Babes in Toyland/March of the Wooden Soldiers became a holiday tradition on the NYC station WPIX during the time many baby boomers were growing up and various TV stations around the country started running it around Thanksgiving as well.
Babes was a well-remembered Victor Herbert operetta that had a 5-month run at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway during the 1903-04 season. It had a return engagement in January 1905 and was revived during the Christmas seasons of 1929-30 and 1930-31. Actually, RKO had planned to film Babes in Toyland (with part of it in Technicolor) in 1930 as their Christmastime offering, but musicals had mostly been flopping at the box office for the last several months, so those plans were kiboshed.
When Babes finally made it to the screen for the first time in 1934, I believe there was some discussion of shooting it in the new 3-strip Technicolor, but the added cost of the process stopped those plans. The project proceeded in black and white with a revised plot and some of the Herbert music. Hal Roach held the rights to the film only for a limited time, per his agreement with the Herbert heirs, and by the late 1940s there were plans for a new version that would have incorporated George Pal’s Puppetoon characters. That project didn’t get off the ground, and instead the Laurel and Hardy film was reissued by Lippert Pictures in 1950 (and re-titled “March of the Wooden Soldiers”).
The best version on DVD–with the original Babes in Toyland title, deleted footage restored, and good B&W image quality–was released by MGM/UA several years ago, although the packaging uses the “Wood Soldiers” title, probably because more people remember it that way.