Holiday special review: ‘Frosty Returns’
During the month leading up to Christmas, Mike will review popular or, more likely, not-so-popular holiday specials. This review appears in 11/29 The Glendale Star and the 11/30 Peoria Times. “Frosty the Snowman” is a special that contains all the essentials of classic, holiday entertainment: a talking snowman, an evil magician, a girl who can easily take a train to the North Pole with a talking snowman she just met five minutes earlier as long as she's "home for dinner," etc. It’s not really Christmas season until you’ve watched “Frosty,” and this year Christmas season began Nov. 23 on CBS. Not so classic is “Frosty Returns,” the unnecessary early 90s follow-up to the original that now airs immediately after “Frosty” in an attempt to lure Americans into believing the two are comparable pieces of entertainment. Wikipedia goes out of its way to note “Frosty Returns” is not a sequel, since it was produced by Lorne Michaels (?!) Broadway Video and not Rankin/Bass, the co...