My Review of The Snowman And The Snowdog

Written by Raymond Briggs And Joanna Harrison
Directed by Hilary Audus

Sequels are a tricky thing to do, especially when the original is such an iconic piece of television that everyone has an opinion on. To this sequel's credit, it waited thirty years before deciding to surface and while it might be a source of tedium for some, I was pleased that The Snowman And The Snowdog followed a similar plotline.

This time around, it's a young boy named Billy who's moved into the old house that once James lived into with his mother and ailing dog. Sadly, the dog died within the first five minutes of this story and Billy gets the idea of building both a snowman and a snowdog, both of which come to life, much to the young boy's delight.

From there, the story goes the same way as the original with some hijinks ensuing and a trip to the see the Snowmen festival and meeting Santa as we get to witness the childlike delight all over for a second time. Of course, while the outcome for the snowman once again remains the same, a different fate awaited the snowdog and as twee as it was, I was delighted with that particular outcome.

- Channel 4 did a timely repeat of The Snowman the day before this story aired.
- There was no new version of Walking In The Air in this one but instead a new song called Light The Night. It's not as memorable but it's certainly good though.
- Like the original movie, it took over 200,000 hand drawn images to create this movie.
- It took ages for author Raymond Briggs to be persuaded into doing a sequel for this, given his original opposition for such a thing.

Despite some of the criticisms I've read for this, I have to admit that I personally think The Snowman And The Snowdog is an extremely worthy sequel to The Snowman and deserves to similarly go down as a Christmas themed classic. I definitely enjoyed this immensely.

Rating: 9 out of 10.