Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas

[StevePulaski]

Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999)
Directed by: Alex Mann, Bradley Raymond, Jun Falkenstein, Bill Speers, and Toby Shelton

Huey, Dewey, and Louie in the short "Donald Duck Stuck on Christmas" in Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas.

Rating: ★★

Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas is a throwaway direct-to-DVD holiday special many of us once appreciated likely because we were young and it fed our desire to be momentarily amused. It's a collection of three holiday shorts featuring several staple Disney characters, none of which particularly memorable, and all tinged with dark undertones and sentiments that seem too prickly for the Christmas season. It generates a few passing smiles, but there's a reason you remember seeing the clam-shell VHS tape on your shelf and watching it whilst under a blanket in the glow of your Christmas tree, as opposed to in a theater.

The first of the three shorts is "Donald Duck Stuck on Christmas," a Groundhog Day-esque story that involves the rambunctious Huey, Dewey, and Louie waking up on Christmas morning and rushing to open their presents. Uncle Donald is dismayed when he sees his nephews didn't wait for their relatives to arrive, and instead are spending their day sledding, eating like pigs, forgetting their manners, and causing a lot of mayhem. Before bed that evening, the three wish on a star that it could be Christmas every single day. Low and behold, they get their wish and enjoy Christmas over and over again. It takes them probably a week's worth of Christmases to realize the true meaning is spending time with family and not taking things for granted, but at least they figure this out within the span of about 20 minutes in real-time.

The second short, "A Very Goofy Christmas," opens with Goofy and his son Max frantically trying to get a last-minute letter in the mail for Santa Claus. They go to the extent of making a mad-dash through a mall in order to catch up with the mailman; a sequence that's kinetic and reminded me of old Goofy shorts from the 1940s. After the letter is in the mail, things should be smooth, but Max's neighbor, Pete, cynically decides to spoil the holiday fun for the young boy by revealing the improbability that is a heavyset man in red visiting every single child around the world in one night (he adds it would take a visit to 800 homes a second to be possible). This makes Max very upset and skeptical about Christmas, which prompts the lovable yet incompetent Goofy to try and prove to his son that "Santy Claus" does indeed exist — even if that means going to the extent of constructing a plywood balcony on their rooftop and staking out Christmas Eve night.

The final short, "Micky and Minnie's Gift of Magi," is based on The Gift of Magi by O. Henry. In the concluding chapter to the anthology, Mickey wants to buy Minnie a gold chain for her special watch, and to do so, he has to work at Crazy Pete's Tree Lot. Minnie's plan is to gift Mickey something nice for the holiday as well, which forces her to work extra hard, long hours at a store. Quite lovely for kids to see the prelude of drudgery and stress their parents experience every year in order to provide gifts under the tree, but I digress. The two find ways to anger their bosses and complicate the matter of trying to provide their significant other with something special for Christmas.

For example, Mickey's misstep was selling a poor family a small Christmas tree as opposed to an expensive 10-footer his boss was looking to have them finance. This sends the owner of the tree-farm into a tizzy to the point where he accidentally sets fire to his entire lot.

Therein lies one of the most glaring issues with Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas. It's far too glum for its own good. I'm not sure what children will get out of "A Very Goofy Christmas," especially when the thesis of the story is about creating magic during the holiday season seeing as Santa Claus doesn't exist. I'm not sure showing them a story of a couple working themselves to the bone trying to afford what appears to be an acceptable Christmas on the surface will do to excite them much either.

Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas has the benefit of nostalgia on its side, so in that case, it's to your discretion if you'd like to "ruin your childhood" by revisiting it.

Voiced by: Wayne Allwine, Russi Taylor, Tony Anselmo, Diane Michelle, Tress MacNeille, Alan Young, Bill Farmer, Corey Burton, Shaun Fleming, and Jim Cummings. Directed by: Alex Mann, Bradley Raymond, Jun Falkenstein, Bill Speers, and Toby Shelton.