The Torch
Opening Credits
Opening Ceremonies
Marathon (Part I)
Gymnastics
- Floor Exercises

Gymnastics (continued)
- Vault
- Uneven Parallel Bars
Animalympic Island Tour
Marathon (Part II)
Figure Skating (Part I)
Note: There is a little flare-up in distortion during the Figure Skating segment

Figure Skating (Part II)
Track and Field
- “Born To Lose” segment/Bolt Jenkins background
- High Jump
- Pole Vault (with Gecko flakes! the breakfast of Chimps)
- “We’ve Made It To The Top” segment

Track and Field (continued)
- 100-Meter Dash
Marathon (Part III)
“Go For It” segment (Noah’s Ark Disco)
Soccer
Marathon (Part IV)
“Love’s Not For Me” segment

Slalom Skiing
Squawk Valley Tour
Bobsledding
“Away From It All” segment

Ice Hockey
Marathon Update
Dean Wilson: ZOO On You
Swimming – 100-meter freestyle

Platform Diving
“Underwater Fantasy” segment
Animal Archives
Downhill Skiing (featuring “Bionic Boar” segment and my favorite music again)
Marathon (Part V)

Boxing (Part I)
Basketball
Marathon Update
Boxing (Part II)
Marathon Update
Volleyball
Marathon Update
Weightlifting

Fencing
Marathon (Part VI)
“With You I Can Run Forever” segment
Wrap Up
Behind the Scenes
Credits

Animalympics is a 1980 animated film produced by Lisberger Studios, that spoofs the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, featuring the voices of Billy Crystal, Gilda Radner, Harry Shearer and Michael Fremer, who also co-wrote the script with director Steven Lisberger as well as editing the dialogue and music tracks and supervising the sound mix.
Originally commissioned by the NBC Television Network in 1978, it was produced as two separate shows intended to air along with the network’s 1980 winter and summer Olympics coverage. However, only the half-hour winter show made it to the small screen, as the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan caused President Jimmy Carter to boycott the Moscow Summer Olympics. America stayed away, NBC canceled its Olympic coverage and with it, the hour-long Animalympics.

Unlike the real Olympics, continents are represented rather than countries. The continents featured are North America, South America, Eurasia, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Eurasia represented Eastern Europe, reflecting the Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Moscow, whereas Europe represented Western Europe. South America is only briefly represented in soccer. The only reference to Australia is the use of a kangaroo as a North American boxer and a koala as a commentator.

The movie is a series of vignettes presented as the broadcast of the first animal Olympic Games through the fictional ZOO television network. Because of the combination of the two short cartoons, the Games combine both summer and winter Olympic events. Many of the characters presented, both ZOO crewmembers and Olympic participants, are celebrity caricatures.

Although many of the segments could easily stand alone, there are a number of recurring events and important characters. The largest such story is the coverage of the marathon, where competitors René Fromage (a French goat) and Kit Mambo (an African lioness) are the favorites to win. Both determined to win — Fromage having devoted his entire life to the marathon, Mambo determined to make a name for herself — they find themselves surprised when their minds wander to thoughts of mutual admiration and then to love. Another important story is that of Kurt Wüffner, German dachshund skier, and his disappearance to Dogra-la (see Shangri-la) during a mountain climbing expedition shortly after the slalom event.

Twas the Night Before Christmas, the 1974 Rankin-Bass animated Christmas television special, has very little to do with the famous 1823 poem that opens with this line.

In this television special, set in the town of Junctionville in a world where humans and intelligent humanoid mice apparently openly interact at least on a professional basis, Santa Claus is offended by an anonymous letter printed in the town’s newspaper claiming that he doesn’t exist. In response, Santa returns the entire town’s letters (the letter was signed “all of us”) to him unopened. Upon reading the anonymous letter printed in the newspaper, Father Mouse (voiced by George Gobel) — a mouse assistant to the human clockmaker Joshua Trundle (voiced by Joel Grey, the credited narrator) — immediately suspects that his brainy son Albert is its author. Albert (voiced by Tammy Grimes) confirms his suspicions, repeating the letter verbatim to him.

Father Mouse and the Trundle Family devise a plan to appease Santa by building a singing clock tower for him, built with a special recording to play a song to coax him into visiting Junctionville on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, Albert enters the clock to explore it without permission, and inadvertently damages it seriously, thus rendering it inoperable and seriously damaging Trundle’s professional reputation. Furthermore, the mayor, publicly embarrassed at the clock tower’s failure, refuses to give the clockmaker access to it for repairs.

Confessing his mistake, Albert volunteers to repair it himself and Father Mouse tells Joshua of the situation before waiting at his bed with worry on Christmas Eve. Although Albert does not complete his task until about one minute after the Midnight deadline, the clock does play its song within earshot of Santa which convinces him to visit the town after all.

The special aired for decades on CBS before moving to its current home network, ABC Family.

Muppet TV Special from 1987. I want to know where Jim Henson got that Jack Skellington suit.

The Christmas Toy is a 1986 made-for-TV movie by The Jim Henson Company. It originally aired on ABC on December 6, 1986, and was originally sponsored by Kraft Foods. As with all Jim Henson creations at the time, I loved it.

When no people are around, the toys still play in the playroom. But since a toy will be frozen forever if a person catches it out of position, they have to be very careful. It’s Christmas Eve, and Rugby the Tiger remembers how he was the Christmas Toy last year, and thinks he’s going to be unwrapped again. And it’s up to Apple the Doll, whom Rugby supplanted as favorite toy, to tell him what’s in store. But Rugby won’t believe her, and tries to get into the Christmas package and lets Meteora, Queen of the Asteroids loose. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know she’s a toy, and thinks she’s landed among aliens. And it’s up to Apple, Mew (the Cat’s toy mouse), and the other toys to get Rugby out of the box and Meteora back in it before they’re found and frozen forever!

This spawned the Secret Life of Toys on the Disney Channel in 1996.

The motives of the characters are suspiciously similar to Disney/Pixar’s computer-animated feature film Toy Story, released in 1995. These similarities include (but are not exclusive to):

* Rugby, Jesse’s old toy, is jealous and feels threatened by Meteora (who is a newer, space-themed action figure) and tries to get rid of her. In Toy Story, Woody, Andy’s old toy, is jealous and feels threatened by Buzz Lightyear (who is a newer, space-themed action figure) and tries to get rid of him.
* Meteora, like Buzz Lightyear, does not understand that she is, in fact, a toy and not “Queen of the Asteroids”. Rugby must teach her that being a toy is not inferior to her assumed role, as Woody must convince Buzz.
* As the voice of reason (and practically the only main female character in the cast), Apple the Doll serves the same purpose as Bo Peep.
* The toys revert to their inanimate form the moment a human nears. (Although The Christmas Toy includes the plot device that a toy is frozen forever if seen by human eyes.)

I tried this when I missed the last bus once.
It didn’t work.
And I got arrested.