For the first decade of Rankin/Bass's two decade run as America's most prolific provider of Christmas specials, they tended to produce more hits than duds. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus is Comin' to Town still get annual network airings, and other specials from that era, like The Year Without a Santa Claus and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas are still fondly remembered. However, after the mid-70s, the studio's formula began to become stale. R/B began to make sequels to some of its properties, such as Frosty's Winter Wonderland and The Little Drummer Boy, Book II. Other specials would start incorporating other holidays. Given that New Year's is just a week after Christmas, Rudolph's Shiny New Year isn't that much of a stretch, but the 4th of July tribute within is. The narrator of Jack Frost is the Groundhog Day groundhog. There were also noticeable recycling of elements from earlier specials, such as Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey being essentially a religious Rudolph, and a big chunk of the plot of Jack Frost owing a debt to the plot of Santa Claus is Comin' to Town.
The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold, from 1981, carried on some of those negative trends. While no other holiday is evoked, leprechauns traditionally have very little to do with Christmas, and indeed, it's not too difficult to imagine the script started out about St. Patrick's Day, only for R/B to rejigger it for Christmas when they remembered there was a reason there wasn't much in the way of St. Patrick's Day programming. The motivation behind the show's villain, the banshee Old Mag the Hag, is rather blatantly recycled from the villain in Rudolph's Shiny New Year. All of that could be forgiven if the special was better. But this ends up being one of the weirdest titles in the R/B library.
The special has both a plot that is way too busy and yet somehow not busy enough. It concerns a teenage cabin boy, Dinty, who is sent to a remote island on Christmas Eve to dig up a pine tree to serve as his ship's Christmas tree. Alas, that tree happens to be the prison of the aforementioned Old Mag, who is released to resume her reign of terror. However, she has a deadline. If she is not voluntarily given Christmas gold by sunrise on Christmas morning, she'll dissolve into a pool of tears. This is all explained by the special's narrator, Blarney, who is also in charge of guarding the gold from Mag's manipulations. There's also the problem that Mag is able to transform into any shape she wants to try to fool people into giving her the gold, but as banshees are made of tears, they can't help but be constantly crying. I'm pretty sure none of that has anything remotely to do with actual Irish folklore.
Despite having that very busy plot, there's plenty of time for a lengthy flashback, shots of Mag scheming, and a full-fledged musical number, "Christmas in Killarney", which has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. There's also the slight problem that Dinty might very well be the single stupidest protagonist in a R/B special ever, as he pretty easily falls for a trick that I'm pretty sure the three-year-olds watching at home could see through.
That said, even though this has a reputation as being the worst R/B special, it isn't a disaster. The "Christmas in Killarney" number, while utterly superfluous, is a charming delight, and the special's secret weapon is Art Carney, who tells and sings the story as Blarney. Carney is somewhat of the patron saint of this column, as he spent much of the 1970s making Christmas specials, and I've already written up his work in The Great Santa Claus Switch, Christmas in Disneyland, and The Star Wars Holiday Special. I can at least confidently say that this is better than Star Wars Holiday, if only because this is over an hour shorter.
In many ways, this was the end of the road for the classic era of Rankin/Bass. This would be the final R/B Christmas special written by their usual writer Romeo Muller (whose last few specials I discussed just last week). This would be the final one with the "sung and told" credit for its narrator. It would be the last one to premiere on ABC, which was the home of most of the output from the studio during the 70s. It would also be the last before a four-year hiatus before the final traditional R/B special, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, would arrive in 1985 (after a even more lengthy hiatus, there would be one last special, Santa, Baby!, in 2000).
While The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold does have some decent moments, it's a shame that Rankin/Bass, one of the most prolific creators of class Christmas specials in TV history, couldn't end its most prolific period with a better one. Still, there are certainly worse specials, and worse R/B specials, than this one. It's no lost gem, but it might be a tad underrated, as well.
Next time: We wrap up 2023 with a special from arguably America's most legendary record label.
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