December 24, 2009

Prep and Landing: A Preparation for Santa

On this eve before Christmas we here at GDP would like to do a quick (mini) Pinvestigation on a recently released Walt Disney Animation Studios television special: Disney’s Prep & Landing.

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Prep and Landing was originally pitched by director Chris Williams as a short film for the newly re-opened shorts program at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Liking the idea, John Lasseter considered it to work best as a television special and approved the project.

Following Williams directorial debut on the short film Glago's Guest, he was moved on to co-direct the feature film Bolt. The special continued production under directors Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton control.

Check out the Official Trailer from Walt Disney Studios:

The original premiere date was scheduled for December 1; however, a speech at the United States Military Academy by President Barack Obama delayed the special's debut one week to December 8, 2009.

A summary of Prep and Landing is:

Wayne is part of an elite organization known as "Prep & Landing" whose job is to get in, get out and ready Santa Claus's visit to millions of houses. After a long times work with "Prep & Landing" (227 years), Wayne looks forward to getting a promotion and begin leaving "Prep & Landing" behind him, though Magee (the North Pole Christmas Eve Command Center Coordinator), informs him the next year that his former partner got the promotion, not him. Wayne is introduced to Lanny, a rookie in "Prep & Landing" to train as his new partner. Lanny looks up to Wayne, and the two head off on their mission to prep a house in the suburbs. Lanny goes up and checks on the sleeping humans while Wayne decides to slack (still being bitter about the promotion), eating a stale Christmas cookie and milk. While Lanny works on the tree, a boy named Timmy catches Wayne and snaps photos of him, proving his existence. Lanny quickly arrives at the scene and using a pixie dust grenade to put Timmy back to sleep in his bed, and deletes the photos on his camera. Santa leaves the north pole on his flight, but after Magee finds out that there is a massive snow storm and that Wayne and Lanny haven't finished their work at Timmy's house yet, Magee calls Santa to tell him "Figgy Pudding"- the code word for canceling a landing at a house (which has never happened before), and the two promise to make it up for Timmy. Wayne and Lanny find out the re-routing was a final decision, but after hearing Timmy thank Wayne in his sleep, Wayne decides to fix it and he calls up Santa having Magee patch through, and tells Santa that he must land at Timmy's house because Timmy is counting on him. Wayne and Lanny then work together to land Santa safely on Timmy's roof. On Christmas morning, Santa talks to Wayne in his office, shows him (through a magic snow globe) that Timmy had a merry Christmas and offers a promotion to Wayne, but he turns it down so he can work with Lanny.

Here are a few still shots from the television special.prep_landing  sneakpeek01 sneakpeek02

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And the few pins released for this special by DisneyShopping.com…pin74325 pin74326

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Pictures from Wikipedia and Walt Disney Animation Studios

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