TV Review: "Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol" — A Sweet but Slight Revival for Disney’s Elf Duo

It’s been 16 years since Walt Disney Animation Studios introduced the world to Lanny and Wayne, a mismatched pair of top-secret elves in the holiday special Prep & Landing. The concept was so successful that fans begged for more, which led to the follow-up short, Operation: Secret Santa, and a second half-hour special, Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice. The franchise has continued to enjoy repeat airings on ABC, Freeform, and Disney Channel in the intervening years, in addition to streaming on Disney+. The characters have even infiltrated holiday programming in Disney Parks around the world. So now, after more than a decade of reruns, fans are finally getting their holiday wish for more Lanny and Wayne adventures in Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol, this time from Disney Television Animation instead of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

On another mission to prep houses for Santa’s big night, Wayne’s (Dave Foley) Gingerbread Man device enters self-destruct mode, and Lanny (Derek Richardson) helps him avoid catastrophe. Before returning to the North Pole, Wayne asks Lanny to keep the incident a secret, initiating a “snowball protocol” of silence. But that proves problematic when their return is heralded by Magee (Sarah Chalke), who announces that “The Big Guy” (Christopher Swindle) needs to meet with them both… individually!

Rather than a new half-hour adventure, The Snowball Protocol is more like a series of flashback shorts around a meeting with Santa as a framing device. Wayne worries that Lanny has broken protocol because Santa knows that Wayne has kept something from him. Wayne recounts two separate incidents, hoping these could be what Santa is referring to. In one of the stories, Lanny and Wayne find themselves in over their heads when they babysit for Magee’s pet baby seal, Commodore Charles Eggnogginton III, aka Nog. In the second, Wayne tries to get some unscheduled R&R on Yuletide Island by setting Magee up with a spa appointment with an elf she has a crush on, Renato (Manny Jacinto).

While Snowball Protocol is being handled by Disney’s TV Animation division, two of the project's creators are involved as producers and voice directors, Kevin Deters & Stevie Wermers-Skelton. However, for the most part, the production team appears to be primarily comprised of those from the two-season run of Monsters at Work (a Disney TV Animation series inspired by Pixar’s Monsters, Inc.). Stevie Wermers-Skelton served as a director on that series, as did Snowball Protocol’s director Shane Zalvin. Its writer, Hilary Helding, story editor, Colleen Evanson, and even the Vancouver animation studio doing most of the animation, Icon Creative Studio, all share credits on Monsters at Work.

In many ways, the leap from Walt Disney Animation Studios’ specials to this Disney Television Animation revival feels akin to the jump from one of the studio’s classics to the direct-to-video sequels (similarly handled by Disney Television Animation’s Disney Toon Studios). It’s not bad, but there’s a noticeable dip in quality that is hard to ignore. It’s reasonable to presume that Snowball Protocol is intended as the first of a new ongoing tradition of annual Prep & Landing specials, but the world will likely find that they’re more content revisiting the original work year after year than looking forward to something new that feels undercooked.

The animation quality mostly matches the original specials, but where Snowball Protocol particularly feels disconnected is its structure. This time around, there’s no central human child whose Christmas will be affected if Wayne doesn’t do his job right. Neither of the stories within the story has anything to do with saving Christmas either, feeling more like a workplace comedy (ala Monsters at Work) that just happens to take place in the North Pole than anything truly Christmasy. Aside from the introduction, the whole special ops premise of Prep and Landing is more or less abandoned.

The quality of the comedy, for the most part, also feels diminished. The originals had a lot of jokes aimed at adults that were still child-friendly, like elf curse words (“Oh, frostbite!”) and twists on classic carols, like the introduction of Thrasher (“I am a myth”), the reindeer you never heard about. This time around, there are a few chuckles for a co-viewing audience, but the majority of the gags aim exclusively at the youngest audience.

The message of Snowball Protocol is where the special mostly succeeds. Fans of the franchise will recall that the original special centered on Wayne reconnecting with the reason for doing his job by being paired with a new rookie. The second special explained Wayne’s neuroses through a reunion with his estranged brother, Noel. This time around, Wayne has another lesson to learn, this one being about friendship and letting others in. In short, Snowball Protocol has heart, it just lacks some of the substance that built-in fans are likely to expect.

Overall, Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol serves as a reminder of just how perfect the original special was. Rankin-Bass learned this the hard way every time they tried to follow up with more stories about Rudolph or Frosty. More isn’t always the same, and sometimes, all audiences really want is to revisit the classic rather than try something new. The Snowball Protocol definitely lacks the instant-classic feelings of the original Prep & Landing.

I give Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol 3 out of 5 peppermint eye patches.

Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol premieres this Thanksgiving (November 27th) at 7/6c on Disney Channel, and begins streaming on Disney+ the following day. ABC will broadcast all three specials back-to-back on Sunday, November 30th, starting at 8/7c. The new special will also air as part of Freeform’s 25 Days of Christmas on December 13th.