60 years ago, Christmas fell on Saturday. And you know what that meant in 1965. Cartoons on TV!
Christmas cartoons fell into two categories, from what I recall. There were the prime-time specials earlier in December. In 1965 that meant Magoo’s version of “A Christmas Carol” (didn’t see) and the new A Charlie Brown Christmas (which I watched after anticipating it with excitement). And then there were old theatricals, some set during Christmas, others with Christmas gags. Included in this would be the touching and gentle classic Mice Meeting You with Herman and Katnip.
I don’t recall any others, but my memory is mistaken, or there were shows I didn’t watch. CBS sent a release to newspapers outlining its programming plans that morning. There were Christmas cartoons on shows made for TV.
A host of Christmas-morning presents will be offered on the CBS Television Network and WHBL-TV [Columbus, Georgia] today in the form of Christmas cartoons, Christmas stories and Christmas songs. The network is presenting five and one-hall hours of daytime holiday fare starting at 8 a.m.
There's a song-filled Christmas in (Captain Kangaroo's) Treasure House, from 8 until 9 and a jolly Christmas with “Tennessee Tuxedo” at 9:30. The precocious penguin and his walrus pal Chumley cut some hilarious Christmas capers in "Tree Trimmers," a cartoon created especially for the occasion. Those who prefer a whimsical Christmas can watch 'So Hi's Nite Before Christmas" on “Linus the Lionhearted,” which presents the loveable Chinese boy in a charming Yuletide tale at 10:30 a.m.
At 11 a.m. the cat-and-mouse team of “Tom and Jerry” take over not only to deck the halls with fun and frolic, but also to turn halls, trees, walls and Santa himself topsy-turvy.
On a more serious note, "The Mighty Mouse Playhouse" at 10 a.m. offers a poignant story that expresses the true meaning of the day. Boris Karloff narrates the award-winning cartoon, "Juggler of Our Lady," based on the classic French fairy tale, "The Juggler of Notre Dame."
There were other TV Christmas cartoons. A week before Christmas, ABC advertised an hour-long special featuring “the yuletide adventures of Hoppity Hooper, Commander McBragg and Dudley Doright.” Hoppity was involved in a four-part holiday sequence. I never had a lot of interest in the frog and the cartoon series is the only one produced by Jay Ward I stopped watching. McBragg was even less entertaining.
Newspaper listings include the generic title Christmas Cartoons with no specifics. You have to wonder if the stations got their hands on syndicate-packaged chestnuts like The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives, the Fleischer’s Christmas Comes But Once a Year with Grampy, or public domain shorts like Iwerks’ Jack Frost, or any cartoon with a flake of snow in it. Today, whole playlists of these can be found on the internet.
While I have a strong affection for that bygone period before endless bombardment of cartoon cable channels, I admit that there are probably more animated cartoons made up to 1965 available to watch today than back then, thanks to companies of all sizes restoring them. We can only hope that continues in the new year.
I know you haven't actually watched network television for at least the past 30 years or so, what's wrong with the influx of these channels that many of these cartoons that haven't aired on television for years(save for say, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry)have now called home? Too heavy of a financial bear for subscriptions?
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't own a television set. I don't have a need for one as I'm busy with various things and don't live my life staring at a screen. (At one time, I joked I was likely the only person on TV without one).
DeleteI have more cartoons than I can possibly watch. What would I need a subscription for?
One thing that is good today is there is a wider selection of pre-1965 cartoons available now than in 1965 (if you really wanted to see The Beary Family, you had to go to a theatre) but it's at the whim of the provider. And social media is full of complaints every time something is removed.
So you don’t like cable for presumably the same reasons you don’t like streaming services? That you can watch them all online instead of having the need to pay for something that you’d only watch a small portion of anyway?
DeleteI understand your complaints but I will say one thing…a lot of the cable networks programming wise (I’m talking about the channels that channels that either consist of old or new programming or a mixture of both) and branding wise aren’t bad! Well…some more than others and some have gone downhill (both of these types of channels I will not name but you can probably guess some examples). And I suppose the fact that they’re 24/7 channels with no time for local programming or current affair programs or news mainly adds to the reason why they’re not free.
But still, unlike you I don’t mind a lot of them (though I will say this is coming from a guy who owns three TV’s (I’m a family man after all!), mainly uses a homebrew TV service with thousands of free channels that costs a lot less money to renew than what most homes have to pay for those channels and who only has one streaming service (Amazon Prime due to our family having Prime)). To each his own?
"The Juggler of Our Lady" belongs in everyone's Christmas cartoon collection. In 1966 its creator R.O. Blechman premiered his famous "Seasons Greetings from CBS" bumper. MeTV also gets points for keeping the old titles around for new viewers to find. I couldn't be more impressed; I was sure they'd have gone to post-1980 cartoons by now (which I'm sure they show as well).
ReplyDeleteBlechman's promo is so simple and direct. It's perfection.
DeleteAgreed! It manages to be so poignant.
DeleteJust to name some more Christmas cartoon programming that aired in December of 1965 (I know you don’t like lists Yowp but just found it interesting to list a couple more programs)….
ReplyDeleteIn addition to running Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, NBC aired Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on December 5th 1965 and aired the Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color episode A Present for Donald (basically just The Three Caballeros but recut as a Christmas special) the day after Christmas.
According to an old TV Guide, on Christmas Day NBC affiliate KRCA aired the 1961 anime movie Alakazam the Great and KTVU aired the movie Hoppity Goes to Town.
In addition, the Mighty Mouse Playhouse episode that CBS aired on Christmas Day also contained “Tale of a Dog” and “Outer Space Visitor” among it’s contents.
Also, funnily enough, the two Christmas specials you mentioned in the second paragraph (Magoo and Charlie Brown) aired on the same network (ABV2) in Australia on Christmas Day, 1965!
This post was intended to concentrate on Christmas Day programming, not endless trivia. I was quite surprised to read of the CBS cartoons because I don't recall any of them. I was hoping someone might recall them.
DeleteSorry Yowp…considering the title of this post, I thought that I could share some more info about Christmas Cartoons on TV in 1965.
DeleteSorry if you thought that it wasn’t really appropriate for me to say “endless trivia” about this topic.