Nickelodeon Announces Prime-Time Holiday Special

The cast is pretty excellent.

Nickelodeon has released a new trailer for an upcoming animated holiday special entitled Albert. The one-hour CG animated feature film will premiere on December 9th @ 7 pm ET/PT.

Albert is the story of a tiny Douglas fir tree named Albert who has big dreams of becoming Empire City’s most famous Christmas tree. When the search for this year’s tree is announced, Albert believes he has found his calling and hits the road with his two best friends, Maisie (Zamata), the persistently positive palm tree, and Gene (Friedlander) the abrasive and blisteringly honest weed, to fulfill his destiny. With a few prickly situations along the way, and Cactus Pete (Riggle) out to stop him, Albert learns the true meaning of Christmas. The hour-long TV movie will also feature two original songs, “The Best Thing That Can Happen to Christmas” and “Christmasiest Christmas,” performed by the voice cast.”

Additional cast members include the voices of: Cheri Oteri (Saturday Night Live) as a TV news correspondent; Brenna Yde (School of Rock) as Molly, Earth Mama’s granddaughter; John DiMaggio (Adventure Time) as Donny, Molly’s father; and Mary Pat Gleason (Mom) as Earth Mama, the owner and caretaker of the nursery. Albert is directed by Oscar®-nominated Max Lang (The Gruffalo), executive produced by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi (The Adventures of Pete & Pete), and written by Will and Aaron Eisenberg (The Massively Mixed-Up Middle School Mystery) and Joe Stillman (Shrek). The Eisenbergs are also co-executive producers, and Viscardi serves as Nickelodeon’s SVP, Content Development, Nickelodeon Franchise Properties.

Our Take

It’s been a while since we’ve seen prime-time animation from Nick, so hopefully this is the start of something that can continue to happen in 2017.