meisterburger23 I've always been a fan of Rankin Bass, I grew up watching Rudolph, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town The Year Without a Santa Claus, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas In July and also their underrated specials like Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey, The First Christmas Snow, Pinocchio's Christmas and Little Drummer Boy and The Little Drummer Boy Book IIThe Life and Adventures Of Santa Claus is a very underrated and overlooked gem to the Rankin Bass fan base. Sadly this is rarely shown on TV, and it appears Freeform, aka ABC Family has giving this special the chopping block. When this did air on ABC family it was heavily edited and not watchableThe story begins with the great Ak with a council with immortals explaining why Santa deserves the mantel of immortality and not die. He begins his tale of the life of Santa Claus by explaining how he discovered Claus as a newborn infant abandoned at the edge of the enchanted forest. He first enlists a lioness named Shegria to nurse and care for the child but a fairy called Neclie hears about the baby and steals it from Shegria. Ak agrees to allow Necile to care for the baby and she calls him Claus. Claus grows up in the forest and as a young adult Ak takes him on a journey to show him what humans are like, after witnessing dark scenes like poverty, child abuse, war and hunger Claus decides to live in a village not far and help children. He becomes a toy maker and makes toys for the village children. His talent in bringing joy to children makes him want to travel the world and deliver toys to all children thus becoming Santa.Some evil villains called the Awguas cause trouble for Claus and steal his toys, but his immortal friends get the toys back by destroying the Awguas and their dragon. After an awesome battle with a dragon between good and evil, the immortals win and Claus gets to finish his journey on delivering toys,As Santa gets older he decides to deliver the presents on Christmas Eve, hence why Claus makes his trip once a year. As Ak finishes his story, the council agrees to bestow the mantel of immortality for Claus. Claus gets to be immortal and becomes Santa Claus who continues to deliver gifts to this day.This special again Is very much a part of my childhood and I love it, It's a lot different than the book such as a character called Tingler but it's a nice story about Santa Claus. The songs are nice and my favorite is A Child, We Wanna Wake Up to a Big Surprise is nice too. It's dark, but it's geared more toward older kids and adults. But if you want to watch something different I recommend this. Great special10/10 stars

wingsphotography During all my childhood I wasn't allowed to watch any kind of Holiday movies. Or celebrate for that matter. I didn't see this movie until I was older now I have kids. This one for sure shows the true meaning of Christmas. If I am to explain to my kids about Santa, this movie is the best for that.For most holiday movies I seen.This one is the best. Not only it is full of beauty, colorful, well done for clay animation, the story and characters are great! The singing and the meaning behind it all is wonderful put together. This one brings the magic and spirit of Christmas. Hope it comes out on DVD soon. I missed it last year on TV. So bummed it wasn't on. I want it in my collection.

booneh While this does contain many of the elements of a typical Rankin/Bass animated special, it is by far more bizarre than I could've ever imagined. To give you an idea of how "out there" this show is, I missed only the first two minutes of the cartoon and I had NO IDEA that it was supposed to be a story about Santa Claus until the last two minutes of the show. It has nymphs, gods, demons... all that you wouldn't expect in a Christmas special. And what's funny is whenever I try and describe this show to people, they don't believe me at all."No, seriously, the Great Ak then grabs this ax and challenges the demons to fight." "Whatever." "And Santa has this lion and he goes to the arctic with a magician and..." "You're full of it." "I'm not! It's true! You have to see it!"The cartoon starts off weird and just gets more and more bizarre the farther you go in. If you're high, I guarantee that you will be enthralled and laugh all the way through. All I can say is that it is messed up and I can't really described exactly how messed up it is. No one would really get it or like it or think that it is great by any stretch of the imagination. Watch it if you are extremely high or you are curious or a Rankin/Bass fan, like me. Otherwise, your best bet would be to stick to the better Christmas specials.

Angel Meiru Somehow, most Christmas related movies and specials seem to be sendemental, campy or some times even sickening sweet. But "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" is a big relief from those Holiday special clichés.Think of putting together a typical Rankin Bass special, Mythology of the British Isles and Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal" and you get this movie about a mortal named St. Nicholas and how he came to be.Some people seemed to complain about the film being too dark. But face it, some things may tend to be *gasps* ARTISTIC, and *gasps* original and *gasps* not sappy or an un-artistic film just made to tell you to shell out your bucks on the crappy merchandise.If you catch this on TV or on any VCR format, or if you love "The Dark Crystal" or Mythological based films, you will love this special. I know I do!