Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (1970)
The Mailman decides to answer some of the most common questions about Santa Claus, and tells us about a small baby named Kris who was left on the doorstep of the Kringle family (toymakers). When Kris grew up, he wanted to deliver toys to the children of Sombertown. But its Burgermeister (Herr Meisterburger) is too mean to let that happen. And to make things worse, there's an evil wizard named Winter who lives between the Kringles and Sombertown, but Kris manages to melt Winter's heart (as well as the comely schoolteacher's) and deliver his toys.
Narrator: Kris made a list of all the children and the toys they wanted. He checked it over once, then checked it over twice. He tried to figure out just who was naughty and who was nice.
Kris: Well, I guess they're all pretty nice.
MGM Records issued a soundtrack album from the special in 1970, pressed in limited quantities as a promotional tool for radio station disc jockeys, all with an orange and black promo sticker on the back cover. The score has since been re-issued on CD, but the vinyl remains one of the rarest and most prized Christmas collectibles of all time.
Mickey Rooney would later reprise his role of Santa Claus in two other Rankin-Bass specials: The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979), and the sequel to 'Year without a Santa Claus,' A Miser Brothers' Christmas (2008).
Fred Astaire returned as postman "S.D. Kluger" in The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town (1977).
The doctor that treats the Burgermeister after he trips on the toy, and the father of the family that has their toys left in stockings are the same puppet, complete with diamond-shaped eyeglasses. The drawing of the king in Tante Kringle's book is based on the same model.
During the song "Put One Foot in Front of the Other" when the Winter Warlock begins to take his steps, the song switches to a 7/4 time signature. This creates an 'aksak" or " limping" effect, which reflects how the Warlock is struggling to move forward.
Continuity
There is no toy duck on the stairs when the Burgermeister comes out of the building. Yet he trips on the toy duck at the top of the stairs.
The bandage on the Burgermeister's foot disappears and reappears throughout the show.
When Kris arrives in the town with the bag of toys he is wearing a hat, but when he finds the kids washing stockings, his hat vanishes.
In "My World Is Beginning Today," when Jessica is singing and looking into the fountain, a wanted poster for Kris Kringle's arrest blows into the fountain and goes under. The Burgermeister didn't have these posters made up until much later, when Kris decides to grow a beard. At the end of the song when Jessica looks into the fountain her hair is down, her reflection shows her hair up in a bun.
Factual errors
The doctor who examines Burgermeister Meisterburger says, "Just as I suspected. You've broken your funny bone." However the Burgermeister has a bandage on his foot. The funny bone (or humerus) is located in the arm, as any doctor would know. Furthermore, the doctor determines this from an oral thermometer, which has no mechanism for detecting bone fractures.
Revealing mistakes
One of the kids watching the Burgermeister burn their toys is smiling, even though they are all meant to be crying; when the kid's toys were confiscated for the first time, the kid which said "we'll never play again" is still smiling. Someone forgot to change the models.
Kris' bag vanishes after he and Topper are seized by the Warlock's trees. Afterwards, he pulls a toy train out of his sleeve to give to the Warlock. The train is nearly the size of Kris' torso, so there's nowhere on his entire person, let alone his sleeve, that he could possibly have had it concealed. Unless his coat is somehow a TARDIS.
As S.D. Kluger drives down the street, singing "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" at the end of the movie, the vehicle's treads on its left side don't always move.
Audio/visual unsynchronized
The movements of mouths are sometimes wrong, especially when forming long "o" sounds.
Crew or equipment visible
Just after Kris Kringle and Topper are seized by the Winter Warlock's trees, there is a sequence of flashes before the Warlock appears. If the animation is slowed down, one of the final stop-action scenes is of a crew member's hand that is holding an old style camera with a flash bulb, evidently what was used to generate the flash. This was fixed on later broadcasts and DVD releases.
Plot holes
S.D. Kluger said that because Kris was considered an outlaw, the Kringles had to travel beyond the reaches of civilization and live at the North Pole. But the Burgermeister only ruled one small county. There is no indication that Kris was outlawed anywhere else in Europe.
The infant Claus is brought to Burgermeister Meisterburger by Grimsley. After Claus has grown to manhood as Kris, he meets them again and they haven't aged at all.
How did the flying reindeer get the prisoners out of their barred cells? While a belated novelization explains this (see trivia), in the film itself it remains a plot hole.
The captive Winter Warlock shows Jessica what little magical tools he has left. Common sense dictates that no prisoner should be allowed to keep anything on his person that could conceivably be used as a weapon.
Character error
When the children are naming off Santa's reindeer, one of them refers to Blitzen as "Blitster." This was left in, because it is cute.
Kris Kringle and Topper come across a sign that says "You are trespassing in the land of the Winter Warlock" but when Kris reads it aloud, he says "lands" of the Winter Warlock.
As Kris looks over his list of children, "Heather" is spelled "Heater" and "Fred" is spelled "Fread."
In the preface, Postman S.D. Kluger opens and reads letters not addressed to him. This is forbidden by law in both the United States and Canada, the countries where the scene most likely took place.
The doctor tending to Burgermeister looks almost exactly like the King whom Tanta sings about early on. Same mustache and diamond-shaped glasses included.