Giving Thanks Again For The Rankin/Bass Hobbit

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the premiere. Seven years ago I had this to say about the Rankin/Bass version of The Hobbit:

The Rankin/Bass adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit first aired today thirty-three years ago, on November 27, 1977, four days after Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe that an entire generation has passed since then, that there are grown-ups today who can't remember a time when it wasn't around. I remember I had only heard about Middle-Earth four years earlier, but even that short time had got me yearning for any adaptation of the material. The excitement had been building since I first heard it announced and was eager for any scrap of news; there were articles in TV guide and in our Weekly Readers; there was even a float dedicated to it in a Thanksgiving Day parade. Finally on the evening the family was gathered in a darkened room, and to the strains of an enchanting melody we heard John Huston as the voice of Gandalf begin, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit..."

There were cuts to the story and some disappointing designs (like the elves), but on the whole it was a great adaptation. I liked the fact that except for the song "The Greatest Adventure" all the songs were taken from Tolkien's original poetry. In those pre-VCR days the closest we could get to a copy of the show was a long-playing set of records with a booklet; a deluxe edition of The Hobbit with illustrations from the show was soon added. Many a night we would lay down to the sound track set up to play, and drift off to the unfolding of Bilbo's wanderings. We listened to it so much that we could recite it all straight through, and even today a stray phrase can start my brother and me quoting at length.

Nowadays of course in the wake of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films a big budget adventure movie of The Hobbit is in the works, and you will hear people now and then deploring the quaintness and childishness of the Rankin/Bass show. But The Hobbit is a children's book, perhaps one of the greatest children's books ever, and I hope that in the fever of making a "sequel" to Jackson's films that is not completely forgotten. Rankin/Bass did a good job with that.

The picture above is from the Thanksgiving Day Parade float that year.

Since I wrote that post the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies have come out, in all their bloated wanderings. Those adaptations were, as Samuel Johnson might say, both good and original, but the parts that were good came from the original source, and the parts that were original with Jackson's team were, on the whole, not good. Rankin/Bass, for its flaws, did a very good adaptation of The Hobbit in seventy-eight minutes, in some ways better than the four hundred and ninety-eight minutes of the combined Jackson films.

So, forty years on, even at my niece's wedding, my brother and I rolled out great swaths of dialog from the special while we prepared for the reception. It's been woven into our DNA. If every copy of the Rankin/Bass Hobbit soundtrack were destroyed, we could completely reconstruct it, with music and sound effects, from scratch. To us, the Rankin/Bass special was more than a show, it was a shared experience, almost a language. I suppose I can't really give an unbiased opinion about it. But I think that, even stripped of personal nostalgia, it is a wonderful artistic achievement.

Beorn To Be Alive

There seems to be a little controversy about Peter Jackson's portrayal of Tolkien's ursine skinchanger in the forthcoming movie, The Desolation of Smaug. That last picture is a blurry reveal, and what has most people grumbling is what has been referred to as a "mohawk/mullet" or "Sonic the Hedgehog hairstyle."


Update!! Revealed at last! Beorn from the 2014 calendar!

Design Similarities: Goblins Again

Goblins from an imaginary game of "Crypts and Creatures" from the second season episode of Scooby Doo!: Mystery Incorporated "Web of the Dreamweaver."

Goblins from the 1980 Rankin/Bass The Return of the King.

Design Homages?

Is it just me, or is there perhaps a bit of design homage in the grossly distended chin of the Goblin King of Peter Jackson's new Hobbit film, and those of the goblins in the Rankin/Bass production of The Hobbit?

Giving Thanks For "The Hobbit"

The Rankin/Bass adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit first aired today thirty-three years ago, on November 27, 1977, four days after Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe that an entire generation has passed since then, that there are grown-ups today who can't remember a time when it wasn't around. I remember I had only heard about Middle-Earth four years earlier, but even that short time had got me yearning for any adaptation of the material. The excitement had been building since I first heard it announced and was eager for any scrap of news; there were articles in TV guide and in our Weekly Readers; there was even a float dedicated to it in a Thanksgiving Day parade. Finally on the evening the family was gathered in a darkened room, and to the strains of an enchanting melody we heard John Huston as the voice of Gandalf begin, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit..."



There were cuts to the story and some disappointing designs (like the elves), but on the whole it was a great adaptation. I liked the fact that except for the song "The Greatest Adventure" all the songs were taken from Tolkien's original poetry. In those pre-VCR days the closest we could get to a copy of the show was a long-playing set of records with a booklet; a deluxe edition of The Hobbit with illustrations from the show was soon added. Many a night we would lay down to the sound track set up to play, and drift off to the unfolding of Bilbo's wanderings. We listened to it so much that we could recite it all straight through, and even today a stray phrase can start my brother and me quoting at length.



