Time for a completely normal Christmas fairy tale about talking animals, wizards, sleeping powder, and the need for a comprehensive mental health care system. Also, without any context it looks like that mouse is about to play a very mean joke on Santa when he’s just trying to catch some shuteye.

Our story begins with the talking animal inhabitants of a small town happily getting ready for Christmas, which is, of course, happening tomorrow. These animals aren’t at all bothered by their stilted voices or jerky animation, which is great because they all look like they’re wading through molasses with each shaky step. Unfortunately, not everyone here likes Christmas, especially a grouchy bear who lives outside of town, who hates Christmas and children and fun. Double unfortunately, this Bear is both the strongest bear on the mountain (able to rip a tree out of the ground and break it in half over his knee) and also the greatest wizard on the mountain. These double majors, man, they make everyone else look bad. So this bear goes back to his cave and is so incensed by the children enjoying Christmas that he decides to use his magic skills to make Santa fall asleep and miss the big day. We also learn why the bear hates Christmas, it’s because he has serious mommy issues. No, that’s the real reason; he looks at a painting of a bear cub and its mother and whimpers “mommy…” unprompted. Yet another story of a man who would rather destroy Christmas than just go to therapy.

Once the bear wizard realizes that Santa Claus is more popular than he is, (yes that’s his real reason) he decides it’s time to destroy Christmas. So after his attempts at voodoo paralysis prove fruitless (I assume Santa has some kind of shield made from Christmas magic) the bear stealthily walks up to Santa’s workshop with his wizard robe and skull staff, as one does, before dropping a jar full of magic powder down Santa’s chimney, forcing him into a deep sleep.

After Santa’s mice can’t wake him up (yeah Santa doesn’t have elves here, just mice, which I assume would be the least useful type of animal assistant if you’re making things) the town falls into a deep depression knowing that Christmas has been unceremoniously cancelled. At first the bear is overjoyed because he finally made everyone miserable, but then he soon learns that being miserable makes people miserable, which isn’t what he wanted at all, for some reason. A crying child appeals to his inner lonely cub with terrible mommy issues, and he decides to reverse the spell, but Santa’s mice have ransacked his house in revenge and destroyed all his spell books. Hats off to these mice, Santa must have hired them because they’re always down to destroy his enemies.

With his spellbooks destroyed, the bear wizard has no choice but to consult his master, a magic walrus. I don’t why the idea of a magical walrus is so funny to me, but I can’t stop laughing thinking about this guy. Just look at this doof!

With the help of the magic walrus, and one last bit of exposition about how the walrus saved the bear when he was a cub and separated from his mom, the bear saves Christmas by bringing Santa Claus out of his deep slumber. From that point on, the bear realizes that using his power to help people instead of hurt them will make him be loved and appreciated by the townspeople, a lesson completely different than the one learned by Scrooge. Afterwards, the bear…hey wait a second. That Walrus is so powerful that he commands the winds and knew what the bear needed to heal Santa before the bear even explained it. How could he not find the bear’s mom? Unless…he didn’t want to find the bear’s mom. Look at that face again. That stupid hat. That smug aura. He stole this child to be his apprentice and then raised him to be buff, magically inclined, and evil. This Walrus is still plotting something. Something much bigger than an attack on Santa’s sleep schedule, mark my words.

This isn’t the best Christmas special but there’s something weird and fun about it that makes it likeable, even in spite of it being a bit rough around the edges. Like a lot of fairy tale stuff it doesn’t always make sense, but it’s a colorful romp that is certainly not afraid of going in odd directions. It’s short, has a decent message, and you can watch it on Tubi.