Frosty’s Winter Wonderland: Resurrection and the Creation of New Life ⋆

1976 was a year of sequels for Rankin-Bass. Three specials in one year might seem excessive, but when you consider that two of those were sequels to the top specials ranked on my list, it’s unsurprising. When Rankin-Bass decided to go the sequel route, they got the airtime they wanted. Interestingly, no two specials from this year took the same approach to building their franchise. Each took an individualised path that expanded their story in a way that suited each story’s unique needs. First up, it’s the sequel to Frosty the Snowman with Frosty’s Winter Wonderland!

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As we’ve talked about before, the original Frosty the Snowman was all about the inevitable approach of death. Like any good sequel, Frosty’s Winter Wonderland expands on that theme while also approaching the material from a different angle. This time, it’s not merely about death, but resurrection and the creation of new life. To help explain that, I want to talk about Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 as a gothic novel. It told the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who created and gave life to a creature of reanimated flesh, but rejected it when he realised the horror of what he had done. The Monster (given no name in the book) tries both to gain the understanding and, failing that, enact revenge on his creator, eventually retreating to the arctic in isolation. It played with the very themes we’re discussing here. One of the most famous adaptations of Frankenstein came in Universal’s 1931 film starring Boris Karloff. Its sequel? The Bride of Frankenstein.

We open Frosty’s Winter Wonderland on the children making a snowman. Approaching them at a distance, we think we might be listening to the voices of Karen and the other kids we knew from Frosty the Snowman, but upon closer inspection, we see that clearly time has moved on. Although similar in spirit to the original gang, these are children who have only heard of Frosty as a myth, maybe from their parents or grandparents. This may be many years after the original special, but the legend of Frosty, this homunculus who spits in the face of death and escaped to the safety of the North Pole, has remained.

Andy Griffith wanders in out of nowhere and picks up one of the children, singing along and marching with him. This isn’t the first time a narrator has interacted with the plot (both Mrs. Claus and Sister Theresa were the leads of their specials, after all) but it seems just a little off-putting here where my first thought is PUT THIS KID DOWN, OLD MAN. Who is Andy Griffith here? Is he one of the original kids Frosty left behind, aged through the ravages of time?

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We see Frosty still living at the North Pole. Much like the Monster’s exodus at the end of Frankenstien, this isolation is the only way he can stay safe. Jackie Vernon reprises the role, and the first thing we hear from carefree Frosty is the lamentation that he’s been up there such a long time. He’s lonely. He’s been up at the North Pole so long, his pledge to come back again some day is like a half forgotten memory. He needs more, and Andy Griffith previews his intention as the opening credits begin. With the help of these same children, Frosty takes, or shall we say makes, a wife.

Meanwhile, Jack Frost is jealous because he makes the winter weather that everybody enjoys and never gets the credit. There’s no figure like this in Frankenstein, but you had to make a comparison, he’s almost an inversion of Victor Frankenstein himself, a creator that gets sidelined because his creation was too perfect. You could also read him as a more traditional father character, worried about his power being usurped by a younger generation like so many kings in medieval lore.

The group goes skating where Frosty makes a figure 9 instead of a figure 8. Everyone is having a heck of a good time. This is a Frosty who has conquered his limitations and is able to be more carefree. Yet he misses the kids he used to know. Once you’ve conquered death, what is there to do other than watch everyone around you die? He’s lonely, and wants someone he can truly share his life and experiences with. This was a subplot within Mary Shelley’s original novel and the principal thrust of movie sequel Bride of Frankenstein. The monster returned to Victor Frankenstein and forces his creator to build for him a mate.

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The children, stand ins for the creator here, finally give into his requests and build Frosty a wife. They name her Crystal in a naming sequence that very sweetly evokes memories of the original special from when the original group of children named Frosty. But putting a hat on her doesn’t work. Do these children try every hat? Was the fact that “there must have been some magic in that old top hat they found” mean nothing? Instead, the tears of a snowman are the key to bringing her back. There’s a different kind of mysticism at play here. She’s definitely the Bride, but she’s also Eve, born of Adam’s rib. Frosty gifts some of his own life to her, and while some of the implications are… questionable, its literary roots aren’t.

But there’s another conflict. The parson won’t marry them, but suggests instead building a new snowman to do the job while he’s in town. The population of these snowpeople is growing, and this final affront is too much. Jack Frost is ready for his revenge. Just as he’s going to make his move, however, Crystal gives Jack the credit he deserves. It’s again a female character who sees the full scope of things. It’s the philosophy that started in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that people in marginalized communities must boost each other in order to overcome oppression, and it ends up with Frosty and his Bride gaining the power of a demigod.

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Because of Jack’s support of the Snowman’s, winter goes on forever. The Parson tells them of the promise of God, that the seeds in the ground will be unable to grow if this goes on. I’ve extrapolated before, but God is now being openly discussed in the presence of this new breed of Snomo Sapien. To understand why, I want to bring up a lyric from Winter Wonderland, the song on which this special is obviously based.

“Gone away is the bluebird, here to stay is the new bird.”

It’s like something Magneto would say to Professor X, no? I don’t want to act like I’m reading too much into this one line, but it seems that, if taken at face value, Frosty’s Winter Wonderland as a whole can be boiled down into a conflict between old and new species. If the snow people are here to stay, what came before must go away.

The Parson is God’s hand on Earth. Their existence is blasphemy to him. By aligning themselves with Jack Frost, the Frosty’s are standing on the side of the Old Gods. The religious aspect is a little soft here, however, as it comes off more like the Parson wants to gently teach the snowmen rather than lecturing or forcing them to obey God’s will. They go back to the North Pole together, creating a happier ending than anyone familiar with The Bride of Frankenstein could have predicted.

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I rank Frosty’s Winter Wonderland as a fun but fairly middle-of-the-road inclusion into the Rankin-Bass canon. It’s not the greatest, but I remember it from childhood and am continually frustrated by how they don’t air it anymore! Its slot was overtaken in 1992 by Frosty Returns, which isn’t Rankin-Bass but was produced as an alternate sequel in the same style. It airs because it was created by the same company that currently owns the broadcast rights to Frosty the Snowman. It’s a lot more about global warming than conquering death, and while it’s interesting to hear the likes of Jonathan Winters, John Goodman, and Brian Doyle Murray take on new roles, it’s just not the same.