Its not even Halloween but the frost is coming.

As long as I can remember Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty have been holiday traditions. I actually feel a little let down if I go a whole holiday without seeing them at least once something is just not right with the world without at least a glimpse of Rudolph and his brightly lit light bulb looking nose.

Rudolph and Frosty were both produced in the 60s by a production company called Rankin/Bass which specialized in the stop motion type animation that both were produced in. Stop Motion is basically a type of animation where an object is slowly moved and photographed causing still objects to appear to be animated. It gives what is basically a cartoon a really organic feel something you just do not see anymore with the invention of CGI it seems incredibly vintage.. almost artsy.

What you may not know though is that Rudolph and Frosty were just the tip of the iceberg as far as the animations made by Rankin/Bass and there is yet another holiday feature that should be on your radar. Up till now I had heard about their Jack Frost production but never seen it till it was released this month.

Jack Frost the tale of the icy cold winter elf who happens to wander into a human town one winter where he falls in love with a human girl named Elisa. Head over heels for her he turns himself into a human boy only to have his love stollen by Kubla Kraus. It takes all of his winter elf powers and a few friends to get her back but he is one determined elf. In the meantime a human knight steps in and ends up saving Elisa himself. All the while Jack Frost is battling Kubla Kraus in attempts to win his rights to Elisa and Elisa is falling in love with the knight. Its actually kind of sad... as Jack is fighting for nothing as Elisa was lost to him all along. Poor poor Jack.

Its really a great story and one of the more recent stop animations that Rankin/Bass made as it was released in 1979 thought I find it really odd that I've never seen it up till now.

Jack Frost is available right now on DVD and you can pick up your own copy on Amazon!