Olive, the Other Reindeer (TV Movie 1999)

Olive, the Other Reindeer: Directed by Steve Moore. With Drew Barrymore, Dan Castellaneta, Joe Pantoliano, Edward Asner. When Santa cancels his annual flight because of a hurt reindeer, a young Christmas loving dog named Olive is convinced she has what it takes to get Santa’s flight off the ground and save Christmas.

“Olive is an ambitious little dog who hears that one of Santau0026#39;s reindeer has been injured and may not be able to pull the sleigh. Olive sets out to set into the place of the reindeer, making a few friends along the way. Meanwhile a bitter mailman sets out to ruin Christmas for all concerned.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI caught this early on Christmas Day buried in the middle of every channel trying to put up some feel good programmes and films about Santa and reindeers – mostly animations. This one struck me because how different the animation was – a little weird and off-kilter to be just another banged out Christmas animation. Then I noticed it was produced by Matt Groening – he of Simpsons and Futurama fame. I had hoped that this would be as sharp as some of the better episodes of those series but it didnu0026#39;t quite make it.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eGenerally it was amusing and it did have a few characters that were sharp and delivered one liners and I suppose the whole set up is inventive enough and different enough to stand out from the crowd of feel good animations on this morning. But it wasnu0026#39;t in the same league as Groeningu0026#39;s Simpsons episodes. However the humour is sufficient to make it stand out and the voice work helps a lot.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBarrymore brings a relentless cheerfulness to Olive and the various side kicks help. Pantoliano is the best voice as the penguin Martini while others include Jay Mohr, Castellaneta, Stipe and MacNicol. Itu0026#39;s not star studded which is good as that can often replace a quality product, but the cast are all good enough to deliver on the storyu0026#39;s potential.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOverall this canu0026#39;t hold a candle to much of Groeningu0026#39;s other work but as a competitor for your attentions amongst a host of other festive cartoons then this should easily beat many of the other stocking fillers that the networks serve up to fill the day.”