I admit, I’m something of a Scrooge. The holiday season frustrates me. Irritates me. Drives me up a wall. And that’s kind of understating things. The truth is, I write dozens of letters each year to my Congressman asking for any and all “holiday season” holidays to be declared illegal (at least around me; I don’t care if the rest of you fall in with that nonsense, as long as I don't have to see it).

But – and I pray this information is never revealed to the wrong people – there are some special somethings that can drag the Christmas spirit out of anyone, even an old curmudgeon like me. Anyone who was a kid from the 1960s through the 1980s will cite these same special somethings as a major Christmas memory from their youth. Any person unmoved by these special somethings has no heart. Beating in their chest is no muscle of blood-pumping goodness and love, but a foul, reeking mass of blackened decay and rotting flesh. Such is the wonder of these eminently lovable Christmas classics.

I’m talking, of course, about the Rankin & Bass Christmas specials.

You remember them. Who doesn’t? Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town. That one with Baby New Year and the big mean winter guy. There were a ton of them. And I loved them all. And if you say you didn't, too, you're a liar.

It all began in 1964 with the big one, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, based on the goofy frickin’ song of the same name. Using stop-motion animation that looks absurdly quaint and laughable by today’s standards and featuring the unforgettable narration of Burl Ives, Rudolph kicked ass and took names. Ives played Sam The Snowman, who looks remarkably like Ives and who tells Rudolph's story. Rudolph was Donner's son! Who knew!? We get a dentist elf, Hermey, and Yukon Cornelius, a prospector. Many stilted, jumpy animations later, they go to the Island Of Misfit Toys, and they meet the utterly, supremely, wickedly cool Abominable Snowmonster, who later made a famous appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. The specialwas by any measure a huge, huge success and remains one of the most fondly remembered television specials for 20- to 50-year-olds ever.

With Rudolph, Rankin, Bass and their herky jerky little holiday specials were here to stay.

Of course, hitting a home run right out of the gate is one thing. Having some staying power is quite another. Rankin & Bass almost (to use a stupid and overused phrase) jumped the shark soon after Rudolph with their second Christmas production, The Little Drummer Boy. It’s a story centering around the birth of Jesus. The birth of Jesus! Seriously, what the hell does Jesus have to do with Christmas? He don’t wear no red suit. He don't give no toys. He don't even have no elves. But R&B bounced back in 1969 when they hooked up with Jimmy freakin’ Durante for the super cool, can’t-be-beat, cell-animated FrostyThe Snowman. Frosty rocked seven ways to Sunday. Not the lame sequels, but theoriginal. It had that excellent song that even people who hate Christmas like me can't help but sing, and a bunch of stupid cute kids doing a bunch of stuffin a stupid cute story. That’s the stuff the holidays are made of right there.

In 1970, they nailed another one out of the park when they completely made up their own origin story for Santa Claus called Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town. This one had Fred “Ziegfeld Follies” Astaire on board as an ambiguously gay mailman – and it rocked. This is great stuff. See, this gay mailman is lugging around tons and tons of letters, all from kids, all asking questions about good old Saint Nick. They want to know how he got his boots and why he comes down chimneys and all the things kids want to know just before their world comes crashing down with the revelation thatSanta Claus isn't real. And Astaire, ever obliging, answers their questions by telling the story of how Santa Claus came to be. Seems that Santa Claus was an adopted redhead and a criminal. No lie! He hooks up with a bunch of elves who look suspiciously like he does, delivers toys to a town run by an angry German guy who hates toys, has to flee from thelaw, meets up with an angry winter wizard guy, and somewhere along the line becomes an immortal creature capable of delivering three billion toys in a single night. As clear-cut as an origin gets, really. Mickey Rooney does a fine enough job voicing Kris Kringle, but Paul Frees steals the show as Burgermeister Meisterburger, mayor of the town Santa Claus terrorizes with his gifts. This character is hilarious (even if his cast does disappear and reappear from scene to scene).

Honestly, I can’t lie. I make fun, but this thing holds up so well. The animation is choppy and awkward. The kids joining in on the narration practically leap out of the television to tell you, “See, THAT’S how he got the red hat!” or “Look, look, THAT’S where the reindeer come from!”, so much so that you want to throttle any kids nearby. And Old Man Winter Wizard Guy is the silliest thing ever. But … but … I loved it. I still love it. I really do. Kids still love it, too. There is a charm in the presentation and style missing from today’s holiday specials. The songs are quaint and fun. The story itself innocent and wonderful. The characters pitch-perfect. What’s not to like? The family and I recently sat down to watch this, and while the DVD quality kind of stunk – lots of scratches on the film, really awful looking – we loved the show nonetheless. This stuff IS Christmas.

Flash forward to 1974. Dungeons & Dragons was officially released. G. Gordon Liddy was found guilty on Watergate charges. Seven others were indicted. Second Lt. Hiroo Onoda of Japan’s World War II army finally surrendered in the Philippines. President Richard Nixon resigned. Kate Moss, Tiffani Amber Thiessen, Jenna Jameson, Penelope Cruz, Alyson Hannigan, and Natasha Henstridge were born. Tex Ritter, Bud Abbott, Duke Ellington, and Nick Drake died. And Rankin & Bass released The Year Without Santa Claus.

The Year Without Santa Claus was AWESOME.

Santa, you see, gets sick. Stuffy nose, that sort of thing. Really he was probably sick of all the work he got himself into, having to hump himself around from house to house shoveling toys at the world’s millions and millions of ungrateful bastards, but this is the joyous holiday season, so let’s leave what is clearly the truth behind and just say that he was sick. So Santa is sick and can’t do the whole Christmas thing. The elves to the rescue! Etc., etc., story, story, don't remember, don't remember, and then – you know you love them – the HEAT MISER and SNOW MISER! Easily two of the best characters in television history, the Heat Miser was a big, grumpy guy with fire for hair and a bad orange and red wardrobe. He had, like, heat. The Snow Miser was skinny, had a long nose and wore an awful hat. And he had, you know, cold. Together, their combined powers of evil made Christmas awesome for children everywhere. Totally rocking. Totally cool. Totally Christmas.

That same year, the team supreme did ’Twas The Night Before Christmas, which featured a bunch of bug-eyed rats and bug-eyed people doing their whole Christmas thing in an awkwardly-animated fashion based around that annoying Christmas poem thingee. The head father dude from the house, with his crazy evil eyes, still gives me nightmares. Better to leave this one alone …

But, just like the state of the real world, the world of Rankin & Bass holiday specials went downhill after 1974. In 1975, they produced The First Christmas, which was so bad I must have blocked it from my memory, because I can't remember a damn thing about it. It featured the voice of Angela Lansbury, so let's assume it was awful. In 1976, we saw the return of Frosty in Frosty's Winter Wonderland, which was really just an excuse to have crappy cartoon characters sing that stupid song, Walking In A Winter Wonderland. Ugh. That same year we got Rudolph's Shiny New Year, which if the truth be told was awesome in its own little way, but which was also an obvious example of shark-jumping. In it, Happy, aka Baby New Year, goes missing. The world can't have that happen because then something something something blah blah blah, so Santa sends Rudolph out to search for the lad. A character named Big Ben does some stuff and Red Skelton provides the voice for someone. Other things happen. A mountain and Old Man Winter. Etc., etc. Yay. Finally, also in 1976, R&B produced The Little Drummer Boy, Book II. I'm assuming Jesus didn't make a second appearance for this one, but I could be wrong.

In case you didn't notice, I'm starting to lose the small amount of Christmas joy I had when I started writing this.

Anyway, some real crap better left forgotten followed. Nestor The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, Jack Frost, The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold, The Life And Adventures Of Santa Claus.

Crap, crap, crap, crap.

But those original Rankin & Bass Christmas specials still rock the house. They define the holidays like few other annual Christmas specials do, managing to not only bring bitter old farts like myself into the holiday spirit but to delight new viewers, too. They hold up just as well as they did nearly 40 years ago, stilted animation and all. And god bless 'em for it.

Mr. Rankin, Mr. Bass, you may have ruined The Return of the King, but you sure did a bang-up job with Christmas. Merry Christmas, you old bastards!