When you think of Rankin-Bass (that's Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass for the unknowing) what's the first thing that comes to mind? Why Christmas, of course! No holiday season would be complete without watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman or The Year Without a Santa Claus (the original, not the bastardized live-action NBC version) at least once. However, Rankin-Bass wasn't only just for Christmas. In fact, they made specials for Thanksgiving, Halloween and . . . Easter.

There were actually three Easter specials, to be exact. The first was Here Comes Peter Cottontail, which premiered in 1971 on ABC. In that one, which starred the voice talent of Casey Kasem, Vincent Price, and Danny Kaye, Peter is a young bunny in April Valley, which is the central hub for all things Easter. The Chief Easter Bunny names Peter his successor, but the citizens of April Valley, including the evil rabbit Irontail (isn't there always an evil rabbit somewhere) declare this monarchy unconstitutional. So, the C.E.B decides to hold a contest between Irontail and Peter to see who can deliver the most eggs. Whoever does gets the Chief Bunny position.

The New York Times has an interesting story about the fate of two of the puppets from the revered TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which first aired in 1964. Apparently, out of the thousands of puppets created for the stop-action animation used in the Rankin-Bass special, only two currently exist: one of Rudolph and one of Santa.

The article tells the story of how the puppets, given to an R-B employee after the show was made, were found in an attic, appraised on Antiques Roadshow, and sold for a nice chunk of change to the president of TimeAndSpaceToys.com/ He then painstakingly restored the heavily-damaged puppets to their original form (details of that restoration are here). Santa and Rudolph are currently on display at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, where they will be until Jan. 13.

How did Santa and Rudolph get to be in such poor shape? Kids. The person who took the puppets home gave them to her kids, who crammed poor Rudy's mouth with crayons and Play-Doh. Jeez. Those buggers had no sense of history, did they?

For the past few weeks now, I've seen the Frosty the Snowman Christmas special about ... oh ... fifty-seven times. No, it's not because I'm a big sucker for holiday specials (though I am). And no, it's not because I have an unhealthy attraction to strange American-looking, anime-like holiday cartoons (I know that sounds weird). It's because I've gone and introduced this Christmas classic to my two-year old son, and now I've gone and done it.

My son Owen is now a Frosty junkie.

So, seeing as my son is becoming much more of an expert at the show than I am, I thought maybe he should review it for you, with some translation from me of course. Let's take it scene by scene, shall we?

Joining the ranks of Frosty, Rankin-Bass' Rudolph and Charlie Brown's lonely Christmas tree is everyone's favorite ogre Shrek.

DreamWorks Animation SKG will be producing an original half-hour holiday special for ABC. The special Shrek the Halls will feature the voices of the entire original cast - Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas.

We won't be seeing holiday-themed Shrek on the air until 2007. Why? Well, animation done right takes time, but so does building a lasting franchise. According to DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, the events of Shrek the Halls will pick up after the events of the yet-to-be-released third Shrek film.

I'm sure the Shrek special will be great, but can anyone really top a dentist elf, unhappy Yeti and misfit reindeer? Shrek is so postmodern in its sensibility that I'm sure it will be incorporating references to all the classic holiday specials anyway. It's the dawning of a hyper-referential pop culture Christmas.