Jim Hensons The Christmas Toy
Presented in 5 parts:
(featuring Try the Impossible song)
(alternate version of Toy Story 2’s When Somebody Loved Me)
The Christmas Toy is a 1986 made-for-TV movie by The Jim Henson Company. It originally aired on ABC on December 6, 1986, and was originally sponsored by Kraft Foods. As with all Jim Henson creations at the time, I loved it.
When no people are around, the toys still play in the playroom. But since a toy will be frozen forever if a person catches it out of position, they have to be very careful. It’s Christmas Eve, and Rugby the Tiger remembers how he was the Christmas Toy last year, and thinks he’s going to be unwrapped again. And it’s up to Apple the Doll, whom Rugby supplanted as favorite toy, to tell him what’s in store. But Rugby won’t believe her, and tries to get into the Christmas package and lets Meteora, Queen of the Asteroids loose. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know she’s a toy, and thinks she’s landed among aliens. And it’s up to Apple, Mew (the Cat’s toy mouse), and the other toys to get Rugby out of the box and Meteora back in it before they’re found and frozen forever!
This spawned the Secret Life of Toys on the Disney Channel in 1996.
The motives of the characters are suspiciously similar to Disney/Pixar’s computer-animated feature film Toy Story, released in 1995. These similarities include (but are not exclusive to):
* Rugby, Jesse’s old toy, is jealous and feels threatened by Meteora (who is a newer, space-themed action figure) and tries to get rid of her. In Toy Story, Woody, Andy’s old toy, is jealous and feels threatened by Buzz Lightyear (who is a newer, space-themed action figure) and tries to get rid of him.
* Meteora, like Buzz Lightyear, does not understand that she is, in fact, a toy and not “Queen of the Asteroids”. Rugby must teach her that being a toy is not inferior to her assumed role, as Woody must convince Buzz.
* As the voice of reason (and practically the only main female character in the cast), Apple the Doll serves the same purpose as Bo Peep.
* The toys revert to their inanimate form the moment a human nears. (Although The Christmas Toy includes the plot device that a toy is frozen forever if seen by human eyes.)