‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974) – Rewatch

As with most Rankin-Bass specials, I had seen this a number of times in childhood, but mostly forgot about it except for its hauntingly catchy clock song. I was delighted to rediscover it a number of years ago as a bonus to the much inferior Frosty’s Winter Wonderland DVD. Nestled into the well-known Clement Moore poem is a tale about two families sharing the same house, a human one and its mouse counterpart. After a letter to the editor angers Santa to where he refuses to deliver presents to the town, the human clockmaker builds a clock in hopes to entice the normally jolly fellow back. It’s a spry 25 minute short, drawn in colorful traditional animation, with catchy songs, and told succinctly by a duo of narrators, George Gobel’s Father Mouse and Joel Grey’s human father.