Rudolph's Shiny New Year
Tags: fantasy

Plot synopsis:
A year after delivering Christmas presents, Santa Claus receives a letter from his friend Father Time asking for help to find Happy the Baby New Year before midnight on New Year's Eve, or else it will be December 31 forever. Santa sends Rudolph out to find him. An evil vulture called Eon the Terrible is supposed to live for exactly one Eon after which he will turn into ice and snow and disintegrate. As his particular Eon will end January 1 of the New Year, he plans to kidnap Happy to keep the year from ending and stop time, thus preventing his predestined death.
Father Time speculates that Happy, who ran away due to his big ears being laughed at, is hiding out in the "Archipelago of Last Years", where the Old Years retire and rule over an island styled to resemble the year over which they ruled. Sent to assist in this journey are some agents of Father Time including General Ticker (a military clock), The Great Quarter-Past-Five (a camel with a clock in his hump), and Big Ben (a whale with a clock attached to his tail).
Upon arrival in the Archipelagos, Rudolph first travels to the island belonging to a caveman named One Million B.C. ("O.M." for short). O.M. inhabits an island anachronistically inhabited with friendly dinosaurs and other prehistoric and long-extinct creatures. As Rudolph and his friends search for Happy (who left after his hat accidentally fell off and revealing his big ears, causing the dinosaurs to laugh), they repeatedly encounter Eon.
After other off-screen visits to the islands of 4000 B.C., 1492, 1893, and 1965 have been completed without success, Rudolph and O.M. head for the island of 1023 (pronounced ten-two-three), belonging to a knight named Sir 1023, whose island is filled with medieval trappings along with several fairy tale and Mother Goose characters. Meanwhile, Happy managed to befriend the Three Bears, but becomes saddened when he removes his hat and exposing his big ears to them, causing him to leave again.
The group then travels to the island of 1776, which reflects Colonial America and is ruled over by "Sev" (AKA 1776) who resembles Benjamin Franklin. Following Happy's seeming rejection on the Island of 1776, Eon kidnaps him and takes him to his lair on the Island of No-Name which is said to be located "due north of the North Pole".
The group now leaves the Archipelego in pursuit. Catching up to Eon, they attempt to rescue the baby. However, Eon (upon being awakened by the sound of O.M. tumbling) thwarts them by sending an avalanche down on the group and trapping them inside giant snowballs. Managing to melt his way free using his nose, Rudolph climbs up to Eon's nest where he finds Happy, who refuses to leave. Rudolph shows Happy his nose and tells him his own story of being bullied because of his nonconformity before asking Happy to let him see his ears. Happy does so, and Rudolph, like everyone else before him, laughs at the sight. Happy once again gets upset, but Rudolph explains that the sight of Happy's ears had made him feel so wonderful that he had to laugh out loud, just like it had done with everyone else. With this declaration, Happy shouts out with joy, but causes Eon to awaken. Rudolph quickly tells Happy to take off his hat and leave it off for good. At the sight of Happy's large ears, Eon bursts into uncontrollable laughter which sends him tumbling down the side of the mountain and into the three remaining snowballs, freeing O.M., 1023, and Sev. Rudolph realizes that Eon is now so full of warmth and happiness that it would be impossible for him to turn to ice and snow.
With Santa's help, they return to Father Time's castle with Happy just in time for the beginning of the new year, which is designated "Nineteen-Wonderful". After the celebration, everyone wishes Happy a happy new year and Rudolph proclaims to the viewers that it may be shiny, too.

Review: Rudolph's Shiny New Year can be striking, and entertaining, if you're watching it when you're little - little enough that by the time you're my age you have no clear memory of the first time you watched it, just that you did over and over.
The story of Rudolph saving the "baby new-year" from the clutches of Eon, a vulture looking to keep December 31st on a loop, is pretty simple, with conflicts and characters that are typical and funny enough to take.
But what can be memorable for a child is how some of this special is dark (with Eon) when it's not cute (most scenes with the baby).
It's also interesting as a kind of sequel-cum-remake of the original Rudolph story, as the baby has to contend with having big ears- something that a child might find more relatable than a shiny nose.
The songs are also a bit of a treat, if dated, and Red Skeleton does a fine double-job with the voicing of Father time and the little Bear on the island.
Basically, it's the kind of special that is worth checking out with the kids for a few minutes, and if they get into it, it may prove a treat, and if not, there's still Nickelodeon..
