Disney characters from different movies are at the House of Mouse, where Mickey and his pals have hosted a show. Mickey lets everyone go home until Goofy reveals that they are snowed in.
Everybody tries to remain positive, except Donald. He remains grumpy. To keep the crowd occupied, Mickey plays some holiday videos of him and his friends.
The clips were great, although some concepts seemed outdated and wouldn’t pass for today.
For example, in the Nutcracker clip, where Mini plays Maria (I don’t know why they didn’t call her Clara. Maybe for copyright reasons?), she acts as dependent on males to dance with. When the mouse king (played by Donald) captures her, the nutcracker (played by Mickey) fights and rescues her. It isn’t until the end that Maria puts in effort. She was pretty much a damsel-in-distress.
When Mickey asks what everyone is thankful for, Cinderella says something that also reminds me of a damsel-in-distress. I can’t remember right now. But in 2001, wouldn’t that have been a bit insensitive?
Another element that I found odd was that the villains were there and out-of-character. Not a hundred percent, though. When Mickey shows clips of what he asked others for Christmas, Jafar asks for the lamp and Ursula asks for his voice.
However, during the moment Mickey gets everyone into the Christmas spirit, Jafar’s all-powerful snake staff turns into a candy cane and he gladly accepts it.
Really, guys? If you were a sorcerer, and your powerful, magic-producing item turned into a powerless treat, would you really tolerate that? Probably not.
In fact, if Jafar were true to his character, he would’ve used his snake staff to get back and Mickey and his friends, get furious and overly dangerous. Perhaps, he would’ve turned into a snake creature again and everybody would’ve erupted into panicking. But he had to behave because… you know… plot convenience.
So why did Jafar and any other villains need to be there? During a musical number, the villains took part as taking the good character’s sides. Pretty strange, huh?
But enough of the flaws. There are a ton of strengths and well-done moments.
A song that all the characters participated in was beautiful. The [good] characters’ attitudes were great and very much like them. I especially admired Kuzco’s appearance as a crying llama when Mickey asks what everybody wanted for Christmas. So funny.
The Mad-Hatter was also hilarious when he was thankful for different hats. At some point, the mice bring back Cinderella’s old dress that the stepsisters have originally destroyed. Very satisfying.
Now onto the videos Mickey shows.
The first one is where Huey, Dewey, and Louie are building a snowman while Donald is trying to skate. Donald struggles and ends up damaging his nephews’ snowman. The ice cracks and breaks different things, including very sturdy things, like a tree.
I found that to be too silly. Yes, I know. It’s a cartoon. But what a silly concept for an ice crack to be that powerful.
There is also the clip where Mickey is getting a tree and decorating it for Christmas. Chip and Dale are in the tree. Pluto finds them and tries to hurt them. He ends up damaging the entire tree. Then Minnie, Donald, and Goofy come and sing “Deck the Halls”. Chip and Dale participate and Pluto howls. Mickey scolds Pluto for that.
However, that’s normal for dogs to do when hearing high voices. But the clip’s ending had to be satisfying.
The decorating processes in that clip and the next one executed too perfectly. They were thrown onto the designated spots, landing right in their places. No errors whatsoever, which isn’t exactly a good example set for kids. But – as long as we don’t try it in real life and expect the same outcomes, we should be fine.
After Jiminy Cricket cheers Mickey up, Mickey convinces Donald to have a more positive attitude. Then he plays the clip of A Christmas Carol (based off Charles Dickenson’s play). Many people probably know the story. For those who don’t, here’s the plot.
Scrooge is grumpy, unthankful for Christmas, and is obsessed with making money. Four ghosts then visit him. The latter three show him his past, present, and future. Scrooge changes into a better person with a positive attitude for Christmas.
Not ironically, Scrooge McDuck plays the main character (although I don’t know if Scrooge McDuck is usually that grumpy). The characters were well-cast. Goofy did an amazing portrayal of the first ghost. The chains made me feel sorry for him. I found it sad when Isabelle (play by Daisy) cried because Scrooge called off his marriage. And she’d waited ten years. I guess that’s believable, but not sure how common it is.
At the end of that clip, when Scrooge has grown and changed drastically, he reverted back to his old self when visiting Bob Crachett (played by Mickey) to fool around. Then he returned to a good character. The song at the end of the Christmas Carol clip sounded kind of like “God Bless Us Everyone” from the live musical version of the story. Of course, it wasn’t.
My final thought is wondering how all the different characters from different movies came together and knew about it as well as celebrated Christmas (including Timon and Pumbaa—there are no humans in The Lion King). I guess that’s supposed to be a mystery.
I give this movie 5 out of 5 stars. It’s a great holiday classic for everyone and I would gladly recommend it.