1979 brought Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, the longest Rankin-Bass Christmas special, pulling together their continuity from Rudolph (but ignoring Santa being a jerk, Yukon Cornelius, the Bumble and Hermey) and Frosty and onward. Romeo Mueller was still on board as writer. This would also mark the final Rankin-Bass Christmas production featuring Billie Mae Richards as Rudolph, Jackie Vernon as Frosty, Shelley Winters as Crystal and Mickey Rooney as Santa Claus. (Rooney would voice Santa again in A Miser Brothers' Christmas, but this wasn't a Rankin-Bass production.)
We kick off by showing Frosty and his family in Animagic for the first time, because he and Crystal now have two children named Chilly and Millie. They want to see "uncle Rudolph" sine his nose for them, which Rudolph offers to do for them, but as he tries, it begins to fizzle out.
The reason is revealed to be a cruel wizard named Winterbolt (voiced by Paul Frees), who used to rule the North Pole. He was put in an enchanted slumber by Boreal (voiced by Nellie Bellflower), the manifestation of the Northern Lights, but recognizing that he would return, she imparted her power into the nose of Rudolph with a special birthmark, telling him that he must never use his power for evil or it will go away. This was when Rudolph's nose glowed for the first time.
So, Winterbolt has risen again, and looking to take the North Pole back from Santa, and make the children of the world love him (also delivering toys, but giving them twice as many as Santa) so he'll be able to take over the world. Since Rudolph has helped Santa overcome winter storms, which Winterbolt can easily create, getting Rudolph out of the way is a prime objective for the evil wizard, and when we opened, Winterbolt was trying to stop Rudolph's power with his magic, but Rudolph is able to ultimately beat it.
Milton the flying ice cream man (voiced by Red Buttons) arrives in the North Pole and tells Rudolph about how he's in love with Laine Lorraine (voiced by Shelby Flint), the tight rope walker with Circus by the Sea, run by her mother, Lily Lorraine (voiced by Ethel Merman). However, the circus is in trouble and needs a good influx of sales, or it will be sold to Sam Spangle (voiced by Don Messick), a crooked businessman.
Winterbolt plants an idea in Milton's head to have Rudolph perform at the circus. Since it'd help someone, Rudolph agrees. When Chilly and Millie express interest in going, Winterbolt (currently unknown to the heroes) appears before them and offers the snow family amulets that will keep them frozen "until the final firework fades on the fourth." They accept and clear it with Santa, who, with some influence from Winterbolt, agrees to arrive on the Fourth of July just in time to whisk Frosty and his family back to the North Pole.
Rudolph and the living snow family are a huge hit for the circus, but little do they know that they are playing right into Winterbolt's plans. The evil wizard finds a rejected reindeer named Scratcher (voiced by Alan Sues) and sends him to get Rudolph to do something bad or at least appear to be bad in front of his friends. Arriving, Scratcher offers to help Sam Spangle and then tells Rudolph he wants to get a job with the circus. Meanwhile, Winterbolt whips up a terrible hurricane that forces Santa and Mrs. Claus to take a ground path on their way to the circus.
During the big Fourth of July show, between acts, Scratcher gets Rudolph to retrieve a briefcase holding the ticket sales for the night and give it to Sam Spangle dressed as a policeman, claiming that he's going to drop it off for a night deposit.
Realizing that the fireworks are about to go off, and Santa isn't there, Rudolph and Frosty realize that Frosty's time is limited. They try to stop the fireworks from being shot, but Lily has unfortunately lit the main fuse and can't extinguish it until the last charge has gone off. They have 100. Rudolph also realizes how he's been tricked into "stealing" the box office take for the night and since that was evil, his nose will no longer light up.
Winterbolt arrives and offers to extend the amulets' power indefinitely if Rudolph won't defend his own honor. Disgraced and less of a draw without his shiny nose, Rudolph walks by the sea and meets Big Ben, a whale from Rudolph's Shiny New Year and explains his troubles to him. Ben heads off to South America without explaining his plan. Meanwhile, Sam Spangle takes over the circus.
Frosty offers to deal with Winterbolt to get Rudolph's nose to shine again, and Winterbolt agrees in exchange for Frosty's hat, which keeps him alive. Frosty agrees, but the evil wizard doesn't hold up his deal, as he wanted to reverse engineer the magic of Frosty's hat to create an army of snowmen. Rudolph, having been told to be brave by the voice of the Aurora Borealis, confronts Winterbolt and manages to take back Frosty's hat. As he does so, his nose begins to shine again. Winterbolt swears revenge.
The next morning, the circus mourns for Frosty. But Rudolph arrives with a policeman, who has seized the stolen money and turns it over to Lily. She gives it to Sam to cover her debts, but the policeman takes it again, explaining that Sam is under arrest. He also gives them Frosty's hat, which restores him to life.
Winterbolt returns to threaten the circus, but Lily makes a daring effort in throwing her guns at his scepter, shattering it. Without his magic, he turns into a tree. This means all of his magic is ended, letting Santa and Mrs. Claus finally fly to the circus, and that the amulets he gave to Frosty and his family will no longer work. When Rudolph realizes this, it's too late and Frosty's family has melted.
However, Big Ben arrives with Jack Frost (voiced by Paul Frees), who restores the snow family with his frost breath. Santa arrives afterward to take Frosty and his family back to the North Pole, while Rudolph stays behind to help the circus some more. Santa reveals he gave some of his magic seed corn to Lily, and the special ends with an airborne circus parading through the sky behind Santa's sleigh, with Lily (reminder, this is Ethel Merman) singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Honestly, while the special suffers from the usual Rankin-Bass issue of too many songs and feeling too saccharine, we have a pretty good story that serves as a general "finale" to the Rankin-Bass Santa Claus specials. There's a threatening villain, an answer for why Rudolph's nose shines, and some good tension. If all of the previous specials with their loose continuity form a universe like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this would be their Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame in just 96 minutes.
But, like the MCU, the Christmas specials didn't stop there. After all, after Infinity War, we got a prequel about a new MCU hero...
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