Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Favorite Fictional Characters --- Frosty the Snowman


Well it's the 2nd post of my Favorite Fictional Character series in the month of December and as you can tell I'm sticking with the holiday theme. Frosty the Snowman is up next and how I love this chubby man made all of snow.

Frosty started as a Gene Autry song in 1950 and he has remained in our hearts ever since. This is still one of my favorite songs and my son can be heard singing it for hours after he hears it on the radio.

Like Rudolph before him Frosty was quickly picked up for TV and his first starring role came in 1953 in a 3 minute special from the same studio who gave us the Suzy Snowflake video. It ran on WGN for years and can still be found there every once in a while. I hadn't seen this video in years and I was delighted when I ran across it while doing this post. This is a pretty upbeat jazzy version of the song and Frosty moves the way you would think a snowman would if he were wearing boots.

Now must of us know Frosty from the 1969 TV special, Frosty the Snowman, that was produced by the wonderful team of Rankin & Bass. This is the Frosty that would captivate me as a child. This was the Frosty that I wanted every time I made a snowman as a kid. What kid wouldn't want his snowman to come to life and play with him? When I watch this movie now I still feel like that 6 year old who believes that anything is possible and that one day magic may actually happen.

Now being the Christmas freak that I am I not only own it on DVD but I also own Frosty's Winter Wonderland where Frosty meets his wife Crystal, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July which pairs our two heroes into a feature length movie (Frosty has kids of his own in this one), and Frosty Returns from the early 1990s which is not my favorite as I think the animation is a little weak.

So my challenge to everyone is this. Sometime between now and Christmas watch this movie with your kids or by yourself and allow yourself to become a kid again. Feel the magic and wonder like you did before.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love Frosty. We watch it every year. We watch Frosty returns, too, but I agree that it's not as good.

Zia said...

I love Frosty! He was always one of my favorites when I was a kid and he still is.

Michelle Stockard Miller said...

I have Frosty on VHS and, of course, we watch it every year! It was always one of my favorites....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Love it!

Melissa (My World...in words and pages) said...

We love Frosty here too! We always watch and sing along with the song. We just can't help ourselves.

I have to say that is a great picture of Frosty and I love how Santa is there as well. Nice pick!

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

Oh, what a beautiful picture! Frosty the Snowman evokes all kinds of memories for me. First of all (just a little quirky aside), my adopted name is "Snow," but my birthname was Frost. So you can imagine the teasing...

Anyway, I haven't seen this movie in a long while...probably not since my own kids were little. And I do recall them singing along afterwards...just as they did with the Charlie Brown movies.

Thanks for bringing these memories to our lives!

Simcha said...

Hmmm...I don't know too much more about Frosty the Snow Man then I did about the Rudolf the Reindeer or Suzy the Snowflake but I think us Jews need to get ourselves some cute Chanukah mascots too. They look like a lot of fun.

The Cozy Mystery Journal said...

Oh I love Frosty too. I love this time of the year so much. Its fun watching the old and new christmas specials :)

This is my boys first year noticing the tv (they're 16mo now) and we are all enjoying watching treehouse for the xmas specials! They have some really old ones on, which are awesome.