Santa Claus Is Comin to Town [VHS]
This 53-minute, 1970 animated film may be the most delightful of those  sundry, stop-motion animated Christmas perennials that show up on television  during the holidays. The clay animation production, boasting a wonderful  musical score and art direction that occasionally underscores the  flower-power era in which it was born, tells the story of Santa's origins, in  which Kris Kringle decides to get toys into the hands of poor children in  gloomy Sombertown. Charmingly narrated by Fred Astaire and featuring voices by Mickey Rooney and Keenan Wynn,Santa Claus Is Coming to Townpresents a nice bridge between two generations of entertainment, the classic  and the hip.--Tom Keogh