Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas is a 2004 computer-animated direct-to-video Christmas sequel to Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas. The segments in this video feature Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Max, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and Scrooge McDuck in five different segments. Along with the Mickey's PhilharMagic theme park attraction, this production was one of the first to depict the Mickey Mouse series characters in computer animation. The film has mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike.
Plot[]
"Belles on Ice"[]
This first story features Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck, who are competing in an ice skating competition. The girls each are joined by their boyfriends, Mickey and Donald, as they prepare to take the ice.
Minnie is announced to take the ice first for her routine, which involves a bell choir and the Alligators from Fantasia as backup skaters. As Minnie and the Alligators perform their routine, Daisy begins to become jealous at how much the crowd enjoys the performance. She decides to ruin Minnie's routine by stealing the spotlight for herself, performing amazing jumps and tricks on the ice.
Trying to regain the spotlight, Minnie performs a daredevil jump over the Alligators, turning all eyes on her. Not to be outdone, Daisy enlists her secret weapons: the Fantasia Hippos. The Hippos charge out of a huge golden gift box and become Daisy's backup skaters. They perform twists and jumps and help Daisy to once again gain the crowd's affection.
Fed up, Daisy and Minnie begin to argue and shove. This creates a huge pinwheel on the ice, with the Hippos hanging on to Daisy and the Alligators hanging on to Minnie. The spinning get so violent that the Hippos and Alligators get thrown all over the place, causing the Alligators to spill bells across the ice and one of the stray Hippos to create a large lift in the ice. Seizing her moment to shine, Daisy lines up her Hippos and performs a massive jump off the lift and over the Hippos. Trying desperately to outdo Daisy, Minnie instructs her Alligators to hoist the Hippos up and launches herself off the lift and over the skaters while blindfolded with her bow over her eyes. As she lands, her skate hits a stray bell on the ice, and she falls hard.
Realizing her friend is injured, Daisy helps Minnie up feeling sorry for her actions. Then, the two friends begin a grand finale. The Hippos and Alligators proceed to form a "tent" while Minnie and Daisy skate through with blue and pink streamers, respectively. The Hippos and Alligators then pop out of the golden present, first Hippos, then Alligators. Finally, the huge golden present raises upward and out on the top pops Minnie and Daisy. They then spell "Peace On Earth" with their streamers, and then the two hug and wish each other a "Merry Christmas" to thunderous applause from the audience.
"Christmas: Impossible"[]
The second story features on Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck celebrating Christmas Eve at their Uncle Scrooge's mansion in Duckburg. Donald Duck and Daisy Duck also join in the festivities.
The story begins with Donald decorating the mansion's huge Christmas tree until Huey, Dewey, and Louie, who, without noticing, bump into Donald's ladder and cause him to fall. The boys run into the kitchen to find Great-Uncle Scrooge baking Christmas cookies. When they ask for cookies, Scrooge tells them they can only have them after their dinner. At the dinner table, Donald, Daisy, Scrooge, and the boys are ready for the dessert, but when Scrooge uncovers the dessert tray, he finds that the boys have eaten all the cookies. Donald angrily sends the boys to bed. which causes a fight at the table but briefly stops after Scrooge volunteers to talk with them.
In the boys' bedroom, Scrooge tells the boys not to make mistakes in life because Santa will put them on his "naughty list", just like Uncle Scrooge (alluding to his namesake character, Ebenezer Scrooge). After realizing that they are on the "naughty list" for sure, the boys decide to travel to the North Pole in order to write their names on Santa's good list. They mail themselves to the North Pole and end up in Santa's toy factory.
The boys find a map to Santa's list room in the factory, but when they arrive there, the door is locked, so they go to Santa's office to steal the key, but find that Santa is inside napping. To steal the key without waking Santa, the boys enter through an overhead grate. Louie is dropped down with a fishing rod to get the key, which lies on Santa's desk.
After getting the key, the boys race back through the toy room, where they steal skateboards and skate through the room, causing them to make a mess over the toys, especially crashing into a stack of Jailbreak Bobs. The accident causes keys for Jailbreak Bob's jail cell to scatter all over the floor. The boys and the other elves help sort out the keys, but one elf finds a key that does not fit. Not knowing it is the key the boys want, the elf throws it, causing it to land in a box.
