Christmas Is Here Again Animated Special
Christmas is Here Again is a direct to video animated Christmas Special produced in 2007 by Renegade Animation. The story begins one night when Santa Claus' sack is stolen by an evil being named Krad, forcing Santa to cancel Christmas. Thirty years pass by with no visits from Santa.
Then one day an orphan named Sophiana finds one of Santa's elves trapped in ice. After being freed from the ice, the elf, named Paul Rocco, is shocked to learn that nobody knows what Christmas is. Together they set off to find Santa's sack and retrive it so that the world can know Christmas again.
The major characters are:
- Sophiana (Madison Davenport): An orphan girl forced to walk with a cane. She's a kind, loving girl, despite never experiencing Christmas. After running away from her orphanage, she discovers Paul Rocco and decides to help him find Santa's sack so the world can know Christmas again.
- Mr. Caterpillar (Pamela Zappia): A caterpillar whom Sophiana finds in a tree. He accompanies her on her journey and plays the role of The Voiceless.
- Miss Dowdy (Kathy Bates): The woman who runs the orphanage where Sophianna lives. She isn't a villain; she's just a perpetual pessimist.
- Paul Rocco (Daniel Roebuck): One of Santa's elves. When the sack is discovered missing, he goes out to find it, but is frozen in ice for 30 years. Sophiana finds him and the two set out to find Santa's sack and bring it back.
- Santa (Andy Griffith): After being out of work for 30 years, Santa has really let himself go and has all but given up hope.
- Victoria Claus (Shirley Jones): She still holds out hope and encourages her husband to cheer up.
- Dart (Colin Ford): A young reindeer who dreams of being on Santa's team one day, despite the fact that he's never flown. He goes along with Sophianna and Paul Rocco to help them out.
- Buster (Norm Macdonald): A fox who lives on the mountain. Buster is a perpetual schemer, but ends up helping Sophiana anyway.
- Charlee (Brad Garrett): A polar bear who's friends with Buster. He seems to have an incredibly short attention span.
- Krad (Ed Asner): An evil being who stole Santa's sack after Santa stopped handing out Krad's coal to bad children.
- The Selves (Michael Norris): Krad's minions who are forever forced to mine coal for him.
Christmas Is Here Again contains examples of:
- Artistic License – Religion: When Rocco is telling Sophiana about Christmas in song, he opens with "When the Christ Child was born, gifts were brought from far away," which describes a completely different holiday (Epiphany or Three Kings Day). It would be more appropriate to sing about the fact that Christmas is celebrated because the Christ Child was born.
- Bag of Holding: Santa's sack.
- Big "NO!": Krad says this in the climax, just when Sophiana dumps all the coal in Santa's sack that buries him and his Selves.
- Break the Cutie: Miss Dowdy sends Sophiana to her room and when Sophiana pleads with her not to because it's adoption day, Miss Dowdy says she has no chance of being adopted anyway.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Krad has a song all about how evil he is.
- Convection Schmonvection: Sophiana and the others ride down a river of lava with no ill effects and Krad's castle is in the middle of a lava lake.
- Crapsack World: Basically, an entire generation of kids grew up without Christmas or Santa Claus.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Miss Dowdy, by the end of the movie.
- For the Evulz: Krad's main motivation for what he does.
- Go Through Me: Rocco does this inadvertently when he refuses to give Santa's sack to Krad near the climax, but after Krad demanded him to hand over the sack by yelling mid-sentence, Rocco gives the sack to Krad, feeling intimidated and nervous.
Rocco: (refusing to give the sack) I will protect this sack before my dying breath!
Rocco: (nervously, giving him the sack) Here you go.
- Handicapped Badass: She's not a fighter, but Sophiana doesn't let her limp slow her down at all. Even before the big adventure, she's seen climbing trees to rescue animals.
- Happily Adopted: Sophiana at the end. By Santa and Mrs. Claus, of all people.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Krad and his minions are crushed by a load of coal from the roof of his mine.
- Home Run Hitter: Happens in the climactic battle when Sophiana uses her branch cane to hit Krad's robotic owl minion far towards the cavern walls, exploding.
- Inevitable Waterfall: When the bridge they're crossing over a lava of river collapses, they are predictably faced with said lava cascading down a steep cliff. Dart gains the ability to fly just in time before they're burned to a crisp.
- Informed Ability: Sophiana spends all her free time reading cookbooks and is actually pretty good at cooking.
- Informed Deformity: For all of Sophiana's dependence on her walking stick, she can walk quite long distances and climb on trees without much of a fuss.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Hoo boy, Buster. He only helps Sophiana after she gives him her gold locket. He was planning to ditch her, which was ruined by Charlee. He then tempts Sophiana with wealth after finding jewels. He steals some of the jewels which leads to the group being trapped on a river of lava. And finally he pretends to sell Sophianna out to Krad so he can get close to the sack.
- Jesus Taboo: Averted. Jesus' name is surprisingly mentioned quite a few times and Santa's sack is made from the same material that was used to swaddle the baby Jesus after being born in a manger.
- Kids Are Cruel: Bullies who are perfectly aware of Sophiana's condition pelt her with snowballs until she falls from a tree and steal her walking stick.
- Orphanage of Fear: Miss Dowdy has the orphans do all her chores and feeds them gruel despite having good food like bacon and eggs in the kitchen.
- Sdrawkcab Name: Krad's name is "dark" spelled backwards. Subtle.
- Spell My Name with an "S": The main character's name is spelled with two Ns in most sources, including the official website, but one N in the movie itself.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The engraved warning in the gem cavern reads:
To all who enter, take heed
Especially those most in need
Although your wealth may be improved
For every gemstone from here removed
A terrible fate you will endure
You won't be happy, and that's for real
- That Reminds Me of a Song: Happens to Krad after Sophianna asked him why he would do such terrible things like stealing Santa's sack, causing Krad to break into a villain song, I'm Evil.
Sophianna: Why would you do such a terrible thing like steal Santa's sack?
Krad: (breaks into song) Why do zebras have stripes? Why do the Scottish play bagpipes? Some things just are. Me? I'm evil. Always have been, ALWAYS will be...evil...
- Tiny Tim Template: Sophiana is an orphan whose parents were killed in a car crash. Said car crash also injured her leg, forcing her to walk with a cane, which gets her a lot of bullying from other orphan kids who know of her condition. She also grew up not knowing what Christmas is, and the orphanage she lives in is run by a woman with a fairly dim view of the world who subjects the kids to harsh treatment. In spite of all of this, Sophiana manages to keep a positive attitude even when more hardship is thrown her way throughout the movie.
- Tragic Keepsake: Sophiana keeps a picture of her parents in a heart-shaped locket.
- Viewers Are Goldfish: The narration often points out things as they are already happening on-screen or have just happened not that long ago.
- Villain Song: Krad gets two. The first is called I Stole Santa's Sack, which was the second part to the Who Stole Santa's Sack? song in the opening. The second is called I'm Evil, with the song only telling how he became evil, what evil things he did (which would make The Grinch song better than this one), and what he would rather do than become nice, laconically lacking energy or enthusiasm in the villain song.
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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/ChristmasIsHereAgain