The Nelvana Holiday Specials: Intergalactic Thanksgiving

Nelvana premiered this feature in 1979, however the title shown onscreen was not actually Intergalactic Thanksgiving, but Don't Eat the Planet: reflecting more on the actual plot of the special. I assume this special is more known Intergalactic Thanksgiving as to have it fit in with Nelvana's more holiday-themed specials of this time period. But let's talk about the plot itself.

As one can infer, this is another science-fiction themed special. However, instead of taking place on Earth with aliens landing: this special takes place in space itself and all the characters are technically aliens (albeit some of them are humans). Anyways, we begin as we see a wagon train of Space Farmers roaming the galaxy including our family of interest the Spademinders, which consists of serious parental figures Paw and Maw, teenage daughter Victoria and dog Cromwell. The Spademinders end up crashing their ship into the planet Laffalot, where everyone pranks each other and the funniest person is declared king. The Spademinders end up setting up their farm on the planet. Victoria ends up developing a relationship with the Prince, Not Funny Enough (I am not kidding that is actually his name), while the Spademinders hard-working and straight-laced nature makes them hilarious in the eyes of the citizens. We also find out that food is mined from the planet and the people on the planet are too obsessed with having fun to prank each other. As the King finds out that his citizens will displace him as King with the Spademinders, the king goes into a rage and confronts the serious folk. However during this, the two teenagers and Cromwell fall into the inside of the planet. There they find how the planet is being overmined and is falling apart and an army of four-armed bugs are attempting to build it back up (hence the Don't Eat the Planet title). The King is upset at the lost of his child and ends up crying which brings tears to the other citizens. Unknowing to them, the planet is actually really fertile and giant crops grow everywhere with the kids clinging to the roots. So to celebrate they have a large feast and everyone ends up with a happy ending.

I really don't care for this special very much. The animation is nice, much smother than A Cosmic Christmas. But the pacing is too quick, I really wish we had more development with the characters. Like how I wish the relationship between Victoria and Not Very Funny was looked at more and was a bigger focus for the story. I also feel like this special has very little to do with Thanksgiving, I could see some comparisons between this and the actual events like the Spademinders being the Pilgrims and the people of Laffalot being the Native Americans, but this special is more of an original story. Overall compared to A Cosmic Christmas and The Devil and Daniel Mouse, I found this special to be disappointing in comparison.

Next time we'll be looking the robot love story, Romie-0 and Julie-8.