A short but sweet one here, we have an adaptation of an adaptation on our hands. A picture book from early 1986 got adapted into direct to VHS ‘animated’ narrated picture book, just in time for Christmas of the same year.

What do I mean when I say ‘Animated picture book’ I mean that the picture books dialogue was expanded or reworded slightly to better fit a video medium, they got the illustrator of the picture book (H.W Lewis) to redraw some scenes and draw some new illustrations to help fill in the gaps. and the whole thing is presented as a series of still images utilising digital moves, zooms and video effects to give the illusion of minimalist animation. While Kelly Mcgillis narrates the story.

the plot involves a snowy white bear who gets seperated from his family during a fishing hunt, and winds up lost in the woods, where he meets a small girl named Maria who lives in a cabin not far from where the Bear landed. She takes him in, teaches him about the human world and most importantly about Christmas. But when a crisis strikes! our little bear will have to go out into the woods alone to find firewood to save his new friends from certain peril!

Its a gentle story with a lot of very heartwarming and emotional moments. I enjoyed this story, and could easily see it being a firm favourite in a kids library. Its a big christmassy hug of a story that I enjoyed.

The narration is fine enough, though I dont quite feel like it really went the extra mile. It does the job, it wasnt bad…its just kind of fine.

I think the thing that holds this short back more than anything else is just the fact that, while the illustrations are some of the most adorable stuff i’ve ever seen in my life (HOW these illustrations didnt become a merch mine, I’ll NEVER know…) its hard to really, truely get into the story when all the screen is showing is static images that occaisonally move left to right, or zoom in and out…or at MOST have a, not particularly great ‘snowfall effect’ overlayed over the top of it.

This short kind of reminded me of Raymond Briggs ‘The Snowman’ but without the horrifying gutpunch finale. Just all charm, all the way…and i’d love to see this get re-adapted in a way that uses this art style, but maybe fully reworks the story into a linear short film with actual animation done in this style. I think it could be a very powerful thing. But as it stands, it feels a bit like a proof of concept that didnt get approved for full animation.

I’ve seen what they do with the sequel animation wise…and good lord. talk about a downgrade…but yeah! Will this hold kids attentions in the year of our lord 2025…probably not, maybe if they have the actual picture book in their hands, and they’re reading along with a parent or something like that. But this is just aching to be a nicely animated 30 minute tv special…rather than a semi-animated digital book.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/santabears-first-christmas/