Am I a Cotton-Headed Ninny-Muggins too?
After Victoria's great post about Christmas movies, I got to thinking about one of my favourites... Martin the Cobbler. Krista hasn't seen it yet, but we were talking with our friends Jeff and Shannelle about it Tuesday night over a thrilling game of CLUE, which I haven't played in at least a decade. I was Professor Plum! Anyway, Martin the Cobbler is pre-California Raisins (1977) claymation. And an amazingly beautiful story. I first heard about it from Dr. Charles Nienkirchen (who is not at all Cotton-Headed but perhaps a bit of a Ninny-Muggins), my intrepid former teacher and then friend & colleague at the Nazarene College in Calgary. Thanks Charles!
posted by Matthew Francis at Thursday, December 22, 2005
8 Comments:
The primitiveness of the claymation is, for me, a great part of this story. Oh, and that out of nowhere a 'holy man' shows up to challenge Martin, and Martin's response is, 'Oh, hello, Holy Man.' I just like that. The man comes around... hmmm?
wow! a Christmas movie I haven't heard of! And it looks like a gem. Where can I buy this?
I really really like the old claymation, and stop-animation movies. Especially when I was a kid, even now, they are so wonderful to watch, because you know how painstakingly they were accomplished.
Since Victoria's post is simply littered with comments about Christmas movies, I wanted to say here that I was shocked and appalled at the omission of "Muppet's Christmas Carol" from her list.
I will say that I was delighted to learn that there is a movie of this delightful cobbler story (it's Tolstoy who made it famous, isn't it???)...I shall have to see it at once.
Ah yes. I just clicked on your link. So Tolstoy in fact WROTE it.
I need to remember my sources of information better if I ever want to be a proper scholar. Yeesh.
Yeah, Matthew, the Muppets' Christmas Carol is terrific. I think Kermit is sort of the Platonic ideal of Bob Cratchet-ness.
Here, here! Elise and I saw these outstanding claymation productions well before our journey into Orthodoxy. The cover production was "The Little Prince" which is one of the great books. "Martin the Cobbler" was one of the three ("Rip van Winkle" the other). We loved it for simple theological truth, though we had no idea of its connection with our future home in the Orthodox faith. Later we discovered the same story in a collection of Tolstoy folk-tales that Elise's dad printed off the internet. But Johnny Cash read it? Interesting.
lol! the muppets! how could I forget? and we even own it!
too funny.
btw, we received that wonderful rendition of O Holy Nightmare...
whoever is responsible for it, we thank you immensely.
good belly laughs.
that guy is priceless. we were all commenting on how much we would enjoy a christmas album, if he put one out...
It was the theoloblogger that sent out "O Holy Nightmare." Thanks Matthew! This has made a lot of people smile - and cringe - so much!
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