The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974)
This might not be the best of the Rankin/Bass Productions, but it's one of my favorites, mostly because of the Miser Brothers. They have the best scenes and songs in the movie, and a fun sibling rivalry.
I like the Mrs. Claus in this because it seems like she is the smartest person in the movie. She just seems to know how to fix any problem.
I also liked the scene with Mother Nature. She reminded me of the old Chiffon margarine commercial. ("
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!")
But on the sad side, I felt so bad for poor little Vixen. I almost wanted to cry every time they showed him. He looked so sad.
I like the scene with the little girl singing "Blue Christmas", but I wish they would have introduced her a bit earlier so we would have had more of a connection to her when she was sad. It was hard to feel emotional for her because we didn't really know her yet.
There was a sequel to
The Year Without a Santa Claus in 2008 called
A Miser Brothers' Christmas, but it's not nearly as good as the original. The only connection to Rankin/Bass is the characters, and it doesn't have the same heartwarming look or feel of the original. They tried to expand on the sibling rivalry, and they even added another sibling, but it just didn't work. The sequel feels like a childish 1970s Saturday Morning Cartoon.