Customer Reviews

How the Toys Saved Christmas

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I took this video out of my local library, not expecting much. I took a peek at it while the kids were watching, and was pleasantly surprised. It is very well done, with good animation, a clever story line, and a good message.

This is a cartoon Christmas tale of Granny Rose. Santa is so busy that he enlists the help of Granny Rose to deliver the toys in her town. She has a magic broom she rides while dropping the presents down the chimnies. However, this year Granny Rose has a cold, so she enlisted the help of Mr. Grimm. She doesn't know that Grimm intends to sell the toys and keep the money instead of giving them to the children. When the toys overhear his plan they come to life and try to find the children they were meant for.

This is apparently an Italian production, which was redone in an English version. Mary Tyler Moore and Tony Randall provide the voices of Granny and Grimm, but you would never recognize them, especially Randall.

The toys have fun personalities. There is a conceited French soldier and his troop, a wise Indian chief, two sweet dolls, a train and its crewmen, a scared wizard, a sweet wind-up puppy, and more. My favorite scene is the box of crayons showing their new owner what fun they can be by drawing pictures that come to life.

It's a pleasant little cartoon. It won't replace Rudolph in the holiday DVD offerings, but the children will probably enjoy this as a change from the Grinch.

My almost 6-year-old found this movie extremely boring. The witch was an odd addition to a Christmas movie as was the rough treatment of a child by the police. The animation was not what you would expect from this studio and was very poorly done. Even the music fell short of what most have come to expect from animated Christmas movies. There are so many wonderful Christmas movies for children, but this one was a disappointment. I would not recommend this movie for any age.