Original Television Christmas Classics

A Holly Jolly Christmas, Indeed!

There are four incomparably wondrous Christmas films in this five-film set, and those four were all written by one man who overflowed with the magic of love and with a most magical, indeed divine, gift of the storyteller's art ... "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is indeed the most marvelous Christmas film ever! It is one of many superb animated films written by a great man named Romeo Muller. Rudolph is doubtless his best-loved work. I remember watching the film as a child, delighted and enraptured by the story that it told. Do you remember? Sam the Snowman as narrator (voiced and sung in the performance of a lifetime by Burl Ives) Rudolph the misfit and rejected reindeer Rudolph's friend, Hermy the Elf, also a misfit because he doesn't like to make toys but wants to be a dentist Yukon Cornelius, the prospector who befriends them both the Abominable Snowmonster of the North (whom Yukon, in prospector slang, invariably calls a "bumble") the Island of Misfit Toys, and its winged lion ruler, King Moonracer and many other characters and story threads. The presentation, interweaving, and resolution of all of these elements is positively Shakespearean in deftness, wit, poetic beauty and brevity of expression, depth, pathos, joy, moral instruction, and the sense that all ends as indeed it should. Grounded in a deep and sparkling love of all creation, these qualities characterize all of Romeo Muller's films. "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" explains the origins of all sorts of customs of Christmas--according to the astonishing imagination of Romeo Muller, that is! Adventure, menace, romance, despair, hope, struggle, triumph, delight, and finally profundity of love. And watch out for the Winter Warlock and Burgermeister Meisterburger! A dazzling achievement. "Frosty the Snowman" is simply superb! It's another of Romeo Muller's 16 animated Christmas films--all of which are splendid and marvelous and overflowing with wonders and delight. Jimmy Durante is a most endearing narrator and singer here, and the enchanting story of Frosty is both humorous and heart-tugging. Watch it, and learn why there's magic in Christmas snow! You'll also enjoy the sequels by the same author, "Frosty's Winter Wonderland," narrated by Andy Griffith and "Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July," narrated by Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus. "The Little Drummer Boy" is an intense story of how a boy's hatred of mankind--caused by others' hateful acts against those he loves--is finally overcome by a blaze of divine love and loving healing to which he finally, despite all his anger, despite all his anguish, pain, and suffering, opens his heart. See it and learn for yourself why and how, in the words of narrator Greer Garson, the little drummer boy finally learns that "his hatred was wrong, as all hatred is wrong," and that only the courage to love even as God loves us all can make us whole. Is this not the most fundamental lesson for the entire troubled and immensely suffering human race? An amazing film. And what an amazing and wonderful writer and human being was my hero, Romeo Muller. If you will see any, and preferably all, of Romeo's films, you will become a finer, more compassionate, and a more truly loving human being. What finer magic could there be than that?