Aaron and Will Eisenberg grew up in Westfield watching Nickelodeon, so to have the opportunity to create this movie for their childhood television station is “pretty surreal.”
Albert: The Little Tree With Big Dreams, is a comedy about a scrawny tree in a garden store who wants to be the Empire City Christmas tree (aka Rockefeller Center tree) and his dream to make that happen. The TV movie will premiere on Nickelodeon USA on Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. ET/PT, and on Nickelodeon channels worldwide soon after. The book is already available in stores and a special signed copy of the book is featured at the Westfield Memorial Library.
L-R: Maisie, Gene, Cactus Pete, and Albert in Nickelodeon’s TV movie, Albert.
“We got a lot of creative freedom and learned that we loved writing for kids,” Will told Patch.com. “We grew up watching Nickelodeon like so many kids. The cool thing is we get to leave an imprint on kids’ memories in a way that writing for adults doesn’t. As a kid I remember shows clearly. I found it very gratifying to do the same.”
The movie is voiced by many big comedy names, including Bobby Moynihan, Sasheer Zamata, Judah Friedlander, Rob Riggle, Cheri Oteri, and Breanna Yde, and even the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, Tom Kenny.
The Eisenberg brothers became very involved with television at a young age.
“We grew up watching Pete and Pete, which was filmed in Cranford and our dad would take us to the set to watch the show get made when we were very little,” Aaron said.
Now the Eisenberg brothers are working with the producers of The Adventures of Pete and Pete - Chris Viscardi and Will McRobb - on this movie.
“What a thrill it was to work with them,” Aaron said. “Everything has come full circle.”
To celebrate the movie, Golden Books also published a hardcover Big Golden Book based on the television movie, titled Albert: The Little Tree with Big Dreams. The book, geared towards kids aged 3-7 (Grade Level: Preschool - 2), is written by authors the Eisenberg brothers, and illustrated by Heather Martinez.
The brothers recently took a mini book tour in Westfield where they visited their former schools and read to students at Wilson Elementary, Tamaques Elementary and McGinn Elemenatry in Scotch Plains.
They also donated a signed copy of the book to the Westfield Memorial Library.
“It was really cool to read to the kids and see them really enjoy the story,” Aaron said.
“I am hoping we inspired at least one of them to keep writing or reading,” Will added.
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Albert: The Little Tree with Big Dreams will air on Nickelodeon on Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. The book is available nationwide at stores such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
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