NBC clearly loves Jimmy Fallon. He grew famous thanks to his six years on Saturday Night Live, and then, after his brief attempt at movie stardom fizzled out, returned to the NBC fold, first taking over Late Night from Conan O'Brien, and then, five years later, moving up an hour to take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno, where he remains ensconced to this day. So it's not too surprising that the network decided to give him a half-hour special based on the picture book he wrote.
I haven't seen a physical copy of 5 More Sleeps 'Til Christmas, but it is read in full in at least two YouTube videos, one by Fallon himself and the other by what sounds like a child. The story is rather cute, if generic, as a young boy and his little sister counts down the days and wonders why he can't go to sleep at night. The story is in verse, and most pages are dominated by the pictures and not so much by text. The kid-read version runs three minutes, while the one read by Fallon runs 7 minutes. In other words, there's not much there to fill a 22-minute special
So the adaption (which, it should be noted, was not written by Fallon, and, as the credits say, was merely "inspired" by his book) changes the story around considerably. The little (biological) sister is gone, and the boy (who remains nameless) now has a single mother (who also remains nameless). The kid has the week leading up to Christmas planned down to the minute, but mom upsets his plans when she reveals she's invited her boyfriend to spend the week with them, along with his young daughter, Evie.
From here on, the special is fairly generic, as Evie's presence spoils all of the boy's plans for the week, sometimes for the better (the plans to build a gingerbread house is replaced by baking "surprise cookies"), sometimes for the worse (the parents let her choose a tree rather than him). Of course, it climaxes as it must--with him finally yelling at Evie for ruining everything, only to immediately feel guilty and let her know that no, Christmas wasn't ruined at all.
I'm ok with the special being generic, as it is aimed at young kids, but what I found hard to get past was Fallon's narration. I guess he had to be a part of it, but his voiceover was generally redundant or unnecessary. If he had to be a voice, have him voice the kid (who is instead voiced by a boy named James Larson, who, if his IMDB credits are accurate, has popped up in various choirs in various movies and TV shows over the past couple of years, including A Very Boy Band Holiday), or have the kid be silent and just have Fallon's thoughts speak for him.
There were aspects of the special I liked, such as the rather bold decision to essentially have the adults be shacking up together in a kid's special (though, of course, exactly where the boyfriend was sleeping was left unsaid), as well as the decision to have the boyfriend and Evie be Black, while the kid and his mom is white (as I pointed out a few years ago in a review of the sadly awful A Cool Like That Christmas, Christmas specials, especially animated Christmas specials, still have overwhelmingly white casts). The animation was also nice.
It remains to be seen whether 5 More Sleeps 'Til Christmas will become a holiday staple on NBC or, like most animated specials, get repeated a couple of times in increasingly undesirable timeslots before disappearing off the airwaves entirely. It doesn't really deserve to stick around, but I suspect as long as Fallon remains important to NBC, this special will get an annual run.
Next time: The hottest toys of 1983 led to a special--but surprisingly not a series--in 1984.
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