I was interested in tackling this myself, but I was just checking to see if anyone had done it already.
So, nestled in my collection of Rankin/Bass Christmas classics is Cricket on the Hearth. I had never seen this, and decided on a whim to watch it the other day.
While I have a great and abiding love of Rankin/Bass and their whimsy, this sucker is hilarious. It has:
1. Danny Thomas as a toymaker. His animated self looks like Quagmire's great-grandfather. And he's about as English-sounding as Danny Thomas.
2. Weird Dickensian romance that involves disguises, sudden permanent blindness, cradle-robbing, and kidnapping.
3. A scene in a dockside tavern that the Great Mouse Detective stole almost shot for shot. There's even a musical number...by an anthropomorphic cat, not a mouse, but still.
4. Said kidnapping involving a longshoreman putting a couple of bullets into some miscreants. This is a children's cartoon.
5. The cricket returning home. It's as improbable as you can imagine.
6. The square-jawed 'hero' of the film is practically Prince Llyr from Last Unicorn. You can almost hear Jeff Bridges trying to escape.
7. The poor editing of the Danny Thomas wraparound. Film breaks don't cause as much teleportation.
I still enjoyed it, warts and all, but the Hobbit it is not.