Merry Christmas everyone Happy Holidays Happy Hanukkah Joyous Kwanzaa Merry Crimbus I wish you joy in whatever you celebrate. At the time that Im writing this were only a few days out from the most popular holiday of the year and while its not going to be happy or magical for everyone there are countless ways to find joy in it as long as you put forth the effort to look. Personally this coming Christmas might not be all that merry since my family has scattered with the wind I have to work the day before and Im basically going to be alone all day with my cat. Also there was a family tragedy back in November that has inevitably colored the season a little darker than usual adult life can be a bitch sometimes. Having said all of that one thing that always picks me up around this time of year is looking up nostalgic Christmas themed media and every year I try to write at least one Christmas themed anime review so I can share my joy with all of you. In my ongoing campaign to put off reviewing Itsudatte my Santa for as many years as possible I got a little desperate this year and just typed Christmas into the Anilist search bar to see what kind of titles popped up... And to my great surprise one of the first things I found was The Stingiest Man in Town a Rankin/Bass retelling of A Christmas Carol that came out about eight years before I was born. Now for those of you arent familiar with Rankin/Bass yes you are they made Rudolph. Unlike The Grinch I dont have to specify which Rudolph because there are only two Rudolphs and only one of them is actually remembered by literally anyone. Rankin/Bass were basically the HannaBarbera of stop motion animation for a few generations. A few of their productions have become holiday classics most notably Rudolph and a few Santa Claus backstory movies but theyve made far more TV specials than you might realize and some of their shit has been unbelievably weird. Personally speaking I have complicated thoughts about stop motion animation especially when its aimed at children. Its an incredibly expensive and time consuming form of animation the craft of which is mindboggling and on far too many occasions people tend to look past weaknesses in the writing and story because of this. This might be why so many of Rankin/Basss traditionally animated specials arent well remembered because they didnt have the magic of stop motion to prop them up. As for The Stingiest Man in Town it has a pretty interesting history. It wasnt just created because Rankin/Bass wanted to try their hand at a Christmas Carol movie they did it because they were hired to remake a production of the same name that had aired nearly thirty years prior as an episode of a variety show in the fifties called The Alcoa Hour. That production was considered lost media at the time so this animated feature was created to preserve the writing story and music of it. New actors were hired and the screenplay was recycled to recreate the production for a new late seventies audience. Now does that make this the first ever animated version of A Christmas Carol? I dont know but it might be. Its hard to tell because there are so so many versions of this story out there and its not hard to see why. A Christmas Carol is easily one of the most appealing stories ever told. Everyone knows the tropes by heart and you can adapt the structure of the story to basically any cast of characters new or preexisting. Fucking ERB did this story with celebrities. Its in the public domain meaning there are no copyright issues to deal with. It has literary legitimacy to back it up belonging to one of the greatest authors of all time. Its simple enough for kids but deep enough for adults so its a sure bet that families will tune in to see your version of it. Why is this one an anime? I dont fucking know. Some Japanese names are in the credits and it aired in Japan I guess. The same reason Cyber 6 is considered an anime. Are there any other Rankin/Bass anime out there? I dont know that either but if you find any send them my way. Before I get into this particular incarnation there are a few caveats we need to go over. I am an adult. I didnt watch this as a kid so I have no nostalgic attachment or bias towards it. I have also been spoiled by some of the best versions of this story to ever be told like the universally beloved Muppet version and my personal favorite Mickeys Christmas Carol which aired the year I was born and brought Mickey Mouse out of a thirty year soft retirement. I can not help but compare this version to those even though I can appreciate what it might have meant to people at the time. Interestingly enough while it uses the overall aesthetic of Rankin/Bass which is fairly unique and easily recognizable the animation was produced primarily by a company called Topcraft a former anime production company that would later become a part of Studio Ghibli. Back in the day they produced several classic anime titles to some degree along with certain American cartoons like the animated Lord of the Rings movies even though theyre somehow not listed here. In