Frosty the Snowman - Rescue - P. A. Nolte

1/ An icy, metallic castle buffeted by harsh winds and buried in snow banks.  This is the frozen fortress of Klaus Zatan, cruel Imperator of the Southern Pole.

Cap: History is littered with those who have lost their way.  Misers without spirit.  Monsters with congenital heart defects.  But none so lost...

2/ Perched on his throne, swaddled in ragged furs, is the vulture-like visage of Zatan.  Chained to the throne beside him is a more familiar figure, the portly Santa Claus, who is not quite his usual jovial self at the moment.

Zatan: ENOUGH NARRATION!!!

Zatan: This is your last warning, brother!  I will not be participant to one of your wretched claymation specials!

Santa: But, Klaus...

3/ Santa is pleading now, but Zatan merely rolls his eyes.  This is the same sob story he's heard for centuries.  A slightly new wrinkle, perhaps, but otherwise well-trodden ground.

Santa: Stealing the toys children already have?!  Why, that's worse than no Christmas at all!

Zatan: Precisely!  When I give word, my army of gremlins will disperse!  At the flick of a switch, the chaos will begin, and--

SFX: BOOM

4/ Their attention is drawn away from each other by the large boom of Zatan's throne room doors bursting wide open, and the figure that fills their frame.

Frosty (OP): I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Klaus.

5/ Frosty.  He is not the snow-covered 80's action hero you might expect in this setting, but the traditional snowman.  Hat, pipe, scarf.  The only difference is the heavy brow over his coal eyes.  Behind him are several piles of incapacitated gremlins.  At his side is Rudolph, nose gleaming.  As far as they are concerned, nobody ruins Christmas.  Nobody.

Frosty: Let. Santa. Go.

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN—“Frosty, the Elemental Man”—David Press

This idea initially started out as a single page but ballooned to three pages. This is a bit of a consolidation of the last half of page two and page three. In this case, we have Frosty as a kind of Swamp Thing-like being that can literally be anywhere there is snow. Happy holidays to you all! Thanks for letting me be a part of this group.

PAGE ONE.

1.1: A full-fledged FROSTY sits in front of a single story office building. Three mounds, rocks for buttons, a carrot nose, etc. The building he's sitting in front of has a SNOW FLAKE logo etched in the window just behind Frosty.

The LETTERING under the logo displays FROST INSURANCE.

TWO KIDS are playing with him. Say one boy and one girl, decked out in full winter clothes. The BOY (who is the taller of the two by a full head) puts a Santa Cap on Frosty’s head; the GIRL wraps a scarf around his nonexistent neck.

            1. FROSTY’S NARRATION [Caption]: When people treat me as their totem, it means regeneration.

1.2: A rainstorm hits the same-sized panel and it starts washing away the snow. Just so we’re clear, I’m going to say Frosty’s narrative captions are now going to be labeled “Frosty”.

            2. FROSTY: Things happen—seasons change and so do we all.

            3. FROSTY: Eventually we all wither--

1.3: Frosty starts melting into the snow-patched grass.

            4. FROSTY: --and go to ground.

1.4: He’s down to just two mounds—his torso and his head.

            5. FROSTY: That’s okay, though. That’s the cycle of our planet.

1.5: He’s just a head now.

            6. FROSTY: We’re all going to end up in the dirt, but that’s what makes grass grow and trees bud, and feeds vegetables for—

1.6: Frosty is now a puddle seeping into soaked grass. The only thing left of him is the soaked Santa cap.  

            7. FROSTY: --animals and you all to eat from.

            8. FROSTY: That’s why I’m an elemental man.

--end—

Frosty the Snowman - Prog 8 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...continuing the music-fueled adventures of Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins.

(Turn the Page will return next week. In the meantime...)

After having crash-landed on Earth during WWII, the Twins have been fighting for truth, justice, and peace on our world for decades. Now, they are returning to theirs, to free the child slaves of New Exor...

