Cricket on the Hearth

So Rankin Bass’ non-holiday films at the time didn’t do well between 1964 and 1967, and them filming new parts of Rudolph gave them better stain power with Christmas. So they would go in 2D animation with a Christmas classic from The Man Who Created Christmas with Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol would be too obvious to start with, so they went with Dickens’ lesser known Christmas Classics. Thus they went with Cricket on the Hearth.

Cricket Crocket (voiced by Roddy McDowell) lives with a toy maker Caleb Plummer (voiced by Danny Thomas, who somehow is the pointless live host) and his daughter, Bertha. Bertha lost her fiancé, the commanding officer Edward to the naval shipwreck as announced by Jeremiah Bleak, which result her to be blind. Caleb, Bertha, and Cricket moved out of the house due to poor business and went broke to move in a cheap toy company run by Tackleton (played by Hans Confied). Celeb would bump into a bum, who I’m sure is not a character I introduce earlier in the summary, despite he’s “important” to the story. Tackleton wants to marry Bertha and he eventually want to remove Cricket from the interference between him and Bertha.

I was aware of Cricket on the Hearth as seen in the commercial in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer VHS in 1998. I didn’t get to see it until late 2000s when PBS of all stations. When you want to see what is instantly called a kids film, you would never expect a controversial with the only time you see a character get shot by a revolver. I’m not kidding. Tackleton’s Crow, Uriah and his henchmonkey and henchdog get shot by a Sea Captain for exchanging the cricket as good luck charm for payment of bullets.

This is the first time for Rankin Bass they started to use reoccurring actors with Paul Frees, while Roddy McDowell and Hans Confied would only occur in the late 70s and the rest in the 80s.

The animation was done by TCJ Animation Center, who would later become Eiken Stuido; the company better known animating Tetsujin 28-go aka Gigantor in the US. This was the only time a Rankin Bass was animated by them. I can see why, their animation is the weakest start, but not as bad as their animation they did in The Red Baron and even their start as their Wizard of Oz films. It feels like it would be in full circle that their animation starts with a one-shot animation and ends similar with Wind In the Willow.

The music isn’t memorable, the melody is nice with Celab’s Christmas Song sound the strongest, and yet mostly pointless. The most pointless is Moll the Cat singing in the animal underground, as it’s a Big Lipped Alligator that means nothing. They haven’t learned their lesson yet after Mad Monster Party of used of songs only for padding and would get the point when Frosty happens.

It’s an OK Christmas film. If there’s a film that needs to be remade, Cricket on the Hearth should be one of them. It could be longer with the characters they did cut out from the book, keep Bertha and Edward a couple than siblings to avoid being a Folger commercial, show how Bertha and Edward got together, show Tackleton more moments than as a manager, and may keep the Cricket to be important.

Though after watching The Man Who Invented Christmas, I wonder how Charles Dickens thought of Cricket on the Hearth.

Dan Steven as Charles Dickens: Crinket, Crunka Lunka, Crocket, ooh Cricket!

*As Charles Dickens said the name, Cricket Crocket appeared on the Hearth behind Charles.*

Cricket Crocket: Hello, Hello! Cricket Crocket’s the name, and I’m here to make better with something on their si…

*Charles Dickens swat Cricket Crocket with a book of Punch and Judy.*

Charles Dickens: Forget it; I’ll just make the Cricket on the Hearth a metaphor! I hope no one got a better idea with a cricket somewhere else in this country.

It could be done by a better 2D animation for TV or laughably limited for theater. It could be in complete CGI without making a stupid comedy that’s seen in Sony Animation, Blue Sky, Warner Bros. Animation, and Illumination to go the route of the Lorax again, or about every bad CGI animated films that have to include pop culture reference in anything set before the 21 century. If could be live-action with CGI Cricket, but it’ll fall into the same category as the Alvin Chipmunk genre; the distracting bad CGI character with a loud mouth mostly white guy we’re going to focus more on, a pathetic villain, and pop music. Paddington is the only rare exception out of all of them.   

If you want to see a better Christmas film with a Cricket..

*A screen of Disney’s From All of Us, but I pushed it away.*

..besides the obvious. I’m talking about Chuck Jones’ A Merry Cricket Christmas. While it can be a little rehash of A Cricket in Time Square, the friendship with the poor characters are nice, it look nice, and the ending scene is just beautiful. You can barely find it online, but you can find it as part of the Chuck Jones Rudyard Kipling Trilogy in stores, mostly Rite Aid or Walgreen.

Cricket on the Hearth is a weak start for Rankin Bass Animated Christmas, but not bad enough. The next film is to go deep with the meaning of Christmas with The Little Drummer Boy.