The Trolls and the Christmas Express (1981)

              We’re starting to edge into very shaky territory with these entries.  The unofficial guideline I’ve been using to assemble this list is to only include specials that aired on network television at some point, which wasn’t difficult until the last few.  ‘Johnny Hart’s B.C. A Special Christmas’ originally aired on HBO, several of the other specials aired first on Canadian network television but were syndicated for US audiences, and now we have this one, another HBO original.  I’ve been using these network airings not as a sign of quality but of cultural impact: by airing on one of the big three networks they were at least available to an audience in the tens of millions, and even if they’ve been forgotten they were at least made for mass consumption and therefore indicative of what their producers thought general audiences wanted.  I’m most interested in what these specials indicate about their cultural contexts, not so much the inherent artistic worth of the cartoons themselves.  The proliferation of VCRs and the explosion in the home video market would soon splinter the cartoon industry and enable niche interests to flourish and justify all kinds of madness.  It would be next to impossible to track down all of the various weird or terrible Christmas cartoons that were put out directly for home purchase, and generally speaking I’m not interested in trying to extrapolate meaning from something produced for tiny audiences.

              I was originally going to look at ‘A Star for Jeremy’ (1982), but instead opted for ‘The Trolls and the Christmas Express,’ which aired the same year as the B.C. special.  I’m sure ‘A Star for Jeremy’ aired somewhere in syndication in the US, but frankly it’s a boring, overtly Christian special about a down-on-his-luck star and I’d rather watch some cartoon about weird trolls commissioned by a still-hungry HBO.  That network was still establishing its place in the new pay-tv industry, having only just that year announced plans to broadcast programming all day, every day starting in 1982.  It’s hard to remember but cable television, though it’s derided as antiquated now, was part of the drastic set of media innovations that shook the 70’s and 80’s media landscape.  The idea of paying for television was still relatively new then, we hadn’t been persuaded that it was normal to pay monthly for entertainment quite yet.  This expansion of broadcast times and the need to fill that space spurred on the production and acquisition of many more properties, both by making original programming and by licensing existing ones. 

This was yet another Canadian production, this time by Atkinson Film-Arts, which was also involved in the Care Bears and Raccoons properties.  I’m learning a shocking amount about the Canadian animation industry this month.  It was directed by John R. Gaug, who never directed anything else but was involved in animation on the Raggedy Ann and Andy theatrical film.  It was written by Bill Walker and Mel Waskin, who appear to have only written a couple of educational shorts before.  The cast is anchored by a narrator voiced by Roger Miller, most recognizable as the narrating rooster Allan-a-Dale from Disney’s ‘Robin Hood.’  The other standouts are Billie Mae Richards, Rudolph in the Rankin-Bass specials, and Hans Conried, Captain Hook from Disney’s ‘Peter Pan,’ while the rest is made of of the usual industry veterans, at least one of whom was in something you've seen.  I recognized Len Carlson, who plays one of the trolls, as Bert from ‘The Christmas Raccoons.’  I may have to detox from cartoons in the new year.

This may be the only Christmas special where the resolution (and likely inspiration) derives from musical trivia.  One of the lines in the song Deck the Halls is “troll the ancient Yule-tide carol,” where the word ‘troll’ means ‘to celebrate in song.’  To me this is an awfully thin branch to hang an entire cartoon from, and that may be one of the reasons this perfectly acceptable cartoon isn’t better remembered.

The plot is a variation on “X seeks to ruin Christmas by doing Y to Santa,” which I’ve actually seen surprisingly little of so far.  The only straightforward example is ‘Why the Bears Dance on Christmas Eve,’ because the antagonist of ‘Raggedy Ann and Andy in The Great Santa Claus Caper’ didn’t really want to ruin Christmas, just take it over and ‘improve’ it.  In this case it’s six trolls, all nameless except the leader, Troglo, voiced by Hans Conried.  They state they want to ruin Christmas to make everyone in the world as miserable as they are, which could be an interesting commentary on seasonal depression but not, I think, what the special is going for.  Their designs are pretty neat and a few of them have personalities who pop, especially Troglo as a teeth-gnashing villain and a dopy little purple guy who just wants to wander around being nice to things.

They infiltrate Santa’s village at the beginning of December by stealing some elf clothes from a washing line.  Not sure why they’re air-drying clothes in the depths of winter at the North Pole, but sure.  The joke here is that all of Santa’s elves are interchangeable little chipmunk-voiced drones who look nothing like the trolls but who all absolutely fail to recognize that the trolls look and sound nothing like the rest of them.  The special doesn’t hang too much of a lampshade on it so it’s a pretty good gag.  They set up shop in the reindeer barn and start plotting to dismantle Santa’s empire from within.

