Plehal ’04 Christmas special to air on CBS

By Allison Levy , The Dartmouth Staff | 12/9/09 2:01pm

Courtesy Of CBS

Leave it to Ca­sual Thurs­day founder and Keggy the Keg co-cre­ator Chris Ple­hal ’04 to bring an 1897 Christ­mas story to life.

“Yes, Vir­ginia,” 30-minute an­i­mated spe­cial writ­ten by Ple­hal, will air on Fri­day at 8 p.m. on CBS.

The Christ­mas-themed spe­cial is based on the true story of Vir­ginia O’Han­lon, the pre­co­cious eight year old who, in 1897, wrote a let­ter to the ed­i­tor of the New York Sun in­quir­ing if Santa Claus was real. The ed­i­to­r­ial re­sponse, which in­cluded the phrase, “Yes, Vir­ginia, there is a Santa Claus,” in­spired hol­i­day cheer in its read­ers and has since be­come the most reprinted ed­i­to­r­ial in the Eng­lish lan­guage.

The spe­cial, pro­duced by Macy’s, will fea­ture the voices of Jen­nifer Love He­witt and Neil Patrick Har­ris as Vir­ginia’s mother and fa­ther. Al­fred Molina gives voice to Church, the cranky New York Sun ed­i­tor who re­luc­tantly pens the up­lift­ing an­swer to Vir­ginia’s ques­tion.

Va­ri­ety’s Brian Lowry gave “Yes, Vir­ginia” a mixed re­view, say­ing “’Yes, Vir­ginia’ is an odd duck — a half-hour an­i­mated spe­cial that stretches a two-minute story well be­yond its means but still de­liv­ers a mov­ing spirit-of-Christ­mas pay­off in its final mo­ments.”