A 'Little' Gift? Oh, Macy's, You Shouldn't Have

"When everything seems lost," the announcer says warmly, "all you need is a little spirit." That's if you can't get 700 billion dollars, of course. The announcer turns out to be no herald angel, although he has something to do with Herald Square. He's introducing "Little Spirit: Christmas in New York," a new holiday special that does seem to be in harmony with the true meaning of Christmas (as it has evolved over the years): It's really an hour-long commercial bought and paid for by Macy's department stores.

If all the little and large plugs for Macy's throughout the cartoon aren't enough of a clue, NBC has to come clean in the closing credits: "Program furnished by Macy's Inc." Although Macy's isn't standing in line for one of those generous gigantic corporate bailouts, headlines from the Wall Street Journal tell a sad and now-familiar story that's the equivalent of the world's largest lump of coal in the "world's largest store's" world's largest stocking:

Nov. 6: "Macy's, Inc. Same-Store Sales Down 6.3% in October"

Dec. 4: "Macy's, Inc. Same-Store Sales Down 13.3% in November . . ."

One might think this is all the more reason to thank Macy's for the charitable bequest of a new holiday special, but one should think again, because the special not only isn't very good, it's about as Christmassy as a big fat New York rat. In fact, one unjolly scene from the special finds a lost doggy being chased out of a subway entrance by a pack of those filthy old rodents.

Filthy old pigeons stage an attack in another scene unfortunately faithful to New York at Christmastime, or any time. And though the story is supposedly being babbled by a friendly, jolly cabdriver (voiced by Danny DeVito), it's acknowledged that he has lots of time to tell it because Manhattan traffic is, recession or no recession, unbearably abominable.

But -- back to our story. It seems -- though it just barely even "seems" -- that a little boy named Leo is all frumpy-dumpy because his working mommy and apparently unemployed daddy decided to leave the Midwest and move to New York City, where mom has a new job waiting. No sooner has the family arrived at its Manhattan townhouse (which would probably cost them 5 or 6 million bucks) than Leo's phenomenally ugly dog, Ramona, disappears while chasing one of New York's filthy old Central Park squirrels.

That's the main story, told in flashback by the cabdriver to a different mommy and her little girl. When they first get into the cab, there's a glimpse of the star logo on a Macy's shopping bag; that is only the beginning. All roads, or at least all crosstown streets, lead to Macy's, where runaway Ramona -- who looks like one of those bug-eyed "Gremlins" from the movies of the same name -- knocks over a Christmas tree while chasing what might be a pigeon, a squirrel, a rat or Brian Williams, who, being far too good a sport, provides the voice for a TV newscaster.

The "little spirit" is some sort of Tinkerbell clone that hops out of a gaily decorated tree (not that there's anything wrong with that) inside a magical snow globe so as to bring Leo his own musty version of, yes, A Christmas Miracle. Leo and the fairy pop in and out of such trees throughout the story -- poppity, ploppity, ploop. Won't the kiddies be delighted? Only the most easily delighted kiddies, alas, as the computerized animation in "Little Spirit" isn't very good, with the characters all moving mechanically and looking sorely in need of eyedrops.

Faith Hill trills a ditty or two on the soundtrack, including authentic but contextually incongruous carols "Silent Night" and "I Saw Three Ships." With all respect to Faith and the film's producers, such songs have really nothing to do with boys finding lost dogs, or shopping sprees at Macy's, though to complain about commodification of Christmas at this point would be futile folly indeed.

And though it's a basically laughless and joyless hour, no one should hold "Little Spirit" against Macy's or NBC, as the world would probably be an even sadder and sorrier place without them. If NBC Universal can make a buck selling an hour of prime time to a chain of department stores, let 'em, since bucks are in shockingly short supply at NBC as well as nearly everywhere else, not excluding my wallet.

Sponsors controlled most of the content during television's first decade or two, and commercials were sometimes made so integral to a program that the sly mentions and semi-subliminal spiels were almost indistinguishable from the program. One difference was that at Christmastime, some big companies -- as big as Bell Telephone even! -- would air an hour of big-time holiday entertainment with minimal commercial interruption, a gesture of corporate largess and goodwill toward consumers.

In those days, "Little Spirit" would have been laughed right off the air. Or maybe chased off -- by Santa and his reindeer, not a flock of dirty birds.

Little Spirit: Christmas in New York (one hour) airs tonight at 8 on Channel 4.