For a twenty-year period, Rankin/Bass Productions were the holiday special production house, from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964 (where it has aired at least once a year on broadcast television, making it currently the longest-running Christmas special) through 1985's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. The company shut down in 1987, thanks both to the failures of their recent productions and their signature stop-motion style of animation having gone out of style (the more fluid Claymation was all the rage at the time). The company would have a brief renaissance, though, in 1999, when an animated version of The King and I, which Arthur Rankin had shepherded and produced, was released. 2 1/2 years later, Fox would premiere his and Jules Bass's first Christmas special in 16 years.
The biggest similarity between Santa, Baby! and Rankin/Bass's previous output is that it is "told and sung" by a celebrity, in this case Patti LaBelle, playing Melody, the original Partridge in the Pear Tree. There is, however, much that is different. The cel animation looks considerably different from previous traditionally animated R/B specials such as Frosty the Snowman and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. LaBelle does not get the "told and sung" credit, and probably most noticeably, the special mostly revolves around African-Americans.
This is not only a first for Rankin/Bass, but is a rarity among Christmas specials. While it is certainly possible that I'm missing something, the only two animated Christmas specials focusing on Black people I've been able to discover that aired prior to this is 1977's The Fat Albert Christmas Special (which I have yet to watch) and 1993's A Cool Like That Christmas (which I have, and it's awful). Santa, Baby! (which, like Cool Like That, aired on Fox) isn't any great shakes, but is at least better than its predecessor.
Another big change is that Melody, rather than serving as the omniscient narrator and not taking an active role in the story, is the primary catalyst for the tale. After a young girl, Dakota (voiced by 9-year-old Kianna Underwood), rescues Melody from a snowbank, she grants the girl one wish, which Dakota uses to wish for her songwriting dad, Noel (Gregory Hines, who worked with Underwood on the Nickelodeon show Little Bill), who is suffering from writer's block, to finally write the hit song he's been struggling with.
Unfortunately, Noel is the special's weak link. There are ways to center a story around a disagreeable character and still make him or her interesting. Noel, however, is just annoying and whiny all the way though. Given that he's the main character, that means we see him a lot. Melody's tough love approach, which has her turning him into a street corner bell-ringing Santa, doesn't help. He always has a way to stick his foot in his mouth, especially with Dakota, who runs off exasperated multiple times.
In the main subplot, the neighborhood's disagreeable super (famed radio DJ Tom Joyner) is eager to evict the small animal shelter, which, being a cartoon, contains a rather odd menagerie--not just a cat and a dog, but a pig, a chameleon, a chicken, and a reindeer. He looks like he's going to be the villain, but a remark from Dakota's mother (Vanessa Williams, who doesn't get much to do) about how he was lonely since his wife died would ensure that he'd get redeemed by the end.
One question might be how the title song is incorporated into the proceedings, given that it is about a young woman's increasingly extravagant Christmas wish list. The answer is rather awkwardly. There are two different renditions of the song. One occurs early on with Williams, LaBelle, and Eartha Kitt, the original singer of the song nearly 50 years earlier and here playing a cat (probably a nod to both her name and her most famous role), and the other is a new version by Kitt during a montage of Santa delivering gifts, intercepted with a new rap portion. There's a reason this version didn't catch on.
While the special is not great, there are some highlights. The other music in the special is genuinely good, culminating with the song that Noel has been struggling to write, which is actually quite nice, even if it didn't find a life outside the special. The animation is bright and colorful, and other than Hines, I liked the voice acting (which includes eventual Tony winner Danny Burstein). It was not a chore to sit though, unlike say A Cool Like That Christmas.
For nostalgists hoping that Santa, Baby! would mark a comeback for Rankin/Bass, it instead truly proved to be the end of the road. The King and I had been a critically reviled flop, and this earned poor ratings when it aired on Fox. After a Christmas Eve rerun in 2002, it fell into obscurity, and Rankin/Bass closed down forever. Still, while this is far from the duo's best work, it's not a disaster, and a decent way to go out. As for animated specials led by African-Americans, we've had a few more since (including the notorious Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa), but still, most specials have protagonists as white as Frosty. Hopefully, things will finally change in this regard at some point in the future.
Next time: America doesn't have a monopoly on cheesy celebrity specials.
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