Trivia / The Christmas Tree

For the game:

• Creator's Apathy: The Recruitment Campaign buyable does not work, which the developer is aware of but the game is balanced around that fact and they are not willing to touch the code again.

For the animated special:

• Amateur Cast: The majority of the credited cast and crew have no known film or television careers outside of this special.^note The lone exception is the film's director, Flamarion Ferreira, who's worked on shows like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), The Smurfs (1981), Tiny Toon Adventures, and Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero as a background painter and storyboard artist. This goes a long way towards explaining the sheer ineptitude of the acting and animation.
• Blooper: There's snow on the ground on Christmas Eve, but one shot of the mayor in his car during the climax inexplicably has no snow to be found. Also, when the kids react to Mrs. Mavilda trying to cut down Mrs. Hopewell, Lily is with them despite going missing at the North Pole.
• Children Voicing Children: A good example of how this can backfire. The child characters seem to be voiced by actual five- and six-year-old kids who are given little to no voice direction. The result is a lot of mumbling, slurring, and bad acting. Bizarrely averted with one child who is clearly voiced by someone much older and sounds entirely out of place from the rest of the kids. Another one has an oddly distorted voice, possibly indicating that child was also voiced by someone older, and the voice pitched up to try and hide this.
• Colbert Bump:
  • This special was virtually unheard of until the Nostalgia Critic reviewed it, although it was ranked as #12 in "Familiar Faces #72: The Next 12 Forgotten Christmas Specials".
  • It was further bumped after RedLetterMedia reviewed it on a Christmas edition of Best of the Worst.
  • It's gotten even more notice since Phelous reviewed it too.
  • Saberspark and PeanutButterGamer both also took a crack at it.
• Creator Backlash:
  • The USA Network only aired this special once in 1991 and have since acted like it never existed.
  • Flamarion himself hasn't even bothered posting the special online, let alone claim copyright on a number of bootlegs on YouTube.
• Creator Killer: While his animation career was left unscathed, Flamarion's attempt to start his own independent studio was permanently dashed after this special's failure.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Bob, one of the orphan boys, is voiced by a woman.

• One-Book Author: This special marks Flamarion Ferreira's only directing role; since then he's continued to work as an animator on other projects.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • The actresses playing Judy and Lily are mother and daughter in real life.
  • The voices of Bob and Pappy are a son and mother in real life.
• Reclusive Artist: Trying to find any contact information^note or any general information at all for that matter for anyone involved with the special is next to impossible. Flamarion does have a Facebook account, but it hasn't been updated since April 2017.

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