It was so lame that the network that aired it never aired it again and even denied its airing and existence. The production company has not made another show/movie since. The special starts off promising with a narration about how special Christmas is. The opening scene talks about an evil headmistress over an orphanage who gambles away the donations meant for the kids that live there. You can tell something's off with the dead vacant stares, expressionless faces, monotone voices, and bare bones animation. Why orphans? Probably a classic and easy way to get audiences to sympathize with them. Then it takes a weird turn with these kids naming a large pine tree Mrs. Hopewell and gather around the tree asking the pine to help them practically worshiping it. Help does come in the form of Judy a new hired assistant to help at the orphanage and the she really improves the orphans' quality of lives. Eventually Judy more or less figures out about her boss Ms. Mavilda misuse of money and mistreatment of children. Ms. Mavilda in turn plots to frame Judy to get rid of her since she's gaining a lot of admiration from the orphans and the rest of the community. Judy's own two children march up to the bear ridden Subarctic with a stray dog they adopted just to get help from Santa with the girl getting separated/lost with Judy taking the news surprisingly well and Ms. Mavilda planning on cutting down Mrs. Hopewell just because she's evil. Then the mayor shows up seeing the poor quality of the clothes the kids are wearing and realize that the head keeper of the orphanage is a greedy woman using the funds for her own pleasure. Then out of extreme hate filled rage and spite, Mavilda tries cutting down the tree just to be struck by lightning by a creepy Santa who returns the missing girl and a lesson announced that you always win when you're good. (Mavilda isn't adequately punished for her misdeeds.)
The flaws of this special are many and there's nothing special about it other than how lousy it is. Watching this should be a form of punishment. The animation is uncanny and unpleasant to watch barely qualifying as animation, the eyes are dark and soulless, and the editing was poorly done too. Now the sound and voice acting is so abominable and sounds like the actors aren't trying at all. In fact they including the ones for the kids sounded like they were drunk or so garbled. Seriously didn't they try more than one take or was their recording equipment not working? Oh gosh was that moral a doozy with no justice that being good automatically makes you a winner? Why not "Tis better to give than to receive, The Savior's birth, Help those in need, or this is time for gathering and family? Good golly the dialogue doesn't help either. This movie is just total garbage because it is so poorly made, lazy, misses the point, and barely has a thing to do with Christmas. It is in league with the Star Wars Holiday Special beating out tons of stiff competition. Heck it still holds its own against the latest and lamest to date.
The flaws of this special are many and there's nothing special about it other than how lousy it is. Watching this should be a form of punishment. The animation is uncanny and unpleasant to watch barely qualifying as animation, the eyes are dark and soulless, and the editing was poorly done too. Now the sound and voice acting is so abominable and sounds like the actors aren't trying at all. In fact they including the ones for the kids sounded like they were drunk or so garbled. Seriously didn't they try more than one take or was their recording equipment not working? Oh gosh was that moral a doozy with no justice that being good automatically makes you a winner? Why not "Tis better to give than to receive, The Savior's birth, Help those in need, or this is time for gathering and family? Good golly the dialogue doesn't help either. This movie is just total garbage because it is so poorly made, lazy, misses the point, and barely has a thing to do with Christmas. It is in league with the Star Wars Holiday Special beating out tons of stiff competition. Heck it still holds its own against the latest and lamest to date.