The Great Toy Robbery

There’s nothing like a clever spoof, and that’s what you get in “The Great Toy Robbery,” a 1963 short directed by Jeff Hale for the National Film Board. Santa Claus is plunked into a Christmas-style hold-up a la “The Great Train Robbery,” and western film clichés abound. The designs and score are a lot of fun.

The cartoon got released in the U.S. by Columbia Pictures (which had been inflicting the second-rate Loopy de Loop shorts on theatre audiences) and was generally sent out with Dr. Strangelove. By that time, Hale was working for Cameron Guess Associates in San Francisco.

It was the top winner at the Irish Film Festival in the animated and cartoon films category in 1963.