Was ‘Olaf’s Frozen Adventure’ Really That Bad?

In a rare misstep for Disney and Pixar, the Frozen-themed short that played in front of  the Día de los Muertos epic Coco, was savaged by virtually anybody who saw it.  Olaf’s Frozen Adventure featured Frozen‘s mentally-challenged snowman trying to collect all of Arendelle’s Christmas traditions for Elsa and Anna when he discovers that they have none of their own.  Things go predictably wrong, as his peregrination results in being chased by wolves and getting lost in the woods , before going just as predictably right.  The sisters gather the townsfolk to look for him and have an impromptu Christmas party in the woods where they find him.

Also, there’s fruitcake.  Nobody asked for it, but there’s fruitcake (same as the Hadsell family Christmas).

Don’t get me wrong, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is not good.  At 22 minutes, it is a chore to get through.  Like every other Disney side character spin-off, there’s very little for the title character to actually do.  He sings, he dances, he gets into wAcKy hijinks.  There’s a touching bit about family thrown in and then it thankfully, finally, mercifully ends.

It’s bad, but is it really all that bad?  Is it bad enough that everybody and their grandmother felt the need to take it down another peg?  Was it bad enough that Disney made the executive decision to pull it from theaters?  Was it really any worse than most other “filler” (ie, non-Pixar) animated shorts that run in front of these kind of movies?

As it stands, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is overly long, overly silly and more than a little boring.  It’s fine for younger kids or for kids-at-heart who still can’t get enough of Frozen four years after the fact.  It was harmless enough fun that served as a well-meaning addition to what is probably the best animated movie of the year.

If you didn’t get to see it while it still ran in front of Coco, of if you’re strapped for something Christmassy to watch with the kids, the short will appear on ABC’s 25 Days of Christmas celebration on Thursday, the 14^th.  At 22 minutes, it will perfectly fit into the network’s half hour time slots and, for all the rest of its faults, does fit into a long tradition of harmlessly fun Christmas specials.  Especially if you’re entertaining little ones come next week, it might just be worth a second look.