40 Fun Facts About Jack Frost

Which holiday standard, written by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells one sweltering July, mentions Jack Frost early on?

The Christmas Song was finished in about 45 minutes as its writers tried to cool down by thinking of winter. Nat King Cole's trio first recorded it in 1946.

Which actor voices the teenage winter spirit Jack Frost in the DreamWorks film Rise of the Guardians?

Chris Pine took the role after an earlier star left the project, playing Jack as a mischief-maker whom no child can see.

Which future author wrote The Frost King, a story about King Jack Frost, at age 11 and was accused of plagiarism?

Helen Keller's tale echoed a fairy story that had been read to her, and after a grilling by teachers at her school for the blind she never wrote fiction again.

Which actor plays Jack Frost, a musician father who returns as a snowman, in the 1998 Warner Bros. family film?

Michael Keaton plays a bandleader killed in a car crash who comes back a year later inside the snowman his son built.

Which comedian plays Jack Frost, who schemes to steal Santa's job, in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause?

Martin Short plays him as a jealous showman with no holiday of his own. The part reunited him with Tim Allen, his Jungle 2 Jungle co-star.

Which singer-songwriter has used the alias Jack Frost when producing his own albums since the 1990s?

Bob Dylan is billed under the pseudonym in the production credits of his own records, among them the album Love and Theft.

In the 1997 horror comedy Jack Frost, which everyday liquid finally melts the killer snowman?

Antifreeze proves his weakness after a boy stirs some into his father's oatmeal to keep him warm. The townsfolk then fill a truck bed with it.

Which animal, a sleepy character named Pardon-Me-Pete, narrates the 1979 Rankin/Bass stop-motion special Jack Frost?

A groundhog tells the tale because he has a deal with Jack: six more weeks of cold weather means six more weeks of sleep. Buddy Hackett voices him.

Besides icy windows, which seasonal change is Jack Frost traditionally blamed for in English-speaking folklore?

Coloring autumn leaves is his other trade: old stories and cartoons show him with a paintbrush and bucket, turning the foliage red, yellow, brown and orange.

In Rise of the Guardians, Jack Frost finds his center and becomes the Guardian of what?

Fun is what Jack fosters in children. He realises it while rallying a group of them to play, which drives out their fear and revives the other Guardians.

In Rise of the Guardians, Jack Frost learns he died as a mortal boy while saving whom from a frozen pond?

His sister lived, and that sacrifice is the reason he was chosen as a Guardian. Jack recovers the memory from his own baby teeth.

In Rise of the Guardians, Jack Frost's enemy Pitch Black, the Nightmare King, is which figure of childhood fear?

The Boogeyman, voiced by Jude Law, wants children to stop believing in the Guardians, yet he ends the film afraid of his own nightmares.

Which actor gives the Easter Bunny his own Australian accent alongside Jack Frost in Rise of the Guardians?

Hugh Jackman voices E. Aster Bunnymund, the Guardian of Hope, who kidnaps Jack and delivers him to the North Pole.

In the 1998 film Jack Frost, which instrument does young Charlie play to bring his late father back as a snowman?

A harmonica bought on the day Charlie was born does it. His father had joked that it was magic and that he would hear it wherever he was.

Which actor played the untidy Detective Inspector Jack Frost for 42 episodes of the ITV drama A Touch of Frost?

David Jason played the detective from 1992 to 2010. Creator R. D. Wingfield wrote him as hopeless with paperwork but unmatched at solving mysteries.

In the Rainbow Magic fairy books by Daisy Meadows, which creatures serve the villain Jack Frost?

Goblins do his dirty work, stealing the fairies' magical objects. Daisy Meadows is a disguise too: a shared pen name for a team of ghostwriters.

Russian cold, personified as General Frost, is often credited with wrecking which commander's 1812 retreat from Moscow?

Napoleon Bonaparte had already lost men to hunger, disease and desertion before the snow came, so historians call the cold a contributing factor, not the decisive one.

Which future Marvel editor-in-chief co-created the superhero Jack Frost for U.S.A. Comics in the Golden Age?

Stan Lee co-created the icy hero with penciler Charles Wojtkoski as one of his first characters. Jack starred in only four stories, then vanished from comics for more than three decades.

In the 1976 special Frosty's Winter Wonderland, what does a jealous Jack Frost try to steal from Frosty the Snowman?

His magic hat is what brings Frosty to life, so Jack plots to take it and win the children's affection. His first gust blows off a horse's hat by mistake.

Which Hollywood star was announced as the voice of Jack Frost in Rise of the Guardians but later left the project?

