Throwback Thursday: A look at The Cabbage Patch Kids’ First Christmas & The Little Troll Prince

Naturally, the man and woman fall in love with Jenny, as well as Paula Louise (one of the Cabbage Patch Kids who also has red hair and freckles), and they decide to adopt them both by the special’s end – if only adoption were that quick and easy in the real world. Sadly, I would say this is a Christmas special that doesn’t hold up very well over time. I think the Cabbage Patch Kids have lost just about all of their cultural relevance, as kids today are far more interested in Barbies, Bratz, Monster High dolls, and electronics, which makes the ‘80s kid dwelling inside me a little sad. However, I’ll be the first to admit the animation isn’t really anything special and, as my roommate pointed out, the writers unnecessarily changed the lyrics of a popular Christmas song to be more “politically correct,” which of course makes them come across as more “politically incorrect” if you ask me. (They changed the word “gay” to “bright” as in “don we now our bright apparel … fa la la la la la la la la in the popular carol Deck the Halls).

The second animated Christmas tale on this DVD holds up a lot better in my opinion; maybe because it’s classic Hanna-Barbera animation. If you can get past the preachiness of this Scandinavian-style Christmas parable from 1987 (I realize for many that’s a big “if”), The Little Troll Prince: A Christmas Parable features interesting animated backgrounds and characters, as well as a veritable list of “who’s who” voice actors, including Vincent Price, Don Knotts, Cloris Leachman, Jonathan Winters, William Christopher from M*A*S*H and Rob Paulsen (Yakko from Animaniacs & Pinky from Pinky & the Brain). I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the title role was voiced by none other than Danny Cooksey – you might remember him as Budnick on Nickelodeon’s Salute Your Shorts or Sam McKinney on Diff’rent Strokes. I met Danny at a horror con a few years back (he was there with many of the other actors from Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and he was a really nice guy. Side note: I knew he had done a lot of recent animated voice work, but when I looked up his IMDb credits, I was surprised to learn that Cooksey had also voiced Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures.

Directed by Ray Patterson, whose credits include several of my favorite shows growing up, including The Flintstone Kids, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo and The Snorks, The Little Troll Prince tells the story of a troll prince named Bu who has always been a little bit different from the rest of the subjects of the Troll Kingdom. Somehow Bu just doesn’t quite fit in. He knows the Troll Bible by heart, but he’s a lot nicer than either of his two-headed brothers. After he’s tricked by his brothers into leaving the Troll Kingdom to investigate the human world, he learns the true meaning of Christmas and allows God into his heart, transforming him from a troll with a heart of ice into a gnome with a kind heart. The moral of this parable is that anyone can change if they’ve got something to believe in and if they allow love into their heart.

Both Christmas specials left me feeling a little warm and fuzzy inside, although maybe not as warm or as fuzzy as I used to feel when I was a kid. Although there aren’t any special bonus features for either movie, I’d recommend the DVD for the awesome animation alone. Happy holidays!