A young Irish sailor sees a fir tree growing on an island and goes ashore to retrieve it and use it as a Christmas tree. When he digs it up, he frees a banshee that was trapped under it. He meets some leprechauns who explain to him that banshees need to get gold before Christmas or they die. The leprechauns give him the gold to hide, but like a complete moron, he's tricked by the banshee into giving her the gold. The later, less well-known Rankin/Bass specials tend to be obscure for good reason. This one features a bunch of leprechauns hording piles of gold for themselves for no good reason. They need to keep it from a banshee who needs it to survive because ... because banshee? Factor in the fact that the hero is a complete moron, and it's hard to get on board with this uncomfortably weird blend of Irish folklore and Christmas.

Cute, lesser known Rankin/Bass animated Christmas special has Art Carney narrating the tale of a sailor sent to fetch a pine tree from an Irish island which broke apart from its native country thanks to an earthquake. It has a leprechaun named Blarney Kilakilarney (voiced also by Carney) who has been away from his wife for far too long due to his insistence on keeping his gold stash from the clutches of a hideous witch (called a banshee) that shrieks and always cries tears. She must get her hands on the gold before Christmas day or turn into tears and through whatever tricks or spells she can muster will attempt to do so. Dinty Doyle, the boy sailor (voiced by Ken Jennings), is told he is in possession of all the gold when Blarney is able to outsmart Old Mag, the Hag's (Christine Mitchell) enchantment (a "generosity spell" she calls it)…she intended for him to give it all to her but Dinty thankfully was in the same vicinity. So Mag sets her sights on tricking Dinty and might just get the gold she has so coveted…like she did against Faye (Peggy Cass), the wife of Blarney (causing their estrangement), through the transformation into an angel, Mag will turn into a shipwrecked girl in the hopes of fooling Dinty into granting her his gold for a special Christmas island celebration. Good natured and sweet, The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold should be a perfect addition to the many Christmas animated specials that makes the cut during the holiday season. A few songs, the typically fine stop motion you are accustomed to for a Bass/Rankin production, and some memorable voiceovers provide a nice little short to enjoy each December. Dinty was responsible for accidentally releasing Mag from a trap concocted by Blarney and a wizard using the aforementioned pine tree, noticed by Dinty's captain on board their ship, adding a bit of irony to the entire short. Will Dinty be able to help stop her from seizing upon the gold?

I say this not because I dislike the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials- I actually love them- but because when people talk about the specials(on IMDb and off) The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold has often been described as their worst. While there is a few I still have to re-watch and while it is not as terrible as others have said, I do have to agree that generally The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold is a lesser effort of theirs. Of course it has its redeeming qualities. I do think the visuals, a mix of conventional animation and stop-motion puppetry, are terrific, with great detail and some good atmosphere. The music is not the most inspired of the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials there is(overall Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer has the best songs), but the scoring has some nice amounts of whimsy and the songs are memorable particularly Christmas in Killarney. Golden Gold of Ireland is also quite rousing. Art Carney does a wonderful job also as Blarney, joining the vast list of big Hollywood names filling the narrator roles for a Rankin/Bass Christmas special. Where The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold doesn't score so favourably is in the story. I do think the length was far too short to begin with, but as well as feeling rushed the whole time, the story does suffer from trying to cram in too much, under-developing what's there and from a lack of heart, feeling too mean-spirited sometimes. While I admired the animation, the camera shot quality on occasions doesn't give us enough time to breathe and really take in what we're seeing. The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold does have some of the least inspired writing of the specials, it lacks the poignancy of Little Drummer Boy, the charm of Frosty the Snowman and the wit of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, in short it just felt too bland and drab. The characters didn't engage me, the banshee is unbearably annoying and the leprechauns are characterised in a very stereotypical and potentially offensive way. Of the voice acting, only Carney really makes an impression, the others don't really distinguish themselves. Overall, didn't hate it but for Rankin/Bass an unfortunate disappointment. A fellow Rankin/Bass fan said that St Patricks Day and Christmas don't mix together and after seeing The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold I can see where he was coming from. 4/10 Bethany Cox

**DEFINITE SPOILERS AHEAD**A few people have mistakenly claimed that this ugly little Christmas special reminds them of Irish folktales. Having taught such folklore as a university professor, I can reassure people that this story with its shallow references to good and evil is nothing like the authentic tales, and any genuine fan of Irish and/or Celtic stories and myth will be disappointed by it -- and more than likely offended by the cod Irish "begora" stereotypes (despite affection for the voice actors themselves).The tale centers on a stereotypically-Irish leprechaun whose life is centered around his hoard of gold. The most important of his gold is his Christmas gold, gold made on or for Christmas. A banshee needs to obtain his Christmas gold in order to keep from dissolving into salty tears or seafoam, i.e. dying.In almost every other Rankin/Bass specials, so-called monsters are dealt with in a fashion befitting the Christmas season: redemption. The Abominable Snow Monster, Eon the Terrible, The Winter Warlock, et al. are brought to redemption despite their original status as 'monster', but not in this tale. The Banshee does nothing halfway as horrific as the Snow Monster's efforts to eat Rudolph's mother or Eon's kidnapping of an infant; outside of her trickery in her effort to save her life by obtaining his gold, no reason is given for labeling The Banshee as 'monster'. Yet the leprechaun in this tale has no interest in redemption, only in destruction.Rather than charitably sacrificing his gold as a life-giving measure of Christian generosity, the leprechaun keeps it to himself for no other reason given than *because* *it* *is* *his* -- even knowing this selfishness will cost the banshee her life. It takes a spell to get him to overcome his greed enough to give away anything he owns, and even then he manages to arrange things such that the banshee dies.A Christmas tale which valorizes greed, selfishness, and a self-righteous enjoyment in seeing one's opponent die? This is a far cry from the moral underpinnings of "Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" and other Rankin/Bass Christmas specials!Rankin/Bass has produced a plethora of delightful children's specials with genuine heart, but this is one of the two worst Rankin/Bass specials made (the other being "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus").