SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain Another adaptation of the book, but is mostly a painful extension of the Rankin and Bass cartoon. This becomes no more apparent than when they decide to just throw in the Heat/Snow Miser songs. In the same sad way that Ron Howard's Grinch used the song from the 60's version. It's a highlight, but it just reminds us how unimaginative and tacky the remake is. We have a needless antagonist that wants to replace Santa with Extreme Santa, and Jangle is obsessed with urban culture and television. Towards the end it picks up, when I forgot the main plot of the film, and it focused on the son and his politician father. Goodman is fine as a cranky Santa, but he's just playing himself. McKean and Fierstein have some fun as the Miser brothers, even though I don't think Fierstein's voice suits the singing sections. The cartoon has more heart, more soul, and doesn't go for forced "humour"

BigBish1966 An abomination so heinous, so repulsive, so reprehensible that the excess amount of bile that my body doesn't process because of my missing gall bladder creeps up my esophagus thinking about it.I speak of the atrocity that was recently aired on CBS - The Year Without A Santa Clause. Not the beloved Rankin/Bass production, but a live action piece of televised diarrhea. John Goodman as santa, Delta Burke as Mrs Claus? Harvey Fierstien as Heat Miser?!!!! Dear god in heaven what have they done?...... What have they done? ( I was saving that for when the US was nuked ah la Jericho, but this is worse... far worse).I'll admit that curiosity made me tune in. I'm human. But Randy from My Name is Earl as Jangle? A black Jingle? Dancing girls in the Heat Miser/Cold Miser numbers? When did a bump and grind ( over and above the Victorias Secet Fashion Show) become a part of Christmas tradition? The claymation Misers didn't need it. No they didn't. They were pure entertainment. I'd rather the controversy of devil/angel that kept it off TV for so many years to a musical number from Solid Gold.Someone needs to bury this, and bury it deep. Its a national disgrace. You want insurgents to surrender- tape their eyes open and force then to watch this over & over. It will make them beg to be degregaded at abul grad.The tragedy of this is that it was 2 hours. I only watched 20 minutes before I was diving for the puke bucket.

gryffindor249 You really have to wonder what NBC and the creators of this film were thinking adapting the beloved animated special into this live-action film.Were they hoping to expand the story (adapted from Phyllis McGinley's novel)? Then why is it that the original version accomplished more storytelling in a one-hour special than this movie does in two? This adaptation with a strange credit of teleplay and "television story" by Larry Wilson and Tom Martin goes off on so many tangents and in so many directions it only makes passing reference to the plot of the original novel and Rankin-Bass special it makes one wonder why they bothered to pay royalties to the original creators at all.Perhaps it was so they could include the famous "I'm Mr. Heat/ Snow Miser" song, but this rare moment of energy in this movie is rather jarring considering that this is not otherwise a musical and the rest of the score is missing.The cast is excellent across-the-board, though the lovely Delta Burke is way too young for the thankless role of Mrs. Claus, the prime mover of the plot in the original but reduced to looking concerned and expounding exposition here. You know you are in trouble when a film includes John Goodman, Eddie Griffin, Harvey Firestein and Michael McKean (and a scene-stealing Carol Kane) and is still dull.An almost-complete waste of time and a scouring of a terrific story. Now go and watch the Rankin/ Bass original!

mretalli1 I fondly remember the 1974 Rankin-Bass version of "The Year Without A Santa Claus" and was looking forward to seeing this. I feel let down by it in just about every aspect. The casting was so-so, John Goodman did a fair job as Santa, but Delta Burke as Mrs. Claus wasn't given as much to do as Shirley Booth in the original. Chris Kattan's Sparky became annoying quite quickly, as did the script's constant barrage of in-jokes for adults (since it was shown at the 9PM-11PM time slot they probably thought it was necessary to attract an adult audience.) But the most grievous fault of this film was to fail to capitalize on the most memorable part of the original: the Miser Brothers. Their catchy ragtime theme song was the one thing that people associate with the original. I felt the casting of Harvey Fierstein and Michael McKean was not strong, plus the idea of splicing together the brothers singing instead of having each one sing his version separately diminished the impact of the song. If they were going to stretch it out to two hours, they certainly should have found time for both versions of the song. Carol Kane's Mother Nature seemed to me to be a direct ripoff of her Ghost of Christmas Present in Scrooged. Stick with the 1974 version, this film is a Christmas turkey.