[6.0/10] This is a novelty at best. It’s amusing to see Robert Downey Jr. portray a cartoonish old timey Xmas enthusiast, Leslie Nielsen play a stuffy butler, and Stockard Channing do the world’s least convincing Scandinavian accent this side of the Swedish Chef himself. But once you get past the novelty of it, there’s not any substance there. I’m assuredly asking too much from a twenty-minute Xmas television special from the 1990s, but when your narrator is Kermit the Frog, you expect the extra magic and depth that Jim Henson Productions brings to the table, and it’s just not here. I do like the premise of the special, which I assume is cribbed from the book it’s based on. Having a family of mice travel on a journey via “the perfect tree”, with multiple stops that involve various parties deciding it’s too tall and chopping off the part of the top they don’t need, is clever. I even like the coda, where we see humans, bears, owls, and the mice themselves all united (if separate) in celebrating via the tree, creating a sense of unity despite separation. It’s definitely in the spirit of the season. But this is another T.V. special that feels like it was written on the way to the studio. None of the various segments is funny. Most of them feel like filler (see: the bears dancing and the owls’ weird “Tubular Bells”-esque interlude.) Even the closest thing this special has to a real story -- the butler and the maid falling in love -- feels threadbare. The songs are forgettable, and everything is really repetitive. Maybe it’s meant for a very young audience, but again, when you add muppets, you expect more depth and humor than what’s on display here. That said, the special isn’t without its charm. Downey Jr. gets surprisingly little to do despite playing the title character, but his frantic, jubilant gestures and mood at his party are endearing. Likewise, his butler sparing one of the mice out of inspiration from the maid he’s sweet on is a good character moment. And the mouse kids regaling their mom with tales of their dad’s bravery is sweet. Overall though, this is a forgettable, paper-thin series of random events without much in the way of laughs or creativity. The sheer strangeness of the randomly progressing tale and the celebrities involved remains something of a lure, but that’s about the only thing “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree” has going for it.