Grampy Plays Santa

Max Fleischer’s Grampy can be a little creepy, but there’s a certain inventiveness in many of his cartoons that’s admirable. Take “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” (1936). Typical Depression yarn. Poor kids won’t have a real Christmas but Santa comes along to save the day. In this case, Santa is Grampy.

As the old man laughs uncontrollably, he comes up with toys for the kids made of stuff found around their orphanage. They’re pretty clever.



A train set is created by a coffee percolator (plugged in), with saucers for wheels and teacups for cars, with a tunnel made from a cheese grater suspended above the tracks by a pair of books.



Another cheese grater creates snowflakes as a fan blows a bar of soap over it. A shame this is a lousy public domain version. I’d love to see what the brush strokes on the wall actually look like.



Grampy puts some green umbrellas into each other to create a Christmas tree.

The opening and closing of the cartoon have those wonderful little Fleischer’s models that add a 3-D effect which is still effective after all these years. The opening the orphanage behind a fence. The scene turns from an angle, and as the setting faces the front of the building, the fence stands out in front. The ending’s even better, as Grampy’s Christmas turns in 3-D. The scene then darkens so just the Christmas tree lights are on, with Grampy being lit from an open side entrance. I’ll bet it looked terrific on the big screen.



Seymour Kneitel and William Henning are the credited animators and there’s even an original song.