Explaining The Christmas Tree

 Remember the days when Doug Walker was a respectable reviewer? As much as MisAnthroPony wants to make people deny it, he had some serious influence back in the day, and it was through him the world was introduced, or reintroduced, to The Christmas Tree. It's the worst Christmas special of all time he says, I take it he never watched Bah, Humduck, but then again that's the worst Christmas Carol adaptation of all time.

Doug Walker was best known for bringing the particularly worst of animation to light, and that is something I can't really deny of him, but he focuses so much on the what, he does diddly with the why. Even basic research could yield a lot of results, and I feel he does very little with that. We all need context for a lot of these things.

I will say this, this movie really is an enigma. I had covered this a long time ago, but I feel now it needs an update.

So Why?

Before I get into this I'd like to give a shout-out to ManiacalDude who helped clue me in to another detail on this movie's history. He's looking to try and contact the one behind this, and I hope he does so.

Anyhow, The Christmas Tree is an animated Christmas special that was released in 1991 on television, yes, television. This had aired on USA Network, and unlike Rapsittie Street Kids which aired throughout the 2002 holiday season, this aired only once. This was apparently wedged between two better known Christmas specials on a dedicated holiday block.

Why would USA air such a film? First up, at the time they weren't quality conscious and were willing to air just about anything. This was within the USA Cartoon Express era, and just years before they blessed us with some of the worst video game cartoons of all time. The mentality of networks on Christmas; if it's a cartoon about Christmas, it makes the cut.

The special was spearheaded by Flamarion Ferreira. Some may be quick to call him a one-time hack, but his background goes as far back as 1979. Ferreira had worked for Hanna-Barbera and Filmation, and you may be thinking, well hey, limited animation is all he knows, but you wanna know his main area? Background design. Yep. A stark bulk of his credits lie in storyboarding and background design. This was his first time handling animation.

It goes out of the way to explain why the background look nice but the animation... isn't so much. I don't know what led him to do this, this wasn't backed by the network, and with his billing at the start, it seems he was pulling the strings.

It seems like this was an experiment of sorts for Ferreira, as mentioned before he only had experience with background and storyboarding. If he could pull off the other aspects of animation he could do anything, but wanted to start reasonably small and produced a little Christmas flick. That's the best I can come up with.

Aside from his own vanity card, this was produced by a company called Alice Entertainment. I had claimed they produced a show for TLC in 1997, but that wasn't true. Honestly with a name as common as that it's harder to find information on the company than one would think. Best case, Alice Entertainment was the special's distributor, given that the label is credited on the special's VHS release.

Yeah, one thing that saved this special from sheer obscurity was that it actually received a VHS release. This was done through Family Home Entertainment, who'd release just about anything, but due to its one-time airing it really wouldn't be until years later when it landed in everyone's crosshairs. Family Home Entertainment also released that Turtles Christmas special (and it's park musical counterpart) on VHS, but that was owed to them having full control over home media distribution on TMNT product (and TMNT was more shameless than anyone would lead you to believe. Fuck Rise)

The animation is incredibly limited. Up to this point, Ferreira only had experience from Hanna-Barbera and Filmation, more limited studios, and it's likely he picked up those norms from them and assumed what he was doing was better than them. While he had a staff on board, it's unlikely anyone had experience beyond basic nuances, either that or this was rushed.

Why are the actors so bad here? Easy, Ferreira had likely recruited whoever was available, regardless if they could act, hence some family members being involved. We do have a little info on most actors, namely where they were born, lest some actors actually opted to shed some light. It seems this was recorded in California. Some actors went on to get married and do nothing else it seems, save for one who appeared on some Investigative Discovery show. The actors simply didn't have the experience, and were likely rushed to get something out, lest this is some localization of a Brazilian script and a language barrier led to some dialog gaffs.

Final Thoughts

There is still a lot to be considered here, and a lot of this is just spitballing. Does all of this justify the low quality of the special? Well it's bad, but certainly not worst of material, there is worse... somewhere I guess, but this isn't about reviewing the special, it's about understanding it better, and honestly, we need all the understanding we could get from this.