any case with those two specific fingers in its pie and this special coming out in the seventies you can probably guess what it looks like. It is archaic. It doesnt look like straight up dogshit dont get me wrong but it clearly was not made on a very big budget and it was clearly limited by the technology of the time. I personally like the overall aesthetic... Its a lot grittier looking and more detailed than say the Frosty cartoon and Topcraft were at least trying with the animation. Character movement is limited but it is put to good use or at least just enough for the characters to feel an acceptable level of aliveness. For the time it looks okay. Its not going to impress you in any way but its also not going to distract from the story. How is that story? Honestly its pretty bare bones. If it wasnt for all the songs... Theres at least a dozen of them... This movie would drop from an hour long to fifteen minutes long. This is a very simple beat by beat retelling of the Christmas Carol story with no depth or complexity to it and look for 1978 that was probably perfectly fine. Its a cautionary tale about greed and selfishness which kids do need when theyre developing so they can grow some kind of moral backbone before they grow up and enter our capitalist society thats built on rewarding greed and selfishness. Theres no real depth or complexity to it other than that but honestly a functional Christmas Carol story doesnt need depth or complexity. Even today if you sit a very small child down to watch it theyd probably like it. The narrative mentions death a few times but aside from that its safe and entertaining enough for children. That is any child that hasnt been spoiled by the Disney Muppets or even Jim Carrey versions of the story all of which are just objectively superior. On its own merits this special is fine. The problem is there have been countless retellings of this story since then and so many of them have done it so much better that I cant think of a legitimate reason to show any child this version instead of one the other versions. Other versions take their time to humanize Scrooge presenting him not just as a strawman to learn an obvious lesson but a relatable human being whos done terrible things and gone way too far down the wrong path. They develop the world letting you care more about the villagers who suffer while Scrooge refuses to help them. And the songs Im just gonna say it theyre not Rankin/Basss best work. They sound nice but most of them are just filler and while I might have developed an emotional attachment to them if this special were part of my childhood I barely remember any of them. The only one that really sticks out to me is one where B.A.H Humbug... Who is basically just a wholesale ripoff of Jiminy Cricket which kinda foreshadows his role in the Mickey version... Actually brings the nativity into the story. He compares Scrooges hunger for gold with the gold that was brought to The King being careful to not actually use the name Jesus and then ties this into Tiny Tim because hes the child who really needs that gold right now. Its a clever idea but with pretty clunky execution IMO. Ill give them credit that they didnt pussy out about the darker moments of the story but other versions have gone way darker and the emotions just werent there. Scrooge reacting to Tiny Tims upcoming death was given the time it deserved but it didnt hit as hard as it should have. Scrooge discovering his own death as shown to him by The Ghost of Future had a nice added touch with his grave turning into Satan but the whole sequence barely lasts thirty seconds. I did think it was clever that he transitioned away from the Ghost of Christmas Past by snuffing out his candle though. But overall this is not one of the better Christmas Carol adaptations. I dont think its bad by any means I think it was perfectly fine for the time and could even be seen as perfectly serviceable today but it just falls flat when compared to all of the more powerful and emotionally potent adaptations that weve been given since then. Scrooge himself should be a far more complex character than this and he has been. The tragedy of Tiny Tims passing should hit like way more of a gut punch and it has been. Scrooges redemption should be far more triumphant should fill you with impossible joy and give you hope for your own future and guess what it has been. Hell Mickeys Christmas Carol tells a far more memorable and powerful story despite being fifteen minutes shorter than this version Again this is by no means a bad Christmas special but theres a reason nobody remembers it. If theres any reason to seek it out it would have to be Walther Mathaus performance as Scrooge. I know Matthau primarily as Mr. Wilson from the live action Dennis the Menace but he is easily one of the most underappreciated actors of all time and his performance does a lot of heavylifting for Scrooge as a character where the writing may have let him down. Other than that I wouldnt outright condemn this version but you can do better. I give The Stingiest Man in Town a 5/10