If Frosty the Snowman was part of your childhood Christmas movie rotation, get ready for your inner child to enter its villain origin story. Because the voice behind that top-hatted, corn-cob-pipe-wielding icon was, in fact, living a much messier life off-screen than anyone anticipated.
As it turns out, Frosty really was a “jolly happy soul”—just not exclusively at home.
Jackie Vernon, the stand-up comic who voiced Frosty in the beloved 1969 animated special, secretly fathered multiple children across at least three marriages before settling into the family most people believed was his only one.
The revelation comes from Vernon’s son, David Vernon, who shared the story during a recent appearance on the podcast, Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia.
David recalled learning the truth the hard way: through a surprise visit that arrived unannounced—and dropped a bomb. A woman showed up at the family home with a teenage boy who was older than him. When Jackie wasn’t there, the woman insisted on speaking with David’s mother.
“I heard a somewhat heated conversation going on,” David recalled. Minutes later, the visitors left—and a family secret cracked wide open. That’s when David learned his father had been married at least three times before his marriage to Hazel Vernon, the woman with whom he would publicly raise three children.
But the plot twist didn’t end there. David later discovered that his father had sons from those earlier relationships—and named all of them Ralph, after his own birth name, Ralph Verrone.
According to David, Jackie ultimately walked away from those earlier families as his career continued. In later years, the comedian struggled with depression and addiction—battles that David described as deeply painful and complicated.
Still, there was one bright spot that lingered until the end: Frosty himself. In Jackie’s final years before his death in 1987 at age 63, the holiday special took on a new meaning.
“One of the last Christmases my dad was around, we all watched it together,” David shared. “He was so proud of it. He laughed, he enjoyed it—it became a very warm spot in his heart.”