A Christmas Dream
If you thought it was weird for Lady Gaga to do a holiday special with the Muppets, just wait until you hear about this 1984 special. NBC decided to produce a TV movie of A Christmas Dream with two of the biggest stars, Mr. T and Emmanuel Lewis of TV’s hit show Webster. It was an odd mix, and the story gets even weirder when you realize who Mr. T plays.
Lewis plays a young boy named Billy who doesn’t have any Christmas spirit. He meets a street Santa Claus played by, you guessed it, Mr. T who vows to change Billy’s mind and make him believe in the true meaning of Christmas. He takes him around New York to show him all the festive sights, in hopes that he can inspire a bit of that holiday joy in the young boy.
Mr. Santa T (sorry I had to) brings Billy to FAO Schwarz, which should be enough to make any child excited for Christmas, and the two run into magician David Copperfield who gives them a bit of a magic lesson. After that, they head to the legendary Radio City Music Hall, where they listen to Christmas songs performed by Maureen McGovern. It seems like Mr. T’s plan might be working, because the songs inspire Billy to imagine himself as one of the toy soldiers in the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular!
The duo then meet Willie Tyler and his dummy Lester, a famous ventriloquist act from the 1970s, because that totally makes sense for this Christmas movie, right? They also enjoy the music of a choir singing Christmas carols, and Mr. T tells all the children the story of the birth of Jesus. Who better to teach us about the nativity than Mr. T? I pity the fool who don’t know ‘bout the baby in the manger!
Little Billy is finally moved by everything Santa T showed him and finds the Christmas spirit deep down inside him. He realizes the best gift to give on Christmas can’t be bought, and then he’s reunited with his parents. Um, maybe they should be worried about the fact that he was wandering the streets of New York City with a strange man?