A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas: Christmas in Disneyland (1976)

Art Carney certainly seemed to like making Christmas specials.  Between 1970 and 1984, he appeared in 8 of them.  I've reviewed two of them in previous years, 1970's The Great Santa Claus Switch, an early Jim Henson production where he hammed it up in the duel role of Santa and a villain who wanted to use Santa's sleigh to rob the entire world, and 1978's The Star Wars Holiday Special, in which he, as a merchant on the Wookie homeworld who was a secret member of the rebellion, might have been the only cast member to emerge with his dignity intact.

In between, he won an Oscar and starred in Christmas in Disneyland, in that order.  While the special is, at its heart, an hour-long commercial for the Southern California theme park, it's surprisingly not quite the hard sell that the title implies.  Indeed, the ABC sitcoms that sent their casts in recent years to frolic in the various Disney parks were much more intent on getting the kids watching to beg their parents for a magical vacation to Orlando or Anaheim.

Carney played a grandfather who has taken his two grandchildren (played by busy 70s kid actors Brad Savage and Terri Lynn Wood) to the titular park during the holidays.  But Carney, whose character is only known as "Gramps", is a very grinchy sort who proclaims how much he loves working and making money and how much he disdains what everyone else would consider fun.  The trio had barely arrived on Main Street USA before Carney is insisting the day is over and its time to leave.  Luckily, before they're able to make it to the parking lot, they're stopped by a tour guide, played by Sandy Duncan, who tells Carney that there's a cash prize for the biggest unbeliever in the park.  The prospect of getting some money convinces Carney to stay.

I was pretty sure this was just a ploy to keep Carney in the park, but no, the four of them descend into the bowels of Disneyland to meet a wizard (Carney again, this time with a ridiculous mustache) who promises the grinchy Carney a big prize if he retains his disbelief for the rest of the day.  All he has to do is go around the park, while his day is magically livestreamed to the wizard Carney's big screen TV (presumably using technology that was virtually non-existent in 1976 but is commonplace today).

Now, if this was a hard sell commercial for the park, you'd see Carney charmed by all the rides and attractions he could experience (as could you, if you'd just visit).  Instead, the special is mostly an excuse for a series of musical numbers.  Thanks to the magic of green screen, Duncan is able to shrink herself among the animatronic dolls on It's a Small World, and even have a dance number with a couple of unfortunate dancers wearing giant, doll-like heads over their actual heads.  The special's other big guest star, Glen Campbell, gets to sing with the bears from Country Bear Jamboree (played by actors in costumes, not the animatronics) and also Christmas carols with the cast of the then-new, now long-gone America Sings (this time, the actual animatronics).  Carney himself sings a song about a Christmas party hosted by the Three Little Pigs that gets interrupted by the Big Bad Wolf (played out by the walking characters in costumes).  Indeed, the only ride anyone gets on, other than Small World, is the spinning tea cups of the Mad Tea Party.  By presenting the special clearly as a fantasy(land), it still encourages people to visit the park without beating them over the head with it.

That said, this is still a rather odd specials.  The producers (who, as the closing credits reveal, were an outside production team, and not Disney) didn't really need the wraparound story to present the musical numbers.  And to be honest, as much as I generally like Carney, he's frankly not very good as the scroogey Gramps.  He seems rather bored, even during the parts when his icy heart is supposed to be melting.  In contrast, he's clearly having a ball playing the wizard, but after his first appearance, that character is usually limited to a few seconds and a couple lines at a time.  Duncan (who also shows up in a Snow White costume at one point) and Campbell (who also plays Santa) were decent, though neither was particularly memorable.  One especially weird aspect is that, even though the special was clearly filmed on location at Disneyland, there's still a laugh track and applause.

Christmas in Disneyland concludes as it must, with Gramps finally giving in to the magic of the park and the season, complete with a snowstorm blanketing Main Street, Micky and Minnie skating, and a huge choir showing up to sing "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night". It's quite the strange special, but in an age when Disney seems to go out of its way to stuff itself down everyone's throat, the fact that Disney didn't do that here earns it a bit of respect.

Next time: One of the most popular stars of the 50s does his annual show in the 70s.