The Snowman made in 1982 is a great animated film for kids and adults alike. At about 25 minutes long it is just right for watching with Dani while he eats supper just before going to bed.

Naturally he loves it. When they enjoy something so much it is hard to show them something a little different. After watching something several times they know every little detail as they study it so intensely. Even the slightest difference will be noticed. It has to be that exact film/book/song (whatever). Also at that age it is difficult to know what will upset them. You can never be sure whether showing them something slightly different will trip their hyper sensitive in-built mercury tilt switch. Do you cut the red wire or the blue wire? It often comes down to that kind of choice.

So when I remembered an old take on the snowman film from what I thought was a comedy sketch show in the mid-80s. I turns out that it was part of a Spitting Image Christmas special from 1987. Thirty years ago! Once again, a big thank you to Youtube. What did we do without it?

I wasn’t sure if Dani would laugh or cry but I played the short clip for him anyway. Fortunately, he has a great sense of humour for a child his age. When he laughs he really laughs. He instantly took to it and all we did for a while was replay the video clip, laugh out loud (LOL in today’s language) then he’d say “again!”. Repeat. And so we did, again and again…

And here it is, all 10 seconds; still one of the funniest piss takes I can remember…

The real Snowman film is probably most famous for the song – and only words in the production – Walking in the Air. The version of the song that most people are familiar with is the cover version made by choirboy Aled Jones released in 1985. However, the film version of the song was sung by Peter Auty (another choirboy). Why they didn’t re-release the original version is anybody’s guess. Aled Jones went on to international fame both as a boy and adult singer. Auty too went on to be successful as an opera singer. Apparently Auty was also famous for singing on British Rail (This is the Age of the Train) adverts as child. Those adverts were presented by a certain Mr. James Savile so the least said about those the better.