The logistics of toy manufacturing in Santa’s workshop is always a nice little creativity prompt.  Do you go for automation, either big industrial machinery or a more charming Rube Goldberg set of contraptions?  Is it rows of elves hunched over workstations or a more holistic, more creative set of craftsmen making little wooden horses one by one?  Maybe work some magic in there, have the whole thing set to music as workers wave wands or sprinkle dust around?  This special kind of combines those ideas, vague background machinery spitting out toys onto conveyor belts that elves oversee and tweak with magic, the entire thing awash in sparkles and part of a grand dance number.  In the background of all of this the titular Christmas Express rattles between workshops, providing the logistical support for their toy-making industry.  The trolls worm their way into the ranks of the elves and unleash their troll magic on the toys, scrambling the limbs of dolls or mixing up the mechanical voiceboxes between various stuffed animals.  Sometimes they turn out toys more interesting than the original, like twisting a series of identical rote doll houses into dark, haunted variations.  Goth kids need presents too, y’know.  Unfortunately their efforts are for nothing as the elf magic is too powerful and all of their changes are instantly undone.

Christmas Eve comes around and the trolls are near despair before overhearing Santa tell the reindeer to get a good night’s sleep.  Troglo instantly susses out this weak spot in the Christmas logistical chain and gets the trolls to sing and dance in the stable all night to keep the reindeer awake and thus too tired to haul Santa’s sleigh.  It has to be said the reindeer do seem super into it, dancing right along and kicking up their hooves.

The next day all seems lost as the reindeer fall asleep mid-flight and crash the sleigh.  The trolls leave, happy in their accomplishments, when the elves decide they could use the Christmas Express to deliver the toys, using their elfin magic to create a set of tracks linking it to the nation’s railways.  I question this plan on the simple grounds that rather by design these railroad networks tend to avoid residential areas and thus the places you’d want to have delivery routes to.  Trains are also notably unable to quicky zip from place to place and tend not to perch on roofs allowing easy access to chimneys.  Any capacity advantages of an entire train are surely offset by the existence of what has to be a magic, all-holding Christmas sack, and while the reindeer can apparently circle the globe on a single meal of hay it’s unclear what the fuel efficiency is of a train that was designed and operated purely for internal use.

Regardless of its logical failings the new system does seem to be working, so the trolls jump back into action and once more infiltrate the elves, spreading themselves along the line magicking the tracks into existence, eventually curving the line back towards Santa’s workshop.  This causes Santa to finally notice that six of his elves are physically much different than the rest of them, and maybe this says some good things about Santa, he really is one of those people who doesn’t judge people by their appearances.

Their cover blown, Troglo takes the opportunity to gloat about their apparent victory.  When Santa asks why they’d want to do such a thing it prompts a tirade about how no one has ever liked trolls, always pushing them around, calling them the bad guys and making them live under bridges.  He says nobody has ever liked trolls.  One of the elves gets a bright idea and busts out a book of carols.  He and a couple of other interchangeable workers sing Deck the Halls until they get to the “troll the ancient Yule-tide carol” line, saying that this means they must’ve once been part of the Yuletide season, what’s to say they can’t be again?  Like I said, very thin branch.  This causes the trolls to do a face-turn and help out with the train, which apparently saves Christmas.  It’s a little suspicious that the special almost immediately ends at this point before we have to see how the animators would have had to show how a Christmas train would have delivered all of those toys, but I guess they just ran out of time.

The animation on this is pretty good, very much of a piece with other other Canadian productions I’ve seen.  A lot of American animation at the time was stealing mass-production techniques from Hannah-Barbera and these seem to be much more hand-produced, playing with models a lot more and inserting little business in the corners.  I especially like a random barn cat that shows up when the trolls are scheming, just being in the background wordlessly approving of their evil.  The few songs it has are at least not annoying, and the vocal talents are very good, especially Hans Conried as Troglo.  The resolution, admittedly, is amazingly weak, but the trolls weren’t actively malevolent and were clearly just upset at being ignored.  A simple invitation to join in the Christmas spirit was probably enough, so I can wave that objection away.  This is a nice little slice of early 80’s animation that isn’t some cynical piece of a larger intellectual property.  The message is pleasant enough and I can see kids still liking the trolls’ designs and personalities today.  This should be more widely available than it currently is.