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

Before I rip this thing apart, let me clarify that I do NOT, as many have accused, hate the Disney Company. It's just that they're kind of like what a real-life Godzilla would be like. WAY too big and often making mistakes that shouldn't ever been allowed to happen. This video is one of them.

I got a little disillusioned with the Mouse when their direct-to-video-sequel thing started. They're rumored to have about eight more planned for the next few years. At some point, I guess, somebody decided it would be funny to have EVERY Disney character ever in one movie. And so we have... this THING. This monstrous THING!!!

If the "Snookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show" couldn't do it for you; if the ZOOG things that stole the Disney Channel couldn't do it for you; heck, if you are *looking forward* to "Back to Neverland"; then this will break you into a weeping blob of protoplasm faster than you can blink. This here is the magic bullet for any Disney detractor. You Disney fans finally know what we Looney Tunes fans went through with "Space Jam".

The only saving grace is that for some reason, some wise fellow decided to use "Pluto's Christmas Tree" and "Mickey's Christmas Carol", in their entirety, to pad out this video. Fast-forward to those parts and only watch them if you are forced to sit through this.

This video is just a collection of old Disney cartoons repackaged with very poor filler material involving many classic characters with boring one-liners. Reminds me of when they have a "special" episode of a sitcom which is only recycled bits from the whole season. Don't bother to buy this one. Very poor, Walt. Don't rip us off like that!

I don't think Mickey's Magical Christmas:Snowed in at the House of Mouse is the best Christmas movie nor is it among the best Disney has ever done. It is though a decent movie and worth seeing if you like the show House of Mouse(I do), if you love Christmas(once again I do) or if you like Disney(once again I do). This has been compared to House of Villains. I will say I liked them both equally, both had their faults but both have their virtues. I feel Snowed in at the House of Mouse is less rushed and has the better combination of shorts, while House of Villains had the better story and animation.

So what were Snowed in at the House of Mouse's faults? While less rushed, which is in some ways a good thing, the story does drag and does revolve a little too much around the shorts. The animation on the whole is pretty decent, but I did not like how Belle and the Beast were animated, Belle is deflated and Beast is ripped of his majesty. Also, it is a little too short.

However, the animation as I have said apart from Belle and the Beast is decent, there are some nicely drawn characters and the backgrounds are lovely and colourful, and it sticks reasonably true to the animation style of the show like House of Villains does. The animation in the shorts though is better than the animation inside the House of Mouse I feel. The music is very nice too, especially loved the end song, and the ending was better than that of House of Villains(it wasn't as abrupt). There is some nice dialogue, without being too sappy or going overboard with the humour, the voice work is pretty much excellent and it was wonderful seeing Disney characters such as Lumiere, Jiminy Cricket, Ariel, Jafar and Peter Pan again, and Mickey, Donald, Minnie, Daisy and Goofy of course. What made this film though was the cartoons. Donald on Ice was amusing, and matches the humour evident in the early Donald Duck cartoons. Mickey's Christmas Carol and Pluto's Christmas Tree are both Christmas classics, while the take on the Nutcracker was a lot of fun, especially for Donald's Mouse King which was hilarious.

Overall, I liked this film. It's nothing extraordinary, but it is not a bad way to pass an hour or so of your Christmas holiday. 7/10 Bethany Cox

First off, I thought all the animated shorts they played throughout this movie were great. 'Mickey's Christmas Carol' is one of my childhood favorites. 'Pluto's Christmas Tree' is another oldie and goodie. The two new cartoons were great too. It was pretty funny to see Donald being chased by an ice crack of all things in 'Donald on Ice.' And Disney's new rendition of 'The Nutcracker' was quite original and funny, especially with Donald playing the Mouse King (as you can tell, Donald is my favorite cartoon character).

It's the in-between part that's a little dicey. I'm a relatively new fan of the 'House of Mouse' series on Disney Channel, but truth be told, I was a little disappointed by this special. I could tell that many of the scenes were just taken from previous episodes.

Also, while I find most of the episodes to be pretty clever and funny, this one just seemed to be lacking some comedic pep. Maybe this was done to concentrate more on Christmas sentiment. However, I will say I was pleasantly surprised by the last musical number. I thought it would be pretty corny and sappy, but it turned out to have the right amount of heart, and it made me laugh when the villains participated.

So while it's not necessarily a Christmas classic, there are some moments throughout the movie I think you'll definitely enjoy.

My IMDb Rating: 7/10. My Yahoo! Grade: B (Good)

I have no idea what this was supposed to be, but the end result was atrocious. It certainly seems to fit in nicely with the current Disney run of "cheapquels" being cranked out at furious pace to squeeze a few more dollars out of their "properties", quality be damned. Certainly whoever produced this misaligned heap of bouncing blobs set to jarring and annoying music was hired by ghouls in suits or possibly accountants to do a dirty job, and no love went into it whatsoever.

The direct-to-video animation is clumsy, the characters are ghastly and vague impersonations of themselves; worse, the storyline is retarded, so much that even my 5-year-old nephew (who made me watch this awful thing) could see that it was dumb and didn't "feel" like any of the classics. The characters all have the same personality of ill-defined bouncing blobs without motivation, and the "story" couldn't have taken more than a few minutes to work out. Indeed, this thing has all the sincerity of a street hustler and all the charm of a corporate powerpoint presentation.

The music was apparently provided by a handful of lounge entertainment dinosaurs armed with cheap Casio synths.