A Christmas Story is a 1972 animated television special produced by Hanna-Barbera. It was their second of the two holiday specials produced for and distributed by the syndicating division of Avco Broadcasting, alongside The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't, which premiered a few weeks prior.
Synopsis
Gumdrop the mouse with his friend Goober the dog.
The special opens in the city of Middletown, home to a boy named Timmy and his unnamed parents. Right before Timmy goes to bed on Christmas Eve, his father reads him the story of A Visit from St. Nicholas, while the family's dog, Goober, listens. Gumdrop, a mouse who also lives in their house, also listens to Timmy's father reading the story and gets out his Christmas stocking to hang alongside Timmy's over the fireplace. After Timmy's parents bring him to bed and Goober goes to sleep, Gumdrop heads off to his mouse hole when he suddenly finds Timmy's letter to Santa Claus on the ground. Figuring that this it was never mailed, Gumdrop awakens Goober and tells him that if Santa does not come to their house tonight, Timmy will be heartbroken and might stop believing in Santa.
Gumdrop and Goober immediately exit the house and start on their journey to find Santa and bring the letter to him. After quite a while of searching, Gumdrop suddenly crosses paths with a group of alley cats who want to eat him for dinner. Gumdrop manages to avoid getting caught by the cats long enough until Goober sees him in trouble and charges in to rescue him. After the cats run off, Goober says he hears bells ringing in his head, and Gumdrop says he can hear them too. Looking in the sky, Gumdrop finds that the sound is coming from Santa's flying sleigh. Noticing that Santa is flying to the Middletown Orphanage, Goober and Gumdrop try to follow, but he leaves the orphanage just as they have caught up.
Goober and Gumdrop go all through Middletown, checking to see which houses Santa has already visited. Gumdrop decides maybe they need to think like Santa in order to figure out where he would go next and deduces that Santa will be going to the Anderson family's house, since they have lots of kids to give presents to. He and Goober manage to make it to the Anderson household before Santa, and get onto the rooftop using a ladder. But just as Santa is arriving, the wind snatches Timmy's letter from Goober before he can hand it to Gumdrop. Goober chases after the letter and manages to get it back. Just then, a mail truck comes by and the mailman, thinking Goober got locked out of his house, brings him into the truck while he takes care of his special deliveries. Gumdrop rushes to the truck and tells Goober to unlock the door before Santa leaves, and in Goober's attempt to do so, he ends up setting the mail truck in motion until it eventually crashes into a tree.
Goober feels awful that they lost Santa again, but Gumdrop tells him not to give up hope. A pair of squirrels offer to help, and Goober realizes that they can use the Animal Relay to find Santa. Goober contacts his fellow dogs and tells them to spread the word that they have to find Santa, and they in turn spread the word to their fellow animals (including the alley cats from earlier). After Goober and Gumdrop look at numerous people dressing up as Santa, one of the cats spots the real Santa in the sky. Goober and Gumdrop catch up with Santa just as he is going down another house's chimney. Gumdrop tries folding the letter up into a paper airplane and throwing it towards Santa's sleigh, but it does not work.
With this last effort having failed, Goober and Gumdrop return home, saddened that it seems Timmy will never get what he wanted. Upon making it back home, Gumdrop suggests that maybe Santa will still come to Timmy's house and they can give him the letter when he arrives. The two end up falling asleep, but Santa does indeed arrive and takes the letter. The next morning, Goober and Gumdrop awaken to see that Santa Claus did indeed come and bring presents for them, Timmy, and his parents after all. Goober is a bit confused about this until Gumdrop notices that Santa opened Timmy's letter. As the special ends, Timmy, his parents, Goober, and Gumdrop look out the window to see Santa flying by in the sky, wishing Peace on Earth to everyone.
Songs
- "Sounds of Christmas Day"
- "O Come All Ye Faithful"
- "Where Do You Look for Santa?"
- "Hope"
- "Which One is the Real Santa Claus?"
"Sounds of Christmas Day", "Hope", and "Which One is the Real Santa Claus?" were reused in A Flintstone Christmas, produced five years later. "Hope" was also reused in Yogi's First Christmas in 1980.
Availability
The special was released on VHS as part of the Hanna-Barbera Super Stars video series in 1989, and again in the mid-1990s. Warner Home Video eventually made the special available, along with The Town Santa Forgot and Casper's First Christmas, on Warner Archive's Hanna-Barbera Christmas Classics Collection manufacture-on-demand DVD, released on July 30, 2012.
1989
1995?
July 30, 2012
Cast
| Voice actor/actress | Character(s) |
|---|---|
| Daws Butler | Gumdrop the Mouse Second dog |
| Paul Winchell | Goober the Dog Sleezer Runto |
| Walter Tetley | Timmy Unnamed boy |
| Don Messick | Timmy's father Squirrel |
| Hal Smith | Santa Claus Fatcat |
| John Stephenson | Polecat Postman First dog |
| Janet Waldo | Timmy's mother Unnamed girl |
| Paul DeKorte Randy Kemner Stephen McAndrew Ida Sue McCune Judy Richards |
Singers |
External links
- Hanna-Barbera Wiki: A Christmas Story
- A Christmas Story at the Internet Movie Database
- A Christmas Story at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- A Christmas Story at RetroJunk.com