50 Fun Facts About Snowmen

In North America a classic snowman is built from how many snowballs?

In the United Kingdom two spheres are the norm, one for the body and one for the head.

Snow is best for packing into a snowman when it is what?

Powder will not stick to itself, so the ideal moment is the first warm afternoon after a decent snowfall.

The earliest known depiction of a snowman is in a Book of Hours from which year?

The manuscript is held in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague; Eckstein's 2007 book The History of the Snowman grew out of a hunt through European archives.

Which Renaissance artist was commissioned by Piero de' Medici to make a snowman in 1494?

The sculptor was 19 at the time; the snowman, naturally, did not survive for art historians to judge.

Which city's 1511 snowman festival ended with residents building over 100 satirical, rude snow sculptures?

Eckstein reads it as an early form of political commentary aimed at the city's Holy Roman overlords, though the evidence melted long ago.

Mary Dillwyn, who took the earliest known snowman photo around 1853, was from which country?

The salt print is in the National Library of Wales; Dillwyn was one of the earliest women photographers anywhere.

Guards at which colonial settlement supposedly left snowmen on watch during a 1690 massacre?

The story is usually told to show that snowmen had reached North America by the 17th century, whatever the guards' actual excuse.

Bethel, Maine's record 2008 snowwoman was named Olympia in honour of whom?

Senator Olympia Snowe lent her name; the 122-foot figure beat Bethel's own 1999 record holder, 'Angus, King of the Mountain', named for Governor Angus King.

How tall was that record-setting Bethel snowwoman?

At 37 metres she stood taller than a ten-storey building, with a base wide enough to need construction equipment rather than mittens.

Snowmen in Japan are traditionally built from two balls, not three, and are called what?

The name links the snowman to the round Daruma doll; Japan also has a long tradition of yukiusagi, small snow rabbits.

Who first recorded 'Frosty the Snowman', by Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson, in 1950?

The writers pitched it to Autry because his 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' had been a smash the year before; his version reached number 7 on the US pop chart.

According to the song, what brings Frosty to life?

The lyrics also give him a corncob pipe, a button nose and two eyes made out of coal; oddly, Christmas is never mentioned in the original words.

Which New York town holds an annual Frosty parade and claims to be the song's setting?

White Plains is the other claimant; the song's traffic cop who hollers 'Stop!' is presumably a local.

Which studio, also behind Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced the 1969 special Frosty the Snowman?

It first aired on CBS on December 7, 1969, straight after the fifth showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and both drew big ratings.

Who narrated the 1969 Frosty special, in his final film role?

Jackie Vernon voiced Frosty and Billy De Wolfe the villainous magician; Andy Griffith took over narration for the 1976 sequel after Durante's stroke.

In the 1969 special, what is the name of the inept magician who wants his hat back?

His rabbit, Hocus Pocus, keeps swapping the hat away from him and ends up siding with the children.

The girl who rides north with Frosty in a refrigerated freight car in the 1969 special is called what?

She catches a chill on the journey, and Frosty melts in a greenhouse trying to warm her before Santa arrives to set things right.

The 1969 Frosty special's character designs were by Paul Coker Jr., best known for which magazine?

Rankin and Bass wanted the look of a Christmas card; the actual animation was done by Mushi Production in Tokyo.

In the 1976 sequel Frosty's Winter Wonderland, the children build Frosty a wife. What do they name her?

A jealous Jack Frost blows off Frosty's hat, and it is Crystal's kiss and a snow corsage that bring him back.

In the 1992 special Frosty Returns, Frosty was voiced by which actor?

The plot has him threatened by an aerosol called Summer Wheeze that makes snow vanish; Jonathan Winters narrated.

Olaf, the snowman in Disney's Frozen, is voiced by which actor?

Gad was already Broadway's Elder Cunningham in The Book of Mormon; he has since said he regrets making Olaf sound so much like himself because people recognise his voice in public.

In early drafts of Frozen, Olaf was written as what?

Once Josh Gad was cast, the team spent two weeks reworking him into the sweet embodiment of the sisters' childhood bond and gave him the song 'In Summer'.

Olaf famously says he likes what kind of embrace?

His obsession with summer and heat is the joke of a snowman who has never seen what sun does to snow.

In the short Frozen Fever, it is revealed Olaf no longer needs his personal snow flurry because he now has what?

The flurry Elsa gave him at the end of the first film was his portable air-conditioning until the upgrade.

In Frozen's 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman?', Anna tries to reach Elsa at how many ages?

The song was repeatedly cut and restored during production until studio staff insisted it stay; a reprise for the climax was pitched and dropped.

