2 Classic Christmas Specials (You Probably Don’t Remember)

Raggedy Ann and Andy in: The Great Santa Claus Caper
Release Date: November 30, 1978
Distributor: CBS

Does anyone alive today even remember Raggedy Ann and Andy? Anyone who wasn’t haunted by them, I mean. A brother-and-sister pair of rag dolls, they started out as characters in a series of illustrated children’s books before becoming a successful line of toys and, occasionally, stars in the odd animated holiday special. Released in 1978, The Great Santa Claus Caper tells the story of how Raggedy Ann and Andy, along with their stuffed dog Raggedy Arthur, saved Christmas from Alexander Graham Wolf, the antagonist from Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

As chief inefficiency expert at the Gloopstik Corporation, a division of Acme Conglomerates, Inc., Wolf combats inefficiency wherever he finds it, and his next target is Santa Claus’s workshop. Unfortunately for him, as he monologues his evil scheme to the audience, he happens to drive past Santa’s reindeer Comet, who somehow overhears his entire plot as he speeds past. Instead of giving Santa a heads-up, Comet decides to go find someone else to save Christmas, someone light enough for her to carry on her back but who won’t die a horrible death of exposure at the North Pole. “Of course, how stupid of me!” she exclaims. “Raggedy Ann and Andy!” 

The logical choices.

Raggedy Ann awakes to find this looking in her window:

 

Comet explains the situation and they begin the long trip back north. “I didn’t know reindeers could fly!” says Raggedy Ann. “I didn’t know rag dolls could talk,” Comet shoots back.

Cut to Santa’s workshop, where the elves make toys by pulling a lever on a conveyor belt, dropping hundreds of mass-produced dolls, yo-yos, teddy bears, soccer balls, bicycles, and, for some reason, fully decorated Christmas trees into giant bins. 

Wolf arrives and his car unfolds into a fanciful contraption. A large robot claw drops Santa’s toys one at a time into a funnel on top of the device. When they come out the other side, they are coated in transparent gelatinous cubes or cones.

Comet and the Raggedys arrive at Santa’s workshop, which is at the bottom of a giant chasm for some reason. Comet remains on the surface to keep watch for no reason, while the rag dolls venture down to the North Pole. 

The Big Bad Wolf apparently knows of the dolls through their reputation and proudly shows off his machine, the Great Gloopsticizer. Wolf reveals that Gloopstik prevents Christmas presents from ever wearing out of breaking; he’s actually doing a great good. However, Raggedy Ann and Andy soon realize that toys are no good if you can’t touch them or play with them. Wolf admits that this is all a money-making scam; he holds all patents on Gloopstik, so with all of the toys Gloopsticized, the world’s children will have to buy their Christmas presents from him. 

Raggedy Arthur attacks the wolf but is dropped into the machine and encased in Gloopstik. Wolf thoughtfully leaves his head exposed so he can breathe, because of course rag dolls need to breathe. Raggedy Andy is able to turn the tables on the villain by dropping him into his own contraption. The Great Gloopsticizer apparently thinks the Big Bad Wolf is a Christmas tree because it spits him out in a cone of Gloopstik covered in ornaments and tinsel, with a star on his head.

Raggedy Ann and Andy tell Arthur that they love him even though he’s encased in a tomb of Jell-O for all of eternity, and much to their surprise they find that love is the only force powerful enough to destroy Gloopstik. Bursting into tears with the realization that no one loves him enough to free him from his self-made prison, the Big Bad Wolf poses that age-old moral quandary: “How can you be good when you’re stuck in Gloopstik?”

The dolls break the fourth wall by appealing to the audience à la Peter Pan, and by shouting at their TVs, viewers at home are able to destroy the Gloopstik with the power of love. All of the toys and the newly reformed Big Good Wolf are released, and Wolf presses the self-destruct button on his machine so Santa will never know what happened.

As he walks home from the North Pole on foot, Alexander Graham Wolf remarks to the Raggedys that he thinks he will enjoy being good much more than he enjoyed being bad, but no one can say for sure unless they’ve tried both.

I suppose that’s the best moral we can ask for.


The Wish That Changed Christmas
Release Date: December 20, 1991
Distributor: CBS

So I guess there used to be this occasional TV series called McDonald’s Family Theater, in which McDonald’s sponsored a half-hour program whose content was completely unrelated to their brand. This special Christmas episode opens with Ronald McDonald trimming his tree, when two McDonaldland characters known as “Fry Kids” walk in. The feature presentation then begins with no transition.

The Wish That Changed Christmas follows a little girl named Ivy, who lives at Miss Shepherd’s Home for Orphans. As the only inmate who hasn’t been taken in by a foster family for the holidays, she is shipped off by train to the Appleton Infants’ Home. However, as the train passes Mill Valley, the narrator, who is a character in the story describing the action as it takes place, decides to move the plot along by distracting Officer Jones, causing him to trip over a cord to the town Christmas tree. As a result, several lights on the tree go out, so instead of reading “Merry Christmas Welcome to Mill Valley” it now reads “Merry Christmas to Ivy.” 

Ivy sees this new spelling from the train. Being intensely stupid, she assumes the sign was put there by her grandma, who we were already told by Miss Shepherd doesn’t exist. After wandering around asking random strangers if they are her grandmother, Ivy realizes that she’s missed the train and is now stranded in a strange town on Christmas Eve.

Elsewhere in town, Mr. Blossom entrusts Peter, his preteen employee, with locking up his toy shop after he goes home. Neither of them know, however, that the toys all come to life when no one is around (naturally). The only toys of note are a Christmas doll named Holly and a sadistic owl named Abracadabra.

Meanwhile, Ronald comments on how amazing it is to get lost in a good book, only to discover that the Fry Kids have somehow entered the book he’s been reading to them and really have gotten lost inside it.

 

Will Ivy ever find her fictitious grandmother? Will Holly ever file a restraining order against the Tootsie Pop owl? What does the McDonald’s Corporation have to do with any of this? Only a miracle of Christmas can tell.