Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse

As a kid, I freaking loved the House of Mouse since it was the biggest Disney crossover ever at the time (before Disney Infinity, Epic Mickey & kinda Once Upon A Time since ABC is owned by Disney & has numerous Disney references) with characters from films like Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio, Aladdin, Hercules, Winnie the Pooh, Pocahontas, Dumbo & even the penguins from Mary Poppins as the waiters! Heck, even the classic characters from the 30s & 40s cartoons made prominent appearances! Anyway, this was released in 2001 for the Christmas season. I never had the DVD growing up, but I did used to watch it when it came on Disney Channel (which since has gone pretty crap in my opinion) or Toon Disney (which has since gone defunct) at Christmas. Anyway, can the House of Mouse make Christmas feel more at home or is it as bad as getting snowed in? Let's find out!

Story: Obviously, the premise is everyone being snowed in at the House of Mouse thanks to a snowstorm, but there is another plot where Donald doesn't have any Christmas spirit as everyone attempts to lift them up by showing cartoons, giving out hot chocolate & Disney characters expressing their wishes for Christmas & what they're thankful for. And thanks to Mickey wishing on a star, that happens & everyone happily celebrates Christmas with no mention of the snowstorm again & Donald is happy again for no reason. The special has many old cartoons which in a way try to connect to the main plot like Donald on Ice which is pretty funny with Huey, Duey & Louie trying to outdo Donald in ice skating, the classic Pluto's Christmas Tree one (one which I shall review separately next year), Mickey's Christmas Carol (I already reviewed it last year so I don't need to go any further into my thoughts on it) & a brand new cartoon based on Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker with Minnie as Marie, Mickey as the Nutcracker, Donald as the Mouse King (yeah, stick by me with this), Ludrick von Drake as Uncle Drosselmeyer & Goofy as a Sugar Plum Fairy with John Cleese narrating it. It is pretty funny with the fourth wall jokes since Donald is dissatisfied with playing the villain & the narrator lying to him that he'll win but other than that, it's pretty much the same as other The Nutcracker adaptations. Honestly, the plot is pretty generic & predictable & most of the time the scenes are filler like the cartoons (which I ironically enjoyed more than the special itself) & it feels like not a lot of effort was put in other than trying to add a lot jokes in & a lot of Disney cameos (seriously, even llama Kuzco from The Emperor's New Groove makes an appearance) It just feels like one of them crappy direct to video movies that plagued Disney at the time which had shorts which you can just watch on Youtube & it feels like a contracted obligation rather than something someone wanted to make. So yeah, not exactly on par with Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas (which remains as my favourite Mickey Mouse Christmas movie)

 

Animation: Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the animation isn't the greatest. It has the same quality as the TV show & it feels inconsistent thanks to the constant use of stock footage & the cartoons made between many years from each other! Anyway, I'll just be going over the House of Mouse scenes & it is easily the worst! The character designs are off model & rubbery except for the main characters, the backgrounds feel repetetive since we're stuck in one room & the roof & rooftop of the place. It doesn't really help the lighting is off as most of the time the characters look completely flat & when there are scenes using spotlights, they don't add much depth to them. And the nutcracker scenes are also flat with the lines being much thicker for the characters but I found it to be much better in terms of character animation & the awareness of being more cartoony. Although it is really colourful & attempts to be Christmas-y to make it feel more holiday-ish, it can't do jack to hide the quality is not the best. Honestly I can't find much else to say about the animation other than that it's direct to video standards with nothing new & does nothing to put me in the holiday spirit!

 

Characters: One thing's for sure, the characters in this are exactly the same, but it's not that bad! Except for the other Disney characters! Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Chip & Dale, & Daisy are pretty much exactly the same which is fine for them, Donald is a grumpy Scrooge ala A Christmas Carol (seriously, they reference it by showing all of the Mickey's A Christmas Carol cartoon) & his 'development' is unusually fast & feels tacked on thanks to the deus ex machina wish upon a star. Heck, we don't even know why he's feeling down about Christmas at all! Anyway, as for the rest of the Disney characters from the movie, they're all stereotypes of themselves like Cinderella being bland, Eeyore being sad & gloomy, Belle & the Beast talking about love all the time (yeah, I'm mad they ruined their characters), Kuzco (I'm not kidding) being a whiny brat, Jiminy Cricket giving advice & to wish upon a star (of course!) & oddly everyone is fine with the villains being at the House of Mouse for no reason whatsoever even though it's obvious they're still evil! Anyway, the main characters are fine despite no development at all & the othres are one dimensional & bland! In fact, the best one I could relate to was the John Cleese narrator!

If I can be honest this was a huge disappointment for me after seeing it from years ago. The story is cliched with filler, the animation is pretty cheap & the characters are either one or two dimensional. And as for the song at the end...oh God, it's unbelievably cheesy & corny! Kids may like it & it kind of has a positive message, but it just made me cringe so much! This just feels heartless & my only recommendation is staying away from this & watching Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas & Mickey's Christmas Carol separately because this movie is not worth it if you want to watch Mickey's Christmas Carol!
Story: 3/10
Animation: 4/10
Characters: 3/10
Overall: 3/10