Pardon-me Pete, the official groundhog of Groundhog Day, tells the story of Jack Frost, who falls in love with a beautiful young woman and begs Father Winter to make him human so that she can see him. His request is granted, but only on the condition that by the Spring he has a house, a bag of gold, a horse and a wife. But Jack finds that life as a human is more complicated than he thought.
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Reviews
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Such a frustrating disappointment
Just perfect...
A lot of fun.
As I really like/love so much of Rankin/Bass' output, I realised that I had not seen Jack Frost. Being intrigued by the story concept, I knew I wanted to see it. And I really liked it on the most part, it is not a classic in the vein of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin' To Town, Frosty the Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy and The Year Without a Santa Claus, nor did it need or try to be and it is much better than it's given credit for. If there was anything I wasn't crazy about it was the groundhog Pardon-Me-Pete, who I find a trite character who fills the role of narrator but with not much personality or warmth(I know not all Rankin/Bass narrative characters have to be like Sam the Snowman for example but still). By all means Buddy Hackett does try hard but his character doesn't really allow him to play to his strengths and he does have a couple of jokes that fall flat.I personally much enjoyed the music though, the scoring is whimsical and dynamic. The songs are also lovely with the exception of the train-wreck that is I've Got a Day Named After Me. I found that the lyrics were really uninspired, the melody forgettable and stylistically jarring to the rest and Hackett's vocals consisted of singing painfully out of tune when he wasn't talking his way through the song. It's Lonely Being One of a Kind and There's The Rub were the ones that stood out to me the most, the latter as a matter of fact is in my head right now. The animation is beautifully crafted, every bit as accomplished as the earlier Rankin/Bass classics with backgrounds full of intricate and atmospheric details and colours that positively leap out at you.When it comes to the writing, Jack Frost is not one of the best in this regard(the best written for me is still Santa Claus is Comin' to Town) but it does at least maintain interest and is well-intentioned and sweet. The story didn't bore me in any way, there are some great ideas here, such as with the ice money, snowflake makers, snow gypsies and a knight in golden armour, and I was too engrossed in the story's imagination, charm and fun to really care about whether it made sense or not or whether it was propaganda(as I've seen it cited). The ending is different to what you'd expect, but it was refreshing to not have a "sugarcoated" ending once in a while and it was really quite touching. The characters are memorable apart from Pardon-Me-Pete, I found myself immediately liking and identifying with Jack, Dummy is hilarious and Kubla Kraus looks and sounds like Burgermeister Meisterburger as a cossack but is lots of fun all the same.The voice acting is very good, Paul Frees as Kubla Kraus, Father Winter and Dummy is simply genius. Robert Morse brings an appealing chirpish charm to Jack and Debra Clinger a youthful sweetness to Elisa. All in all, very under-appreciated if not one of the studio's very best. 8/10 Bethany Cox
Watched this post-Christmas-dinner by accident on PPV (I thought it was something else) and discovered why it's never shown on network television any more: A complete lack of racial sensitivity, political correctness, or a single verse that didn't make you simultaneously cringe and laugh (and not in a good way).The villain is basically a Stalin character (red outfit, black beard, starving the peasants, etc.); snow is made by 'gypsies'; the 'parents' have eastern European accents but the 'kids' don't (they may live in some impoverished Russia-like country, but apparently the kids are second-generation Americans). My husband remarked that the whole thing was a classic 'evil overlord vs the poor peasants' kind of Communist manifesto.I personally was more annoyed by the simultaneous existence of King Arthur's knights and iron horses and the horrible, horrible songs.I'm thinking that if you first saw this as a child of 5, watching it by the Christmas tree on a countdown to Christmas Eve sometime during the Cold War, you may have some fondness for it. Otherwise, steer clear.
**DEFINITE SPOILERS AHEAD**This tale of Jack Frost's brief foray into human existence and unrequited love is charming but has genuine heart, providing no simplistic answers about poverty or the plight of loving someone who does not love one back, but approaching the delicate issues of life's unfairness with compassion. A wonderful story.Even today, I will remember the pretend game, in which people pretend they have been given exactly the gifts they would want, whenever I feel stressed about fiscal difficulties.This Christmas special doesn't really fit in with the "literary folklore" of the rest of the Rankin/Bass winter holiday tales -- for example, this Jack Frost has nothing in common with Paul Frees's Jack Frost villain in "Frosty's Winter Wonderland" -- and I think that may be one of the reasons it hasn't done quite as well as it ought. Many Rankin/Bass stories tie in to each other so that seeing one of them will remind viewers of other stories as well, and that doesn't work for this story.The one flaw is the groundhog character: no offense to Buddy Hackett, but even his voice acting wasn't able to save the groundhog character from being trite.Worth seeing overall for the way Jack responds to his first experiencing of first material need and then emotional need.
I still cannot believe they do not play this movie on TV every year like they do Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It is just as funny and even more beautiful. I love this movie to pieces and will treasure it forever.