Those Santa Buddies really pissed me off. Thankfully, the lousy feeling is quickly eradicated by the phenomenal feel-good vibes of my next film, Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas (1999), an anthology of short festive stories featuring classic Disney icons. It’s quite a short one, but crams loads of action, fun and characters in, with a delightful musical crescendo to tie them all together. What’s more, it’s narrated by Kelsey Grammer, whose silky, honey-smooth baritone voice means the film instantly has you in the palm of its hand.
The first chapter involves Donald Duck and his adorable nephews Huey, Dewie and Louie as they find themselves sucked into a Pete’s Christmas-esque time loop situation. There’s lots of screwball mayhem as Donald tries his darnedest to throw the best Christmas ever but, in typical Donald fashion, he keeps screwing things up and getting hurt in sledding accidents and stuff. He’s like a surrogate Clark Griswold, trying his best to keep a grip on his sanity while it all spirals out of control, so when his nephews’ wish for it to be ‘Christmas every day,’ comes true, it’s fun watching uncle Donald get battered about and become progressively more wound up. The boys naturally use the phenomenon to enjoy more of the yuletide stuff they enjoy – presents – and to dodge the stuff they don’t – yucky wet kisses from relatives.
Lessons are learned about having too much of a good thing and about how the holidays should be about kindness and not being selfish. There’s plenty of good laughs to be had, like watching the house get wrecked by a runaway turkey, but Disney also show that when they do it right, they really know how to balance the pratfalls with the heart. It’s a satisfying little tale.
The second segment features Goofy and his son Max from the once popular TV show Goof Troop as they desperately try to get Max’s letter to Santa on time after they miss the post. This leads to a colourful and – for Goofy Snr. – painful rampage through the shopping mall and then, when nasty villain Pete tells Max there’s no Santa, it’s up to dad to show him that jolly old St Nick is real.
Goofy pulls out all the stops to help his boy believe in the magic of the season leading to more laughs as he dresses up as Santa, gets electrocuted and falls off snow-covered rooftops. It’s all very cute and a great reminder of how much Disney owned kids’ TV back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, with shows like Goof Troop, Duck Tales and Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers. The animation is great and the writing highlights how much Disney just gets Christmas.
The final chapter is loosely based on the classic Gift of the Magi short story and stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Desperate to get his beau a lovely Christmas gift, Mickey takes a tough job selling trees for big meanie Pete, but ends up getting the sack for blowing a big sale. He ends up getting into all sorts of trouble to get Minnie something fancy, when all she really wants is to just be with him.
It’s a clever little tale acknowledging the pressure we put ourselves under to buy presents that people don’t necessarily want or need and that are often essentially useless. God knows, I’ve opened my fair share of silly socks and novelty gifts. I guess you always appreciate the sentiment, but Mickey’s tale asks why we can’t just skip the pointless gift-giving and skip straight to the warm hugs. It certainly gives me pause for thought, but it’s also a bit rich having an anti-commercialism message coming from The Disney Company.
Still, the moral is sound and it’s great to highlight to children just how hard parents often need to work to make Christmas work. This is sweet, puts a smile upon my face and sure makes me appreciate all the crappy presents I ever got. Even if it should really be called ‘Thrice Upon a Christmas.'
Comments