Frosty's Winter Wonderland

Years have passed since Frosty left for the North Pole, but promised the children that he’d be back again someday. When he hears about the first snowfall of the season, he decides to return. The children are overjoyed when Frosty comes back to play with them, but then Jack Frost sees the fun that the children are having with Frosty and becomes jealous of him. When he learns about Frosty and his magic hat which brought him to life, he decides to steal it from Frosty so the children will love him more. But that night, while Frosty and the children are ice-skating at a frozen pond, Jack unknowingly and mistakenly captures a horse's old top hat with his ability to blow snowy winds. Believing it to be Frosty's top hat, he disappears with it.

Despite the fun he has, Frosty becomes sad and lonely at the end of each day when the children go home for the night, making him cry for the first time. To cheer him up, the children, with his help, build a snow wife to keep him the next day and they name her Crystal, but to their dismay, the group cannot find a way to bring her to life. Late that night, Frosty presents Crystal with a bouquet of frost flowers. His gift of love brings her to life, and the two joyously frolic through the snow, until Jack uses a gust of icy wind which blows Frosty's top hat off, turning him back to his lifeless state and taunting Crystal that he is gone for good. To prove Jack wrong, she sculpts a corsage out of snow, places it on Frosty's chest and gives him a kiss which immediately brings him back to life. Befuddled by his reanimation, Jack throws Frosty's hat back on his head in disgust.

Frosty and Crystal run through the town announcing their wedding to the children. The children recruit Parson Brown, the local preacher, to marry them, but Brown cannot perform the ceremony as he can only marry humans. To ensure the wedding still takes place, he assists the children in building a snow parson whom he brings to life with his Bible. When Jack decides to spoil the wedding with a blizzard, Frosty and Crystal decide to reason with him and ask for him to be the best man at the wedding. Finally feeling appreciated and accepted, Jack agrees, and Frosty and Crystal are finally married.

Frosty, Crystal, and Jack have fun with the children all winter, but they notice the weather is starting to grow warm again. Jack uses his powers to extend the winter to allow Frosty and Crystal to stay, but when Parson Brown warns them of the dangers of an everlasting winter, the three realize they must return to the North Pole. The group skates to the train station, and Frosty reunites with the traffic cop he met before, who is shocked to hear Frosty has a wife. Frosty, Crystal, and Jack board the train for the North Pole and bid farewell to their friends, and the three return to the town the following winter.

• Jackie Vernon as Frosty
• Shelley Winters as Crystal (also credited as Mrs. Frosty)
• Andy Griffith as Narrator
• Dennis Day as Parson Brown, Snow Parson
• Paul Frees as Jack Frost, Traffic Cop
• Shelly Hines as Elsie's brother
• Manfreed Olea as Child
• Eric Stern as Child
• Barbara Jo Ewing as Elsie
• The Wee Winter Singers as Children

• Producers/Directors – Arthur Rankin Jr., Jules Bass
• Writer – Romeo Muller
• Based on the Song "Frosty the Snowman" – Steve Nelson, Jack Rollins © 1951 Hill & Range Songs
• "Winter Wonderland" – Dick Smith, Felix Bernard © 1934 Bregman Vocco and Conn, Inc.
• Sound – John Curcio, Don Hahn, Dave Iveland, Tom Clack
• Animation – Toru Hara, Tsuguyuki Kubo
• Key Animation – Kazuyuki Kobayashi
• Background Design – Minoru Nishida
• Design – Paul Coker, Jr.
• Music Arranger/Conductor – Maury Laws

Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. ©MCMLXXVI.

The rights to this special are held by Warner Bros. Television Distribution via Telepictures, which used to license the show to Freeform. The latter aired the special annually on its "25 Days of Christmas" marathon.[4] In 2018, AMC took over the license for the special.[5]

Because the ownership of the television rights to the Rankin/Bass library was split into two parts (one including all productions prior to 1974 and one including all productions from that point onward) after the company's dissolution in 1987, Frosty's Winter Wonderland was separated from the original Frosty the Snowman special. The telecast rights to the original are now held by CBS, who produced a companion sequel of its own, Frosty Returns, with a totally different cast, style and production staff.

Frosty's Winter Wonderland was first released on a compilation VHS tape with the 1981 special The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold by Vestron Video's Lightning Video label in 1985. The same double-feature release was also available in Australia in 1989. Warner Home Video/Warner Bros. Family Entertainment (owners of the post-1973 Rankin-Bass Productions library) distributed the special for its second VHS release in 1992, and also released it on DVD in 2004 paired with the 1974 special 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. The DVD was re-released in 2011.

In the 1998 Warner Bros. film Jack Frost, Charlie Frost (Joseph Cross) shows his father Jack Frost (Michael Keaton) some scenes from the special while changing television channels.

• List of Christmas films