Nowadays of course in the wake of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films a big budget adventure movie of The Hobbit is in the works, and you will hear people now and then deploring the quaintness and childishness of the Rankin/Bass show. But The Hobbit is a children's book, perhaps one of the greatest children's books ever, and I hope that in the fever of making a "sequel" to Jackson's films that is not completely forgotten. Rankin/Bass did a good job with that.

Rudolph Restored: Don't Call It Claymation

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the longest-running, most highly acclaimed special in the history of television. It's been on every year since 1965; as such I'm only a year or two older myself, and I've seen it just about every time it's come around. I've hesitated about getting a video copy for years. Having a special available all year round makes it somehow...well, less special. But there have been years when I've only seen part of it, and sometimes missed it altogether. So last year when I saw The Original Christmas Classics (Limited Keepsake Edition) on sale I bought it, to have a fail-safe resource on hand. The set includes Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, The Little Drummer Boy, The Cricket on the Hearth, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, and Frosty Returns, along with a CD of songs from the specials.





I had seen Rudolph on TV that year, so payed little attention to the DVDs at the time. But when Thanksgiving rolled around this year I went looking for stuff on The Mouse On The Mayflower (always hoping for a DVD release), and that led me to a website dedicated to The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass. What I learned there sent me scrambling to my copy to check it out. It turns out that this is a restored version, including material that hadn't been seen since the original airing.





The original version ended with Rudolph, Santa, and the other reindeer flying off. After protests from viewers wondering about the fate of the misfit toys, a new epilogue was added with Santa picking them up and dropping them off (via umbrella) to new homes. Space had to be made for this: the original duet of Rudolph and Hermey the Elf singing "We're A Couple Of Misfits" was replaced by the much shorter "Fame and Fortune," and several lines of dialog were cut near the end.





After Santa takes off, Clarice proclaims, "He'll be a hero after this!", to which Rudolph's mother replies, "Yes, our hero!" "That's my buck!" Donner says proudly. Yukon Cornelius points out the departing team to his own mis-matched sled-dogs (who have resolutely refused to pull his sled the entire show) and says, "Now...ya see how it's done!! Waaaahooooo!"He throws his pick in elation, it falls, and he tastes it. "Peppermint!" he exclaims. "What I've been searchin' for all my life! I've struck it rich! I've got me a peppermint mine! Waaahooooo!" Hermey smacks his forehead and falls back into the snow.*





Last year many of the original "Rudolph" puppets were found. After the original production they were given to a member of the staff who took them home, who over the years had placed them under her Christmas tree. Her children and grandchildren had been allowed to play with them, and they had been stored under no special conditions in her attic. Some of the figures were in extremely poor shape (apparently Sam the Snowman and Yukon Cornelius had melted together). But over the past months the Rudolph and Santa figures have been meticulously restored, using museum preservation grade care. These figures are not "claymation," like Gumby or the California Raisins. They are special puppets with articulated metal joints that are moved in tiny increments and then filmed, giving the illusion of motion; the same process that produced the original King Kong and The Nightmare Before Christmas. These metal joints had corroded away, but now the figures are fully restored, posable, and Rudolph is even wired for nose-blinking action. The picture above shows how they appear today.





For more details on Rudolph, Rankin/Bass, and childhood wonder in general, go to Rankin-Bass-Historian at http://enchantedworldofrankinbass.blogspot.com/. People like Rick Goldschmidt who have the time, resources, and tenacity to pursue and preserve our childhood memories deserve our thanks and praise. I know his books are now on my wishlist.







*This peppermint mine is referenced in the unfortunate Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys.

Design Similarities

A Goblin from the Rankin/Bass production of The Hobbit, and a Firbolg from an old book of Irish fairy tales.

Rankin/Bass Bilbo Design Inspiration

Arthur Rankin, Jr. always asserted that they looked to the work of Arthur Rackham for inspiration on the design of The Hobbit (1977), and here is the proof. Here in a detail from Rackham's early illustrations of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle we see the inspiration for their original design for Bilbo, with unmistakeable snub nose and buck teeth. The "little men" on either side of this proto-Baggins easily contain elements used in the Rankin/Bass conceptions of Thorin, Balin, and Gandalf as well. The design for Bilbo as actually animated was modified, making his features rounder and younger looking; this look for "THE" hobbit has descended on to Sierra Entertainment's The Hobbit video game, right down to his rusty red-brown hair.