After creating a mess during their most recent outing, Wayne tells Lanny that he is issuing the Snowball Protocol (i.e. do not mention what happened to anyone). When they return to base, Magee tells the two that Santa wants to see them, concerning the two. Lanny is called in first and leaves, having told Santa something. When Wayne is called in, Santa tells him that Lanny had informed him of some kind of secret. Trying to deter him from learning about their recent mishap, Wayne recalls two previous incidents he and Lanny were involved in.
Four weeks earlier, Magee asks Wayne and Lanny to watch over her pet seal, Nog, while she goes to a meeting for an hour. Wayne and Lanny immediately lose him and chase him throughout the workshop and all over the North Pole before catching him after he devours a cake. Despite Nog vomiting into Wayne's hat, Magee returns from the meeting none the wiser to their misadventure. Back in January, the elves go on vacation to the islands where Wayne insists on relaxing, while Magee wants everyone to follow a heavy vacation schedule. To get him off her back, Wayne sets Magee up with Renato, a message therapist elf who teaches her to relax. Unfortunately, without Magee's guidance, the elves fall into disarray. Wayne owns up to his mistake and gets Magee to come back and help set things right.
When Santa explains that neither of these things were what he was talking about, he reveals that Christmas day also happens to be Wayne's birthday, something that Wayne intentionally overlooks as he doesn't like getting too much attention. Wayne is given a birthday card signed by everyone, except Magee because Lanny forgot to tell her, and he heads to Lanny's house to celebrate.
Cast
Dave Foley as Wayne, a world-weary, but dedicated elf and Lanny's partner.
In a 2011 interview promoting the fourth entry in the series of Christmas specials, Naughty vs. Nice, creators Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton stated that there were plans for a fifth entry in the series, but that they could not reveal any more about the project.[2] The project ultimately never made it to broadcast, and the two were instead assigned to a different Christmas short, Olaf's Frozen Adventure, in 2016; by this point, the two spoke of the series in the past tense.[3]
At the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2024, it was announced that the franchise was revived at Disney Television Animation with a new 22-minute special called Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol, written by Hilary Heldin and directed by Shane Zalvin, while the original franchise creators would serve as executive producers.[4][5][6] It was animated by Canadian animation studio ICON Creative Studio.[1] By September 2025, Dave Foley was cast to reprise his role of Wayne, alongside Sarah Chalke as Magee and Derek Richardson as Lanny, while newcomers include Manny Jacinto as Renato, Dulcé Sloan as Janice, Danny Pudi as Chef Geoff, and Christopher Swindle as Santa Claus.[7] Swindle replaces W. Morgan Sheppard, who voiced Santa Claus in the previous entries but died in 2019.[8]
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