Every year that the holiday season comes around again, families have the chance to watch some age-old Christmas programming. With the advent of streaming services and proliferation of home media, these airings aren’t as epic as they used to be, but for many a child of the ’80s and ’90s, these were events to remember. If only we had known at the time that one of these classics, “Frosty the Snowman,” featured a voice actor who may have been a snowman on television, but was allegedly a notorious philanderer in real life.
The 1969 Rankin/Bass animated special of “Frosty the Snowman” featured Jackie Vernon as the voice of the titular character, making children happy and having a grand old time. However, according to Vernon’s son, David Vernon, he enjoyed making children but not sticking around to be with them. David was not the only child of Vernon as he wasn’t even part of Vernon’s only family.
In an interview conducted on “Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia, David detailed a story from his childhood that revealed a staggering secret. One night while Jackie was out, David answered a knock at the door that turned out to be from a woman and her teenage child. The woman insisted to speak to David’s mother given the absence of his father, and a heated discussion ensued. As it would turn out, the woman was a former wife of Jackie’s that he had effectively abandoned and walked out on. To top it all off, this woman was one of at least three marriages Vernon had before and never disclosed to anyone.
Jackie Vernon was a very funny and charming comedian, so it’s not unforeseeable that he would attract affection from people. It’s not expected that Frosty himself would just go from town to town making babies and then running off. At least not without saying, “I’ll be back again someday.” And the real kicker, all those previous kids he had were all named Ralph, after his actual first name. The only reason David escaped the naming scheme is that his mother basically agreed that Jackie could name any girls they had, but she got to name the boys.
David also want on to describe his father’s troubles with mental health, which probably helps account for some of the aberrant behavior (though certainly doesn’t excuse it). People are complicated mixtures of good and bad traits. If Frosty could go around being able to do all this with secret families and marriages, imagine what Santa gets up to as he flies all over the world. Santa could have more illegitimate children than Elon Musk.
