Release
Care Bears Nutcracker Suite was originally planned for a theatrical release, but premiered on home video and television instead. The special debuted on the U.S. premium cable network, Disney Channel, on December 10, 1988. In Canada, it aired commercial-free on the Global network on December 25, as part of the regular Care Bears series. The special was shown likewise on Malaysia's TV3 in December 1989.
The North American VHS and Beta editions were released in December 1988 by Kids Klassics, a division of GoodTimes Entertainment. This was one of the label's three Christmas titles for that year; the others were Christmas Comes to Pac-Land and A Flintstone Christmas. The film was released on Region 2 DVD in France (on June 2, 2004), with Warner Vision's edition of Les Calinours au pays de casse-noisette. On November 7, 2006, Lions Gate Home Entertainment released the special on DVD for the first time in North America, under the title Care Bears: The Nutcracker.
On its original airing, Associated Press writer Kathryn Baker deemed the Nutcracker special "Strictly for those who prefer jelly beans to Christmas dinner." In 1991, Chris Hicks of Utah's Deseret News gave it 1½ stars out of four, commenting that "Even my young children find this one too saccharine". The special is mentioned in Craig Nelson's Bad TV: The Very Best of the Very Worst, in a section entitled "The Curse of the Top Five Annual Christmas Specials" (along with those based on The Smurfs and The Poky Little Puppy).
Read more about this topic: Care Bears Nutcracker Suite
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“An inquiry about the attitude towards the release of so-called political prisoners. I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The near touch of death may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic will, and release that other flow.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)