Christmas Comes But Once a Year
About Christmas Comes But Once a Year
The children in an orphanage unwrap Christmas presents and find broken, secondhand toys. Professor Grampy, passing in his sled, sees them crying. He goes home, turns pots, utensils, and other household junk into new toys, and brings the load back. The children dance.
Cast & crew
More about Christmas Comes But Once a Year
A Color Classics short, released by Paramount Pictures on 4 December 1936. Max Fleischer produced it. Sammy Timberg wrote the music. It is Professor Grampy's only cartoon without Betty Boop. Voices include Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, and Everett Clark.
Themes
Making
The restoration used the original camera negative rather than a release print, which is why the 2022 MeTV showing is the reference copy.
Technique
Shot in color for the Color Classics series. The 2022 restoration came off the Paramount camera negatives.
Music
Sammy Timberg composed the score.
Preservation
Restored in 2022 from the original Paramount camera negatives by Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored.
Notes
- Grampy had been a Betty Boop character. This is his one solo short.
- An edited copy was the cartoon the King of Cartoons ran in the 1988 Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special.
- Jane Fleischer Reid's company, Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored, rebuilt it from the Paramount camera negatives.
- That restoration first aired on MeTV's Toon In with Me on 21 December 2022.
Scenes
- The orphans open the packages and find wrecked toys.
- Grampy converts kitchen objects into a new set of presents and sleds them back.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Christmas_Comes_But_Once_A_Year_1936)
