A Miser Brothers Christmas

I will give this 2 stars for nice stop-motion animation and colorful sets. They tried but they had a lousy story to work with. I realize that Rankin-Bass is history now but the "modern" take on these characters and the "new" story is just wrong on so many levels.

Mrs. Claus has none of the charm of the Shirley Booth character in the original "The Year Without a Santa Claus" and she looks like she is about 50 years older than Santa and she can't sing. Santa also lacks the charm of the original although still voiced by Mickey Rooney. The new elves, while admirably diverse, are charmless too and lacking lovability, especially the head elf who sounds like an accountant instead of one of Santa's jolly helpers. How modernly droll (not).

The Miser Brothers are OK but the new "improved" CEO version of Mother Nature and the huge-chinned North Wind? What on Earth? A useless peripheral character with zero interest as a villain.

The music is the worst I've heard on one of these, sounding like someone's teenager wrote it in the garage on their WalMart guitar in about 2 days. You won't be singing these songs again and again nor hearing them covered by any recording artist on a Christmas album. The original Misers song is the only highlight musically.

Too bad -- I really wanted to like this. A poor effort at capturing the magic of the old Christmas stop motion specials clearly made to make money and not delight children and adults alike.

I was expecting a horrible movie due to revues, and how bad it looked on advertisements. However, It's not a terrible movie. As an adult I enjoyed it for what it is. I agree that the worst things were the change (look) of Mrs. Claus. Her hair was styled up with a rubber band looking thing like you would do for a Barbie doll. The original Mrs. Clause was adorable both physically, and vocally. The songs were AWFUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLL, and the wind villian was just full of hot air. He really wasn't necessary in the story, and made for a predictable villian/movie out come. I loved how they got Mickey Rooney to play Santa Claus again. They gave santa a good joyful feel to his character. I also enjoyed the physical re-design of the Santa character. Also, I didn't mind the changes they had made to mother nature. In the first movie I never cared for her looks (a swamp hag with bad fashion sense). At least in this version her physical appearance was cute.I loved her voice. It was soothing to hear. I don't know how I feel about the subtle changes they had made to the brothers? Snow looked a little too harsh...Heat basically looked the same, but had new clothes. To get to the over all point, this is a movie that will keep kids occupide while you wrap Christmas gifts. However, for the adults who just want to see a sequel, then understand you can't have high expectations on this film. Enjoy it for what it offers you.

Also, what happened to Jingle and Jangle? They weren't even in this film.

I bought this for my 11-year old and he LOVES it! In fact, he's already watched it three times.

Because I'm a fan of the old-school Rankin/Bass stop-motion cartoons, including The Year Without a Santa Claus, I thought the Miser Brothers' Christmas would be a nice addition to our holiday collection (especially since the Heat Miser song has been a staple with me for decades!)

Even my husband liked this 44-minute DVD. In a nutshell, Mother Nature has a family reunion with her "children", including The Tides, Earthquake, North Wind and the Miser Brothers (Heat Miser and Snow Miser).

The narcissistic lavender-hued North Wind poses an unusual question during the meeting: if something happened to Santa Claus, who would deliver the presents to the good children? Since the North Pole falls under the domain of the North Wind, it's determined that he would be in charge.

Enter evil plan to destroy Santa and take over Christmas!

Will the Heat Miser and Snow Miser be able to put aside their differences to help Santa? And what happens when Santa throws out his back right before Christmas? Who sabotaged Santa's sleigh...and can elf Tinsel, chief engineer, remedy the situation?

The animation is fantastic in this DVD (yes, it appears to be stop-motion!) The hair of the Heat Miser is especially cool, as is the slick icy mane of the Snow Miser.

If you enjoyed the Miser Brothers in The Year Without a Santa Claus, I think you and your children will like A Miser Brothers' Christmas. I know we did!

-- Janet Boyer, author of Back in Time Tarot