40 Fun Facts About The Year Without a Santa Claus

Which Batman & Robin villain makes his henchmen sing along to a song from The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Mr. Freeze, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1997 film, puts the special on for his minions and orders them to join in with Snow Miser's number.

Which star of the Andy Hardy films provides the voice of Santa in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Mickey Rooney voiced Santa in four animated specials across 38 years, the first in 1970 and the last in 2008. He had been making films since the age of six.

Who summons Heat Miser and Snow Miser and forces her feuding sons to compromise in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Mother Nature calmly serves tea to her guests while she strong-arms the pair into a deal. She was invented for television and appears nowhere in the original story.

Which studio, famous for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Rankin/Bass was founded by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, who directed and produced the 1974 special themselves.

Which of Santa's reindeer, the youngest of the team, do the elves ride south in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Vixen is so young that Santa still thinks of her as a baby, and the warm Southern weather soon makes her ill.

What ailment does Santa wake up with in early December, souring his mood, in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

A cold leaves Santa low enough to believe that nobody cares about Christmas any more, so he calls off his trip and stays in bed.

Which two elves does Mrs. Claus send out to find proof of Christmas spirit in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Jingle and Jangle share the surname Bells, and their mission goes wrong almost at once when a police officer hands them a ticket.

What must Santa's elves do before the town's mayor will free their reindeer in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Make it snow, the mayor jokes, sure it cannot happen in so warm a place, then strolls outside singing about the idea anyway.

What animal do Santa's elves disguise their reindeer as, using a pair of socks, in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

A dog seemed a safe disguise until the local dog catcher took one look and hauled the poor reindeer off to the pound.

Which Elvis Presley holiday hit does a little girl sing in a letter to Santa in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Blue Christmas was first recorded by Doye O'Dell in 1948, nine years before Elvis turned it into a rock-and-roll holiday standard.

In which small American town do Santa's elves land while looking for Christmas spirit in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Southtown lies somewhere in the American South, though the special never says which state, and its schoolchildren claim to have outgrown Santa.

Where does Heat Miser make his home with his fiery minions in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Inside a volcano, and an active one, Heat Miser greets his visitors with a full song-and-dance number backed by his minions.

What name does a disguised Santa give when he visits the Thistlewhite family in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Mr. Klaus is the thin disguise Santa picks, and young Iggy sees through it only after watching him leave on a flying reindeer.

Which star of the sitcom Hazel narrates The Year Without a Santa Claus as Mrs. Claus, in her final acting role?

Shirley Booth retired to Cape Cod after the special, closing a career that had brought her an Oscar, two Emmys and three Tony Awards.

Which singing cowboy first recorded Here Comes Santa Claus, heard late in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Gene Autry got the idea while riding his horse in a 1946 Los Angeles parade, where the crowds kept chanting that Santa was on his way.

Which horror legend and Grinch narrator recorded the story of The Year Without a Santa Claus in 1968?

Boris Karloff read the rhyming tale for a promotional Capitol Records LP, one of his last performances before his death in February 1969.

Which comedian, the hippie actor L.S.D. in The Producers, voices Snow Miser in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Dick Shawn spent more than 35 years as a nightclub stand-up, and his showman's patter makes the icy brother sound like a Hollywood agent.

Which Tony-winning Broadway actor voices the hot-tempered Heat Miser in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

George S. Irving won his Tony for the musical Irene, and he returned to play the fiery brother again in a sequel 34 years later.

Which American TV network first broadcast The Year Without a Santa Claus in December 1974?

ABC premiered the special, and 34 years later the cable channel ABC Family launched its sequel during the 25 Days of Christmas.

Which place does Heat Miser demand to rule for a day in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

The North Pole is his icy brother's turf, so the deal finally forced on the pair is a swap: each lets the other's weather into his realm for a single day.

What do the world's children do after hearing Santa will skip Christmas in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Send him presents is exactly what they do, and the flood of gifts makes headlines around the world and melts Santa's resolve to stay home.

What animation technique, branded Animagic by its makers, brings The Year Without a Santa Claus to life?

Stop-motion puppets with doll-like, rounded features were the studio's signature look, each move shot one frame at a time.

Which actor plays Santa opposite Delta Burke's Mrs. Claus in the 2006 remake of The Year Without a Santa Claus?

John Goodman led a live-action TV film that moved the story to the present day and added a scheming elf named Sparky.

Who plays Heat Miser opposite Michael McKean's Snow Miser in the 2006 remake of The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Harvey Fierstein and his co-star perform the brothers' two famous numbers blended into one, the only songs the remake kept from the original.

Who convinces Santa that nobody cares about Christmas any more at the start of The Year Without a Santa Claus?

His doctor, an elf, makes the remark sarcastically, but Santa takes it to heart and cancels his Christmas Eve trip.

Which Pulitzer Prize-winning poet wrote the 1956 rhyming story behind The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Phyllis McGinley specialised in witty light verse about suburban life, and in 1961 she became the first poet to win the Pulitzer for a collection of it.

Which magazine first published the rhyming story that became The Year Without a Santa Claus, in 1956?

Good Housekeeping readers took to the rhymed tale so warmly that it was reprinted as a children's book the following year.

Which Leroy Anderson orchestral favorite is heard as an instrumental in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Sleigh Ride was dreamed up during a July heat wave in 1947, and it had no lyrics at all until a publisher commissioned them in 1950.

Which reindeer does Santa take when he flies south to rescue his elves in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Dasher makes the trip with Santa, while Blitzen later pulls the sleigh that brings Mrs. Claus to the rescue.

What does the mayor propose for Santa after the elves prove their story in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

An official day off for Santa is the stunned mayor's idea, and the proclamation is soon making headlines around the world.

The Broadway actor who voices Heat Miser in The Year Without a Santa Claus also narrated which 1960s cartoon series?

Underdog had him as its narrator from 1964 to 1967, and he came back to voice Heat Miser once more in his mid-eighties.

Which composer wrote the music for the Heat Miser and Snow Miser songs in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Maury Laws spent about twenty years as his studio's music director, and he also scored its 1977 animated version of The Hobbit.

In which country was The Year Without a Santa Claus animated for its New York-based producers?

Japan was home to the Tokyo studios that made nearly all of the company's animation, an early case of an American producer sending the work overseas.

Which humor magazine was home to Paul Coker Jr., character designer of The Year Without a Santa Claus?

Mad printed more than 375 articles illustrated by Coker, who also designed the characters for Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.

Which brother of Heat Miser and Snow Miser schemes to replace Santa in the sequel A Miser Brothers' Christmas?

The North Wind sabotages a new sleigh to take over the holiday, and ends up sentenced to thousands of years of household chores.

What does Santa injure when his new sleigh crashes in A Miser Brothers' Christmas, keeping him in bed again?

His back needs two to three weeks of rest, which would keep him out of action until well after Christmas Eve.

What job are Heat Miser and Snow Miser ordered to share as punishment in A Miser Brothers' Christmas?

Run the toy factory is the order handed down when their feud is blamed for Santa's accident, and each brother brings in his own minions as staff.

Which young elf mechanic builds Santa's Super Sleigh in the sequel A Miser Brothers' Christmas?

Tinsel is billed as the youngest mechanical elf in the history of Santa's workshop, and she later helps pull him out of a vortex.

Which honor was the 2008 sequel A Miser Brothers' Christmas nominated for after its television debut?

An Annie Award nomination, for best animated television production for children, followed a debut watched by 3.7 million viewers.

Where does Snow Miser live with his dancing minions in The Year Without a Santa Claus?

An ice castle is home to Snow Miser, whose minions double as backup dancers for the welcome number every visitor receives.