Fresh off an exciting win against Kansas City, NFL Eagles’ Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata announce that they will star in a nine-minute, stop motion animated holiday special, A Philly Special Christmas Special, premiering Thanksgiving night at 8:00 PM EST via the trio’s YouTube page. Created by Philadelphia-based animation studio, unPOP, the special finds Kelce, Jordan and Lane attempting to rally their friends together for a holiday performance and features songs from A Philly Special Christmas Special (Vera Y Records). The Philly Specials have released three singles from the LP including “All I Want for Christmas,” “This Christmas” and “Fairytale of Philadelphia” – a duet between Jason and Travis Kelce on a reimagining of The Pogues’ classic, which has over 2 million streams across platforms and has reached #1 on iTunes. All in all, the nine-minute film took 5,000 hours over five months to complete, included 20 hand-crafted puppets with hand-sewn clothing, and 5,000 individual photographs displayed at 24 frames per second.
“The Philly Specials’ A Philly Special Christmas, which featured Kelce, Jordan Mailata, and Lane Johnson singing holiday classics was such a huge success they decided to release another one this year, and they asked US to create a short film,” says unPOP’s co-founder Peter Heacock. “Of course, we jumped at the chance — there’s no denying that we’re super fans of the team. This was a dream job.”
“When you think of Christmas, you think warmth, vintage, and the classics. Kelce and the gang are putting on a holiday variety show,” explained unPOP co-founder Marie Hart. “It’s a drama about Kelce trying to outperform the album they made last year, but also how they want to win the Super Bowl this year… all while learning about the true meaning of the season.” Fans will see Kelce riding a donkey and singing “Dominick the Donkey” and Mailata shines in “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” In the video, cameos by famous friends and family, including Patti LaBelle and Travis Kelce and iconic Philly references. To record the voiceovers, the players came to the couple’s house in West Mount Airy, as the set for A Philly Special Christmas Special is located inside their unPOP garage studio.
Watch the Trailer for A Philly Special Christmas Special Here.
A Philly Special Christmas Special (Vera Y Records) is available now for vinyl preorder via PhillySpecialChristmas.com and will be available on all digital platforms on December 1st. This year, proceeds from the vinyl sales will benefit Children’s Crisis Treatment Center’s Toy Drive and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Snowflake Station.
Following the runaway success of their debut LP, A Philly Special Christmas, Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, and Jordan Mailata have reunited with producer Charlie Hall and executive producer Connor Barwin (Vera Y Records) to release their second holiday album, A Philly Special Christmas Special. Recorded during the NFL off season and comprised of ten holiday classics and an original tune by Kelce, ‘Santa’s Night,’ A limited-edition LP will be released on red vinyl, a double disc of A Philly Special Christmas Special and 2022’s A Philly Special Christmas will be released on limited edition gold vinyl in addition to the album being released digitally and available on all streaming services.
Recorded and mixed once again by Nick Krill, the trio called upon local musicians including Patti Labelle, Amos Lee, The Hooters’ Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman, DMHotep (Sun Ra Arkestra), Kevin Hanson (The Fractals, Huffamoose), Luke Carlos O’Reilly, Waxahatchee, members of The War on Drugs, Dr. Dog, mewithoutYou, and The Silver Ages Choir amongst others to truly make this a Philly special.
A Philly Special Christmas was released on December 23, 2022 digitally and its limited pressing on vinyl sold out immediately. The record reached four top ten spots on various Billboard Music Charts including #1 on the Compilation Albums Chart. A Philly Special Christmas donated over $1.25M to local charities including Children’s Crisis Treatment Center and fulfilled the wish lists of Philadelphia School District teachers via Donors Choose.
Find A Philly Special Christmas Special Online:
Official: http://phillyspecialchristmas.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aphillyspecialchristmas
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@aphillyspecialchristmas
