Saturday, December 29, 2018

"The First Christmas" Cartoon

In response to reader Patrick's request for more info about "The First Christmas" cartoon, here is some more information.  The cartoon is titled "The First Christmas" and was produced for The Bible Society by "API".  I couldn't find a production date - the animation style seems consistent with the late '60s/early '70s.  In addition to the elements I mentioned earlier, like the birth of John the Baptist, it also includes the story of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35), prior to the holy family's flight into Egypt, and other additions that make it a complete story of the times.  It's really a great little cartoon.

I couldn't find a video of the cartoon itself on the internet, but fortunately the DVD set is still available.  It's a Mill Creek Productions set, available at this Amazon link and other web outlets (sometimes with different packaging). 

Here are a few screen shots from the video - the initial title and a couple of the end credits, plus the DVD cover.  The DVD set is a great treasury of Christmas cartoons, TV shows, and movies.










6 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this information. Really appreciated. I even looked in Joanna Wilson's book to get even more info and it's not even listed. Looks like a real find. All the best.

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  2. Oh I have that set I should look into this!

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  3. Ah. This half-hour cartoon is listed in my encyclopedia under the title "The Story of the First Christmas" because I found it listed this way by other print sources and is known by the older title used by others. (I ALWAYS prioritize research by other print sources versus on-line sources. Always.) It's actually pretty easy to find--distributed by cheap dollar DVD companies. It may even be in the public domain which explains why it goes by several different titles. If you'd like to know more about it's creation, a place to start is the director Richard Slapczynski's IMDB page--there you can see many similar animation projects he was involved with.

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  4. Thanks Joanna! With this extra information I was able to find an online video version: https://gloria.tv/video/WsNw2cs8pBVW1GdK8tjcGVdFG

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  5. You are too quick Der Bingle! I too Googled it and found the same link that I was going to add. Thanks Joanna for the insight. I'm not surprised to learn that your encyclopedia did indeed contain this special. As a librarian, I can appreciate you favouring print sources! Thanks to both of you for your contributions. I have now added this special to my watchlist for next December.

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  6. It is truly a nice and useful piece of info. I am glad that you just shared this useful information with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.

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