How Did This Get Made?

The Christmas Tree (1991)

November 28, 2025

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • The 1991 animated feature, *The Christmas Tree*, despite being only 43 minutes long, felt "interminably long" to the hosts due to its bizarre pacing and narrative structure. 
  • The central conflict revolves around the orphans' intense emotional reliance on a tree named Mrs. Hopewell, while the villain, Mrs. Mavilda, is revealed to be a gambling addict who intentionally loses the orphanage's funds. 
  • The animation quality of *The Christmas Tree* is shockingly poor for 1991, resembling 1970s or 1980s production standards, and features jarring stylistic shifts, such as the introduction of a completely different-looking Santa Claus. 
  • The editing of *The Christmas Tree (1991)* is bizarre, featuring rushed sections followed by overly long, unnecessary scenes, such as the Mayor's drawn-out dialogue about having money left for presents. 
  • Judy's fatal flaw is her underreaction and willingness to turn a blind eye to Mrs. Mavilda's crimes, failing to restore justice, while Mrs. Mavilda shows no remorse, suggesting the lightning strike did not cause a true change of heart. 
  • The consensus is that *The Christmas Tree (1991)* lacks a coherent Christmas moral, and the hosts actively look forward to forgetting the disturbing experience, with one reviewer suggesting the film's bleakness foreshadows Lily becoming a bitter adult like Mrs. Mavilda. 

