Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) VHS Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay given the circumstances. I'm back to do another movie review. This time I'm gonna be talking about Mickey's Christmas Carol from 1983. I'm experimenting again with this review, as much fun as it was delving into the home video history of Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns, I left out a few things for both specials because the home video releases have been numerous over the last 34 years (from when Frosty first came out). So, we'll see if this works better for me. Let's get into it.

Mickey's Christmas Carol is important for Disney in many ways. The first being that it was the first time that Mickey and his friends had appeared in a theatrical release since 1953 when the short cartoon, The Simple Things had been released. The second is that it was the first time that Wayne Allwine voiced Mickey Mouse and Alan Young voiced Scrooge McDuck outside of the albums that Disneyland Records produced in the '70s. This was a few years before DuckTales would debut in 1987. It's also the only time that Hal Smith would voice Goofy on screen before Tony Pope (the voice of Gimmick in the Teddy Ruxpin book and tape stories) voiced him in the Sport Goofy short, Soccermania, in 1987 and Bill Farmer would begin voicing the character that same year as well. Wayne Allwine, Alan Young, and Bill Farmer were the voices of these characters throughout my childhood. 

It was also the first time that the animators who brought us the animated features of the late '80s and early '90s, such as Glen Keane, Randy Cartwright, and Mark Henn, would work on a project entirely on their own since they finished The Fox and the Hound for the classic animators like Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who were known as Disney's Nine Old Men. Though Eric Larson worked on the short as an Animation Consultant, alongside fellow animator, Burny Mattinson, who was the director for this short.

The short was released on December 16th, 1983 (the 40th anniversary was two days ago), showing before the first of two theatrical re-releases of The Rescuers and it actually had some mixed reviews. While Leonard Maltin enjoyed it, Siskel and Ebert didn't and gave it two thumbs down. Which is interesting. 

I didn't own Mickey's Christmas Carol on VHS when I was growing up or on DVD when I was a teenager in the 2000s. I never needed to, because it aired on TV every year. Here in Canada it airs on CBC every year, usually on the Sunday before Christmas, which occasionally means on Christmas Eve. Now when I was a kid I remember it aired in an hour block with Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too at least once, though it mostly aired in that hour block with the classic cartoons, Donald's Snow Fight (1942), Pluto's Christmas Tree (1952), and The Art of Skiing (1941). To be honest I remember the pairing with Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too more than the shorts, but, I do remember seeing Pluto's Christmas Tree at least once during that time. I eventually got it on VHS earlier this year, so that's how I watched it last night.

When I was a kid the part that scared me the most was the scene in the cemetery with Pete as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. I mean the fires of hell coming out of Scrooge's tomb with the Ghost laughing maniacally as he pushes Scrooge into the pit is, disturbing to say the least. Especially for a Disney cartoon. Though it makes sense since Disney was working on The Black Cauldron at the time and were looking to go a bit darker and edgier now that the old animators were not around anymore. Plus Roy E. Disney and Disney CEO, Ron Miller, seemed to be eager to entertain this darker direction for the company. That changed when Eisner and Katzenberg arrived in 1984, but still, Disney took risks in the late '70s and early '80s in a way we haven't really seen from the company since then.

I loved this short when I was a kid, and I love it now. It's not fancy and it didn't try to reinvent the wheel when it came to the story of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, it just told the story with classic Disney characters, including the casts of characters from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and Robin Hood as background characters though Mole and Rat have lines of dialogue in the short.

That's it for today my friends. I'll be back soon with another review. I might do a comic book review on Wednesday and then maybe something on Friday, but we'll see. As I mentioned in my Dark Empire Trilogy review, Friday is my last day of the blog for 2023, as I'm taking a couple of weeks off for Christmas and the first week of January. I haven't decided if I'm taking all of January off yet, but I'll make that decision by Friday. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.