Leonardo DiCaprio signed on in 2009, when the film was still called The Guardians. It would have been his first animated feature.

Which star was originally cast as the lead in the 1998 film Jack Frost, with the snowman sculpted to resemble him?

George Clooney left the project after the effects team had already made the snowman look like him, and the first-choice director walked away too.

Three children of which rock musician, among them a daughter named Moon Unit, appear in the 1998 film Jack Frost?

Frank Zappa's children Dweezil, Ahmet and Moon Unit all turn up on screen, three of his four kids in one snowman movie.

In the 1998 film Jack Frost, which sport does Charlie return to after his snowman father urges him to stop grieving?

Hockey frames the whole story: Jack misses Charlie's game while alive, then struggles through a thaw as a snowman to watch him win one.

In Rise of the Guardians, which mysterious figure transforms Jack Frost and later chooses him to join the Guardians?

The Man in the Moon revives Jack from an icy pond but never tells him why, leaving him to drift unseen for three centuries.

In The Santa Clause 3, what does Jack Frost rename Christmas after turning the North Pole into a theme park?

Frostmas comes with miserable elves, reindeer penned in a petting zoo and a nice list that parents can pay to get their kids onto.

In The Santa Clause 3, which object does Jack Frost steal from a North Pole hall to trigger the Escape Clause?

A snow globe showing Scott Calvin as Santa is the key. Whoever holds it and wishes the job away is sent back to the night it began.

In the 1979 Rankin/Bass special Jack Frost, which Cossack king rules Miserable Mountain with an iron horse?

Kubla Kraus keeps only iron company because no person or animal can stand to live with him. Jack gives up his humanity to freeze him inside his own castle with a blizzard.

Jack Frost, a snowman-like demon from the Megami Tensei and Persona games, is the mascot of which Japanese company?

Atlus has used him since 1990, when artist Kazuma Kaneko designed the toothy demon with a jester's cap, a tail and no nose.

Which American author made Jack Frost the son of the Frost King in The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus?

L. Frank Baum, better known for Oz, has Santa ask Jack to stop nipping children's noses. Jack agrees, if he can resist the temptation.

Which future American Pie actress made her film debut in the 1997 killer-snowman horror comedy Jack Frost?

Shannon Elizabeth plays Jill in the low-budget slasher, shot in 18 days during a drought with foam and cotton standing in for snow.

In Russia, Jack Frost's counterpart is Ded Moroz, who delivers New Year presents with which granddaughter and helper?

Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, travels with Grandfather Frost, who wears a heel-length fur coat, often rides a troika and puts gifts under the New Year tree.

Which German folk figure, also called Old Mother Frost, is said to make it snow when her featherbed is shaken?

Frau Holle may have begun as a pre-Christian goddess, and in parts of Germany people still say she is making her bed when snow falls.

In which Terry Pratchett Discworld novel does Jack Frost tire of fern patterns and paint fancier pictures on windows?

Hogfather is Pratchett's story of a vanished gift-bringer, in which Death dresses up as him and does the rounds to keep belief alive.

In which Neil Gaiman novel does the assassin known as the man Jack give his name as Jack Frost?

The Graveyard Book won both the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal, the first time the American and British prizes went to the same work.

Rise of the Guardians, with Jack Frost as its hero, is based on The Guardians of Childhood books by which author?

William Joyce got the idea when his daughter asked whether Santa Claus had ever met the Easter Bunny. The film carries a dedication to her.

In Rise of the Guardians, where does Jack Frost flee in shame after the Easter eggs are destroyed?

Antarctica is where Pitch Black snaps Jack's staff and throws him into a chasm, the low point from which he recovers his lost memories.

Marvel's villain Blizzard first appeared in Tales of Suspense under the name Jack Frost as an enemy of which hero?

Iron Man first fought scientist Gregor Shapanka as Jack Frost in 1963. The villain was only renamed Blizzard thirteen years later.

In the 1934 ComiColor cartoon Jack Frost, the hero frees a trapped bear cub by painting icicles into which sweets?

Candy canes let little Billy lick his way to freedom after Old Man Winter had caged him inside a hollow tree. Ub Iwerks produced the cartoon.

The Soviet fairy-tale film Morozko, released in English as Jack Frost, was later spoofed on which American TV series?

Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed on the English dub of the film, which Alexander Rou directed from a traditional Russian fairy tale.

In Swedish folklore, which figure is the counterpart of England's Jack Frost as the personification of winter?

Kung Bore means King Bore, a name that traces back to the 17th-century Swedish writer Olaus Rudbeck.