Panel 1- at the mouth of the cave chamber where the slaves are penned, ZAN peers inside as he and JAYNA bump fists with a purple flash. ZAN is holding a sparking baton in his free hand, which looks like it was "borrowed" from the guard knocked out cold at their feet.

CAPTION: Down to the village...

Panel 2- the TWINS unlocking the cages, freeing the children, JAYNA in the shape of a squid so she can open multiple cages at the same time. ZAN is scanning to the side, as something has caught his eye.

CAPTION: ...with a boomstick in his hand, running here and there, all around the square...

Panel 3- cut to another GUARD reclining on a stool against the wall, watching a ball of ice roll by.

SoundFX: thumpity-thump-thump

Panel 4- the GUARD bends down to examine the ball of ice as another rolls by, a rotund shadow cast over him.

SoundFX: thumpity-thump-thump

ZAN (off-panel): Psst.

Panel 5- from the guard's POV, looking up, ZAN, in the form of a pissed-off Frosty the Snowman, snowy fist pulled back about to come down like a hammer.

ZAN/FROSTY: Happy birthday.

Panel 6- black panel.

SoundFX: WHAM!

Next Prog: Freedom! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Frosty the Snowman - The Good News and Bad News of Being a MAGICAL CHRISTMAS SNOWMAN - MK Stangeland Jr.

(Confession Time - I didn't actually write out a script this week. I went straight from writing out the concept in a notepad to drawing it out on my computer.)

Frosty the Snowman - "I'll Be Back Again Some Day" - Grant McLaughlin

1 - Establishing shot of a house in winter time with a car and U-Haul parked in the driveway. It should probably be snowing.

KYLE (from within): I don't think I can properly explain how happy I am to be coming back home to where there's honest to goodness snow during the holidays.

2 - Interior. Kyle and Vicky, our youngish couple, are unpacking some boxes in a pretty sparse living room. Let's say they have a couch they're sitting on, but not much else yet. Vicky is focused on the task at hand, smiling knowingly to herself at all this pro-winter sentiment. Kyle is distracted from the task at hand by Vicky's surprising words.

VICKY: Your parents were the same way when they dropped off a box of your old winter stuff earlier.

KYLE (1): My old winter--

KYLE (2): Where's that box?!

3 - Now it's Vicky's turn to be surprised, turning her head to follow Kyle as he abandons his box and runs off to the next room.

VICKY: The den, I think...

4 - On Kyle as he's walking back into the living room holding a pretty worn looking cardboard box. He's absolutely beaming.

KYLE: Vick, I take it back.

5 - On the box. Written on its front is a big ol' "FROSTY", written by hand in old marker. The box sits on the couch, flaps open. Inside, a top hat, scarf, pipe, and all those relevant bits of paraphernalia poke out of the its opening.

KYLE (tailles): ...I know exactly how to explain it.

Why Frosty the Snowman?

Because Rudolph wasn't paying the bills anymore...

Circa 1950.

65 years ago, country balladeer Gene Autry was looking for a follow-up to his Christmas hit about a certain red-nosed reindeer. Writers Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson brought this little ditty to the table, and Autry's Christmas career was secured.

Hello, childhood!

Fast forward to 1969. Rankin-Bass, stop motion animation studio extraordinaire, was running behind on their latest holiday masterpiece, and to make a contractual deadline, turned to cel animation. Arthur Rankin wanted the art to look like a Christmas card, so Jules Bass turned to Mad Magazine illustrator Paul Coker to do production design, and Jimmy "hot-cha-cha-cha" Durante to narrate the tale, his last work before his death. Since then...well, there must've been some magic in that old silk hat, because TV Frosty hasn't missed a Christmas since.

P.S. my favorite performance of the song is the one by the Ronettes, produced by Phil Spector in 1963.

So, Happy Christmas to everyone. From all of us here at Thoughtballoons, Season's Greetings!

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