Christmas Comes But Once a Year

Christmas Comes but Once a Year (1936) is an eight-minute animated feature from Fleischer Studios, a premier producer of animated cartoons for theaters in the 1930s. Their iconic characters included Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Bimbo, Popeye the Sailor, and Superman. Set in an orphanage, Christmas Comes but Once a Year opens on Christmas morning with the orphans waking up to grab their toys from their stockings. One by one the toys break sending the orphans back to bed crying. Enter Professor Grampy, an animated cartoon character from the Betty Boop series, making his only solo appearance in a cartoon. Wanting to save Christmas for the orphans, Grampy makes them new toys out of household appliances, furniture, and kitchen items-anything he can find. He dresses up as Santa and distributes the toys to the orphans who join in a celebration happily singing Christmas Comes but Once a Year.