''Nilus the Sandman: The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas'' (also known simply as ''The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas'') is a Canadian part-

animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

and part-

live-action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games or ...

Christmas television special which was originally broadcast on December 1, 1991 on CTV. In the United States, it was first broadcast on

The Disney Channel Disney Channel is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company. Launched on April 18, 1983, under the na ...

on December 10, 1991. It was followed by two more ''Nilus the Sandman'' TV specials which premiered in 1994 and 1995, and then a ''Nilus the Sandman'' TV series airing from 1996 to 1998. Most of the film is animated (the dream scenes), but the beginning and ending scenes (the awake scenes) are in live action.

Plot

On Christmas Eve, a computer-savvy boy named Peter Fletcher has several items on his Christmas list and wonders if

Santa Claus Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Chris ...

will be able to give him all the things he wants. Peter falls asleep and while he is dreaming he meets

Nilus the Sandman ''Nilus the Sandman'' is a Canadian part-animated and part-live-action television series that originally aired on The Family Channel from 5 October 1996 to 25 October 1998. The series was preceded by three ''Nilus the Sandman'' television spe ...

who takes him on a magical flight in Peter's shoe to the North Pole to visit Santa at his workshop. When they arrive, they find that the workshop is dark and without activity, and that Santa and a few of his elves are sitting around and looking depressed. Peter and Nilus discover that Santa has been forced out of work by a robotic clown called the Toymaster whom Santa and his elves originally created as a helper so they could mass-produce toys more efficiently to satisfy children's increasing demand for more toys. The Toymaster gives Peter, Nilus, and Santa a tour of his industrialized high-tech toy factory located underneath Santa's workshop. They see that the Toymaster forces the elves to work to exhaustion amongst a web of assembly lines and conveyor belts controlled by computers, and that the sleigh and reindeer have been replaced by a delivery rocket-plane. After the tour, Peter and Nilus express concern that this situation lacks the true "feeling" and "spirit" of Christmas. Santa laments that children now want far more toys than in the past, and that he and his elves could not satisfy that increased demand. Peter comes up with the idea of only producing and delivering the top one or two items in each child's list, since children only remember their most special gifts. Since there would be far fewer gifts to make and deliver, Santa could accomplish the task with his elves and reindeer. The group then ponders what to do about the Toymaster. Peter abruptly goes back to the Toymaster's factory with Nilus following close behind. Peter explains to Nilus that during the tour he was able to

hack Hack may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Hack (Unix video game), ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game * .hack (video game series), ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia fran ...

into the Toymaster's computer network, which contains children's gift list information. Peter plans to use the Toymaster's computer terminal to access the gift lists and delete all but the top one or two gifts in each list in order to enable Santa and his helpers to once again make and deliver gifts. He begins by deleting items from his own list, and with each deletion a conveyor belt or other piece of factory hardware disappears, along with any gifts that are on it. He deletes all but his top item, a bicycle, at which point he stops to admire the bike as it comes down a conveyor belt. He comes back to his senses and returns to the computer terminal to finish reducing other children's lists by overriding the system with a single keystroke. However, clicking the key has no effect, and Peter discovers that the Toymaster unplugged the terminal just before Peter clicked the key. The Toymaster grabs Peter and Nilus, puts them on Peter's bike, and pushes them out of the control center. They speed down a path toward a fork in the road, at which point Peter decides to sacrifice his beloved bike for the sake of saving Christmas. Peter steers the bike away from the exit and towards the moving gears of the factory's control clock. Peter and Nilus jump off the bike, which then crashes into the gears, jamming them. This causes the factory to explode, destroying the Toymaster and all the gifts. When the smoke clears, Peter finds that he is outside in the snow. Nilus calls him over to Santa's workshop where he sees that Santa and his elves are busy making gifts. The whole group celebrates, and Peter and Nilus get to ride along with Santa in his sleigh as he takes off on his delivery mission. Peter wakes up on Christmas Day to find gifts under the tree and in his stocking. Peter empties his stocking and finds a toy train engine (which, in Peter's dream, Santa had mentioned was his favorite toy to make). It comes with a note from Santa apologizing for the loss of Peter's bike and hoping that he enjoys the toy locomotive. Peter then declares that "this really is a merry Christmas".

Cast

Long John Baldry John William "Long John" Baldry (12 January 1941 – 21 July 2005) was an English musician and actor. In the 1960s, he was one of the first British vocalists to sing the blues in clubs and shared the stage with many British musicians including ...

Zachary Bennett Zachary Bennett is a Canadian actor and musician.Rita Zekas, "It was good to be King; Road To Avonlea prankster now an object of Desire". ''Toronto Star'', February 6, 2002. Early life He was born in London, Ontario. He is the second youngest of ...

as Peter Fletcher * Frank Mackay as

* Michael Fawkes as The Toymaster and Newscaster * Larysa Fenyn as Mrs. Fletcher * Elizabeth Rukavina as Mrs. Fletcher (voice) * Chris Delaney as Mr. Fletcher * Murray Cruchley as Mr. Fletcher (voice)

Home media releases

''The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas'' was released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

tape on August 15, 1992 in

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

format, and on January 1, 2002 in

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

format. The special was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

in late 2005 in Region 2 as a

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

newspaper promo.

Sequels and spin-off TV series

''The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas'' was followed by two more ''Nilus the Sandman'' television specials which also premiered on CTV: * ''Nilus the Sandman: Monsters in the Closet'' is a Halloween special that premiered on October 27, 1994. * ''Nilus the Sandman: The First Day'' is a back-to-school special that premiered on September 3, 1995. These specials were followed by a ''Nilus the Sandman'' TV series, which aired on The Family Channel from October 5, 1996 to November 23, 1998, with a total of 26 episodes over two seasons.

Award nomination

''The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas'' was nominated for a

Gemini Award The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's English-language television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in t ...

in the category of "Best Animated Program or Series" in 1993.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nilus the Sandman 1: The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas 1991 television films 1991 films 1991 television specials 1990s animated television specials Canadian animated television films Canadian Christmas films 1990s Canadian television specials Christmas television films Christmas television specials English-language Canadian films Films set in the Arctic Short films with live action and animation Santa Claus in film Santa Claus in television Sandman in television Television shows about dreams 1990s Canadian animated films CTV Television Network original films 1991 animated short films