Rudolph's Shiny New Year is a classic!.
I grew up watching Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer for a very long time.
Rankin Bass and of course Romeo Muller have made such a great icon that was a classic for a very Long time.
And Rankin Bass Jr. also helped out on the production and as it seemed i enjoyed this forever.At Christmas time i watch many classics such as Frosty the Snowman.
But Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer has been my most favorite that i have watched.
I went on to seeing Rudolph's Shiny New Year because i thought it was a great masterpiece.Of course being that.
Rudolph has to save Baby New Year's Eve who is also teased because of how large his ears appear to be by the other kids.
But also that they have to avoid the vulture who is mean and really is not nice at all.Even though Rudolph is my favorite character since childhood and when i was a child watching the stuff before.
- Rudolph's Shiny New Year deserves to be on the most great holiday Christmas masterpieces of all time.
And may i say the characters such as Father Time and Rudolph himself will.
The story was great, The animation was dazzling, And the concept and the look of the characters was awesome.
"Rudolph's Shiny New Year" was a nice sequel to the previous Rankin/Bass claymation special.
Just finished this, the sequel to Rankin/Bass' "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
With Red Skelton as narrator Father Time as well as the Baby Bear, Frank Gorshin as the knight Sir Ten-To-Three, Morey Amsterdam as the caveman-O.M.
(One Million), Hal "Great Gildersleeve" Peary as the whale Big Ben, Paul Frees as various voices, Don Messick as Papa Bear, Iris Rainer as Mama Bear, and, returning as Rudolph, Billie Mae Richards.
Written once again by Romeo Muller, "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" is a wonderful Tall Tale about how the reindeer with the shiny nose managed to make sure that it didn't become December 31st forever.
Even as an adult, I was enthralled by the way Muller kept making things up as the story went along and didn't care a lick about logic or stuff like that as long as it was still believable.
Although when Red said this story took place just after the events in the previous special, I did question why Rudolph's antlers had shrunk to when he was a kid.
Other than that, I still highly enjoyed "Rudolph's Shiny New Year".
While not as good as either "Year Without a Santa Claus" or the original "Rudolph", this was still must-see TV when I was growing up.
Since it's one-hour long (when broadcast), you get more bang for your buck than the many half-hour Christmas shows.When watching this recently, it seems to me they cut one of Red Skelton's songs.
Wasn't there a song titled "The moving finger writes...", where Father Time explains to Rudolph how Baby New Year grows into an old man by the end of the year?
The characters are great and the story is very entertaining.Baby new year is lost and time is running out to find him, the only one that can save the day is Rudolph.
Baby new year runs away because he has giant ears and everyone makes fun of him except Rudolph cause he know's what it's like to made fun of for his red nose ...
A classic moment is when Aeon the Terrible, big-beaked monster bird, captures baby new year and he almost dies laughing when the baby new year takes off his hat and reveals his giant ears.There's some other great characters too, i remember an knight that helps Rudolph and an eskimo, a giant whale, the abominal snow man, and of course old man last year who is about to croak which is why they have to get baby new year back.
And the kid with the huge ears too...Well, it's not bad-Santa mixed with New Years and whatever-it doesn't quite hold up as well's 'Heat Mizer' or the first Frosty, but it's a fun watch for the family.*** outta ****.
Happy New Year with Rankin/Bass.
Of their specials my favourites are Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Comin' To Town.
On the most part I did like Rudolph's Shiny New Year.
Of course it is not as good as Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, but considering how timeless that is I wasn't expecting the same kind of quality.
I do think that some parts did feel stretched out and Rudolph's Shiny New Year could have been told quite easily in half the running time.
It does look great though, a lot of detail went into the visuals and stop-motion animation and it really shows, managing to be both enchanting and wonderfully twisted.
The score is fitting and whimsical, and while the songs are not among the most inspired or memorable from the Rankin/Bass specials- I personally did find Raining Sun Shine instantly forgettable- there are some pleasantly upbeat ones, the best being Hap-Hap-Happy New Year.
The writing has its charm and fun, if not as fresh, witty or touching as some of the best Rankin/Bass specials.
The story is interesting, the scenes with Happy are very sweet and what initially seems mean-spirited(I'm talking about Happy having big ears) comes across as touching in the end(I can also see a lot of people relating to Happy for this).
Of the characters, all of which are engaging with some endearingly quirky names, my favourites are Rudolph, Father Time and Big Ben, though it is difficult not to love adorable little Happy and Aeon is a decent enough villain(even if there are better Rankin/Bass villains around, namely Burgermeister).
Overall, not one of the best Rankin/Bass specials but has a lot of good things.
8/10 Bethany Cox. Rudolph Saves the New Year, Too. This was included on the same DVD as "The Year Without a Santa Claus," and I must say that I don't remember this one at all from my childhood.
Rudolph has successfully saved Christmas, so he's charged with saving the New Year as well, sent off into the night by Santa Claus (who's really good at delegating, by the way), to find the New Year's baby, a bizarre little tyke with enormous ears who looks like Harpo Marx and wears a giant top hat.
He's run away because everyone laughs at his ears; who better to find him and teach him the value of not taking life so seriously than Rudolph, he of the drunkard's nose?
There's also a gloomy camel and my favorite character, a great whale who gives the group rides around the ocean and helps them chase down the scary monster bird (that's really its name) who wants to kidnap baby New Year so he can stop time and prevent himself from turning into ice (don't ask).
Last but not least, Red Skelton fills narration duties as Father Time.Like all of these films, even if they're not that great, they provide a certain nostalgic satisfaction to those of us who remember a time before computer animation.Grade: B+.
Rudolph searches for the New Year Baby..
This is one of the series of clay-animation movies starting with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
In this one, Rudolph agrees to help Santa Claus find the New Year Baby that ran away.
Rankin/Bass sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer doesn't come close to that classic but has charms of its own.
The story is that Happy, the Baby New Year, has run away and unless he is returned by Dec 31st the current year will not end.
Rudolph with his glowing red nose and Happy with his huge ears.
It's a running gag throughout the special that every time someone sees Happy's ears they burst out laughing.
It seems a little mean after awhile, to be honest.The most interesting part of the story to me was the Archipelago of Last Years.
It's a neat idea that allowed Rankin/Bass to toy with various characters from different times.
So we get to see Rankin/Bass animate characters like the Three Bears and Cinderella.
Throughout the story, Rudolph picks up various allies and must contend with an evil vulture named Aeon.The stop-motion animation is, as usual, excellent.
Red Skelton voices the narrator Father Time, as well as a short bit as Baby Bear (using one of his old standard voices from his radio & TV shows).
Also, as mentioned, the constant laughing at the baby for his ears is a little rough and the "moral" at the end, as stated by Rudolph, doesn't seem to fit.
It's not one of the best but it's Rankin/Bass so it's solid entertainment despite its flaws..
I've been trying to get myself to like this Rankin/Bass production now for about four years since obtaining it on DVD and may officially be throwing in the towel here.
Just being a nerd by pointing it out.What does matter is that this time out the story is too oblique for its own good, a complex matter involving Rudolph brought in to find the infant New Year baby who decided it didn't like having its big ears made fun of and sports off in search of his own destiny.
Red Skelton's crooning of "Turn Back the Years" doesn't rate on the same scale as the accursed "Holly Jolly Christmas" or even "There's Always Tomorrow", my most hated of all the Rankin/Bass songs.
At least those songs were worthy enough to inspire genuine disgust, the ones presented here are merely tedious or perfunctory.In the end what may be condemning the effort in my eyes may be a lack of recollection of seeing the special as a kid.
The other Rankin/Bass heavyweights were routinely screened on the big three networks during my coming of age years but this one seems to have slipped through the cracks.
Parents would find themselves in court these days.Then again my folks probably conceded that Rudolph, Burgermeister-Meisterburger and Heatmiser were too cool for them to deny us a look every year.
Our devotion to that special was supposed to fuel by rote an equal devotion here but the effort falls flat with a complicated story (how again does the caveman end up in a snowball fight with Ben Franklin while the giant buzzard fights with the whale?), tepid songs and a general lack of inspiration.
There isn't even a decent parody website sending the premise up, a key indication that it sort of flunked where general audiences were concerned.Hence the special doesn't get its own DVD but ends up as a bonus feature on the "Year Without a Santa Claus" disc where it probably belongs, with the dreadful "Nestor the Christmas Donkey" which is a downright depressing bit of holiday drivel.
Devotees of the Rankin/Bass formula will certainly want to seek it out but the prospect of it becoming a tradition in its own right is fairly low even with a lack of holiday specials specific to the new year.
