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Ed McCray Profile picture
@Real_Ed_McCray
Dec 3, 2024 • 8 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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1967's Cricket on the Hearth is the 2nd Rankin/Bass Christmas special. It aired as an episode of the Danny Thomas Show.Thomas was a devout catholic and his deep Christian faith is apparent through this special.He also founded St Jude Children's Hospital.
His daughter Marlo co-starred in this special and later appeared in her own Rankin/Bass TV Special, That Girl in Wonderland. She was starring in her own sitcom at the time Cricket aired, That Girl. This may be the only time they appeared together as father & daughter. Image
The source material is suggested by one of Charles Dickens Christmas novels of which there's 5.He also wrote dozens of Christmas short stories.These are often reprinted as Christmas Books and Christmas Stories. The story is a soap opera with a touch of fantasy. Image
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This is a deleted demo song from the special dubbed over the scene where it went compared with the final song. I don't know why it was changed but this gives you an example of how sometimes songs are rejected/replaced for musicals. They deal with the same story points.
This song is the centerpiece of the special. It was released as a single but never caught on. This was mainstream network TV in 1967. No one complained and no one was offended. Jesus was always the reason for the season in many of these fantasy Christmas specials.
This is the song on side B of the single with an image of the original cast album LP(although this song wasn't on the cast album.)This shows what a major production it was at the time because it had a cast album. No other Rankin/Bass special but Rudolph ever had a cast album.
Danny Thomas' devout catholic faith is all over this Christmas special. Take a look of the imagery in this sequence. Can you see a network Christmas special with content like this today?
Cricket on the Heart aired for a few years before it vanished from the growing glut of Christmas specials. It was later rediscovered & released to VHS in 1998 & is readily available on DVD but most people don't realize what it is. It's not great but shouldn't be forgotten.

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More from @Real_Ed_McCray

Ed McCray Profile picture
Jun 29
This is an epilogue to the Anita Bryant/Rainbow Jihad Disney threads. I'm going to tell you a little story about this man (Howard Ashman) who some consider to be the most pivotal figure in making animation what it became. He also left behind something that's very relevant to the woke times we find ourselves in. He was gay but he wasn't woke.Image
Even id you don't know who Howard Ashman was, you've certainly seen the 3 films he had a hand in at Disney... Image
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Here's a few clips about how Howard became involved with The Little Mermaid. There's also a few vintage clips of them in this montage. You can see he has no "secret gay agenda." He was trying to restore Disney to what it had been when Walt was alive. In the 2nd & 3rd clip you can see how Howard was instrumental in shaping the story & characters of The Little Mermaid. In the final clip Roy Disney Jr gives Howard the highest praise.


Read 15 tweets
Ed McCray Profile picture
May 25
This thread is about how to nominate the purged 1946 film Walt Disney's Song of the South to the National Film Registry. The deadline is Aug 15. The form is in the next comment. You need reasons why it should be on the Registry & this thread will give you several. Image
This is the form. You must include the release year. Song of the South was released in 1946.
research.net/r/national-fim…
Actor James Baskett is the first black actor to receive an Academy Award.This was an eternal Oscar and there was a HUGE fight for him to receive it.He was also the first black actor signed to a 7 year contract & the first actor Walt Disney ever signed.This needs to be celebrated. Image
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Read 15 tweets
Ed McCray Profile picture
Mar 17
This epic thread is about Walt Disney's Darby O'Gill & The Little People. An obscure film today, it was a major project for Walt & is the bridge between Song of the South to Mary Poppins. It's one of the greatest fantasy films ever made & the techniques developed/perfected for it were later used in LOTR and Elf.Image
The film is suggested by the books Darby O'Gill & the Good People and The Ashes of Old Wishes & Other Darby O'Gill Stories by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh. The stories originally appeared serialized in magazines that Walt had been exposed to as a boy. As an adult he was determined to make a film.Image
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You can read the original public domain books here:
archive.org/details/darbyo…
Read 59 tweets
Ed McCray Profile picture
Dec 22, 2024
This thread is about the forgotten musical based on A Christmas Carol, The Stingiest Man in Town. If you've heard of it, most will only know the Rankin/Bass animated version but it's based on a much earlier live TV musical from 1956.This my be the best musical version of the Charles Dickens story & we'll explore why.These songs need to be rediscovered.Image
In the 1950's live TV productions of musicals & dramas were all the rage. Many of these shows & episodes became legendary.Rod Serling is one of the legendary figures who got his start in this format.Of the live musicals most know about Mary Martin's Peter Pan but there were hundreds of these shows.Image
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Many of these shows were shot in color but ironically that footage is lost for most of them & all that exists are kinescope.A kinescope was a recording made of the live broadcast by filming a TV monitor. This is the only type of recording that's been released on the Stingiest Man in Town.Image
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Read 25 tweets
Ed McCray Profile picture
Dec 21, 2024
One of the most beloved Christmas films ever made is 1983's A Christmas Story but upon its initial release it was a bomb. It only played for three weeks & was out of theaters by Christmas. Like It's a Wonderful Life, it was a film Americans had to discover & it quickly became the most popular Christmas film of modern times. Here's some rarities about it.Image
Based on the works of humorist Jean Shepherd three of the original stories that comprise the bulk of the film originally appeared in Playboy Magazine.What many people miss is that all of Shepherd's stories are parables & often contain Biblical references he observed in real life. Image
Shepherd often told his stories on radio & college lecture tours. He wrote books & made comedy LP's. All of his stories are inspired by his youth but he often embellished & fudged the details in the service of spinning a entertaining story. Image
Read 28 tweets
Ed McCray Profile picture
Dec 20, 2024
Today we explore rarities from one of the finest crafted Christmas films ever made.This is the ambitious but forgotten 1985 release Santa Claus the Movie.Until the 1990's this film aired on ABC on Christmas Eve. To this day it still airs annually on the BBC in the UK & has become a perennial there. It's worth visiting so here we go.Image
This big budget film was the follow up to the Christopher Reeve Superman films.The first film had the tag line "You Will Believe a Man Can Fly" and this time they made 8 reindeer fly.During this period big budget special effects films were really taking off with the dawn of Star Wars & everything you see in Santa Claus the Movie in analog effects which makes that achievement all the more impressive.Image
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The film got made because Dudley Moore was a popular star at the time & he wanted to make a film for a family audience.He portrayed the elf, Patch who was described as the Henry Ford of the North Pole.Moore was the only major star in this film but co-star John Lithgow did achieve popularity later.Image
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Read 17 tweets

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