Frosty the Snowman

"Frosty the Snoman" is an odd little curio from the 1950s that I found on YouTube. Apparently, some music production company wanted to promote the song "Frosty the Snowman" and commissioned UPA to create this three minute promotional film. It's very bouncy and good considering it only cost $7000 to make. As for the animation, it's enjoyable but very primitive and simple...the sort of stuff UPA was known for and the best you could get for the money they were willing to pay! Don't expect MGM or Looney Tunes or Disney quality animation here...but working with these better studios would simply have been prohibitively expensive and this simple black & white animation is not bad and serve its purpose. Not exactly brilliant and nothing like the lovely 1969 cartoon version...which had a lot of story as well as the song. Here in the 1951 version, it's basically a music video.

What can you say about a 3-minute cartoon? It takes longer to write a review of it than it takes to watch it!

It's short, but I liked it. It is B&W, so be aware of that. The cartoon basically follows the well-known "Frosty" song, with kids putting a hat on his head, Frosty coming to life, then the group heading into town, followed by Frosty taking off until next year. Before you know it, it's over. But that's OK. Short and sweet. As good a holiday 3-minute time-waster as you're going to find.

P. S. There is no magician, no rabbit and Frosty does not say "Happy Birthday" as in the later Rankin/Bass production, so don't be surprised when you don't see them here!

Frosty the Snowman (1954)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This timeless short originally aired on a Chicago station and has since become a favorite to many. At just under 3-minutes there's really no story being told outside of the song itself. We see a group of kids dancing around the snowman and as soon as they put the hat on him he begins to dance as well. There are so many Christmas shorts out there that one could get lost in trying to track all of them down but many are very much worth it and that's the case with this one. I think most people are going to be familiar with the more recent, color films but seeing a Christmas cartoon in B&W just adds a timeless quality to it. I really loved the animation here and especially the look of Frosty. I hope this comes out the right way but he looks like what a real snowman would look like if a bunch of kids just put it together in the back yard. In many Frosty cartoons he looks like, well, a fake cartoon but in this version he really does look like a snowman.

RATHER THAN BEING classified as a cartoon (which it obviously is), this very brief 3 minutes of animated drawings could well be called a sort of Soundie. Although the term is not widely known today, Soundies were filmed versions of popular song forms.

BEING PRODUVED IN the 16 mm format and lasting about the length of a single recording (approximately 3 minutes in length), their venue was in that of specially equipped juke boxes that were equipped to show the short and the sound track for a nickel or a dime a play.

WELL ALL OF the above qualifications can be and are those of this FROSTY THE SNOWMAN b & w cartoon. But of course, rather than being played on a juke box in some gin mill, FROSTY was ,made for and thrived on Television; where he continues to this very day.

THE STYLE OF artwork in both the character design and the backgrounds is quite familiar to those who were around when the animated short was given a new direction in 1943 with the emergence of the United Productions of America or UPA for short and one prefers anagrams. UPA pioneered the stylized look of scenery and character' positing that Disney-style realism was not necessary for successful. Former Disney artist, John Hubley, was a principal partner in the formation of this studio..

EARLY SUCCESSES FROM this company include GERALD Mc BOING-BOING and the MISTER MAGOO theatrical series. They didn't do much in the way of television until around 1960 with their entries of MR. MAGOO TV Series and the DICK TRACY Show (featuring the voice of Mercury Theatre veteran Everett Sloan!) FROSTY THE SNOWMAN appears to have been their first venture into the small screen.

AS WE HAVE previously stated, FROSTY is short and to the point. It is not constructed in various vignettes or gag scenes. It quite possibly is the best cartoon of its genre, pound for pound or foot for foot (of film that is, Schultz!)

I recently discovered on Mark Evanier's site as linked from Cartoon Brew a couple of UPA animated holiday shorts that are on YouTube. One was Peter Cottontail which for some reason is not listed on IMDb. That one played the whole song and depicted visually the entire premise down to the hunter that shot the rabbit's tail. This one, Frosty the Snowman, features the title character's fun with some kids before he leaves so he won't melt away. Both had a chorus that featured no musical accompaniment, just them singing in the standard jazzy style of the period. These were longtime annual staples on Chicago kid shows for years. As a longtime animation fan, these were pleasant surprises. Definitely worth a look.