Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

In 2004, DisneyToon studios decided to produce a sequel to Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, calling it Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas. It starred Wayne Allwine, Tony Anselmo, Bill Farmer, Rusi Taylor, Tress MacNellie, Kellie Martin, Alan Young, Jason Marsden, and Chuck McCann.

After reciting the first 10 words to “The Night Before Christmas,” the narrator stops and says it’s a different story, but we’ll still see a mouse. A book opens to five stories.

“Belles on Ice” tells the story of Minnie (Taylor) and Daisy (MacNellie) competing in an ice-skating competition and the two pull dramatic stunts to draw the attention towards them.

“Christmas: Impossible” shows Huey, Dewey, and Louie (Taylor), traveling to the North Pole to write their names on Santa’s good list.

In “Christmas Maximus, Max (Marsden) brings home his friend Mona (Martin) for Christmas, but Goofy (Farmer) is… well Goofy.

“Donald’s Gift” revolves around the eponymous duck (Anselmo) wanting pace and quiet, but becoming annoyed at hearing the same song everywhere.

Finally, “Mickey’s Dog-Gone Christmas” stars Pluto (Farmer) running away and being adopted by Santa’s reindeer

This movie is not only an insult to the first film, but really to Disney animation as well.

What Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas managed to do with three shorts, this film needed five to do it. Within its three sequences, it successfully conveyed wonderful messages of family, hope and faith, and love, and they all brought it around to the true meaning of Christmas. However, in this one? We have pigheaded competition that’s quickly resolved because the other one messed up, the boys trying to hoodwink Santa while being altruistic at the last second, and Donald coming around to the song because he got publicly humiliated. The only two good sequences are how Max realizes that Goofy maybe goofy, but he still loves him and Pluto seeing that Mickey actually does miss him.

The animation is just cheap and ugly obvious CGI. The characters may look like they do, but it’s just so different from their normal appearances, that it’s jarring. There’s nothing wrong with CG, but, as always, it has to be done well. This looks and feels like it was slapped together in an hour. It’s go the same look as Mickey’s Playhouse, which also looks horrendous.

This exists to make a Christmas buck. Pure and simple. 

#94