Those Rankin/Bass Stop-Motion Christmas Stories From Your Youth Are Weirder Than You Remember

The biggest Rankin/Bass headscratcher has got to be The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold. It can't really decide if it's a Christmas or St. Patrick's Day special, but that's not the most baffling part. There's a very loose and threadbare story - about an Irish sailor unleashing a banshee on an island full of leprechauns - yet the majority of the movie is a long-winded explanation of life in Leprechaun Land.

It goes on at length about all the laws and customs the leprechauns must adhere to, even though this information has exactly zilch to do with the story.

Despite the presence of Rudolph and Frosty, this is not really a Christmas special. It's more of a Fourth of July special - despite first airing in November - and there's a couple of oddball plotlines going on in this one.

First, a mad sorcerer named Winterbolt is trying to best Santa, forcing Kris Kringle to summon Rudolph for help. Second, Rudolph and Frosty are inexplicably trying to prevent a circus from closing due to unpaid debts. Happy holidays?

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus was the last stop-motion animation Christmas special produced by Rankin/Bass. And, boy, does it deal with some weirdly heavy subject matter for kids' programming.

Based on the L. Frank Baum book of the same name, this special makes no bones about the fact that Santa is a mythical being. In fact, he's living in a mythical world full of nymphs and fairies and fantastical creatures. There's a whole good-versus-evil thing going on, but the story mainly centers on whether the mythic folk who inhabit Santa's world will make him immortal.

Rudolph's Shiny New Year is just what it sounds like: a New Year's-set sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The oddities of this Rankin/Bass peculiarity stem from its time-travel storyline. Rudolph visits a multitude of periods between 1 million BCE and 1965 in his quest to find the missing Baby New Year.

What's even more strange and distressing: Baby New Year, whose name is Happy, gets taken by a villainous vulture named Eon who hurts him emotionally.

In The Little Drummer Boy: Book II, Rankin/Bass focus the story on a Magi named Melchior who needs help from Aaron, the titular protagonist, to protect the silver bells Melchior is making to herald Christ's arrival. The Roman tax collectors, headed by the ruthless Brutus, take the silver bells in lieu of taxes when Melchior is unable to pay, and Melchior and Aaron set out to get them back.

And what holiday entertainment is ever complete without a story arc involving taxes?

On the Rankin/Bass weirdness scale, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town falls on the calmer end of things, but there are two standout moments that deserve mention. First, the villain, Burgermeister Meisterburger, is a walking stereotype. Also, Jessica - who falls in love with Santa - has a song about how head-over-heels she is for Kris Kringle. As she's singing, she seems to go on an acid trip.

The lyrics of one of the songs that Santa sings hasn't aged well, especially out of context:

If you sit on my lap today

A kiss a toy is the price you'll pay

When you tell what you wish for

In a whisper

Be prepared to pay