We’re back with another year of The Christmas Spot! And to kick things off this year we’re taking a look at a bonafide Christmas Classic. Christmas Comes But Once A Year may not be the household name that Rudolph and Frosty are, but for Gen X and millennial kids it’s probably familiar because it was a frequent inclusion on public domain VHS tapes. The Fleischer Studios cartoon is one of the earliest Christmas specials released. It follows the likes of Mickey’s Good Dead and The Shanty Where Santa Claus Lives, but predates Gifts From the Air, Tom and Jerry’s The Night Before Christmas, and the more popular Disney Christmas specials starring Donald and Pluto.
The cartoon stars Professor Grampy (Everett Clark) who is best known as a character who appears in Betty Boop shorts. This is actually his only starring role and it’s my assumption he was chosen to helm a Christmas cartoon because he does share some resemblance to Santa himself. It is an early color cartoon from Fleischer Studios and it has been lovingly restored by Thad Komorowski and Jack Theakston for Jane Fleischer Reid’s company Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored. It premiered last year on MeTV’s Tune in With Me on December 21st making it far too late for inclusion last year so I’m making up for that by placing it in the lead-off position this year. The restored version (as well as copies of the original) are available on YouTube to stream for free. All of my screen captures for this entry are from the restored version.
If you’re into classic cartoons then you’re probably pretty familiar with the Fleischer brothers, Max and Dave. Max was the producer while Dave handled direction duties for Fleischer Studios which was hugely influential in the world of animation. The credited animators for this short are Seymour Kneitel and William Henning with most credits these days including Abner Kneitel as well. Fleischer was known for Betty Boop and later Popeye and many of the studio’s shorts are recognizable due to their use of 3D objects for some settings. Many of these inclusions were used sparingly which helped make them stand out as special and we’ll see the technique on display here. Betty Boop may not be in this cartoon, but her voice actor Mae Questel is as she’s credited with voicing the orphans and Jack Mercer is assumed to have provided some incidentals as well.
This one opens with a lively instrumental that share its title with that of the short. The music is credited to three individuals: Tot Seymour, Sammy Timberg, and Bob Rotherberg. One, or all three, of those individuals is responsible for the song itself the lyrics to which can be found on the Wikipedia entry for this short. It’s a serviceable little Christmas song that’s easy to relate to since it’s celebrating the big payoff that is Christmas. Perhaps if there was a bit more meat to the song it could have been more of a hit and had some legs eventually leading to covers by Michael Bublé and Kelly Clarkson. It did get a second lease on life in a modified format for the Popeye short Let’s Celebrake about a year later. That short is actually a New Year’s cartoon instead of a Christmas one.
The cartoon begins with a shot of an orphanage that’s one of those 3D shots the studio is known for. It begins at a 3/4 angle and then rotates to a head-on shot while a version of “The First Noel” is sung in the background. Many of these 30s Christmas cartoons feature orphans or poor children who need a little boost at Christmas and that’s likely due to The Great Depression. It does often give these old shorts a bit of a redundant quality, but this one does distinguish itself in some ways which we’ll see.
The camera zooms in on the front door which has a wreath and a rough looking sign that says “Merry XMas” with a backwards “S” at the end because these kids are poor. The image dissolves into an interior shot and we get to see their pretty terrible Christmas tree. It would be a real fire hazard if it had any lights on it. The camera then pans over to the fireplace and some sad looking stockings are hung with care over the unlit fireplace and they each have some sort of present in them so that’s good. As the camera moves to show the entrance to the dormitory portion of this orphanage we can see a picture on the wall of a very Scrooge-like individual with the label “Our Trustee” beneath it. Hopefully he was visited by some ghosts the night before.
In the dormitory is where the children sleep. There are ten beds for ten sleeping orphans. Before I counted 14 stockings so I guess there will be some leftovers. They have a fairly generic design to them with round, cherub-like, heads and cheeks dressed in different colored nightgowns. They all have the same hair, for the most part, but they’re not all the same color. They are all little white kids which is bad for representation, but maybe good since so many of these 1930s Christmas shorts feature racist caricatures. Then again, most of those come from toys so we’re not out of the woods yet.
