
“The wicked queen creates an ice storm meant to get rid of the younger Snow White, but instead freezes the whole village just barely missing her. Snow White travels to the land of the Seven Friendly Giants and makes friends with them. Snow White is never safe from the wicked queen because she’ll always be able to find her. Can the giants save Snow White from her vengeance, or will she end up an icicle like her parents?”
– John Nickolaus, IMDB.
A Snow White Christmas is produced by Filmation, best known for the He-Man and She-Ra television shows. Erika Scheimer, who voices the titular character, is the daughter of Lou Scheimer, one of the original founders of Filmation. A Snow White Christmas was first broadcast in December of 1980 on CBS.
Some thoughts from me (Potential spoilers below)…
So right off the bat, let me mention that this film doesn’t have anything to do with Filmation’s other Snow White sequel, Happily Ever After, as A Snow White Christmas predates Happily Ever After by a good 10 years or so. It’s sort of a shame really, as previously mentioned I’m kind of attached to Happily Ever After. I personally wouldn’t have minded seeing those characters again.
As an aside, like Happily Ever After, this film features another set of cousins to the original seven dwarves. This is likely their attempt to distinguish themselves from the Disney versions of the dwarves.
This one definitely feels like a Filmation production, it’s obvious that Happily Ever After had a lot more budget to it. As an example, A Snow White Christmas has lot of instances of the camera changing as a character begins speaking, so as to avoid having to do costly/timely lip syncing of dialogue. I actually wonder if this acted as a bit of a test for Filmation on what corners they could cut with their animation, as this film also pre-dates their best known property, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, by about 3 years.
As mentioned above, the Wicked Queen returns in this film. This isn’t an instance of her returning from the dead, or some such thing. As Snow White’s parent’s mention in the first five minute so of the film, the Wicked Queen just up and disappeared after the events of the original story (The titular Snow White is actually the daughter of the original Snow White, who is now Queen). Amusingly, Snow White’s parents deliberately avoided telling her about the Evil Queen, because her mother wanted to avoid having to tell her daughter about ‘such evil’. I could understand that if the Evil Queen was dead and gone, but you’d think if there’s still a chance that she’s out there lurking somewhere you’d want to give her a heads up. They don’t, and as a result Snow White is ill pre-pared when the Evil Queen comes looking for revenge.
This one is definitely more cheesy than anything. I’d recommend this one if you’re in the mood for something with more charm than laughs (Though that said, there’s still some laughable moments to be found in this one).
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