From just about the very beginning of comic books, publishers have realized that with the extra leisure and more generous spending habits of December, it’s a great time to sell more comics. Thus the Christmas Special. From Bugs Bunny to Superman, the Christmas comic became a seasonal surety on wire store racks.
1950 was the year Gene Autry tried for Christmas gold a second time. His first hit had been “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which had been Number 1 the year previous. His rendition of Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson’s song “Frosty the Snowman” proved almost as impressive (getting to Number 7), adding yet another entry to the pantheon of non-religious Christmas characters. The song would have to wait nineteen years to get a cartoon based on it, but in the meantime, the comic specials filled that void.
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