The Snowman & Father Christmas

The Snowman & Father Christmas
by Dianne Jackson, Dave Unwin

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DVD Reviews of The Snowman & Father Christmas

DVD Review: Superb Snowman
Summary: 4 Stars

You'll never appreciate how fantastic this little film is on those terms, though. It's the music, and the graceful timing, and the way the animators worked with the images from the original picture book, and just the whole gently smiling package that wins over everyone who sees this thing. Honest, it's really pretty unusual for me to write unqualified praise of something, but this one deserves it. It's a perfect, flawless kids' show.

The music, especially, is just a treat. It's a graceful soundtrack, charmingly woven through the wordless images of the video. One holiday season, I talked myself into buying a new stereo just to play the video tape version of this over more than one speaker. It turned out the sound on our tape was flawed -- we'd worn it out I think -- so I bought a DVD player and the DVD version. Okay, sure, I'd been thinking about DVDs for a while, but this little movie is just THAT good.

Why four stars instead of five, then?

Well, first of all, the Father Christmas half isn't quite up to The Snowman's standard. It's pleasant enough, but it just isn't quite as charming or well-timed. For some reason they've got an American actor dubbed over the original English one, though the story's clearly set in Britain anyway. Those sound like quibbles, but let's just say I wouldn't go out of my way to watch that one.

The other problem is the DVD quality. The first copy we got of this had horrible jitters to the image, actual breakup, as if the disc had been badly mastered. The second copy, which we've kept, won't let you select The Snowman from the main menu; whichever button you use, you go to Father Christmas. (We use the info panel on our player to move to the other title on the disc.) The sound and image quality are fine, if you can get a good copy, but there's a quality control thing going on somewhere.

Honestly, though, this disc is worth a tiny hiccup or two. Snowman ranks up there with all the Christmas classics I remember from being a kid -- Charlie Brown's Christmas, Rudolph, and so on. It's got class, and it's fun, and it's beautiful. Buy yourself a new stereo and dig in.

Description of The Snowman & Father Christmas

Father Christmas
This irreverent Santa breaks from tradition in many ways. He has no Mrs., owns only four reindeer, and decides to convert his sleigh into an airborne motor home for a pre-Christmas vacation. He finds France too snooty, Scotland too cold, and Las Vegas just right. Tanned and rested, he returns to the North Pole in time to sort through the mail, pack up the toys, and hit the skies. Like the Santa of the Raymond Briggs book on which this 24-minute video is loosely based, he narrates his own story (splendidly voiced by Los Angeles stage actor William Dennis Hunt). But fans of the 1973 book will find the animated version far less cranky than the original. Although the book was aimed at ages 4-8, the video may have a wider appeal, depending on how you feel about the children seeing Santa gambling at the casino tables, dreaming of bikini-clad babes, and suffering a bout of diarrhea. --Kimberly Heinrichs