We teach children a lot of things. Most go in one ear and out the other. After all, when you’re 6 years old, it’s hard to know which tidbits you’ll really need later in life. But one useful truth stuck with me at an early age: bumbles bounce.
C’mon, admit it. The first time you saw Yukon Cornelius go over that cliff in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you panicked. The prospector was dead for sure. No one could survive such a fall. But then he showed up in Christmastown with that hairy ol’ bumble, and all was right again. At that moment I learned two valuable lessons: 1) We can rebound from life’s apparent tragedies, and 2) If you ever take a tumble with a humbled bumble, make sure you land on top of him, not the other way around.
Thank you, Rankin/Bass.
In recent weeks, my family has been enjoying Rudolph and other classic TV specials that have become an annual tradition in millions of homes. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Frosty the Snowman. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Year Without a Santa Claus. We look forward to them year after year. But why? How have we, during the golden era of Pixar, not outgrown these specials’ old-school animation and jerky stop-motion puppetry? In our cynical age, why are we still captivated by sweet, unironic children’s fables from the mid-’60s and early ’70s?
I think one reason is that these TV specials are among the few shared cultural experiences remaining that, if only for a month each year, transcend the generation gap and television’s move toward “niche” programming. We all know Frosty. We sing along with “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”. We look forward to Yukon’s reminder that bumbles bounce. No matter how many entertainment options we have or how fragmented our society becomes in its interests, these are cultural touchstones we don’t want to lose. And their innocent messages arrive at a time of year when it’s OK for everyone to be a little old-fashioned.
My family owns A Charlie Brown Christmas. And even though it’s always one of the first specials we pop in after Thanksgiving, I often find my wife and kids camped in front of the tube when CBS airs it in prime time. I’ll ask, “Haven’t we watched that one already this season?” “Yeah,” they’ll say with a sense of wonder, “but it’s on!” At which point I can’t help but stop what I’m doing and listen as Linus explains—to millions of viewers across America—the true meaning of Christmas.
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