TV REVIEWS : NBC’s Animated Christmas Specials No Gift to Viewers

Ironically, one of the two animated specials premiering tonight on NBC (Channels 4, 36 and 39) condemns greed while the other is predicated on it.

Based on a children’s book by Charmaine Severson, “The Town Santa Forgot” (at 8 p.m.) tells the story of Jeremy Creek, a greedy little boy who asks Santa Claus for a gazillion toys. Overwhelmed by his list, Santa and the elves assume someone must be writing for an entire town; a map reveals that they’ve been skipping the village of Jeremy Creek for years. They take all the toys to the poor children there, and when Jeremy hears about the mix-up via a TV news show, he’s converted from a greedy brat to a generous hero in seconds.

Dick Van Dyke does what he can with the treacly verses of the narration, but its stretched rhymes and lumpy meters, which sound like third-rate Dr. Seuss, will make any adult with an ear for poetry wince. The simple, rounded look of the characters recalls Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts,” a resemblance heightened by the use of children’s voices; the viewer expects one of the kids to holler, “You’re greedy, Charlie Brown!”

If “Jeremy Creek” feels trite, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (at 8:30 p.m.) represents the sort of thinly veiled pandering that American children are more likely to associate with Christmas than figgy pudding. The program has already provoked complaints from watchdog groups because the characters are based on a line of toys and license products that Kmart is hawking for the holidays.

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Even small children will have trouble accepting Glenn Leopold’s script (based on a story by Romeo Muller), which has nothing to do with the real origins of the popular carol or Epiphany. Sir Carolboomer wants to wed the dreary Princess Silverbelle, so he sends his squire, Hollyberry, to steal her Christmas list. When Hollyberry swipes the answers to a crossword puzzle by mistake, Carolboomer makes him take the Princess all those partridges, pear trees, French hens, etc. Because his struggles with the gifts make her laugh, Silverbelle decides to marry Hollyberry, and things end happily, if sappily.

The animation is on par with the cheesier Saturday morning shows, and the vocal cast overplays every line until a ham in pear tree begins to seem more appropriate. The designs of the bear-like characters are obviously modeled after toys: The aggressive cutesiness of their outsized heads and skinny bodies typify the work of Those Characters From Cleveland, who created the Princess Merrybell and Squire Very Merry products at Kmart.

During the holiday season, the people responsible for presenting such a shameless infomercial under the guise of children’s entertainment should recall the fate of Dickens’ Jacob Marley, whose spirit was condemned to wander the Earth in chains for putting profits ahead of humanity.