Jack Frost (animation)/Recap

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Reporters from all over the USA are gathering to see Pardon-Me Pete, the groundhog that does the whole Groundhog Day thing. He sees his shadow and runs back inside, but wait! There's no sun to make any shadows! Cut to inside the burrow, where Pete talks to the camera. He decides to explain all about a little agreement he has with Jack Frost... And then Pete gets into the story of who Jack Frost is, considering that his audience apparently doesn't know.

Jack Frost is the personification of winter, who uses his icy breath to bring ice and snow to the world. One day, as he's swooping invisibly through the town of January Junction, he overhears a conversation in which a young woman named Elisa playfully tells her family that the only person she's in love with is him. Intrigued, he follows her, and is the only witness when she's knocked aside by the villainous Kubla Krauss as he rushes by on his horse. As Elisa tumbles toward the lake and her death, Jack quickly freezes the water so that she slides harmlessly across the surface. She laughs, calling him a hero, and Jack decides that he returns her love.

He returns to his home in the skies, and appeals to Father Winter for aid. Father Winter allows him to become human, but warns him that he has until the first day of spring to win his wife and provide her with a house, gold, and a horse, or he must return to sprite form. Jack is sent to January Junction in the human guise of Jack Snip, a tailor. Two other sprites, Snip and Holly, are also turned human in order to help him.

Jack easily befriends Elisa, who is charmed by him, but he learns to his chagrin that she secretly idolizes the golden-armored Sir Raveneau Rightfellow. Not long after, she is abducted by Kubla Krauss, and Jack learns that this individual controls all the land, timber and gold that once belonged to the people of January Junction. He endeavors to rescue Elisa, clumsily, but she is properly saved by Sir Raveneau; Jack and his friends are meanwhile captured by the enraged Kubla Krauss, who vows to destroy the community with his "Ka-Nights." Jack calls out to Father Winter, who returns him to sprite form so that he may trap the castle in a terrible snowstorm. On Groundhog Day, he causes Pardon-Me Pete to see his shadow, in order to buy extra time to keep Kubla Krauss trapped, but the deadline of spring is still approaching.

Finally, with only an hour left before spring arrives, Jack ends the storm and returns to his human form. He battles with Kubla Krauss, who falls out of a castle window, and thus Jack lays claim to his castle, horse, and gold. He rushes to propose to Elisa...only to find that she and Sir Raveneau have fallen in love over the winter and are about to be married. He lets her go, only ducking past the church as they come out and blowing on Elisa's bridal bouquet to turn the flowers white. Elisa stares, realizing who it must have been, and says that "An old friend just kissed the bride."