The holiday season is here, which means it's time for the annual viewings of Charlie Brown, Frosty, Rudolph, and The Grinch. In fact, this year, Frosty the Snowman will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary, and has stayed on its original network longer than any other special. HOWEVER, Freeform secured the rights for cable broadcasts of Rudolph and Frosty, their first ever cable airings this year. Knowing how Freeform plays their movies and shows to death at random times, one now begs to wonder......are they really special anymore??????
What made these specials so..well..special to begin with is that in the days that they were made, you only saw Rudolph ONCE A YEAR, you only saw Charlie Brown ONCE A YEAR, The Grinch ONCE A YEAR. NO VHS at that time, only the very rich may have had the Sony CV-2000, if they did however, the tapes were in black and white, 1 hr, and 200 line resolution (bad quality). The only way you saw them was the entire family gather around and watch together on one of only three networks. No cartoon series of Charlie Brown was made at that time, and high quality stop motion Animagic was not often seen on TV in those days, so when Rudolph and The Year Without a Santa Claus came on, it was a very big deal.
The downfall came with two inventions: cable and VHS. At first, VHS was used to only record the specials when they aired, but finally companies like Family Home Entertainment finally put them out for home video. It took a while for cable to take charge of these specials since they were and are still powerhouse ratings (similar to the Super Bowl). The first big get was in 1986 when The Grinch moved from CBS to the Turner Cable Networks (due to the purchase of the pre-1986 MGM film library). Ten years later, The Family Channel, now called Freeform, began their 25 Days of Christmas by acquiring broadcasting rights of the Rankin/Bass library from both Golden Books and Warner Bros. EXCEPT for Rudolph and Frosty (still held onto by CBS) and Cricket on the Hearth (due to unpopularity). Turner acquired Hanna-Barbera in 1991 causing reruns of their holiday specials to air over the Turner networks and would become a holiday staple for both Cartoon Network and Boomerang over the years.
Still, TV over the air specials were winning ratings games. You could only watch Rudolph, Frosty, and Charlie Brown at least ONCE PER YEAR. CBS also aired Garfield throughout the 90's and a new special, Frosty Returns, and despite the pre-1974 Rankin/Bass ownership changes, CBS maintained Rudolph and Frosty even to this day. However, CBS officially retired Garfield's Christmas, and ABC picked up the broadcast rights to the Peanuts specials in 2000. ABC also brought back two popular specials for over the air in the mid 2000's: The Grinch and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. New Charlie Brown specials were made as were some new specials by Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks. But as cable became the main place for cartoons, episodes and specials based off of them were the newest and most popular of the newer specials. Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Spongebob, Ed Edd n Eddy, Powerpuff Girls, and Phineas and Ferb all had holiday shows. The older specials on cable had constant reruns. It's almost as if The Grinch and Year Without a Santa Claus aired everyday at anytime.
Worse yet, television changed to where more commercials were needed. As such, the older specials began airing edited, time compressed, or both. Rudolph was the first victim. The peppermint mine scene had not been shown since it's original airing in 1964 (but has shown up in recent home video releases). Charlie Brown also had some edits to clean it up and make it look better than originally aired (music added and some retakes, but nothing too major or noticeable since it was only seen once before), but by the 1980's, it too became edited. Chopped up versions of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the Grinch, The Year Without a Santa Claus began airing over the networks, so many different edits each year not knowing which songs and scenes will be cut. The weirdest one is CBS's Rudolph broadcast as shown and explained here:
As it stands now, Frosty and Charlie Brown officially airs uncut (though that may change when Freeform begins airing Frosty). In 2018, the WB owned Rankin/Bass specials moved over to AMC as part of their Christmas line up and began airing most of them uncut by allowing more airtime. The true way to watch them uncut was and is DVD and Blu-ray. Despite this, CBS, NBC, and ABC continued to win the ratings game with these specials, but is it all over now that Freeform grabbed the at long last cable rights to Rudolph and Frosty????
Regardless of what the TV industry may think about these specials, this is proven true: once upon a time these specials during their prime charmed and helped people bring Christmas joy and memories for over 50 years. You couldn't wait til the day Rudolph would air, but were sad when it came to an end since you wouldn't see it again until next year. Seeing them brings back Christmas memories than are now being passed down to children and grandchildren. Rudolph's red glow, Frosty's magic hat, Kris Kringle putting one foot in front of the other, and Charlie Brown finding the true meaning of Christmas.....perhaps it's those memories that still makes them special to this day, and so long those memorable Christmas moments still holds strong, these specials will ALWAYS be "special".
