I’m not familiar with anyone who watches the Mouseketeer Annette Funicello 1961 Babes in Toyland as a Christmas movie. But it purports to be. This fairy tale about star-crossed lovers Mary Contrary and Tom Piper and the badman, Barnaby, who separates them with murder and worse eventually lands on a Toymaker whose ware will become Xmas gifts. She’s dumb (“I Can’t Do the Sum“) and he’s odd (crossdresses as a gypsy for “Floretta“). They fight monster trees (“Forest of No Return“) and toy versions of each other (“Just a Toy“). So you see, it IS all about the toys (“Workshop Song” with Ed Wynn)!
Tessa Barcelo’s workshopped project Toyland (Live) updates all the feels, so the doomed lovers are toys, but not the Barbie you know (“Good Girl Gone Bad“), nor a boy in a book (“Starcrossed“), but there is a fed up AF elf (“Christmas for Today” BLUE ALERT). Then, the economics of planned obsolescence muddies the waters (“Supply and Demand“). It continues darkly with “Tamogatchi Lullaby” (BLUE ALERT) and “Broken.” Abandonment issues, poor things.