04 December 2011

You Can't Have Christmas...

In the 1960s and 1970s the Lutheran Church made several animated or "Claymation" type stories for children to illustrate Christian concepts. The most famous of these were the Davey and Goliath series (and its well-remembered Christmas episode, Christmas Lost and Found), but in the late 1960s-early 1970s kids were also treated to a brief cartoon series about Benji, an elementary-school age boy, and his lolloping sheepdog Waldo. There was an Easter special called Easter Is and an Independence Day special, Freedom Is, but the two most well known are the following.

In Christmas Is, Benji protests having to play a shepherd once again in the school play, and learns how important the shepherds were to the Christmas story:

Christmas Is, Part 1

Christmas Is, Part 2

Christmas Is, Part 3

In The City That Forgot About Christmas, Benji and his buddy flee Christmas preparations to the quiet of his Grandpa's workshop, where his grandfather tells him a story of the influence a strange traveler had on a small town:

The City That Forgot About Christmas, Part 1

The City That Forgot About Christmas, Part 2

The City That Forgot About Christmas, Part 3

Oh, if you like these stories, you might consider buying them on DVD! They're sold on one DVD, along with the live-action The Stableboy's Christmas, called "Three Christmas Classics."

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