Customer Reviews

A Miser Brothers' Christmas (Deluxe Edition)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

As adults who grew up watching the classic animations "the year without a santa claus" and "rudolph the red-nosed reindeer," we really wanted to like this, but it just doesn't compare to the old classics of yesteryear. maybe it's because we watched the old shows for years, and maybe that holds a bit of nostalgia because of our childhood, but this pale rip off of the rankin-bass animations of the 60's is really off the mark. it has none of the charm or fun of the originals, not does it have any of the memorable characters or music. it LOOKS really great, and the style of animation is very true to the old shows, but the writing is just dreadful.
the only good part is the re-hashing of the old song between the Miser bros.from the first "year without..." someone obviously spent a great deal of effort to recreate the look and style of the genre, and the animation IS well done, and it has moments of cuteness, but, for anyone who loved the original, and is over 5 years old, this show is really LAME!

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

The "sequel" to the beloved Rankin & Bass classic is just a pathetic mess from beginning to end. The colors are foreign, the acting uninspired, the characters paper thin. The close up perspective of the scenes lacks depth; you do not get a felling that an entire world lies outside the camera's frame as you do with the classic. And poor Heat Miser and Snow miser look pathetic (note Heat Misers picture on the DVD box looks nothing like the pathetic impostor in the show). And don't get me started on Mrs Clause or the insipid Little People clamation video inspired "elves" (the original elves were far to embarrassed to be a part of the debacle). Beyond all this the story seems torn between attempting at one moment to appeal to the melba toast morality of mothers of toddlers and the next trying and painfully failing at appealing to adults (witness the creepy, charmless flying henchmen of the obnoxious villain). There is just nothing here but a faint twisted shadow of the original. Don't waste your money (instead send it to me to compensate me for the 45 minutes of my life I will never get back)... Some one, please make a special in the true spirit of R&B, or, at very least, one that sort of looks like the original... Merry Christmas

It was a cute story and I liked the new characters. I was disappointed that the miser brothers only sang one song-over and over and over. I really thought they'd do something with them. Did the writers not get all the rights to improve or change the characters?

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.

For those who can't get enough of the Heat Miser and Snow Miser, this is an entertaining sequel to the original movie The Year Without a Santa Claus! The story is really cute...especially when it shows the two feisty brothers as infants! A fun choice for a family movie during the Christmas season!

This is a great cartoon. The kids love it and for those of us born in the 60's, it brought back found memories.

It's a neat little movie, But no block buster. Kids seem to like it, Good for the christmas time.

Good: Many of the same voice actors from the 70's original, has "that song" from that other claymation they were in, & it's actually done in stop motion, like the original. I was afraidd they'd ruin it by doing this in CG. The parts where the brothers fight or sing are awesome. Jay Leno is the villain.

Bad: It's Ranken & Bass without Ranken & Bass...different director, different song writer, some of the character designs are off too. Granny Claus keeps trying to kill the humor by making the brothers friends. We want to see them fight, not get along. Why anybody would bother continue to read or watch things where rivals hug & make friends is beyond me; when the conflict ends, so does the interest.