Ahhhhh....Christmas and donkeys, they go together like bats and Hallowe'en, turkey and Thanksgiving, and alpacas and Arbor Day. Why when I was a child, it seems like you couldn't go down the street without running into a festively decorated donkey cart pulling a load of presents. Or perhaps I'm just filling in the fuzzier parts of my childhood which really seems more likely now that I think upon it a spell. What's was I talking about again?
*takes medication*
Right donkeys and Christmas! As I was quickly bobbing around the other day fixing up a few of the Xmas holiday special profiles at Screened so they weren't so empty and graphically fuzzy, I ran across a special involving a donkey. As I looked it up on the electronic playground for more info, I began running into more and more books, movies, and songs with donkey/Xmas themes. Some of these I had forgotten about as I haven't done much by the way of Xmas-y type of activities for quite some years.
But a great deal of them were completely unknown to me and they intrigued me enough that I spent probably what one would describe as a bit too much time into the wee hours of the night checking these out. Titles such as Dominick the Christmas Donkey, Saint Francis & the Christmas Donkey, The Christmas Donkey, Clopper the Christmas Donkey, Ruben, Grandpa's First (yes...you guessed it) Christmas Donkey, all kept me busy for a while. But of course the most fun were the forgotten animated specials that an appropriately named user at Youtube, Donkeylongears, had uploaded in their entirety. Behold the glory of my donkey Christmas gifts!
The Small One was a short film designed to run with the 1978 theatre re-release of Pinocchio as it took place during December. Although I'm sure I attended the showings during that particular run, I had absolutely no recollection of this short film. I was mighty delighted to see that it was directed by a young Don Bluth ( Secret of NIMH) and he actually contributed a couple of the songs including the pretty one used in the credits intro.
Although not an original Disney story, I was surprised that they stuck with the original story idea of the donkey being an old, worn out animal as opposed to a cute little critter typical of the Donkey/Christmas sub-genre. I guess the boys in marketing weren't really looking to push this which may be why it's fairly unknown despite it being Disney and a Christmas short. It's hand animated and a little sad as the young boy desperately tries to find a good owner for Small One instead of selling him to the local tanner for his hide. Who will give such a worn out donkey a chance?
Released that same year in 1978, The Little Brown Burro (or The Little Christmas Burro as it was changed when it was released onto VHS) is an odd little short hailing from the cold Northern country of Canada. The focus is on a particularly diminutive little burro who actually really, really wants to get a job where he can prove himself as a very hard worker, but because of his short stature nobody will give him a chance. He picks up a mouse companion who for some reason is terrified of water, and together the both of them run around the desert looking for somebody who will become his proud owner. Very cheap and at times quite ugly animation s+yle and techniques kinda puts this feature on a low peg. But despite the often distorted look of the animation s+yle which often make the characters look completely stoned, the burro does manage to look incredibly cute at times.
Now we are on to Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey the one that set me on my journey. Yes folks it's Puppetoon time up in this here stop motion animation house! It's another Rankin-Bass production (of course) although this film is decidedly a lesser feature in terms of production quality. Aping the plot of Rudolph quite a bit, the donkey in question has long ears which constantly get in his way and makes him a poor worker for his harsh owner and when he is thrown out he has to discover that his perceived handicap has a very special use. Where it strays incredibly away from the Rudolph template is that in the first 10 minutes Nestor is thrown out into a raging snow storm to die. His mother breaks out and tracks him down and shields him from the storm with her body, but by doing so she dies and Nestor awakes to find her dead body covered by snow and he is left lost and alone in the snowy wilderness. So yeah...happy times. It's no wonder this one stuck in my mind as a child. Thanks for the trauma guys!
Anyhoo...Executing serious damage control, the movie quickly teams him up with a guardian angel who informs him that God does indeed have a plan for him and EVENTUALLY life won't seem like the most painful thing in the world to endure. Despite its lesser quality, the film is still a nice short despite its harrowing intro and the incredibly WTF that makes no sense post manger coda slapped onto it. Honestly though, a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that NESTOR THE LONG-EARED DONKEY IS THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD! OH MY GOD HE'S SO DAMN CUTE!
AHHHH! JUST LOOK AT THAT FACE!
Well I hope somebody enjoys any of these despite my rantings. Anybody even remember any of them?