LDGi Santa, Baby! 2001 TV-G

Produced by Jules Bass - Arthur Rankin Jr.
Noel Royce (GREGORY HINES), a onetime successful songwriter, becomes a sidewalk Santa in the hope of breaking his writer's block. With the help of a wisecracking Christmas partridge named Melody (PATTI LABELLE), his wife Alicia (VANESSA WILLIAMS), and a hep cat named Emerald (EARTHA KITT), Noel discovers the very soul of Christmas. By the story's end, an entire community is transformed and a struggling animal shelter gets a second chance.
Songwriter Noel is struggling to write a hit song, and so he takes his frustrations out on his family. His daughter Dakota is granted one wish for doing a good deed and she wishes that her daddy will write a hit song. There is a sub-plot about kindness to animals that has almost nothing to do with the main story.