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

Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers

DisneyToon studios produced a direct-to-video animated adaptation of The Three Musketeers in 2004 called Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers. Starring Wayne Allwine, Tony Anselmo, Bill Farmer, Russi Taylor, Tres MacNellie, Jim Cummings, April Winchell, Jeff Bennett, Maurice LaMarche, and Rob Paulsen. It was also the first direct-to-video feature  to be featured in the Kingdom Hearts series.

In a story told by the Troubador (Paulsen), Mickey (Allwine), Donald (Anselmo), and Goofy (Farmer) are three janitors who dream of becoming musketeers. However, Mickey’s size, Donald’s cowardice and Goofy’s intelligence impedes them from doing so. But they do get their chance when Captain Pete (Cummings), who is planning to take over the kingdom, decides to promote them in the hopes they’ll be bungling enough to not ruin his plans.

This version of The Three Musketeers isn’t great, but it’s somewhat decent. The plot may be thin, but it does have good humor by making fun of some of the usual Disney tropes.

The trio are made musketeers almost immediately after Pete berated them and told them they never would be. Even with their brainlessness, they should feel something is amiss. Princess Minnie also holds an idiot ball, with her readily accepting their incompetence with Pete’s explanation that they’re really good at perceived threats.

On the other hand, the film does poke fun at various running gags found in Disney shorts as well as other conventions. For one, Minnie finds it destiny that she and Mickey are supposed to be together because “they have the same last name.” Also, after cutting to the opera poster with the jingle for a third time, right after a character mentions the opera, Pete mentions the song is starting to get pretty catchy.

Despite a pretty dumb plot with characters that don’t really have a good grasp on anything, Mickey, Donald, Goof: The Three Musketeers is actually pretty fun. 

#58