believe that this movie deserves our attention.
On a more personal note, this is the only Holiday movie I really remember from that early time in my childhood. I was 5 years old and I remember sitting in front of the television to watch this program. The California Raisins singing Rudolph is still my favorite rendition of the song ever (even if it wasn’t really magical raisins doing the singing). It also makes me realize that while many movies offer a lot, by way of flash and glitz, this movie as stuck out (in my mind) as one of the more innovative and wholesome Holiday offerings of the past 25 years. You can download it, one part at a time, on youtube. You can also find it online to purchase (although the price is pretty steep). I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a safe and Happy New Year, and that your Holiday festivities are fun and memorable….like this movie.
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