The Town Santa Forgot (1993)

This is a holiday special that I just stumbled upon during one of Cartoon Network's Christmas cartoon marathons. I'm not exactly sure how old I was but I think it's safe to surmise that I was around nine or ten years old when I first saw it. I only caught the tail-end of it the first time and I'm pretty sure I saw the entire thing on Christmas Day. At first, I was a little put-off by it, mainly due to the fact that the entire thing is told in rhyme. When you're nine or ten years old, the last kind of cartoon you want to watch is something that's told in rhyme or at least that's how it was amongst my peers when I was that age. But when I actually watched the whole cartoon, I did find myself enjoying it. It wasn't my absolute favorite Christmas-related cartoon and even then, parts of it made me cringe due to the schmaltz but I did find myself smiling by the end of it. Cartoon Network stopped showing this special around 2005 or so and that's when their subsidiary channel Boomerang picked it up. A few Christmases ago when I was channel-surfing, I came upon Boomerang's annual Christmas marathon and, since I hadn't seen the special in a few years, I decided to look ahead on my TV's built-in guide to see if it would be playing any time soon. The only time it was played during that Christmas, or at least the only time that I was aware of, was at 3:00am on Christmas Night (which, technically, would have made it December the 26th). Yes, that was pretty late but having not seen the cartoon in years, and since I'm a night owl anyway, I decided to stay up and watch it. After seeing it again, I still thought it was a nice little Christmas special. It's not perfect and some of it could have been handled better in my humble opinion but, for the most part, I still think it's a charming cartoon that not a lot of people talk about.

One Christmas Eve, an old man and his two young grandchildren wait for Santa Claus to arrive at their house. The kids make it very clear that they're anxious for Santa to arrive and that they're going to extremely mad if they don't get everything that they asked for from him. Seeing this, their grandfather decides to sit them down and tell them a Christmas story that he feels they are old enough to understand. He tells them about Jeremy Creek, a selfish, spoiled little brat who had enough toys for dozens and dozens of children but never shared them and always wanted more. He would force his parents to buy him toys by throwing loud temper tantrums whenever they would refuse him. However, his parents eventually grow tired of their son's overly greedy personality and tell him that they are not going to give him any more toys. Although he at first sulks about it, Jeremy soon decides to ask Santa Claus to bring him more toys. He writes Santa a ridiculously long list and mails it to the North Pole. When Santa receives the list, he decides that no one child could need so many toys and deduces that "Jeremy Creek" must be the name of a place. He and his elves search his map of the world and discover that there is indeed a little town by that name and, moreover, it's not Santa's usual route, meaning he has been bypassing it year after year. Santa decides to order every item on the list and deliver them to the neglected swamp town. So, little does spoiled Jeremy Creek know that his presents aren't going to come to him at all. Will this make him throw an even bigger tantrum than he ever has before or will this actually teach him an important lesson about Christmastime?

This special had a lot of interesting people involved with it both on the production side as well as in terms of the voice actors. For one thing, it was produced by Hanna-Barbera, whose production quality standards by this point had risen far above the cheapness that they had once been known for. The director is Robert Alvarez, who has been working in animation in the 1960's and has been involved with stuff like The Superfriends, He-Man, the 1980's revival of The Jetsons, G.I. Joe, Smurfs, Snorks, DuckTales and many, many others. As a director, he's done episodes of shows like Tom and Jerry Kids, the 90's Addams Family cartoon, Swat Kats, and Cartoon Network's classic original shows like Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, The Powerpuff Girls, and so on. Oddly enough, the executive producer is David Kirschner, who normally is involved with family-friendly stuff like this, with credits like An American Tail, Once Upon a Forest, The Halloween Tree, and The Pagemaster but he's also been a producer on all of the Child's Play movies. I know that family stuff is his typical bread and butter but for me, who was terrified of Chucky when I was a young kid, it's just weird to see his name associated with anything that's meant to be kid-friendly.

The talent that this special benefits the most from is good old Dick Van Dyke. There's a reason why this guy is such a beloved American icon and that's because, no matter what he does, he always manages to exude absolute warmth as well as a whimsical twinkle in his eye. He's like the grandfather that each of us always wanted to have, which is made reality here with his voicing the grandfather in the special's framing device as well as narrating the story. It also doesn't hurt that he has one of the great voices of American pop culture, which is perfect for telling a nice Christmas story. He tells it with great sincerity and enthusiasm, not just droning on but rather complimenting every emotion displayed in the story, whether it be Jeremy Creek's parents' frustrations with their spoiled kid (like when describing Mrs. Creek exploding at her son, he says, "And then, Mom lost it!"), Jeremy's pouting about not getting any more new toys, (when he says that Jeremy stomped up to his room and remarks, "It just wasn't fair"), Jeremy's initial selfish dismay when Santa Claus doesn't bring him the toys he wanted, and finally, Jeremy's realization that it's better to give than to receive. He hits every note not only perfectly but almost effortlessly. And also, while I do feel that some of the other actors are maybe just a little hampered by the rhyming, Van Dyke manages to get through it without becoming monotonous or overly whimsical and, instead, sounds completely natural the entire time. I know I'm really gushing over Van Dyke here and my description of why I feel he's so good is probably making you gag but he really is why this special works as much as it does to me. Again, there are few voices that would be better at telling a Christmas story than his.

Jeremy Creek, the spoiled brat who is the focus of the grandfather's story, is voiced by Miko Hughes, who not only appeared in family-friendly shows like Full House but also acted in a few noteworthy horror films such as Pet Sematary and Wes Craven's New Nightmare. He plays Jeremy Creek fairly well. He's really good at throwing loud, screaming tantrums, which Jeremy does a lot of in the story, and although he doesn't have much real dialogue, I think Hughes manages to give Jeremy a real touch of absolute greed. Watching this special, it really is amazing just how selfish this little brat is. He has dozens and dozens of toys and yet, shares them with absolutely no one (at one point, you actually see him chase off a kid who is riding on a big toy horse in his front yard) and torments his poor parents with his tantrums, which go as far as to make them the target of their irritated neighbors who have had it with Jeremy's screaming. On top of his writing Santa a list that's half a mile long, when Christmas Eve arrives, Jeremy climbs up onto his roof and says that when Santa flies by, he plans to use a net to grab everything in his sleigh. He not only wants all the stuff that he himself asked for but what other kids asked for as well. Of course, when Santa bypasses his house, Jeremy at first cries himself to sleep and then the next morning, when he learns where his toys went due to a news report, he becomes very enraged. But, when the kids of the town say a thank you to the mystery person who wrote the list that brought them the toys, Jeremy gets a good feeling from it and his selfishness is replaced with kindness. Unfortunately, this is where I feel Miko Hughes' acting kind of stumbles. While I can believe that something as sweet as those kids saying "thank you" would give Jeremy warm, touching feelings of kindness, some of the stuff that Hughes says does feel overly forced and schmaltzy, like when he says, "How greedy can one kid be?" and when he even says that his greed has been replaced with kindness. Yeah, that was a bit much and could have been handled better. But, that aside, it's still nice to see such a mean, spoiled kid become somebody who gives a lot of his toys away to other children and continually helps Santa deliver presents on Christmas Eve until he outgrows his seat in the sleigh (which I don't quite get seeing as how tubby Santa can fit but Jeremy, who grows up to be tall and thin, can't). And, in a twist you no doubt could see coming, it turns out that the grandfather who's been telling the story is Jeremy. Predictable, yes, but it doesn't derail the cartoon's really good points.

Hal Smith, best known for his role as Otis on The Andy Griffith Show, gave one of his last performances here as the voice of Santa Claus. He played a very jolly and kindly version Saint Nick, with a lot of ho-ho-hoing, laughing, and with a real sense of goodness in his heart when he discovers that he's been passing up the town of Jeremy Creek year after year. It's really hard not to love this incarnation of Santa, particularly when he offers Jeremy anything he could possibly want despite how greedy and selfish he used to be since the children of the town asked Santa to reward their benefactor. The only question I have about Santa here is when he appears to Jeremy, he tells him that he knows all about him and how greedy he used to be. Did he just now discover that the enormous list he got was indeed written by a person named Jeremy Creek and that that kid used to be a selfish brat? You would think but one of Santa's first lines to Jeremy is, "I know about all," suggesting that he always knew about Jeremy. If that's the case, then why did he come to the assumption that Jeremy Creek was the name of a place instead of a person? I guess you could chalk it up to the naughty and nice list but still, that would mean that Santa decided to just act like he had never heard of someone named Jeremy Creek and instead decided to say it had to be the name of a place, which means he could only hope that there was such a place. Okay, okay, I'm probably thinking about this a lot more than I should since it's just a cute little Christmas cartoon but it's something my normally lenient mind can't help but think about. Still, Smith made a great, jolly Santa Claus and, like I said, this ended up being one of his last pieces of acting. He died the following January at the age of 77.

There's not much else I can add when it comes to the voice acting. None of the other performers are all that special. Phil Proctor and Melinda Peterson voice Mr. and Mrs. Creek, Jeremy's parents who are often at the mercy of their tantrum-throwing son. Their acting is passable but it's often a little overly done, particularly when they're admiring the apparent good deed of a certain person that's being talked about on the news. I know it's a cartoon but stuff like that can get to me. I do, however, smirk when Mrs. Creek has finally had it with Jeremy's temper tantrums and screams, "Just settle down!" A lot of the voice actors I can't match with what characters they played simply because I can't find that information. Veteran voice actor B.J. Ward (whom I know best for voicing Princess Allura in the English version of Voltron) is in there somewhere, possibly as an outraged neighbor of the Creeks who yells that Jeremy's screaming is keeping her kids awake or as the female reporter on the news who talks about the miracle that came to the town of Jeremy Creek. I'm not sure which, though. I don't know who voiced any of the elves (although one of them had to create the predictable high-pitched voice for his or her particular elf) and I only know one of the kids who voiced the grandchildren in the wrap-around, namely Ashley Johnson as the granddaughter (the grandson might possibly be played by someone named Haven Hartman). I know all of this probably doesn't matter to most of you but, as you've probably figured out by now, I like to be as thorough as possible in these reviews and it's kind of disappointing when I'm unable to find all of the facts about the various aspects that I like to discuss.

I also must say that the visuals of this cartoon are very pleasing to the eye. The art direction and such are nice and colorful and while nothing about the overall design is very special or stands out, that's really not the point. It all just simply serves its purpose in a fair enough manner. The animation, while not theater-level or anything, is passable enough. Like I said, by this point Hanna-Barbera had really enhanced and built upon the limited animation that plagued them back in the 60's and 70's and you can definitely see that refinement here. The designs of the various characters are very appealing as well: typical cartoon style, with a lot of circles and roundness used to create body shapes. Santa Claus is especially round and it further emphasizes the fact that he's simply a jolly, tubby old man. I also have to say that I particularly like the design of the character that Dick Van Dyke voices in that he looks like the type of kindly grandpa you'd want to have with his gray hair and moustache, glasses, and pine tree-green sweater. In fact, he has more than a passing resemblance to Van Dyke himself, which I'm sure can't have been a coincidence. Finally, I have to comment on the design of Jeremy Creek himself. What I have to say is that it's impressive how they're able to make him look really bratty and mean for the first half of the show (albeit with an overall cute design as well) and then turn that around and make him look benevolent and kind when his selfish heart melts away. That can't be easy to do without making it look very artificial and phony and I think they did that very well.

As I said earlier, one of the weak points of this cartoon for me is Miko Hughes' acting when Jeremy Creek learns that it's better to give than to receive. Actually, I think the way the grandchildren in the wrap-around react to the story's moral could have been done a lot better as well. Now, I'm not saying that the message that the cartoon is trying to convey isn't important because it is: don't be greedy and selfish. That's something everybody needs to learn. But, the way the children change their minds about the gifts they wanted from Santa after their grandfather finishes telling the story feels forced, even more so than Jeremy's change of heart. When the boy says that he now doesn't care about what he gets and the girl says that even if she gets nothing, it's no big deal, I just don't buy it. For one, they didn't experience the feeling of giving themselves like Jeremy did and even though I still think Miko Hughes' acting at that point is a bit hokey, I'm able to accept it more because, again, he actually felt how warm and good it feels to give rather than receive. And for another, while I'm not saying that hearing a story like the one the grandfather is telling the kids absolutely wouldn't make them understand the moral (that's why he told them it in the first place, because he felt they were old enough to understand), it doesn't ring true to me that the moral would automatically hit them once the story is over and inspire them to stop being so greedy. I just feel that taking something to heart happens gradually rather than automatically and I would have believed it more if, after the story was over, the grandchildren were still eager to get their presents but, after thinking about the story a little more, they became less and less greedy until they decided that it wouldn't be a big deal if they got nothing. Or, at the very least, right after the story is over, have them say something along the lines of, "You know, we're still hoping to get what we want but even if we don't, we won't be upset." Basically what I'm getting at is characterize them like real kids instead of having them become saintly goody two-shoes all of a sudden. Again, I know that this is just meant to be a cute little Christmas special with a clear enough message that kids could hopefully understand and maybe I'm being a smidge too cynical towards it but I just think that would have been a better way to go about delivering the moral.

As for the music in this special, I'm really at a loss for words because there's nothing that I can really say about it. It's cute, little Christmas-style music and serves its purpose well enough for this type of thing, complimenting the emotions and such in a fair manner, but other than that, I can't say much of anything. It's just not a score that's particularly memorable. And what's weird is that it's composed by John Debney, who has gone on to score huge movies such as End of Days with Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Passion of the Christ, and Iron Man 2, so there's obviously some talent behind the music but I guess he decided to just go through the motions and make some music that was suitable for this type of film. And you can't make the excuse that maybe it was early in his career and he didn't know what he was doing because he's been composing since 1980. Who knows? But what I can say is that there's a song called So Little Time 'Til Christmas Day by Peter Lurye, who's done barely anything since this show save for a few other kids programs, that I could rather do without. It's just corny, with some cringe-inducing lyrics, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of structure to it either. It feels random and not needed. I know that's harsh for something like this and usually I'm tolerant of songs in stuff meant for kids but this just felt unnecessary. Also, this is the only song here so it's as if they were like, "Okay, we need to get through this section quickly so we might as well put a song in for the kids." Harsh maybe but that's my observation.

With all of the criticisms that I've given, you're probably wondering if I actually do like The Town Santa Forgot. I can assure you that I do. Hey, I stayed up to 3:00 in the morning one time in order to see it again so that should say something. While I still think that certain aspects of the moral, as in the effect it has on the children involved, could have been handled better, I still think that this is a nice, charming little Christmas cartoon with a nice, colorful design and animation, a moral that is important for kids to learn, especially around this time of year, and some great voice acting by Dick Van Dyke and Hal Smith. Even though it's not talked about much, it gets a 7.8 rating on IMDB so obviously it's liked by those who have seen it. To sum up, it may not be a classic or anything but it's simply a nice, sweet little special that I think is worth checking out at least once during Christmastime, just in case you want to see something other than the Christmas films that are always discussed.