Apple Just Dropped a Christmas Ad With Zero AI – And the Internet Is Cheering

Apple has done the unthinkable this festive season: released a Christmas advert that the internet actually likes. 

Even more shocking? It didn’t use generative AI, uncanny valley creatures, or synthetic snow pulled from a server farm. Instead, the tech giant turned to something far more radical: handcrafted puppets, a real set, and an iPhone 17 Pro.

A Critter Carol, Apple’s two-minute holiday film, follows two hikers wandering through a perfectly storybook forest before one accidentally drops his phone. Cue a band of woodland misfits – raccoon, bear, rabbit, squirrel – who discover the lost device and proceed to film themselves performing an adapted version of Flight of the Conchords’ “Friends.”

For an audience exhausted by AI-everything, the reaction was immediate and euphoric. “This is the most human thing I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you 🥹,” wrote @kvcperkrol. “Another thing Apple could have used ai to make but didn’t 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼,” added @acottstudios.

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In a year when seemingly every brand has zigged into AI-generated advertising, Apple zagged. The company not only resisted generative visuals, but doubled down on craft. The behind-the-scenes film reveals a full forest set built three feet off the ground, puppeteers in blueberry-blue bodysuits, and whiskers that were placed one by one.

Australian director Mark Molloy, who led the project, explains his vision in Apple’s BTS video, “For me it was the story of how one act of kindness can bring people together, lots of different people together,” he says. “And I think, that’s a nice message.”

 

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But he also wanted the production itself to feel human. “I wanted to embrace the tactile nature of puppetry,” Molloy says. “I was really keen to go back to craftsmanship.”

It’s a sentiment echoed throughout the BTS footage. As puppeteer Tim Cherry-Jones puts it, “Puppeteering for me is one of those sort of magical things where you’re seeing something that is inanimate becoming alive and having believable hopes and dreams.”

Inside the Making of the Critters: Whiskers, Raccoons & Blue Bodysuits

If you were imagining a charming woodland scene constructed with CGI, think again. Apple built the entire environment practically – a scaled, textural world where fur, moss, and snow behave exactly as they would in the real world (minus the raccoons complaining about the camera).

“These animals, take control, they take the iPhone 17 Pro and they go and tell a story with it,” Molloy says in one of the film’s lighter moments.

Some puppeteers operated glove-sized critters from below the set; others donned full-body suits and moved larger characters like lumbering bears and perpetually stressed raccoons. One of them jokes in the footage: “Be a puppeteer, they said. See the world, they said. See the underneath.”

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Every creature was designed to feel slightly imperfect. As creature designer Andy Kelly says, “It’s tough to live in a forest. Look, I don’t wanna live in a forest full time. So, all the animals had to have a little bit of a like a, they’ve been through life.”

This subtle wear-and-tear is a quiet rebellion against AI’s glossy, too-perfect edge.

Shot Entirely on iPhone 17 Pro – But Not in the Way You Think

Apple’s beloved “Shot on iPhone” campaigns have always showcased what consumers can do with their phones – but A Critter Carol shifts the narrative from cinematic flex to emotional storytelling.

Joost van Gelder, one of the cinematographers, praised the iPhone 17 Pro’s naturalistic zoom.
“Zoom can be a very stylized tool,” he says. “You can use it to get to a close up quickly. I think it looks quite good.”

Molloy adds, “The power of the iPhone 17 Pro allowed me to capture the story in a really immersive way. That power is in all of our hands now.” And it’s true – anyone could technically shoot this commercial on an iPhone, as van Gelder notes, “You know, anyone could shoot this commercial on an iPhone.”

The Internet’s Emotional Support Christmas Ad

In a season dominated by AI-driven adverts with Coca-Cola’s fully AI-generated holiday commercial being the most controversial example – Apple’s film stands out precisely because it isn’t perfect. Puppets wobble. Fur ripples. The raccoon groans theatrically. The animals squabble like coworkers forced into Secret Santa.

“This is what you call creative work 👏 compared to Coca-Cola AI generated crap,” wrote @cje_w. 

“Thank god actually not another AI video,” added @keji.so.

Even Flight of the Conchords fans resurfaced in the comments. “Did not expect this song to make a come back 😂🔥🔥🔥” – @jonas.arthur.music

The applause is especially notable considering Apple’s advertising misstep in 2024, when it released the now-infamous “Crush” iPad ad – a hydraulic press flattening musical instruments, art supplies, and books. As one critic observed at the time, “Ah, Apple providing the perfect metaphor for what’s happening to the creative arts & humanities, and then mistakenly thinking it’s a good look for an advert.”

A Critter Carol is the opposite: a love letter to creativity, craft, and collaboration.

As Cherry-Jones says in the BTS film: “This project really is absolutely on theme that there is a way forward. We can actually seek out what we have in common.” Even if, as he adds humorously, “I’m not saying that the raccoon can lay down with the rat. I don’t know if that’s biologically appropriate.”

Friendship Is a Gift

Apple signs off with a simple reminder,  “This holiday, remember that friendship is a gift.”

And whether you view this as wholesome sentiment or carefully calibrated branding, there’s no denying that A Critter Carol landed at exactly the right moment: a time when audiences are craving something real, imperfect, tactile – and refreshingly un-AI.

Watch Apple’s 2025 Holiday Advert – A Critter Carol: