Joining the ranks of Frosty, Rankin-Bass' Rudolph and Charlie Brown's lonely Christmas tree is everyone's favorite ogre Shrek.

DreamWorks Animation SKG will be producing an original half-hour holiday special for ABC. The special Shrek the Halls will feature the voices of the entire original cast - Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas.

We won't be seeing holiday-themed Shrek on the air until 2007. Why? Well, animation done right takes time, but so does building a lasting franchise. According to DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, the events of Shrek the Halls will pick up after the events of the yet-to-be-released third Shrek film.

I'm sure the Shrek special will be great, but can anyone really top a dentist elf, unhappy Yeti and misfit reindeer? Shrek is so postmodern in its sensibility that I'm sure it will be incorporating references to all the classic holiday specials anyway. It's the dawning of a hyper-referential pop culture Christmas.