Absolutely love 'Santabear's First Christmas', another one of the incredibly well made and written, superbly narrated, beautifully scored and immensely charming Rabbit Ears Productions adaptations from the 80s and 90s. Very faithful on the most part to their respective source materials, and any changes that are made every now and again are not usually hindrances, and very accessible for the whole family, and it is a shame that they are not more widely known. As they really do deserve a wide audience.
'Santabear's High Flying Adventure' is not as good as 'Santabear's First Christmas' and is not as high flying as that. There is more of a plot here and it is very oddly charming, but the quaint tone and simplicity that 'Santabear's First Christmas' had so beautifully is not as strong here. Enough of the things that made 'Santabear's First Christmas' so good can be seen here too in 'Santabear's High Flying Adventure' but was done with more impact before
The visuals are generally lovely to look at, especially the simple but elegant backgrounds and Santabear's character design. The music matches beautifully with pleasant orchestration and doesn't try to do too much, absolutely loved the lullaby. Though the score in the previous Santabear adventure had a more mysterious and elegiac quality that worked better.
Furthermore, the story is fun and charming, very easy to like and it is cute on the whole. Kelly McGillis' voice work is soothing and sincere and Bobby McFerrin has fun as both Santabear and Bullybear, especially as the latter where his personality shines more.
John Malkovich is less successful however as Santa. Found him rather dull and wooden. While liking the story on the whole, it does veer on the bizarre at times and more quaintness and a quieter tone wouldn't have gone amiss.
Did also find the dialogue at points rather stilted and quite strange.
Overall, nice enough but had room for improvement. 7/10