The image comes to rest on a wall clock and as the minute hand strikes the 12 to signal that it’s 7 o’clock and a compartment on the top opens to reveal a little puppy. They can’t afford a cuckoo clock, but I’d say a puppy clock is an upgrade. The puppy does his job by yipping and then jumping down a slide that drops him into the lap of a sleeping orphan. The orphan is roused from his slumber and quickly gets to his feet to alert his fellow orphans that it’s finally here – Christmas! The other kids sit up and return the “Merry Christmas” greeting back to the orphan before they all hop out of bed and start prancing around and singing the title song.
As the children frolic, we see that at least one of them looks different. He’s more of a baby with a single hair and an oversized nighty. He even gets a solo as he sings the second verse before falling on his face because it’s cute. They all parade past the fireplace and retrieve their stocking as they go, except the little guy at the end because he’s too short to reach his stocking. He has to jump a couple of times and manages to grasp a loose string. By tugging on that he causes the stocking to basically fall apart freeing his toy which drops into his hands. And that toy is…eh, it’s a close one. I’m going to give this one the benefit of the doubt and say it’s a monkey because of the costume it’s wearing which was often depicted in cartoons via a hurdy gurdy performance (see the Bugs Bunny cartoon Hurdy-Gurdy Hare). It is missing a tail though, but lacks some of the racist characteristics of similar black face toys. I’ll post an image and you can decide for yourself what this thing is.
We then get to see the kids play with their new toys. At first I was thinking this isn’t bad for orphans, but I was wrong. One by one we see the toys fail. First it’s a cap gun which falls apart after it’s fired. Then we see another kid try to blow up a football that’s been patched about twenty times which pops for the final time before he’s finished. Another orphan has a tricycle come apart while riding upon it while another has a simple teddy bear which can’t even survive its first hug. When the toys break, the kid is left sobbing and this happens to every toy. All 10 kids are howling with sadness for a long shot of the entire room surrounded by the remnants of Christmas. Actually, the kids have multiplied! I’m counting 18 now, and since there were only 14 stockings, four must be crying because they just plain didn’t get anything.
Juxtaposed to this image is the hard cut to Professor Grampy. He’s pretty damn happy, and why shouldn’t he be? It’s Christmas! He’s riding around on a vessel of his own making, I suspect. It’s basically a sleigh powered by an outboard motor and it’s been outfitted with bells for an extra touch of Christmas cheer. He’s singing the short’s song while decked out in warm furs and he’s having a pretty good time until he comes upon the orphanage. The kids are so distraught that their wails can be heard from the street overcoming the sound of the motor and likely decades of hearing damage incurred by Grampy. He drops anchor, literally, and then flails his arms up to the door of the orphanage in a comical manner and peers inside. He sees the room of crying kids and the sight is enough to ruin his mood. He walks over to the stoop in thought and quite literally puts on a thinking cap which is a mortarboard with a lightbulb on it. He thinks aloud, and like the Fleischer Popeye cartoons, his mouth rarely moves with his words. Eventually the lightbulb goes off for ole Grampy has an idea how he can save Christmas for these orphans.
Grampy twirls and dances his way to the edge of the porch and then walks across the snow to a window. As he does, the snow builds up under his boots creating stilts which just makes it easier to slip in through the window. As he does he’s laughing at himself like a maniac and he’ll continue to do so all through this sequence. The window leads him into a kitchen and Grampy starts gathering up all sorts of tools and dishware which he piles up in the center of the room. He then gets to doing what he does best – inventing, by turning household objects into toys for the kids. His first creation is a washboard which he turns into a sleigh with some coat hangers and skis. To assemble it, he dumps a box of nails into his mouth and simply spits them into place which means Grampy is basically a superhero or something.
After creating the sleigh, he moves onto more toys. He turns a shade and some other junk into a toy plane, and since this is a cartoon, it really flies! A feather duster, alarm clock, sock, and some forks becomes a wind-up ostrich or something which walks right out of frame. The film then cuts to the pile of assorted junk as Grampy reaches for more and the pile gradually dissolves to indicate the passage of time with Grampy’s last creation a frying pan banjo. With a pile of toys now assembled, it’s time to distribute them, but first Grampy seems to think the place could do with a little sprucing up.