Frozen, the film that gave the world Olaf, is loosely based on which Hans Christian Andersen tale?

Andersen also wrote a fairy story actually titled The Snowman, about a snowman who falls in love with a stove.

Raymond Briggs' picture book The Snowman, published in 1978, is unusual for what reason?

The 1982 film kept that spirit: no dialogue at all except the one song in the middle.

Which British broadcaster first showed the animated The Snowman on Boxing Day 1982?

It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short and came third in Channel 4's own poll of the 100 Greatest Christmas Moments.

The boy in The Snowman flies with his snowman to a party at the North Pole and meets whom?

He is given a scarf with a snowman pattern, which is how he knows the next morning that it was not a dream when only a hat and coal buttons remain.

Which rock star filmed an alternative live-action introduction to The Snowman?

Producers had floated Laurence Olivier and Julie Andrews before someone asked for a rock star; Bowie appears in an attic finding the snowman scarf.

Which St Paul's Cathedral choirboy sang 'Walking in the Air' in The Snowman?

The better-known 1985 chart hit was Aled Jones's cover, recorded for a Toys 'R' Us advert because everyone assumed Auty's voice had broken.

Aled Jones's 1985 recording of 'Walking in the Air' reached which position on the UK singles chart?

Jones was 14 and became an overnight celebrity; the composer Howard Blake had written the melody around 1970, years before The Snowman existed.

In Jack Frost (1998), Michael Keaton's character returns from the dead as a snowman thanks to what magical object?

He had given the harmonica to his son Charlie, joking that he would hear it wherever he was; the film flopped, grossing $34.6 million.

Three children of which rock musician appear in the 1998 Jack Frost?

Dweezil, Ahmet and Moon Unit Zappa all turn up; Keaton's character fronts a bar band in fictional Medford, Colorado.

Bill Watterson used Calvin's bizarre snowmen in Calvin and Hobbes chiefly to poke fun at what?

Calvin's 'snow goons' and deformed snow sculptures let Watterson skewer critics and galleries without leaving the front yard.

The Peanuts gang was once forbidden to build snowmen without what?

Charlie Brown built an unauthorised snowman in the middle of the night as a test case.

Guides on which 1921 expedition described footprints of the 'Wild Man of the Snows', inspiring 'Abominable Snowman'?

The Sherpa term 'metoh-kangmi' means man-bear snowman; journalist Henry Newman turned it into 'abominable' in a Calcutta newspaper.

The Sherpa word 'metoh', from which 'Abominable Snowman' was translated, actually means what?

'Kang-mi' is the part that means snowman; folklorists trace the whole legend to a mix of Sherpa stories and misidentified bears and yaks.

The Sapporo Snow Festival began in 1950 when six local high school students did what?

The Japan Self-Defense Forces joined in 1955 and built the first truly massive sculptures; the festival now draws about two million visitors.

The record snowball fight of 7,681 participants was set in 2016 in which Canadian city?

The attempt was organised with Team Canada's Yukigassen squad, the competitive snowball-fighting sport that started in Japan.

One of the oldest snowman animations, Ted Eshbaugh's 1932 'The Snowman', is also notable for being what?

It came out five years before Snow White and its snowman is considerably scarier than Frosty.

In The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), which character is 'the keeper of cold weather', feuding with the Heat man?

The two Misers' vaudeville numbers stole the special, and Mother Nature has to be called in to make them cooperate.

Bethel, Maine's 1999 record snowman, 'Angus, King of the Mountain', honoured which state figure?

Angus King was governor at the time; the 113-foot snowman weighed over 9 million pounds.

In some Slavic countries, what is the two-snowball variant of the snowman called?

Snow sculptures of women are called snowwomen; Britain's classic snowman also uses just two balls.

The 'Yuki Cone', named for the Japanese word for snow, is a cone of snowballs lit from inside by what?

It is a decorative cousin of the snowman rather than a figure.

Besides two-section yukidaruma, Japan has a long tradition of building snow figures of which animal?

They are called yukiusagi; the snowman's two-part shape may come from the daruma doll.

Which producer was behind the Ronettes' celebrated 1963 cover of 'Frosty the Snowman'?

Rolling Stone lists it among the greatest rock and roll Christmas songs.

Which actor was announced in July 2020 to voice Frosty in a planned live-action film?

He later said the announcement was made without his permission to distract from a co-star's complaints.

Who voiced Frosty himself in the 1969 television special?

Billy De Wolfe played Professor Hinkle, and Bill Fagerbakke took over Frosty after Vernon's death.

Who wrote The History of the Snowman, tracing the figure back to a 1380 Book of Hours?

He found the earliest depiction in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague.