YMMV / Frosty Returns

• Contested Sequel: Many fans of the original special are torn on this one, though Nostalgia Filter and a lot of the writing being funny (as befitting a Lorne Michaels production) seems to give it a few points for some.
• Don't Shoot the Message: While the importance of protecting the environment is a good message, the problem with this special was how heavy-handed and one-sided it made the message.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Most fans' opinion on this special is that it isn't canon with the original Frosty short. Not helped by the fact that it is pretty much incompatible with the other sequels that were officially made by Rankin/Bass, Frosty's Winter Wonderland and Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, both of which now belong to Warner Bros. while Universal, through DreamWorks Classics, currently owns the rights to the original special and Frosty Returns. Universal reinforced this opinion by selling Frosty Returns separate from Frosty the Snowman, then making a deal with Warner Bros. to bundle Frosty's Winter Wonderland together with the original special.
• Informed Wrongness: Because it's a spray that destroys snow in a kid's movie about a sentient snowman, we're supposed to be horrified by Summer Wheeze and see it getting discontinued at the end as a victory. While the villain's plan to use it to get rid of ALL the snow was indeed stupid, if it had been used responsibly simply to clear the snow from the streets and side walks, then the product would actually have been a great boon to society. Seriously, can you imagine all the time and effort that would be spared each winter if you could just spray away the snow in a matter of minutes as opposed to hours of tedious shoveling? As Miss Carbuncle points out, aging people can slip on the ice and get seriously injured, and all that shoveling isn't healthy for older bodies either. Thus the only problem was how the product was used, not the product itself.
• Retroactive Recognition: It's a case of Retroactive Name Recognition, since if you didn't see the credits you wouldn't have any idea that Holly was voiced by a 10-year-old Elisabeth Moss.
• Strawman Has a Point: While the Green Aesop is still an important message to get across to viewers, as being ecologically responsible is important, it's hard to see how the townsfolk could be wrong for hating snow because of how often it tends to come with serious fall-related injuries, automobile accidents, severe cold weather, and expensive heating bills.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The adults are meant to look like killjoys who simply don't appreciate the wonders of snow, but their grievances with snow (high heating bills, difficulty driving, risk of fall-related injuries, physical strain of shoveling) are both realistic and understandable, and it makes sense why they'd go for a solution as seemingly easy as Summer Wheeze. Watching the special as an adult, it's hard to get mad at the elderly Miss Carbuncle for griping that she could slip on ice under the snow and miss work.

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