While the children all cry in their beds, Grampy starts decorating the fireplace. He uses a sewing machine, funnel, and popcorn popper to create popcorn garland that he hangs above the mantle. Those kids might prefer to eat the popcorn, but I suppose they can do that after. Grampy then seems to decide that he can’t hand out these toys. Oh no, that’s a job for only one man – Santa! Giggling to himself once again, he heads back into the kitchen with a pillow which he sets aside. He then does something very inadvisable and removes a portion of the exhaust pipes from the stove. He needs these to create convincing Santa boots, apparently, but he’s now doomed these poor orphans to death by carbon monoxide poisoning. a red tablecloth with white trim is repurposed as a coat with the pillow stuffed under it and Grampy is able to fashion a belt and hat out of other convenient scrap.
With the ensemble complete, there’s nothing left to do except distribute the gifts! Grampy grabs a small bell and uses it to rouse the children from their beds once more. They rush out into the room to find their new toys all strewn about in the room. The first toy we get to see is a highchair combined with a vacuum cleaner which turns it into a self-propelled vehicle of some kind. There’s some mangled chairs that have become a rocking horse with an old boot serving as the horse’s head. Grampy continues decorating while the kids play and maybe the best toy is the coffee percolator which is somehow powering a toy train made out of a tea set.
Despite the questionable composition of Grampy’s toys, they seem to be holding up just fine and the kids like them. Grampy turns the stairs into a makeshift ski slope via a comically large box of cotton and the kids ski or sled down one by one. While they do that, Grampy retrieves a bunch of umbrellas from an umbrella can that all conveniently happen to be green. He opens each one and arranges them from small to large one inside the next to create a makeshift Christmas tree. He straightens the handle on the last umbrella and affixes it to a phonograph. While the kids continue to play via recycled animation, Grampy decorates his tree and then summons them over.
With the phonograph on, the tree spins and we’re treated to another 3D sequence where the tree is a model and the characters appear as animation around it. Grampy leads them in a recitation of the short’s theme song. The kids then darken to black and the background darkens as well leaving just Grampy in full color beside the tree as the children can be heard singing. This shot seems to exist to remind us who the star of this one is, or it’s a gloomy bit of foreshadowing for these kids. Probably the latter.
When the song ends so does the cartoon. Christmas Comes But Once A Year is a simple story framed by a good enough song. I have no particular affection for the Grampy character, but he’s fine in this role. The plot plays to his inventor status as he whips up some toys for a bunch of kids. The site of poor orphans at Christmas is, as I alluded to in the intro, a bit played out resulting in me not really feeling anything for them. This one at least doesn’t play up the misery like other shorts. We don’t see them freezing or searching for food. They’re clearly not in an ideal situation and their shitty benefactor got them shoddy toys for Christmas. I suppose it’s a bit surprising that this one downplays the existence of Santa Claus. Even though the lyrics to the song celebrate him, clearly it wasn’t he who left such shoddy merchandise behind for these orphans. If Santa did his job, Grampy wouldn’t be needed. Maybe even his workshop was hit hard by the depression?
The restoration on this one is just tremendous. I confess, this short has never been a particular favorite of mine, but the restoration elevates it for me into annual viewing territory. The colors have just the right amount of saturation, and it doesn’t appear as if any of the finer details were lost. I never even noticed that “Our Trustee” picture on the wall before seeing the restored version – that’s how good it is. Yes, it does reuse animation and the orphans are all basically the same, but the animation is still lively and smooth. Grampy can’t just move like a normal human he has to always be flailing and bobbing which keeps the images interesting. The audio is also crisper and less distorted so kudos to Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored, I’m eager to see what else they can do.
If you want to watch this one this year, and I suggest that you do, the easiest way is to head over to YouTube. I already linked it earlier, so give it a click if you haven’t already. The short is a little over 8 minutes so it’s definitely worth your time. If for some reason you’re opposed to watching the restored version there are other numerous videos out there should you wish to go that route. You can also keep an eye out on MeTV as I would anticipate that network showing this either as a rerun of Tune in With Me or as part of their Popeye block on Saturday morning. This is definitely more for the animation lover in your life as modern children might find it boring, but they can manage for 8 minutes. Christmas comes but once a year, and it’s almost here, so come back tomorrow for more holiday goodness as we are off and running!
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
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