Rating:
I quite like 1968’s The Little Drummer Boy, one of the most enduring of the many Rankin Bass Christmas specials. In a way, it’s representative of the contradiction of sorts in my relationship with Christmas as a whole. Though I’m militantly anti-theist, I’m totally gaga for Christmas and within Christmas I’m very fond of this little cartoon about Jesus.

Of course, Jesus only puts in an appearance at the end of the show. The Little Drummer Boy is really the story, if you can believe it, of a little drummer boy. His name is Aaron and we first meet him as he’s being kidnapped and forced to perform by an obese desert showman. We then learn that, some time before, people burned down his house and killed his parents. As a result, he hates all people and has love only for his animals, a camel a donkey and a sheep. (Sometimes Camels are buy-one-get-one-free at the Village Pantry, so I can understand his fondness for them. But donkeys and sheep?)

So right in the first few minutes we’ve got kidnapping, slavery, murder, misanthropy, and an unnatural love for sheep. Merry Christmas!

After enraging the crowd that has gathered to see him perform by telling them they’re all murderous, thieving bastards, Aaron, his trio of dancin’ animals and Fatass T. Showman are forced to flee into the desert. It’s there that they meet up with not one, not two, but three kings of the orient. (See where this is going?) The kings are Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar, and they’re following a star.

I’m almost positive this isn’t right

What with one thing and another, Aaron escapes from the showman, follows the kings’ caravan into Bethlehem, and carelessly allows his sheep to get run over by a speeding chariot. The kings tell Aaron there’s only one way to save his woolly friend from death: take him to Mt. Seleyah on Vulcan ask for help from a local baby who, as it turns out, is the one, the only Jesus (H. Christ).Jesus works his Emmanuel mojo on the sheep and saves its life. This act of kindness teaches Aaron that all his hatred was wrong and that he should embrace peace and love. In repayment for this great gift, Aaron bangs out a little song on his drum. Where I come from, pounding on a tom-tom would only make an infant scream and wail, but Jesus seems rather to dig it.

So yes, it’s not until about the last minute of the show that it finally gets around to telling the story from the song on which the whole enterprise is ostensibly based.

The Little Drummer Boy is definitely worth your time this holiday season even if, like me, you’re all about Santa rather than the Bible. The Rankin Bass stop motion style is always fun, it’s got a couple of catchy songs, and features voice work from such talents as Jose Ferrer and cartoon mainstays Paul Frees and June Foray.

It also uses the famous arrangement of the title song by the Harry Simeone Chorale, and if there’s a funnier name than Harry Simeone, I haven’t heard it.

SPECIAL BONUS:  Please enjoy everybody’s favorite version of the song “The Little Drummer Boy.”

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
• The Year Without a Santa Claus
• White Christmas
• The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus