Olaf's Frozen Adventure
Olaf's Frozen Adventure is the Frozen Christmas special. Originally intended to be a television special, it premiered as the pre-film short for Pixar's Coco on November 22nd, 2017 (exactly two years before Frozen II premiered!). Being a pre-show short was controversial, however, since this special runs about 21 and a half minutes as opposed to the typical couple of minutes for a short. It later premiered on television on December 14th, 2017. Unlike the movies, the songs in this special were written by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, the latter of whom is the sister of the movies' co-songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez. The score was done by Christophe Beck, who scored both films, and Jeff Morrow.
Synopsis
We open on a wide shot of Arendelle as the townspeople decorate the city for the holidays. Inside the castle, the staff are being interrupted by Olaf jumping out to surprise them.
Olaf jumps out to surprise Anna, and she and Elsa let us know what Olaf has been surprising people for: they've planned a surprise holiday party for all of Arendelle!
As the townspeople begin to flood into the courtyard, the song "Ring in the Season" begins and Anna and Elsa express their excitement for the party and the start of the holiday season, the first one they've spent together since they were children.
In the last verse of the song, Kristoff brings the Yule Bell into the courtyard, the ringing of which signals the start of the holidays in Arendelle. Anna, Elsa, and Olaf ring the bell, and the crowd cheers!
Olaf turns around to surprise everyone, but they're leaving! Anna and Elsa ask a few of them where they're going, and everyone's going home for their family traditions.
Kristoff then shares a troll tradition, "The Ballad of Flemmingrad".
Anna can't remember if they have any family traditions, and in a reprise of "Ring in the Season", Elsa tells her that they only had the ringing of the Yule Bell before blaming herself for them not having any and leaving the room.
Olaf makes a plan with Sven to visit every house in the kingdom and ask them about their family traditions so they can bring them back to Anna and Elsa.
At the first house, Olaf is given a candy cane, and when told to eat it because it's that time of year! During "That Time of Year" Olaf and Sven execute their plan, visiting the whole kindgom and collecting traditions in Kristoff's sled.
At Oaken's, Olaf uses the sauna and afterwards Oaken gives him a portable sauna to take back to the castle. On the way back, however, one of the coals escapes the sauna. Olaf throws it away, but it bounces back into the sled unnoticed.
A fire starts, causing an axe from a tradition to fall and cut one of Sven's reins, and he quickly loses control of the flaming sled.
Flaming traditions fly out of the sled as it slides backwards out of control, but Olaf is ever the optimist. That is, until, the sled flies off a cliff, hits the other side, and falls into the cavern below before exploding.
Back at the castle, Elsa goes to apoligize to Anna and finds her in the attic going through her childhood trunk looking for traditions. They open Elsa's trunk, and amidst all the gloves they find a wooden box. Elsa tells Anna to open it.
Olaf searches desperately for a surviving tradition, finding only a fruitcake. He decides to take a "shortcut" through the woods, which turns out to be full of wolves. Sven races back to the castle for help.
Sven finds Kristoff in the stables making Flemmy Stew. He tries to express the danger Olaf is in, but Kristoff just isn't understanding. Luckily, Anna and Elsa do, and they organize a search party.
Olaf, meanwhile, is doing his best to outrun the wolves while keeping hold of the fruitcake. He manages to escape them, but a hawk swoops down and plucks the fruitcake from his hand. After a sad reprise of "That Time of Year", he decides not to go back to the castle.
Anna and Elsa gather the people of Arendelle to search for Olaf. The sisters finally find him covered in snow, pretending not to be there. He's still sad about not finding them any traditions, but they have a surprise for him.
Anna pulls out the box from Elsa's trunk and opens it. It's filled with drawings and dolls of him! Every Christmas while they were growing up, Anna would make something for Elsa of the snowman they built together. Olaf was their family tradition all along.
In "When We're Together", Anna and Elsa sing of how being with their loved ones during the holidays means more to them than any other gift could, and Elsa builds a giant ice Christmas tree for the whole kingdom to enjoy. The finishing touch is, of course, the Olaf star on the top.
We end with a Christmas miracle: the hawk returns the fruitcake!
