“Why am I such a misfit? I am not just a nitwit. You can't fire me, I quit! Seems I don't fit in.” It’s a Rankin/Bass “Animagic” Christmas Spectacular here at Movies That Made Us Gay, and we watched “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” “The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus,” and “Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey” with our friend Harper Thomson and we still want to visit the island of misfit toys. These charming stop-motion animation TV specials from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s have been airing for as long as any of us can remember, and it’s just not the holidays until we watch at least one of them. What little queer child didn’t feel seen as Rudolph was banished from gym class and made to hide his light?  Little Hermey the elf just not feeling his 9-to-5 job making toys really speaks to the Gen Z in all of us, and are you even queer if you don’t shed a tear when that raggedy doll sings her song on the island of misfit toys? All that and a ginger daddy/bear who loves dogs (and peppermint), and it almost seems as though this was made for and by the gays. There was just something in the sauce Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass were churning because each of these specials just tugs at your heartstrings and makes the little queer kid inside us weep, laugh, and light up. Oh, and the Heat & Snow Miser’s songs are high camp, burlesque magic. 

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