Disney's Halloween Treat

My family has this special recorded on tape, and we've had it for a long time. I remember watching it quite frequently because you just don't see clips from Disney movies as much as you can today. I especially like the clip from The Sword in the Stone where Merlin and Madam Mim engage in a wizards duel. That still cracks me up! I also enjoyed the Peter Pan clip when I was a kid, even though I'm not a huge fan of the movie itself.

After watching it again recently, I'd have to say that my favorite parts of the special are the showings of The Old Mill and Donald Duck & the Gorilla. Both cartoons are quite different as The Old Mill is an early Fantasia-like segment that is beautiful while Donald Duck & the Gorilla is simply a hilarious Donald short. Other notable cartoons include Lonesome Ghosts and a clip from Pluto's Judgment Day.

However, I have to say that Disney's Halloween Treat just seemed to drag on for a while. I was expecting the standard hour-long special, but it actually goes past an hour and a half (which is usually longer than most Disney movies)! I was also in a bit of a hurry when I watched this so I was eager for it to end. While the villains segment was kind of neat with a very different looking Magic Mirror (it sounded, and may have been played, by the same person who voiced Captain Hook), it just seemed to stretch out too long, talking about numerous villains. I mean, did we really need to look into the villain of The Aristocats? I thought that was unnecessary.

I also didn't really care for the last cartoon, Trick or Treat, starring Donald Duck, my favorite character. In this cartoon, he is surprisingly mean and there aren't nearly as many funny moments as there are in Donald Duck & the Gorilla. So all in all, this is still a good special if you ever get a chance to see it. My main recommendation though is if this movie can be edited somewhat, maybe down to an hour. Then maybe you can see it more often on the Disney Channel or even ABC.

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