Mickey's Christmas Carol

Mickey's Christmas Carol is a 1983 American animated comedy-drama featurette directed and produced by Burny Mattinson. The cartoon is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, and stars Scrooge McDuck as Ebenzer Scrooge.

Many other Disney characters, primarily from the Mickey Mouse universe, as well as Jimmy Cricket from Pinocchio, and characters from Robin Hood (1973) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), were cast throughout the film. The film marks the return of Mickey Mouse after the 1953 short, The Simple Things.

Plot
A retelling of the classic Charles Dickens' tale A Christmas Carol with Disney's classic characters.

Why It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

 * 1) The plot about Scrooge McDuck being cast as Charles Dickens' character Ebenzer Scrooge (considering that both of them have the same name) is nice.
 * 2) * Similar to the original source material, Scrooge undergoes some decent character development; he first starts off as a bitter, miserly jerk consumed by greed who hates Christmas, only to learn his lesson and become a generous person in the end (see WIR #5).
 * 3) It marked the return of an theatrical Mickey Mouse project after 30 years where the franchise last ended with the 1953 short, The Simple Things.
 * 4) This is the first theatrical appearance for Wayne Allwine as Mickey Mouse as he previously voiced the character in 1977, as he would continue to voice Mickey until his death in 2009, where he was replaced by Bret Iwan.
 * 5) Four of the most popular Disney cartoon characters portrayed all of the ghosts
 * 6) * Goofy as Jacob Marley
 * 7) * Jiminy Cricket as the Ghost of Christmas Past
 * 8) * Willie the Giant as the Ghost of Christmas Present
 * 9) * Pete as the Ghost of the Christmas Future.
 * 10) Great direction from Burny Mattinson, who is a longtime Disney employee.
 * 11) Good ending: Scrooge woke up and happily changes his mind about Christmas. As he getting an invitation from his worker Bob Cratchit (Mickey), Scrooge finally comes to love Christmas and comes to the Cratchit's house and then celebrate Christmas with them.
 * 12) Nice voice acting.
 * 13) * Eddie Caroll, Hal Smith and Will Ryan replaced the late Cliff Edwards, Pinto Colvig, Billy Gilbert and Billy Bletcher as Jiminy Cricket, Goofy, Willie the Giant and Pete respectively and did a spot-on job at replicating their original voices.
 * 14) * Sadly, this would be the last time Clarence Nash would come to voice Donald Duck before his death two years later, besides voicing him in commercials and toys.
 * 15) Neat appearance by Jiminy Cricket, who appeared in the 1940 film Pinocchio directed by Mickey's creator, Walt Disney.
 * 16) The hilarious scene where Jacob Marley (portrayed by Goofy) tumbles down the stairs after warning Scrooge about his horrible actions, which caused him to emit his signature Goofy holler.
 * 17) The soundtrack composed by the late Irwin Kostal is very, very joyful to listen to.
 * 18) Many people can watch this movie with their families on one of their Christmas traditions.
 * 19) It stays faithful to Charles Dickens' novel, which has the characters and their personalities written straight into Walt Disney's characters.
 * 20) The scene where Mickey mourns the loss of his son is very tearjerking.
 * 21) Many clever easter eggs from various Disney animated properties are scattered throughout the film as cameos, including not only characters from Disney cartoon shorts of the 1930s-1960s, but characters from several other Disney Animated Canon films such as Robin Hood, The Aristocats, and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) The scene where Scrooge's empty grave opens up to the gateaway of  hell , followed with the Ghost of Christmas Future (portrayed by Pete, a major antagonist of the Mickey Mouse cartoons) pushing Scrooge into the grave while laughing evilly at it be really disturbing.

Reception
Leonard Maltin said that the film was cleverly written and cleverly animated instead of being a pale attempt to imitate the past.

Famous deceased film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel did not approve of the film and gave it two thumbs downs, saying that there were not enough emphasis on Mickey's character. Ebert said that the film lacked the magic of "visual" animation that The Walt Disney Company would always give to their movies. Colin Greenland of the Imagine magazine reviewed the film. He liked the movie and said that he was surprised about how entertaining it was.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Animated Short Subject of 1983.

Trivia

 * Alan Young, who voiced Scrooge in this film, was one of the six people who wrote the screenplay for the film.
 * John Lasseter, who directed the first two Toy Story films released a decade later, served as an animator for this film.