Watch 'Twas the Night Before Christmas For Free

Really Surprised!

Please don't spend money on this.

How sad is this?

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Cynical mouse Albert writes an insulting letter to Santa, which ticks Santa off. Afraid Santa will pass them up this year, the town of Junctionville enlists clockmaker Joshua Trundle to build a clock that will play a special song for Santa on Christmas Eve. But Albert, curious about how the clock works, breaks it. Now there will be no Christmas for Junctionville unless Albert can somehow fix the mess he created.Charming Rankin-Bass Christmas special. This one has more traditional animation, like Frosty, instead of the stop-motion animation we all know & love from other specials. But it's still very good animation with wonderfully expressive faces on the humans and the mice. It's full of beautiful sentiment, lovely music, and great voicework. Joel Grey and Tammy Grimes were especially memorable. I remember as a little kid being fascinated with the way Albert the mouse spoke. This was one of the constants from my childhood Christmases and holds a special place in my heart.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974) ** 1/2 (out of 4) A small town learns that Santa isn't coming because a know-it-all mouse wrote him an insulting letter telling him that he wasn't real. The people of this town must try and find a way for Santa to change his mind while the trouble maker's father teaches him a lesson on why even if you don't believe you shouldn't ruin the fun for everyone else. This is yet another charming short from the Bass-Rankin team who were masters at bringing this Christmas tales to television. This one here certainly isn't one of my favorites but there are enough nice characters to make it worth watching. The animation here is quite crude but I think this works in the film's favor and it certainly helps bring the mice to life. I thought the father-son mice were very good and their story was certainly the most entertaining thing here. The human characters weren't nearly as interesting but we are treated to a couple nice tunes and there's no question that the message is a good one and it gets across very nicely.

Rankin and Bass does it again. The music is what makes this special truly special. Rankin and Bass make some of the best musical specials ever in the history of Television and 'Twas The Night Before Chrismtas is no exception. It's fun, it's heartwarming, it's everything you would expect from a holiday special. But it's not perfect, I think I should note some major goofs in the animation. The reindeer mainly, the ears are too round, they look more like reinmice then reindeer and the sleigh bells are too large. I mean these are huge bells. Too big. But other then that it does a great job in entertaining and teaching a message about keeping an open mind to the unknown. 9 STARS to a true classic.

I agree that this is a classic. I was born shortly before this cartoon was made, so it was a big part of my Christmas ritual growing up. The morale is great ("even a miracle needs a hand") and the songs are GOOD. They crept in my head at an early age and stayed there 'til this day. I see a lot of my adolescent, atheist, Ivy League self in the defiant Albert, who derides Santa as a myth, but also in Mr. Trundle, who works devotedly for something he believes in. I'm not talking literals here, people, but there's something nice about believing in something greater than yourself, or your known quantities.