Our pals Niall Flanagan and Dwayne Moloney, co-hosts of the Secret of the Sailor Madness podcast, join us this week to try and make sense of Rankin/Bass’ 1967 Christmas special The Cricket on the Hearth!

Based on Charles Dickens’ other holiday novella, Cricket plays fast and loose with its source material to mold it into something suitable for television. Certain characters get cut out, new ones invented out of whole cloth, and no less than NINE musical numbers thrown in to stretch this to an hour for your holiday viewing pleasure.

It’s nonsensical, it’s absurd, but it’s also 100% pure-strain Rankin/Bass. There’s a charm to the madness on display here, and honestly? We wouldn’t have it any other way.

SHOW NOTES FOR THIS EPISODE:

• The Cricket on the Hearth is available to stream on YouTube
• Check out Secret of the Sailor Madness and Let’s Go Jojo today!
• The original silent film adaptation from 1909
• Consider donating to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital
• Join our Discord channel today!
• KRANKOMETER: (2, 1)

Questions? Complaints? Requests? Hit us up at XmasCreeps@gmail.com!