Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh

DVD cover
Genre	Christmas comedy
Created by	Dan Schneider
Written by	Dan Schneider Steven Molaro
Directed by	Michael Grossman
Starring	Drake Bell Josh Peck Miranda Cosgrove Bailee Madison David Pressman Kimbo Slice Jacob Hopes Henry Winkler Jerry Trainor Yvette Nicole Brown Nancy Sullivan Jonathan Goldstein
Theme music composer	Backhouse Mike
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Scott McAboy Amy Sydorick Drake Bell
Running time	94 minutes
Production company(s)	Schneider's Bakery Nickelodeon Productions
Distributor	Nickelodeon Original Movies
Release
Original network	Nickelodeon
Original release	December 5, 2008 (2008-12-05)
Chronology
Preceded by	Drake & Josh Drake & Josh Go Hollywood
Website	www.nick.com/merry

Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh (also known as Drake & Josh: Best Christmas Ever) is a television movie based on the Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh.^[1] Drake Bell, Josh Peck, Miranda Cosgrove, Nancy Sullivan, and Jonathan Goldstein reappear as their respective characters, with several recurring characters from the TV series also reappearing. The film was shot in July 2008.

The film premiered on December 5, 2008,^[2] as a Nickelodeon Original Movie. It was the third most viewed TV movie on cable behind High School Musical 2 and Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, both owned by Disney Channel.

The film premiered 15 months after the end of the original Drake & Josh series.

Plot

The film starts off with Walter (Jonathan Goldstein) and Audrey (Nancy Sullivan) leaving for a tropical vacation. Drake (Drake Bell) and Megan (Miranda Cosgrove) come home and Josh (Josh Peck) shows them his snowman air balloon decoration, which Megan sabotages. Drake tells Josh that he will be throwing a Christmas party on the roof of the Premiere, which Josh is unsure of but Helen (Yvette Nicole Brown) approves.

Helen hands Drake a Santa costume to wear in the mall, replacing Josh; Drake makes out with a teenage girl, but an annoyed Josh yells "Santa!" to separate them. While hiding from a woman looking to kiss him, Drake meets a little girl named Mary Alice (Bailee Madison). who says she and her family want the best Christmas ever. He makes an unbreakable Christmas promise that he will make it so.

At the party, Crazy Steve (Jerry Trainor) shows Drake and Josh his favored wood chipper called "Sally" on his cell phone. Craig (Alec Medlock) and Eric (Scott Halberstadt) suggest Drake perform a song in the Christmas parade, but Drake explains that he is going to Las Vegas to see a concert. Later on, some party crashers come to the party whom Josh calls the police on, but he falls from the roof, landing in the back of a pickup truck with the police trailing close behind, eventually rolling out only to be arrested. In jail, he meets his prison roommate, Bludge (Kimbo Slice). At first, Bludge tries to beat him up, until Josh entertains Bludge with magic tricks.

Mary Alice brings up a story of how she has a sick foster mom and a busy foster dad. Drake, knowing he must fulfill his promise, attempts to break Josh out to help him, only to be caught immediately after, landing them both in trouble. Drake and Josh are sent to court and Helen acts as their lawyer. She tells Judge Newman (Henry Winkler) that Drake has made a promise to Mary Alice that he would give her the best Christmas ever. The judge says that he will not send them to jail as long as they fulfill that promise.

They meet the cruel and embittered Officer Perry Gilbert (David Pressman), who says that he will take a vote from Mary Alice's family on Christmas asking if they had the best Christmas ever. If any of them says "no", they must go to jail. The duo soon meet Mary Alice's foster family, which include Lily and Violet (Camille and Cosette Goldstein), two frequently feuding twins, Zigfee (David Gore), a foreign boy speaking an unknown language, Trey (Daven Wilson), a know-it-all, and Luke (Devon Graye), Mary Alice's rebellious older brother who refuses to participate with everyone else. They find many possibilities in giving Mary Alice's family the best Christmas ever, but their attempts are foiled by Officer Gilbert. Drake and Josh enlist Megan's help to sabotage Officer Gilbert's doings by bribing her with Trevor's rare Smith Royal oboe; however, upon discovering that it was an empty bribe, she stops helping.

Josh goes to visit Officer Gilbert's mother, who explains that Officer Gilbert hates Christmas because, as a child, Officer Gilbert always wanted a pet chimpanzee for Christmas. One Christmas morning, he found one sitting by the tree in a cage, but when he opened the cage door, it attacked him, causing him to hate Christmas ever since. Drake and Josh realize that since Christmas was ruined for him, he now wants to ruin it for everyone else.

Drake and Josh eventually decide to go caroling door to door in an attempt to bring about some old-fashioned holiday cheer; however, nobody in their neighborhood is interested. The group decides to put on a concert, performing a rock rendition of 12 Days of Christmas, which the entire family, even Luke, loves. The group decide to perform their song in the Christmas parade.

At the parade, Officer Gilbert tricks Crazy Steve into loudly reminding the duo in front of Mary Alice that they must go to prison if they do not give them a happy Christmas. Mary Alice and her family believe that they were only being nice to them to avoid punishment and leave, feeling deceived and used.

Despite the family's anger towards them, Drake and Josh both decide to keep their promise regardless. After sending Officer Gilbert a nice chimpanzee as a Christmas present, he begins to love Christmas again. They then try to use Steve's wood chipper to make it snow in front of Mary Alice's house by putting ice in the machine, but it inadvertently shoots large chunks of ice towards the house. After the machine knocks both brothers unconscious, Officer Gilbert brings them home. The next morning, he explains to Mary Alice and her family that Drake and Josh were not actually trying to use them just to stay out of prison.

The brothers enter the living room, where Mary Alice's family surprise them. The vote is called on whether they all had the best Christmas ever, with everyone voting "yes". As they start singing, Josh's former cell mate Bludge breaks down the chimney to deliver gifts to everyone, including a Smith Royal oboe for Megan. Mindy arrives too, wanting to learn everything that happened, and Steve gets "Sally" to make snow by using 7,000 pounds of "hard cheese". Drake and Josh's parents then arrive home from their troubled vacation at their "bungalow", which was blown away earlier in a tropical storm. As everyone plays in the blanket of "cheese snow", everyone truly has the best Christmas ever.

Cast

From the TV show

The show's vast majority of recurring characters returned for the special, all played by their original actors. Crazy Steve takes a more major role in this film, having a larger role in the film than Audrey or Walter.

Movie only

These characters all have a larger role than most characters, second only to Drake, Josh, and Megan.

Music

The opening theme for the movie entitled "Christmas Promise" was composed and performed by Drake & Josh series composer Backhouse Mike. Miranda Cosgrove did a cover of "Christmas Wrapping", and the song became the single of the movie, but no soundtrack was released. The cast featuring Drake Bell, Josh Peck, and the kids do a cover of "12 Days of Christmas" in the movie. Drake Bell made a music video for his cover of "Jingle Bells" which promoted the movie and can be seen on the DVD.

Nielsen ratings

The premiere of Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh had 8.095 million viewers.^[3]

References

External links

• Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh
• IMDB's Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh
• TV.com's Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh
• TV Guide.com's Drake & Josh episode listings