1976 brought the follow up to the first Rankin-Bass Christmas special, putting twelve years between them. Rudolph's Shiny New Year is supposed to be the sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but the models are different, looking more like the models seen in Santa Claus is Comin' to Town and The Year Without A Santa Claus. Hermey, Yukon Cornelius, Clarice and the Bumble are nowhere to be seen. Plus, Rudolph is younger than the adult self he grew into in the first special.
Thus, I maintain that we're supposed to assume the general story of the first special took place, but a gentler version more in line with the jolly Santa Claus seen in recent specials. I'll get onto that later. Romeo Mueller returned to write this special.
This special opens directly after Rudolph's first flight, and as Santa is getting ready to relax, he gets a message that Father Time needs help finding the baby New Year (each year is represented by a person) or else time will stop at December 31 and be that date forever. Noting the continued bad weather, he sends Rudolph out to help.
Arriving at Father Time's castle, Rudolph is further briefed on the details, that the baby is called Happy and escaped to the Archipelago of Last Years, mainly because he was ashamed of his oversized ears. Meanwhile a giant vulture called Eon (the DVD subtitles spell it Aeon) is looking for Happy. If the New Year Comes, he will turn into ice and snow. I will note that Eon should be considered a Roc, especially as when he appears, the music riffs on the hymn "Rock of Ages."
The special spends quite a bit of time exploring the different whimsical islands, each styled after a past year's notable history, as Rudolph travels them with the help of a whale named Big Ben and meets new friends who accompany him. But eventually, Eon captures Happy and Rudolph leads a daring rescue mission that fails as Eon traps him and his companions in giant snowballs. Rudolph manages to break out using the glow from his nose and approaches Happy as Eon sleeps.
Rudolph encourages Happy to remove the hat he's using to hide his ears by telling him his own story, which is told with a round of the famous song about Rudolph and traditional animation. This shows Rudolph's nose beginning to glow and surprising his parents and his father covering it with mud. He attempts to play with other reindeer, but his nose breaks through and they refuse to play with him. Then a jolly Santa approaches Rudolph with his offer to guide his sleigh. Sure, this is a shorter version of the story, but much of the trappings seen in the first special aren't here or even hinted at.
Happy listens to Rudolph and when Eon sees Happy's ears, he begins laughing, which rescues not only Rudolph's companions (they've been trapped in those snowballs all this time), but also Eon as the sheer joy he feels from laughter will ensure he won't turn to ice and snow.
As the group convenes, the countdown bells to the new year begin ringing and Santa arrives just in time to get Happy to Father Time so he can take over as the New Year, marking the changeover with a celebration.
I felt this one was too long, designed for an hour timeslot. We get characters who ultimately don't add much to Rudolph's journey (I didn't even mention some of them) and the runtime is padded out with visits to the other islands. I would be interested in seeing if this was cut down to a half hour to see if the story could flow much more briskly.
Rudolph will return in one more special, but we're not there yet. Time for another sequel.
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