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Frosty Returns (1992) (TV) More at IMDbPro »
11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolute and total GARBAGE!, 3 December 2004
Author: sonic345 from Connecticut, USA
This is bad. I mean, it's just BAD. There is no reason at all to watch this.
The animation is poor and the characters look like cheap, Charlie Brown knockoffs. Specifically, the nerdy science kid looks like Marcie's illegitimate little brother with a bad wig. The writers, desperately trying to channel the spirit of Willy Wonka, tried to make a script that appealed to kids on one level, and adults on another, and failed, miserably, at both.
The music (by Mark Mothersbaugh, late of DEVO) was tuneless and boring and completely unmemorable - which, considering it came from someone who had given us inspired music like "That's Pep", "Peek-a-Boo" and the cover of "Satisfaction", you expected far better.
Shall I go on? In an attempt to relate to kids from broken homes, they have Holly's mother, Lil, with a father who is unaccounted for. My best guess is that he was at Moe's Place with Homer Simpson because he was too embarrassed to be associated with this.
As I watched this with my daughter (who, wisely, was more concerned with playing with junk mail and my dog's chew toy) I cringed at the songs, winced at the "jokes", shook my head at the awful animation. Then came four words that explained everything: "Executive Producer - Lorne Michaels".
And suddenly, it all made sense.
The shame of this is that I like John Goodman, I like Jan Hooks and I even like Jonathan Winters. I sense they were trying their best to make chicken salad out of this. But their talents, were completely wasted here.
It is incredible to me that CBS insists on showing this garbage, every year, back-to-back with the original Frosty - a sublime classic. I get that CBS owns it, and consequently can make more cheddar by cramming this down our throats annually; but, then again, I own a pair of orange plaid bell bottoms and a 45 of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing" and I'm not going to break them out for public consumption any time soon.
I spent 30 minutes watching this, and I'm never going to get those 30 minutes back. Watching replays of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, would have been more rewarding.
Avoid, avoid, AVOID!!!
-748/10
9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
A mockery of the original classic!!, 15 December 2005
Author: Joseph Brando from NJ, USA
This supposed sequel to the beloved original 1969 Rankin/Bass special just plain stinks! Frosty doesn't look anything like Frosty, nor does he sound or act like him. And heaven forbid if they should dare to utter the word "Christmas" or even mention "Santa Claus". They should have just given this special an entirely new name. I had just finished watching the DVD of the original Frosty with my nephew. He laughed and cried as we all did when we watched that special as kids and since he was so engrossed in it, I figured "What the heck - let me watch that other special they tacked on the DVD". What a mistake!! The first thing my nephew said was "This looks like Charlie Brown" and he was right - it was produced by the makers of the Peanuts specials. Gone is the lovable, dim-witted, huggable Frosty we remember. He has been replaced by the father from "Roseanne" - in both voice and action. He makes sarcastic wisecracks, dances and doesn't even need his hat to come to life!! Needless to say, my nephew was playing with the cat before this special was halfway through! It makes me sick that they have the nerve to stick this on the DVD with that classic, I guess its the only way they can schlep this garbage on us. I'm sure most everyone would have preferred them adding an unreleased Rankin/Bass flick instead.
7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
In a word: awful, 28 November 2003
Author: homer34 from United States
This is a story about some greedy bad guys who seek to exploit Frosty and ruin his good name with a terrible product and shoddy politics. The worst part is that they succeeded by releasing "Frosty Returns."
An incomplete list of the problems with one reads like: - The "jokes" are weak and just not funny - The songs are dreadfully flat - The animation is cheaply done and poorly drawn - It doesn't even look like Frosty - The bad guy is a corparate type who doesn't care if his product is bad for the environment - c'mon guys, this is a children's special. - Frosty is now fashion-conscious. - There's no Christmas and no Santa.
All this in sequel to an all-time classic. It's sickening.
7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Blasphemous..., 4 January 2001
Author: bcg5 from Dallas, Oregon
I saw this Christmas Special for the first time this past Christmas and that was one time too many. This was by far the worst Christmas special I have ever seen. It was played right after the classic original "Frosty the Snowman" making viewers think it has something to do with it. One of the reasons it is so bad is the fact that it has nothing to do with Christmas whatsoever. The story revolves around a winter festival or something similar and some villain who wants to take winter away. The animation is awful as well, no where near the quality of the original or even the good sequel "Frosty's Winter Wonderland." The fact that they stuck this on as a bonus feature for the DVD of the original turned me away. I really can't describe how bad it really is. I'd say "see if for yourself" but no one should have to endure this farce. It is a complete blasphemy to anything relating to Christmas, Frosty, or winter. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!
6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Why?, 7 December 2004
Author: jneeb9
Why do they keep showing this crap every year? It tarnishes the original. CBS: Please spare us! There are much better holiday specials than this that hardly get aired. CBS used to show "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" about the mouse who wrote a letter to the paper saying that Santa Claus was a "fraud." The mouse family lives in the home of a clockmaker. This is 100 times better than "Frosty Returns" but somehow it got relegated to an obscure cable network.
It is clear from the IMDb ratings that many people agree that "Frosty Returns" is awful. CBS: Do us all a favor and let THIS Frosty melt away!
5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Charmless, 12 December 2005
Author: thrownfree from United States
"Frosty Returns" traffics on the good name of the original, but it bears no resemblance aside from the name of the snowman we all love so dearly. Yes, Frosty's back, but instead of childlike wonder at being "born," he's got cheap jokes and attitude. The script appears to have been written by committee--there's no charm in it, no sincerity, and the story takes a backseat to the message that snow, kids, isn't all fun and games: it serves a valuable ecological role. The songs are utterly tuneless and sung soullessly. It's packaged with the original on DVD (which is why I saw it), but it shouldn't be. Knowing what I know now, I would have paid a little more NOT to have it included.
2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Appalling, 12 December 2008
Author: Steven Nyland (Squonkamatic) from New York, USA
I usually don't comment on material like this, but come ON. This has to be the worst holiday special ever, and I've seen "A Louie Anderson Christmas" which at least had a couple of subtle laughs in it. This one has nothing to offer except a twisted study of, yes, Liberal Hollywood pet issues on display masquerading as entertainment. And no, I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh, reached these conclusions on my own, and am appalled by how utterly vapid this is as a family entertainment. Pardon me if I take it seriously, but kids aren't stupid and deserve better than this.
First off, Christmas is gone, which is odd considering that Frosty is supposed to be a children's Christmas character. They even took his pipe away since we all know that smoking snowmen will be a bad influence on kids. Instead of a holiday, the focus of the retards in this special's town is a non-denominational "Winter Carnival" that is featured so prominently in the dialog that you get the feeling at the screenplay stage somebody literally crossed out the word "Christmas" whenever it was used and wrote "Winter Carnival" over it instead in an effort to make the cartoon more audience-inclusive for those who don't celebrate Christmas. Gee. Also, the whole "miracle" of Frosty's creation is utterly ignored (which makes sense, since we're working any kind of spiritual angle out of this to make way for more consumerism), making the choice of Frosty as the focal character arbitrary & meaningless. Why didn't they just create their own non-denominational Winter Carnival character? The answer is to cash in on the public's fondness for the popular Rankin/Bass cartoons that came before. It's just crass commercialism.
Next, the bad guy in the plot is a mean wicked Capitalist who drives around in a stretch limousine polluting the environment with aerosol spray can chemicals that eliminate snow, with his flunky brainwashed nature backstabbing rabbit doing the dirty work. It's not magic spray or anything either, just chemistry, and the mean rich Capitalist threatens to disrupt the non-denominational Winter Carnival by making the snow disappear without even asking for anyone's permission first. He just goes ahead and does it to impose his own will upon nature, just like certain pinheads would have you believe that the world's industry does in a deliberate effort to ruin the planet. Even more telling is that the meanie Capitalist isn't even allowed to learn or grow or be changed by the events, he's simply a two dimensional bastard for everyone to hate and go right on hating even after the show is over.
Which brings us to the issue of environmentalism, clumsily imposed on the story in the cartoon's big moment of revelation where the mean Capitalist is exposed as the threat to everyone's communal happiness as he is lectured to by an 8 year old girl about how snow is as important as sunlight and rain and, yes, clean air for everyone to breathe. This isn't holiday entertainment, it's a subtle form of indoctrination aimed at school kids. And I'd like to invite whomever came up with the idea about grumpy fun-wrecking adults not enjoying shoveling to come to Syracuse and deal with my sidewalk after a healthy dose of lake effect snow. Just once.
That leaves us with the songs, which are execrable. Why didn't they bother to get Joan Baez or someone with some actual talent to work these political messages into some songs worth listening to? The answer is because it didn't matter, and that the whole special is a contrivance. I'm one of those people who think that entertainment for children should be even more meaningful and worthwhile than entertainment for adults and something about this special doesn't pass the smell test. It comes across as a filmed deal with a bunch of celebrities providing the voices because their agents thought it would be a good career move to be involved with a non- denominational seasonal family special that has an environmental message to it.
2/10: Skip it.
2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Frosty the Snowman Must Save Winter!, 5 December 2001
Author: (robocoptng986127@aol.com) from U.S.A
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
[MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS]
This is apparently a sequel to the 1969 original, though it doesn't look as if it followed it. This one is narrated by Jonathan Winters and it opens in Beansboro, a town with lot's of cocoa.
There's a winter carnival every year and the citizens hope it will happen again this year. A young girl, Holly DeCarlo, is unsuccessfully trying to be a magician. She even tries to cut her friend Charles in half, but her hat blows out the window. She chases it and finds it sitting on a snowman's head. It's Frosty the Snowman (John Goodman).
Apparently Frosty now worries about style and how good he looks because he complains about the bow tie he's wearing. He also witnesses a terrifying new product called Summer Wheeze. It's snow shovels in a can! The product was invented by the greedy Mr. Twitchell (Brian Doyle-Murray) who wants to eliminate snow from the earth and make loads of money. Frosty may be destroyed, and everyone in town agrees that snow is no good. Charles soon meets Frosty, and he's a guy who believes there is no magic and everything has an explanation. Soon Mr. Twitchell arrives and orders his scruffy cat to spray the the park with Summer Wheeze. Frosty was hit. Charles and Holly patch him up with snow Charles was saving for a science project.
It is soon time for the winter carnival. Frosty put's on a show for everyone and even Mr. Twitchell get's the cold shoulder. More than his shoulders get cold when he accidentally drives into an ice pond. He thinks long and hard about what he's done and soon becomes a good guy. It's also time for Frosty to leave, but he'll be back as soon as he finds a new bow tie. This special is OKAY. The animation was done by the same people who animated the Peanuts cartoons, so that's why they look so much like them. Also, the whole story of the magic hat that brings Frosty to life was diminished as soon as it came into phase. Because Frosty was without his hat several times and still could move. I think it was that bowtie that he doesn't like that keeps him alive. It's probably a magic bowtie. And what did he mean by blue bringing out his eyes? His eyes are made out of coal! This cartoon seems to be dealt in politics. There's alot of political situations and jokes. I guess the writers thought that would make it funnier. They were wrong. So, the story is somewhat far fetched and has no logic, but I guess that's the way it was intended to be. During the credits, that's the whole voice cast singing "Frosty the Snowman"! --
3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
1cup Environmentalism, 2 cups Lackluster Plot, 1 tsp leeching off a classic, stir., 10 December 2007
Author: guudmoovies from Canada
Painful to watch. The original was a fun show for kids and adults, Frosty Returns, however is absolutely painful to watch due to the messaging embedded in it.
While I can appreciate using cartoons as a vehicle to inform youths, doing it in a Christmas show just creates confusion and is out of place.
This show does not have the same level of interest, movement of plot and sadly, even animation fun as the original, even though it was created decades later.
Save your children the disappointment, don't let them watch this trash.
4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Why does this re-air every holiday season?, 19 December 2005
Author: jouiskc from USA
I do not understand the decisions that television networks make about their programming. It makes perfect sense to have a Frosty sequel, but to make one with absolutely nothing resembling the original is mind boggling.
I challenge anyone to show me a "holiday" special with a more insipid plot or music. The song "Let there be snow" or whatever it is called might be the single worse song I have ever heard. It has terrible lyrics and it sounds like it was created fifteen minutes before airing. God I could go on and on. Please show me there is a Santa Claus and have every single copy of this show BURNED.
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