Maybe some holidays just don't inspire the same kind of outrageous imagination which resulted in the Heatmiser or the Grinch.Though I will concede that lack of contact with the special as a kid likely played the determining factor here.
Indeed if there is a new year holiday viewing tradition I do recall fondly it was the yearly screenings of "Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World".
Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Mildly entertaining animated film from Bass and Rankin starts off where the previous film ended.
This time out Santa gets a call saying that baby New Year has gone missing and without him there will be no new year.
With bad weather out Santa decides to send Rudolph who goes out to search for the kid.
This film falls well short of the original movie but I think there's enough here for adults to enjoy.
I say adults because I think there are quite a few dark moments here that might scare young kids and I'd also say that the movie contains some rather mean-spirited moments that really aren't good for them either.
I say this because the entire thing is about baby New Year having large ears.
The kid goes from one island to the next but he's constantly being laughed at for having big years.
The "moral" of the story is obvious but with Rudolph you had other kids making fun and laughing at him while the majority of the people laughing at New Year are adults.
As you'd expect the animation is very good and there's no question that Rudolph is a very good and entertaining character.
The original "Rudolph" was a lot of fun, stressed "Rudolph's growing up and taking on responsibility, and had superior songs.
Not so with "Rudolph's (Less Than) Shiny New Year".This attempt to milk the story should have been abandoned.
The story badly mixes characters from other stories, has songs that just are not memorable, animation that differers dramatically from the original, and, frankly, its villain is not villainous enough!This show reminds me of how I enjoyed the charming animated "The little Drummer Boy" but not its horrid sequel "LDB, Book Two".
Sometimes, one has to make a good movie and remain happy itch one has made,rather than trying for a sequel..
This time, Rudolph has to save the new year.
In conclusion, Rudolph's Shiny New Year is a lsme sequel to the original 1964 Rudolph..
Happy the Baby New Year had runaway due to teasing about his big ears.
After saving Christmas, Rudolph is the only one who can save New Year.
Aeon The Terrible is after Baby New Year to stop time.
Rudolph searches for Happy in the Archipelago of Last Years.It was over a decade since the first Rudolph first aired.
While it's great to have new characters, I don't understand why so many of them seem to drop off.
There are some new songs but it's always the classic that is truly great.
I think "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is classic television.
An evil buzzard steals Baby New Year, so Father Time sends Rudolph to the Archipelago of Last Year, which are ...
Father Time is voiced by Red Skelton, and they made him look too much like him.
A typically charming holiday TV special by Rankin/Bass.
Rudolph has to find the missing Happy, the big-eared Baby New Year, prior to the end of New Year's Eve or else the old year will go on indefinitely.
This really sweet and delightful holiday television special boasts the usual appealing attributes which make these shows by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr. so utterly charming and irresistible: a catchy and jaunty soundtrack of infectiously bouncy songs, a giddy, upbeat tone, cool stop-motion animation, likable and colorful characters, an amusing sense of gentle good-natured humor, and an engrossingly simple and straightforward story.
Red Skelton makes for a warm and folksy narrator as Father Time.
It's pretty obvious that the producers of the original Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special were trying to milk the concept once more.
They should have quit while they were ahead.As another person pointed out in their comment, at the end of the original Rudolph show, he had become a young adult.
That's just the beginning of the weirdness.The plot is quite confusing and muddled, including numerous character names that relate to dates and times.
But, I cannot imagine trying to explain the plot and the characters to them.You know a show is odd when you see a scene with Rudolph standing there with a Ben Franklin-lookalike, a caveman, and a knight in armor.This story concept might have worked well on its own without Rudolph, playing on the "travelling through time" angle.
But, what it has to do with Rudolph and the Christmas holiday, I'm still trying to figure out..
misses the point of original Rudolph Christmas special.
**POSSIBLE SPOILERS ABOUT THIS AND OTHER CHRISTMAS SPECIALS AHEAD**While I can enjoy the cheeriness of the tale, and Red Skelton is always a joy to behold, this special fails for me on two levels.A minor quibble is the nakedly derivative storyline.A serious quibble is that Rudolph is de-evolved from a young adult deer back to a child.One of the wonderful aspects of the original "Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer" special is that it functioned as a fairly honest coming-of-age story, a simplified but genuine bildungsroman for modern American children.
All this is negated when he suddenly reverts to childhood in this special in order to save the New Year.I am disappointed when an emptily cute story constitutes the sequel to an intelligent coming-of-age fable, and that is what has happened here.