First look: 'Penn Zero' premieres with holiday special

Add one more cartoon to the parade of holiday specials coming your way the next month.

However, this is one a little special: The Christmas-tinged episode of Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero — airing Dec. 5 (7 p.m. ET/PT) on Disney XD — will serve as a preview of the series that's slated to premiere early next year.

Suburban kid Penn Zero (voiced by Thomas Middleditch) goes to school during the day but because his heroic mom Vonnie (Lea Thompson) and dad Brock (Gary Cole) are stuck in another dimension called the "Most Dangerous World Imaginable," he inherits the gig of saving this world and others with his pals Sashi (Tania Gunadi) and Boone (Adam DeVine) as they dimension-hop to places that need them and battle the evil part-time bad guy Rippen (Alfred Molina) and his minion Larry (Larry Wilmore).

When he's not being a part-time hero, Penn lives with his Aunt Rose (Rosie Perez) and Uncle Chuck (Lenny Venito) but does check in often with his parents via the MUHU (Multi-Universe Hologram Uplink) — which is pretty much a really cool version of Skype.

The holiday special "Northpole Down" finds Penn feeling sad because it's his first Christmas without his mom and dad around. He has to turn around the bah-humbug mind-set to travel to the North Pole to help Santa Claus. What makes this episode extra cool, besides the weather: The Fonz himself, Henry Winkler, guest-stars as The Snowman.