Throughout the 1960s to the 1980s, Rankin-Bass tried to become a major player in television animation, trying to be taken seriously with adaptations of The Hobbit and The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, but their most successful property outside of the Christmas specials, by far, was Thundercats. They did a number of theatrical pictures, the most famous being The Last Unicorn. Just about the only production in the 90s attributed to them was the panned 1999 animated version of The King and I, which really just amounted to Arthur Rankin serving as a producer.
As time went on, there were more companies to deal with. Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass weren't getting any younger. There would be many Christmas specials that would air once and then hardly be seen again. Their Christmas specials had to compete not just with each other, but with other new and old productions for what would get re-aired each year. Cable television afforded more outlets for older specials and series to find new audiences, but getting new productions for every timeslot was unheard of. They were trying to stay relevant in an ever-growing market and frankly, they just couldn't keep up.
So after Santa, Baby!, the company was officially dissolved. Arthur Rankin died in 2014 and Jules Bass is retired. There will never be another Rankin-Bass production.
So, Santa, Baby! was one of the few, if not the first Christmas specials that they didn't take director credit on. That went to Lee Dannacher. The writing fell to Peter Bakalian and Suzanne Collins, the latter of which would go into writing books, including one that caught on titled The Hunger Games. Bet you didn't expect that crossover. It would also be the first Rankin-Bass special featuring a primarily African-American cast, both on and off screen.
We open in a suburb of a big city on Heptune Street, greeted by Melody Birdsong (voiced by Patti LaBelle), who points out how kind and full of Christmas spirit everyone is, and notes it's a big change from the previous year, leading us into a flashback, leading us with young Dakota (voiced by Kianna Underwood) hoping her songwriter father Noel (voiced by Gregory Hines) can come up with another hit song. Meanwhile, neighborhood superintendent Mr. Sweet (voiced by Tom Joyner) is frustrated at the local animal shelter with the frequently escaping animals.
Dakota finds Melody nearly frozen in the snow and takes her to her family's apartment, where she warms up next to the heater. The next morning, Melody is feeling better and reveals that not only can she speak, she's the Patridge of the Pear Tree from "The Twelve Days of Christmas," seemingly able to make the gifts from the song magically appear wherever she is. She offers Dakota a wish, and she wishes for her father to write a hit song. Melody makes no promises.
In order to inspire Noel, Melody makes him into a bell-ringing Santa Claus. When his wife sees him, she flirts with him, launching into the required performance of "Santa Baby." (In case you were wondering how an adult-oriented Christmas song made it into a family-oriented Christmas special.) Noel keeps working for the charity and witnesses the community interacting to celebrate the holiday. However, inspiration just isn't striking. When he tries pitching a song to an executive, it's terrible and when Dakota tells him the animals in the shelter need help, he lashes out at her, making her run off. Melody encourages him to go find her.
Noel finds Dakota with the animals from the shelter, and he looks in to find a kitten still inside the frozen over shelter. He tries to rescue it, leading to him accidentally causing a power surge, knocking out power for the neighborhood. Mr. Sweet realizes he's partly at fault and finishes rescuing the kitten, leading the community to begin repairing the animal shelter, while Noel is literally left hanging. Melody helps him safely get to the ground, telling him, "When you forget about your own problems and start to help others, that's when things start to brighten up."
Hearing the sound of the community working together gives Noel the idea for a new song called "The Heart and Soul of Christmas." Wanting to thank Melody, she summons the Five Golden Rings to transport them to Santa's Workshop, where Noel is brought in to fill in for Santa, who has a bandaged leg and can't make the run. During the deliveries, they deliver the animals from the shelter to new homes, while a club version of "Santa Baby" sung by Eartha Kitt plays. (She also voiced Dakota's cat Emerald earlier in a few scenes, and also chimed in during the earlier version of the song.)
Noel awakens to find sheet music of his new song and a scarf from Melody. Mr. Sweet arrives to inform them he's lifted his ban on pets. (So, why did they have Emerald again?) We go back to the opening year and see how much the community has grown closer as Melody flies through.
Overall, it was a sweet little story about coming together as a community, getting some great talent in the voice cast, but it was very quickly forgotten by most. And sadly, that's where these legendary producers finished their legendary run of Christmas specials.
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