Now that Thanksgiving has passed, it's time for the various networks to start rolling out their libraries of holiday specials to get people into the winter mood. While you'll no doubt see classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a brand-new special hit the airwaves last night. Dreamworks' Trolls Holiday, based on its popular Trolls film, premiered last night on NBC. Despite being the new kid on the block, the Trolls special did extremely well in the ratings, drawing in over 5 million viewers.
First hitting theaters in 2016, the Trolls returned the other night with an all-new 30-minute holiday special. According to TVLine, Trolls Holiday was the leader of the Friday holiday pack. The special scored a 1.4 demo rating with 5.2 million viewers tuning in to watch the colorful characters. Not only that, but the Trolls special was No.1 in a few other key ways. It was NBC's best performing non-Olympics Friday at the 8:30 slot since 2015. It was also this TV season's best Kids 2-11 rating among the Big 4 primetime programs.
Impressively, Trolls Holiday outperformed serious heavyweight Christmas specials. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas opened the night for NBC, placing second with 1.3 rating and 5.7 million viewers. CBS was also having a holiday-themed night but didn't manage to score as high as NBC. Frosty the Snowman did 4 million viewers while the following Frosty Returns' bagged 3 million. Over on ABC, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town drew 3.4 million.
Based on the animated film Trolls, which debuted in 2016, the 30-minute special featured the voice talents of all of the main cast of the original movie, which included Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, and Zooey Deschanel. The holiday special followed the Troll Queen Poppy (Kendrick) and her friends as they tried to create a holiday for their less peppy neighbors, the Bergens. Dreamworks' Trolls Holiday continues the studio's tradition of turning its hit films into smaller TV specials. Trolls join the ranks of Shrek and Kung-Fu Panda in this regard.
To get an idea of what kids were watching last night, here are the first four minutes of Trolls Holiday, which doesn't contain any of the new songs from the special, but has lots of arts and crafts.
If you missed Trolls Holiday, it will almost undoubtedly play a few more times before December is finished. For more TV updates, be sure to keep it right here at CinemaBlend. Stay up to date on everything that's on TV with our midseason premiere and cancellation guides.
