YMMV / Cricket on the Hearth

• Author's Saving Throw: Caleb's song "The First Christmas," about how they don't need all the secular trappings of Christmas because the true meaning is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, arguably serves as an answer to the criticism Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) (this special's direct predecessor) sometimes gets for its plot point that Christmas will have to be "cancelled" if Santa can't deliver the toys.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The cat singing the “Fish and Chips” song in the bar does nothing to advance the plot and is only there to add an extra, shockingly catchy song to the special.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The way the special goes about Edward's disguise makes it seem like the eventual reveal of the old man's true identity is supposed to be a twist reveal, but the twist is so obvious from the moment the old man first appears that it'd be more of a twist if the old man turned out to not be Edward.
• Crowning Music Of Awesome: Despite how out of place and random it is, "Fish and Chips" is a surprisingly catchy and adorable song. Comments on YouTube uploads usually agree - the scene complete nonsense that stops the story cold, but its so good that its probably the most legitimately memorable part of the entire special.
• Fair for Its Day: Even though the portrayal of Bertha's blindness leans hard into Disabled Means Helpless, it at least avoids the 19th century expectation that blind women couldn't marry, which her portrayal in the original Dickens story plays straight. She has two men eager to marry her and eventually does wed her beloved Edward. And even though it would have been easy plot-wise for her sight to be restored when she reunites with Edward, it doesn't happen; she stays blind, yet her ending is no less happy for it.
• Shocking Moments: Uriah and his companions getting shot up by the crooked boat captain, if for nothing else than the sheer Mood Whiplash that comes with the scene.
• Sophomore Slump: Rankin/Bass' second Christmas special, and the least popular one they made during The '60s.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: We’re supposed to feel sorry for Caleb when Mr. Tackleton announces he wants to marry his daughter Bertha and she accepts it out of ignorance of his true nature. One problem: the only reason she is ignorant of his true nature is because he’s been lying to her about him this whole time and is too frightened of crushing her spirit by telling her the truth (which she would find out anyway once she married him, making his reluctance pointless). Also, the reason why they become desperately poor in the first place is because Caleb neglects his work and spends all his time nursing Bertha and employing doctors to try to restore her sight: while his intentions are good, it might have been better for him to focus less on trying to heal Bertha's disability and more on providing for her basic survival needs.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Not that Tackleton is a good person, but it's hard not to feel bad for him getting left at the altar by Bertha and breaking down over never receiving love. On top of that, the only reason he cheers up is because Bertha tells him she will always have a place in her heart for someone who is "fine and kind and noble and handsome" like him... but of course the only reason she believes those things are true is because of Caleb's aforementioned lying about Tackleton to make him seem better to Bertha. So the guy ends up turning a new leaf entirely based off a chain of lies that passed to him second hand, and its worth wondering how he'll feel later when people that actually know him talk to him otherwise.
• Values Dissonance: The film takes a rather sexist and ablelist approach to Bertha that multiple characters participate in. The viewer is clearly intended to believe that Bertha, being both blind and female, is incapable of making informed decisions and must be protected by the men around her, hence the climax of the film is about whether the right man will marry her and give her a stable life. Cricket Crockett at one point even scolds Edward for "paying attention to the words of a gushing female" when Edward considers giving up on Bertha because she accepted Tackleton's wedding proposal.