William Hanna and Joseph Barbara rose to fame thanks to Tom and Jerry, the animated short series about the antagonistic relationship between a housecat and the mouse he was forever striving to get rid of. The shorts won seven Oscars, none of which Hanna nor Barbara won personally, as they all went to the series's producer, Fred Quimby (much to their chagrin). In 1957, MGM shut down their theatrical animated shorts department, and the duo moved to TV, where they became arguably the most prolific producers of animation of the new medium. They're responsible for introducing, among others, Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and Scooby-Doo to American airwaves, and during the 70s, seemed to be responsible for the majority of Saturday morning animation.
In 1972, however, the duo decided to move into another field--namely primetime holiday specials. The studio released a Thanksgiving special in November and a Christmas one in December. I have yet to see A Christmas Story (yes, that's the title), but will be reviewing it next month for A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas. However, if its anything like The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't, it will be a near copy of the formula of the then-reigning kings of animated holiday specials, Rankin-Bass.
Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't didn't have a famous narrator to sing and tell the story, but virtually every other element seemed to be lifted from Rankin-Bass, and specifically, the then-four-year-old Mouse on the Mayflower. There's the setting among the Pilgrims and Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving. There's the (mostly) forgettable songs. And there's a furry animal character who is at the heart of the story, which is being told in flashback by a modern-day descendant of said animal.
That 1621 animal is a squirrel, named Jeremy, who befriends two boys, a Pilgrim named Johnny and a Native American named Little Bear, who bond over their supposed hunting abilities (why these two great hunters don't shoot the squirrel is not explained). The two boys decide to wander off to go hunting about five minutes before everyone was supposed to sit down for Thanksgiving, and promptly get hopelessly lost, even with Jeremy chasing after them. This causes the menfolk to decide to abandon their meal to go looking for the boys, who may be lost, but are having a jolly time wandering around the woods (in my favorite bit, they're happily singing about going home while completely failing to notice they've gotten themselves turned around and are going back the way they came). Of course, merely being lost in the woods isn't dangerous enough, so a hungry wolf who wants to make the boys his Thanksgiving dinner is introduced late in the special to provide some menace and to let Jeremy save the day.
While the special did spend a lot of time setting up the Thanksgiving setting (including a lengthy opening song about Thanksgiving, followed a bit later by an even longer version of the same song, complete with a repeat of the opening montage, and an modern-day set scene early on of a human family sitting down for Thanksgiving-a family that is never seen again once the focus switches to the squirrels), once the boys get lost, the Thanksgiving trappings are forgotten. There is no specific reason the boys needed to get lost during the first Thanksgiving meal. This turns out to be a rather common issue with Thanksgiving specials, which seem to frequently slap some roast turkeys and cornucopias on an otherwise generic story. We'll be reviewing plenty of similar specials in the coming weeks.
While Hanna-Barbara would make other holiday specials, after this pair from 1972, they always used thier existing characters for them (such as a pair of Flintstone Christmas specials I wrote about last year). This and A Christmas Story, as far as I can tell, marked their only original specials. I'll have to watch Christmas to make a final judgement, but on the basis of The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't, they were probably wise to leave holiday special-making in the hands of Rankin-Bass.
Next time: Thanksgiving with cavemen, millennia before the Pilgrims.
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