Silly Symphonies: "Santa's Workshop" (1932) and "The Night Before Christmas" (1933)

"Santa's Workshop" premiered December 10, 1932.

"The Night Before Christmas" premiered  December 9, 1933.

We're going to depart a bit from our usual summary format, since these two connected cartoons don't have a lot of plot to summarize.

In "Santa's Workshop", we see elves making various toys, including rocking horses...

...dolls...

...and alphabet blocks.

Santa Claus (Allan Watson) goes through his naughty or nice list to see deserves a toy. His secretary (Pinto Colvig) informs him about how good or bad each child has been.

When all the toys are made and packed, Santa takes them to deliver toys to children around the world.

"The Night Before Christmas" picks up where "Santa's Workshop" left off.  It's a loose adaptation of the Clement Moore poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas."  Santa delivers toys, we see him make a stop at a house with nine children, sets up the Christmas tree and leaves gifts.

J.A. Morris says:

On a technical level, both cartoons are great.  Most cartoons at this time existed to say "hey, look what we can do with animation."  "Santa's Workshop" and "The Night Before Christmas" are a great example of this practice.  We get to see lots of details involved in how elves make the toys on an assembly line.

The colors are gorgeous and the  movements are nicely animated, but both shorts are a bit slight. There's not a lot of story in either.  Sure it's great animation, but not the sort of thing I plan to watch every December.

The other problem is that both "Santa's Workshop" and "The Night Before Christmas" feature some ugly ethnic stereotypes.  in the first cartoon, the elves making toys that feature blackface and stereotypical Jewish caricatures.  "The Night Before Christmas" short features a sweet moment when a little boy named Junior gets a puppy for Christmas.

This cute scene is undermined by Junior getting soot on his face, which makes it look like he's corked up in blackface.  I don't believe in censoring such things, but it took me out of the moment and feels odd and out of place, even for a 1933 cartoon.

Prancer receives a grooming.

Santa Claus' characterization is worth noting.  His physical appearance hasn't changed much since 1932.   However, other aspects of Santa were not yet codified when these cartoons were made. Instead of the familiar "ho-ho-ho," his laugh sounds more like "ha-ha-ha."  I guess Santa hadn't been codified when these shorts were produced.

"Santa's Workshop" and "The Night Before Christmas" are visually appealing, but the lack of story and reliance on racial stereotypes keeps me from giving them a higher rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

.5


2 and a half Candy Canes.

RigbyMel says: 

Although there isn't a complicated story underlying these two shorts, there is a LOT of impressive animation on show.    We get to see the whole toy creation and delivery process across these two shorts.

Check out the gnomes/elves working hard in the reindeer stables! (I like the tooth brushing!)

It's also worth noting that the first of the two, "Santa's Workshop" was the fourth Silly Symphony cartoon to be produced in color.

Technicolor sleigh prep in "Santa's Workshop"

I also enjoy seeing Santa play with all the toys in "The Night Before Christmas."  In my experience, great gift givers tend to retain a sense of wonder and Santa's willingness to engage with the toys illustrates this quality.

Santa gets a pretty good sound out of that toy piano! 

It's interesting to note that -- as was traditional at the time -- Santa not only brings the toys to go under the Christmas tree, but also the tree itself.  There's a cute gag where Santa unfolds the tree like an umbrella and the toys get in on the act to help with decorating it.

Talented toys (and a zeppelin!) decorate the tree in "The Night Before Christmas"

As J.A. Morris mentions above,  these cartoons contain some less pleasant artifacts from the early 20th century in the form of some ugly stereotypical portrayals of blacks, Asians and Jewish folks.   So when these shorts are made available now, they are often edited to leave out the offensive stereotypes.  They definitely drag me right out of enjoying the beautiful animation.

Ugly stereotypes will get you on the naughty list nowadays! (Rightly so!) 

The complete, unedited shorts are available on the Disney Treasures More Silly Symphonies Volume 2 set, if you want to seek them out.

Nine (!!) small children vs. Christmas tree (Junior is not in the frame though ...) 

On a side note, Mickey Mouse himself makes  an appearance in toy form.   Mickey was a popular presence under Christmas trees from the 1930s onward and it's interesting to think about how DisneyCorp is still pushing the envelope with product placement to this very day.

M-I-C-K-E-Y ... 

Both "Santa's Workshop" and "The Night Before Christmas" are worth seeking out for their beautiful animation and general sweetness, but the ugly stereotypes knock my overall rating down a bit.

The puppy is super-cute though!  And Junior wants him to see Santa ... awww! 

RigbyMel's rating: 

3 Candy Canes.

Powerpuff Girls: "'Twas The Fight Before Christmas"

Premiered October 7, 2003.

"The point, Princess, is that you better change your ways, or all you're ever gonna get from Santa is a big, fat lump of coal in your stocking!" - Blossom

Christmas is coming and the people of Townsville, USA are preparing to celebrate the holiday season.

That's especially true for three kids:Blossom (Cathy Cavadini), Bubbles (Tara Strong) and Buttercup (Elizabeth Daily), better known as the Powerpuff Girls.

Buttercup worries that her Christmas list won't reach Santa in time. 

They're discussing the letters they've sent to Santa Claus when they're interrupted by their enemy Princess Morbucks (Jennifer Hale). She only wants one thing from Santa:to become a Powerpuff Girl.

Princess Morbucks is a spoiled brat with a penchant for criminal activity. 

The Powerpuff Girls remind Princess that she's committed many crimes and worked with felons.  Blossom says that Princess is "a spoiled brat who's greedy and jealous." This puts her on Santa's naughty list.

Princess Morbucks decides to get her present through alternate means.  She takes her family's plane to the North Pole, sneaks into Santa Claus' workshop and locates his list of children who are naughty and nice.  Princess changes the list so that every child on Earth is on the naughty list...except for Princess Morbucks herself!

Back in Townsville, Bubbles wakes up and hears Santa's sleigh on their roof.  She runs downstairs to see what presents have been left under their tree.  Bubbles is shocked when she sees no presents and becomes distraught when she finds her stocking filled with coal.  She flies around the city and uses her x-ray vision to see what other children have gotten.  It turns out Santa brought nothing but coal to children everywhere.

Bubbles wakes up the other girls and tells them what happened.  Suddenly, they encounter Princess Morbucks, who has become a Powerpuff Girl!  Her altering of Santa's list has paid off, big time.  The Powerpuff Girls decide to fly off to the North Pole to tell Santa Claus the truth about the list.  But in order to do so, they'll have to race against Princess and beat her to Santa's workshop.  But in order to get there, the Powerpuffs will have to battle Princess Morbucks and her new superpowers.  

The super-powered girls race to the North Pole. 

Can the Powerpuff Girls win the race to the North Pole?  Can Christmas be saved?

J.A. Morris says:

I was never a regular viewer of The Powerpuff Girls series, but I enjoyed it when I tuned in.  It was always full of action, humor and pop culture references.  "'Twas The Fight Before Christmas" is generally lots of fun, but it has two problems.

Prof. Utonium (Tom Kane) helps light the tree.

First off, it's much longer than regular Powerpuff Girls episodes.  Most ran for 22 minutes and contained two stories.  This Christmas special is 44 minutes and portions of it feel like padding.

Worse than that is the handling of the naughty and nice list.  As our summary states, Princess doctors the list so she can get what she wants for Christmas.  Everything we've ever learned about Santa Claus, from books, songs and other specials indicates that this would never happen.  You can't go behind Santa's back, change the list and get away with it...because Santa KNOWS who's been bad or good.  Santa wouldn't deliver coal to all but one child on Earth because a list said so.

"'Twas The Fight Before Christmas" has been released twice on DVD.  It's available as a standalone disc and can also be found on The Powerpuff Girls 10th Anniversary Collection - The Complete Series.

In spite of what I said above, It's still tons of fun and the positives outweigh the problems.  "'Twas The Fight Before Christmas" is recommended but the issues I mentioned prevent it from being a classic Christmas special.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 candy canes.

RigbyMel says:

Although I was aware of and enjoyed watching The Powerpuff Girls from time to time in the early 2000s,  this particular episode was new to me.

Blossom gets to put the star on top of the tree. 

I quite liked the rhyming narration throughout and also the way the Powerpuff Girls race to put up the Christmas decorations at their house.  The way that they disagree with and eventually fight Princess Morbucks (who comes off like a warped version of Little Orphan Annie)  is also consistent with what I remember of elementary school fights. (Although the addition of superpowers adds an interesting twist!)  I definitely wanted to see the spoiled Princess receive her comeuppance!

Some of Santa's elves enjoy some refreshing (?) "Nog Cola." 

There are also a couple of amusing sight gags involving people getting tangled in Christmas lights and a "Nog Cola" machine in the break room at Santa's workshop.   The girls' horror at receiving coal in their stockings is both amusing and heart wrenching as well.

This episode is certainly entertaining, but as J.A. Morris mentions, Santa would know who was naughty and nice regardless of whether his list printouts had been tampered with.   So, that bugged me.   I also wasn't crazy about the tank top attired Santa -- although I like the look of the series in general.

This episode is not a classic, but it is nice to see a little girl powered (pun intended!) superhero holiday action, in any case.

RigbyMel's rating:

.5


2 and a half candy canes.