Is Santa Claus Comin' to Town? (cartoon)

Santa is Comin' to Town; Crystal Q., CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wiki edit

Together again: Krampus+St. Nick

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town is an old X-mas TV special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions.

It stars Fred Astaire as the narrator S.D. Kluger, Mickey Rooney as Kris Kringle/Santa Claus, Keenan Wynn as the Winter Warlock, and Paul Frees in various roles.

It tells the story of how Santa Claus (Eastern Orthodox/Pagan St. Nicolas) and several Claus-related X-mas traditions came to be.

Buddhist Santa figure: BUDAI

It is based on the hit song "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town," which was introduced on radio by Eddie Cantor in 1934, and the story of Saint Nicholas.

The special was created using Japanese stop-motion animation called "Animagic." All characters are made out of wood and plastic and brought to life using stop-motion photography.

It was originally telecast Dec. 13, 1970 by ABC and continues to air every year on ABC Family (Freeform), which has censored cut several scenes they believe may be traumatizing to younger viewers, like:

• Kris climbing and leaping to escape, done to prevent children from copying dangerous stunts;
• Winter Warlock, knowing Kris will return, telling him he will never escape;
• Burgermeister torching seized toys in front of the children of Sombertown.

The DVD releases include these deleted scenes vital to the story's plot. In 2019, Freeform's print of the special included the 2012 Universal Pictures logo preceding the film, due to their purchase of DreamWorks Animation in 2016 and the scenes that were originally cut were added as well. More

.

The best part of the special is bad Burgermeister Meisterburger.

Jolly gift giver Budai (aka Hotei, Pu-Tai) and children with lanterns (en.wikipedia.org)

Japanese lore records a fat, jolly, roly poly man with a giant gift bag for kids: Budai/Hotei