The Original Christmas Classics Collector’s Edition Anniversary

That is a long name for a Blu-ray set.

Years ago when I was a wee lad in college I worked in a lovely place called Suncoast Video in my local mall. It was a hustle/bustle of a place that catered to pretty much any movie goer, even the snobby indie people (pshh). Anyway, every Christmas season we would break out the classics on VHS for the world to see in the front of the store. This included Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life — well, you get the picture. Each sold for around $4.99 – 9.99, with the popular ones being on the end of that scale, and every year we would sell out of them quickly. It was neat to see these things out during the season, as they added to the atmosphere of the holiday shopping spirit.

Wonderful memories of mall days aside, it’s nice to see that 20th Century Fox is packaging a slew of them together on Blu-ray and DigitalHD for the Christmas season. Here is what to expect in this collection:

– Frosty the Snowman
– Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
– Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
– The Little Drummer Boy
– Cricket on the Hearth
– Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol
– Frosty Returns

While not every title on this list will be familiar, even to us old peeps, they’re still worth watching for the most part. They are truly classics by every definition of the word and there’s no reason not to have them in the household for the little ones or for the old ones, like myself. If this is sounding a bit like an endorsement, then you should know it is. I have always loved these films, as they have always pointed back to a special week during December, when I was younger and when I anticipated their one-night a year premiere on television — before cable. Now I don’t have to catch them on television, I can simply pop them in and enjoy them with my kiddos. There’s something absolutely cool about that freedom, as well as passing on the tradition of these television specials to my kids, who watched them with me last night. Hopefully in the future they will do the same for their kids (they should take their time with that task and no pressure).

Emotional endorsement aside, I was certainly expecting this to be a 20th Century Fox cash-grab that tugged on the holiday heartstrings that most of us carry during this time of year. I did not expect any sort of effort to clean up the footage for the Blu-ray format, as that has not always been a strong M.O. from 20th Century Fox when it comes to its classics (see Rainman on Blu-ray for details). Surprisingly, while not perfect, the clean up job on these releases was well above average. This is especially evident in Rudolph’s transfer, which is clean as a freaking whistle, even with the snowy backdrops which usually expose artifacts on the white. The rough beginning smooths out when the characters appear and you almost get zero signs of issues with the transfer. It was amazingly clean. When you get to the hand drawn animation the picture becomes a bit more grainy, but not television from the 70s/80s grainy, nor bad DVD transfer grainy, as most of the animation has been cleaned pretty well. I’m not sure the source material was great to begin with, though I can’t confirm that in this review, so it’s a Christmas miracle that it was as clean as it was on Blu-ray.

Overall, I’m surprised and happy with the treatment of these classics on Blu-ray. 20th Century Fox did a commendable job on making sure fans got what they deserved, for the most part, with the Blu-ray versions of these Christmas classics.

In addition, the special features in this collection help to sell it. Here’s what to expect:

– Be an artist & create
– Santa Special Delivery
– Rudolph Unwrapped
– Magical Melody and Kringle Jingle
– Frosty Snowflake Surprises
– Sam the Snowman’s Sing-Alongs

These are huge features, but for the most part they add to the holiday fun.