Back in the early 1980s, Wacky Wallcrawlers took the nation by storm. The small, plastic, flexible, squishy, and sticky toys looked like octopuses, and if you threw it against the wall, not only would it stick, it would walk its way down. While there weren't riots over them the way that there would be later over Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, the little squishy creatures still sold some 240 million units, more than the population of the United States at the time.
The toys proved so popular that the company behind them was able to sell a primetime animated Christmas special to NBC. To its credit, Deck the Halls With Wacky Walls isn't quite the commercial for the Wallcrawlers that it could have been. That said, it is still a very bizarre special, one that didn't do much for Wallcrawlers sales.
The first thing we learn about the Wallcrawlers is that they're not octopuses or any other Earth-bound creature. They're aliens, living in a technology-advanced society. The king has discovered a bright new star in the sky, apparently shining its beams down on the third planet orbiting an ordinary star, and he sends his best available crew, led by the indominable Wacky (yes, that's his name) to the planet to find out what's going on. Oh, and somehow they discover the star is related to something called "Christmas".
Lest you think we're going to have Wallcrawlers at the Nativity, the journey takes almost 2,000 years, though none of them look at all the worse for wear when they emerge from their rocket (they must be an absurdly long-living society). Conveniently, they land on Christmas Eve, and they set out to figure out what this Christmas is as fast as possible (for reasons the special never explains, they seem determined to finish their mission in all of one afternoon).
There are six explorers, and given that it is a thirty-minute kids special, none of them develop much of a personality. One is voiced by Peter Cullen, using his Eeyore voice to say mostly Eeyore-like things. One had a habit of getting stuck and his leg tied together, one was an excitable baby, and one was a girl (voiced by an early-in-her-career Tress MacNeille). Wacky himself was voiced by Daws Butler, inarguably one of the most talented voice-over artists ever, but he chose to use a voice that was perhaps the most annoying of his long career.
The plot has them running around the town they landed in to find out what Christmas is all about, ending up in a mall, where one ends up accidently terrorizing the mall Santa, one discovers that tuna surprise is not a good Christmas dinner, and one discovers that the balls on Christmas trees are not edible. Eventually, they come into contact with a spoiled kid named Darryl (voiced by then 12-year-old Scott Menville, who is still working regularly today) who informs them that Christmas is all about getting presents, and is incredibly angry that his dad won't buy him a $1,000 drivable toy car. Will his heart grow three sizes by the end of the special, especially once an orphanage becomes involved?
The producers did not skimp on the cast, as in addition to Butler, Cullen, and MacNeille, other prominent voice-over artists such as Marvin Kaplan, Howard Morris, Frank Welker, and Bill Scott also contributed. The problem was in the odd-but-predictable script and the mediocre animation, which didn't look as good as the usual Saturday morning fare of the era (which didn't look that good to begin with).
Ultimately Deck the Halls With Wacky Walls ends up being a fusion of the messages of A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, though with nowhere near the fun or quality of either special. It didn't even work as a commercial. It got awful ratings and was not back for 1984, by which time the fad was well and truly over. You can still buy them (and various ripoffs), but they're now a nostalgia toy. The special, produced when the toy was at its hottest, is now pretty much forgotten, as well it should be.
Next time: A legendary production company comes out of retirement to produce one of the few animated specials focusing on Black people.
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