In 1969, ABC added Hot Wheels to its Saturday morning lineup. The animated series, about a group of teenage auto racers, was sponsored by Mattel and shared its name with the company's then-new line of toy cars. Parents groups and other toy companies immediately protested, and the FCC eventually ruled that the show should be considered a half-hour commercial. ABC protested, and the show ended up getting a two-year run, but ultimately the series was cancelled and toy companies, at least for a time, didn't produce any further series based on toy lines.
What a difference a decade and a half made. By 1985, the FCC had new leadership and new regulations, and there had been an explosion in the number of independent stations, all of which were hungry for programming. Animated series based on Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and Care Bears, among others, abounded. Into this fray, Hasbro decided the best way to juice sales of its struggling Glo Friends line (a series of insect and insect-like creators who could glow in the dark) was to create a Christmas special, with the hopes of using it to launch a full-scale series. The Glo Friends Save Christmas would air on independent stations throughout the 1985 holiday season.
It's Christmas Eve in the Glo Friends village, a series of tree houses that in no way should remind you of Smurf Village, and the Glo Friends are busy preparing for the holiday. Meanwhile, Santa is beginning his annual journey, but this year, there's a hitch. Blanche, the Wicked Witch of the North Pole (yes, that's how she introduces herself multiple times) plots to bring down Santa and end Christmas forever, a plan that she is certain will win her fame and fortune. Armed with her magic wand, she quickly has Santa and the reindeer trapped in an ice prison on an ice floe in the middle of a raging river. Luckily, the Glo Freinds are nearby, and despite traps and hardships planted by Blanche, set out to save Santa and Christmas.
Apperently, the various Glo Friends toys came with a booklet detailing the attributes of each seperate Friend. If they had different personalities, that certainly didn't come though in the special, in which all the Friends seemed to have the same bland, optimistic personality. There was one who was a self-proclaimed leader, one who was vaguely mischevious, one who had some vague self-doubt, and that's about it. Any resemblence to the Smurfs, while probably intentional, would truly be coincindental.
The writers seemed to invest far more time into Blanche, who might have been one-note, but at least had a personality. Also interesting was Moose, an actual moose who started out as a reluctant ally of Blanche before switching sides. Maybe if the special had been called Moose Saves Christmas, they might have had something.
In an apparent sop to the adults stuck watching this, the producers staged a mini-All in the Family Reunion by hiring Carroll O'Conner to play Santa and Sally Struthers to play Blanche. The only other name that stuck out at me, other than the ubiquitous Frank Welker, was Lorenzo Music, who voiced Moose. Music's voice would be familiar to adults from his work as the unseen Carlton the Doorman on Rhoda and to kids as the voice of Garfield. While O'Conner was fine as Santa, both Struthers and Music seemed to have fun with their characters, something that can't be said for the rather indistinguishable voices of the Glo Friends.
If there was ever any doubt in the outcome, the title gives the ending away, though of course a kids special where the bad guy wins and Christmas is ruined is pretty unthinkable. At any rate, the special failed to catch fire, and while the Glo Friends did get a regular series, it was only as a segment on My Little Pony and Friends, in which they had to rotate in and out with a couple of other series based on toy lines. Apparently, neither Blanche nor Moose were part of the regular series, an interesting decision to say the least. After one season, Glo Friends came to an end, and shortly thereafter, so did the toy line, though the original toy in the line, the Glo Worm, still remains in production today.
The Glo Friends Save Christmas does have its heart in the right place, I suppose, but for a special ultimately designed to sell toys, it did a lousy job of encouraging kids to buy the toys. That's what happens when you allow secondary characters to steal the show right out from the nominal heroes.
Next time: A cute new animated special from an acclaimed director and an Oscar winner.
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