Segments

Opening Narration and Pacing
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(00:05:44)
  • Key Takeaway: The opening narration of The Christmas Tree rushes through critical plot points, such as Mrs. Mavilda’s deception regarding the children’s clothing, indicating a need to quickly fill narrative space.
  • Summary: The narrator reads exposition about Mrs. Mavilda dressing up one child for the Mayor’s visit and immediately hiding the clothes afterward at a very fast pace. This rapid delivery contrasts sharply with the slow, eternal feeling of the film’s runtime. The animation quality is immediately apparent as cheap, with redacted-looking text in the opening book sequence.
Orphan Attachment to Tree
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(00:08:05)
  • Key Takeaway: The orphans place an extreme, unhealthy level of companionship and emotional reliance on the tree, Mrs. Hopewell, treating it as their only source of connection.
  • Summary: The children view the tree as their only friend, describing its branches as arms that wrap around them. This intense focus on the tree overshadows the fact that the children have each other for solace. The threat of the chainsaw attacking the tree is treated with more immediate concern than the simultaneous disappearance of a child.
Mrs. Mavilda’s Gambling Addiction
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(00:10:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Mrs. Mavilda’s primary use for the donated cash is funding her gambling habit, suggesting her motivation is thrill-seeking rather than accumulating personal wealth.
  • Summary: Mrs. Mavilda takes the large cash donations from the Mayor and uses them to bet at card games, often losing the money. The hosts speculate she might even be losing on purpose to avoid the responsibility of caring for the children. Her character name, Mavilda, is noted to potentially mean ’evil and wicked’ in Portuguese.
Contrasting Living Conditions
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(00:12:32)
  • Key Takeaway: Mrs. Mavilda maintains a luxurious personal living space while forcing the orphans to live in ‘abject filth’ with bare wooden floors.
  • Summary: The visual contrast between Mrs. Mavilda’s opulent bedroom and office and the children’s squalid living quarters is striking. This disparity highlights her complete disregard for the orphans’ welfare. The hosts question whether she would run the orphanage at all if she did not have access to the petty cash for her addiction.
The Children’s Ignorance and Santa’s Arrival
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(00:24:11)
  • Key Takeaway: The orphans exhibit a profound lack of basic knowledge, suggesting they are completely isolated, which is highlighted when they react to a bear as if it were just a ‘big dog’ like Licorice.
  • Summary: The children do not seem to know what Santa Claus or Christmas is, implying a severe lack of external education. This ignorance leads them to react calmly to the bear attack, viewing it as another animal encounter. Santa Claus appears at the end with a drastically different animation style, acting as a sudden deus ex machina without explaining how he rescued Lily.
Paul’s Childhood Digression
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(00:30:35)
  • Key Takeaway: Paul Scheer reveals he participated in ‘dry land mushing’ using a specialized sled pulled by hunting dogs (pointers) in Long Island, New York, during his childhood.
  • Summary: Paul described using a non-snow sled with handlebars and wheels attached to dogs for training, which is identified as dry land mushing. He also mentioned cleaning the dog kennels, which housed pointers used for hunting quail. The family raised quail, processed them using a mechanical ‘chicken plucker machine,’ and sold the meat locally, possibly via an honor-system freezer.
The Town’s Priorities and Pappy’s Name
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(00:48:22)
  • Key Takeaway: The entire town prioritizes saving the tree over searching for the missing girl, Lily, who reportedly fell off a cliff, demonstrating bizarre community values.
  • Summary: When the bully, Pappy, announces Lily is gone, the townspeople immediately pivot to saving the tree from the chainsaw, ignoring the missing child. The boy’s name, Pappy, is noted as unusual for a child, sounding more like an elderly nickname. The arrival of the Kindle family suggests they were placed in specific jobs by the Mayor, hinting at a communist or highly controlled community structure.
Mayor’s Bizarre Dialogue
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(00:54:38)
  • Key Takeaway: The Mayor’s dialogue regarding money for clothes and presents features an unnaturally long beat, suggesting poor editing intended to fill time.
  • Summary: The Mayor’s line, “I’ve got enough money here to get the children new clothes… And still some left for their Christmas present,” is delivered with a long, strange pause. This moment feels like the creators had excess footage of the Mayor speaking and padded the runtime unnecessarily. This editing style mirrors overly long scenes in old television shows where plot points have already concluded.
Judy’s Failure and Mavilda’s Remorse
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(00:56:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Judy’s failure to pursue justice against Mrs. Mavilda, who shows no remorse, is a deeply troubling aspect of the narrative in The Christmas Tree (1991).
  • Summary: Mrs. Mavilda does not show a genuine turn toward goodness after the lightning strike, leaving open the possibility that she simply stopped gambling in smaller amounts. Judy’s fatal flaw is her willingness to rescue Mrs. Mavilda instead of restoring justice to the town. The children’s plea to Judy, “Please, children, don’t make it more difficult for me,” highlights her overwhelmed state.
Orphan Agency and Morals
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(00:57:50)
  • Key Takeaway: The orphans lack agency by passively waiting for help, contrasting with stories like The Twits where orphans actively stir up trouble.
  • Summary: The children are criticized for not taking action to improve their situation, instead relying entirely on external figures like Judy or the tree. The intended Christmas moral of the story is unclear, as it is not about believing or the spirit of Christmas. The children’s decision to wish for the tree’s safety instead of material goods is noted as ironic given their deprivation.
Jason’s Mayor Role Comparison
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(01:00:42)
  • Key Takeaway: Jason contrasts his role as the Mayor in The Twits (who focuses on re-election) with the Mayor in The Christmas Tree (1991), whose butt explodes as a consequence.
  • Summary: Jason notes that his character in The Twits does not support the orphanage and is focused on re-election, unlike the Mayor in this special who provides money. The consequence for the Mayor in The Twits is that his butt swells and explodes, requiring subsequent hospital traction and cheek surgery. Jason needed directorial clarification on the nature of the butt injury to inform his vocal performance.
Final Verdict and Forgetting
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(01:03:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts strongly recommend against watching The Christmas Tree (1991) due to its boring, exposition-heavy scenes, despite its short runtime.
  • Summary: The film is described as weirdly long despite being short, with scenes dragging on due to unnecessary exposition. Paul was so disturbed by the film that he texted the team to confirm they were actually watching it. The hosts are eager to forget the movie, though they look forward to discussing Paul’s childhood stories about dryland mushing.
Second Opinions and Cast Facts
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(01:04:03)
  • Key Takeaway: The few existing reviews for The Christmas Tree (1991) are polarized, and the cast largely consists of friends and family of the animation crew, often with only one credit.
  • Summary: One earnest five-star review praised the somber, homey vibe created by the children’s struggling voice acting. The actress playing Lily is the real-life daughter of the actress who played Judy, and the actor playing Pappy is the son of the actor who played Bob. The film has extremely low engagement, with only two reviews found on Amazon.
Holiday Viewing Habits
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(01:09:04)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts’ current family holiday viewing leans toward modern films like Home Alone 2 and Elf, while Paul finds the classic A Christmas Story increasingly irritating.
  • Summary: Jason’s family enjoys Home Alone and Home Alone 2, Elf, and Christmas Vacation. Paul has grown to dislike A Christmas Story, preferring 8-Bit Christmas (which June is in) instead. They note that Lethal Weapon and Die Hard are contenders for their family’s action-oriented holiday watch list.
Live Shows and Promotions
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(01:13:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The How Did This Get Made? holiday livestream is on December 10th, and June’s The Deep Dive Christmas Spectacular streams on December 5th using code HOWDIE for a discount.
  • Summary: The HDTGM live show will feature Paul touring his Christmas village and a discussion on Krampus with Paul’s cousin. The Deep Dive Christmas Spectacular will feature a professor of holiday studies and will offer $5 off tickets using the code HOWDIE. Jason promotes Man on the Inside Season 2 on Netflix and Percy Jackson Season 2 coming soon.