The package is wrapped and placed into Santa's toy sack, among many other gifts. The boys begin to unwrap each gift, searching for the key, causing all the elves' hard work to be ruined. The boys find the key and run for the List Room but accidentally bump right into Santa. Santa sees the key and thinks the boys were returning it to him, so he puts it in his pocket. Meanwhile, the toy room is in disarray, and the elves begin to think that Christmas is ruined. After regretting their actions, the boys help clean up the mess in record time so that Christmas can be saved.
After saving Christmas, the boys start to walk out of the factory feeling sorry that they could not get on Santa's good list. But as they walk, they see an elf janitor open Santa's list room. The boys rush in, tell the janitor about a mess somewhere else, and find the list for Duckburg. Just as they begin to write their names on the list, the boys think twice and instead write down Uncle Scrooge's name.
The boys mail themselves back to Duckburg just in time for Christmas Day. Donald, Daisy, Scrooge, and the boys gather around the tree to find a present just for their Great-Uncle Scrooge. The boys open it to reveal bagpipes, the present Uncle Scrooge has wanted ever since he was small. Donald then notices that there are more presents behind the tree, and everyone opens their gifts (Daisy finds it amusing that Donald's gift is the Big Book of Manners). Amazed that they received gifts from Santa, the boys find a letter addressed to them. It is from Santa, and in it, he tells the boys that their good deed of putting Scrooge on the Good List allowed them to be put on the Good List as well, as well as helping with the mess in the toy shop. As P.S., Santa wrote, "You might need these", which the boys think at first are marshmallows but are really earplugs for Uncle Scrooge's awful bagpipe playing.
"Christmas Maximus"[]
The third story features Max Goof and Goofy celebrating the holidays. Max, now all grown up, is bringing home his friend Mona to meet Goofy. However, Max is unsure whether or not he wants Mona to meet his dad. Most of the story takes place within the song "Make Me Look Good".
The story begins with Max and Mona at a train station preparing to leave for the town where Goofy lives. Max calls Goofy to remind him of Mona and also to ask his dad not to embarrass him during the visit. Mona and Max leave the station on the train and arrive in Spoonerville to find Goofy waiting for them. Goofy is dressed in a chauffeur's suit standing in front of his car and holding a sign that says "Maxie" with the "ie" crossed out in red.
Goofy drives Max and Mona to his home, where many Christmas lights and decorations are all over the house and lawn. After that, Goofy seems to accidentally keep embarrassing Max by showing Mona Max's baby pictures and wiping cocoa off Max's face. Max, at first, is embarrassed by his dad, but after taking a walk out in the snow by himself, he realizes that Goofy is always, well, goofy, and that's why he loves him. Max forgets about being embarrassed and decides to join in the fun, just in time to witness the popcorn maker in the kitchen overflow and flood the whole house with popcorn. Max, Goofy, and Mona are forced up the chimney by the popcorn and land on the roof, where they laugh and make snow angels together in the popcorn covering the roof.
"Donald's Gift"[]
Donald sitting in his chair, drinking hot chocolate
The fourth story revolves around Donald Duck and his Christmas wish of peace and quiet. Daisy Duck and Huey, Dewey, and Louie also appear.
The story begins with Donald returning home from Christmas shopping. As he exits a store, he sees an ad for cocoa and imagines himself at home in his warm armchair. He soon realizes, though, that as he was daydreaming, his bus left without him. He tries to run to catch it but is slowed down by a tree decorator, a Christmas donation collector, a caroling barbershop quartet, and an old woman. As he tries to get to the bus, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" is sung by the townspeople he sees. Donald then must walk home. Along the way, he still hears people singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and he becomes very annoyed.
Once at home, Donald prepares himself a cup of cocoa and rests in his armchair until being distracted by the arrival of Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Daisy also arrives and asks Donald if he is ready to go to the mall to see the Christmas decorations and the windows at Mousy's Department Store. Although Donald initially refuses to go, Daisy makes him come with her and the boys and tells him to stop being selfish.
At the mall, Donald, Daisy, and the boys gather in front of Mousy's with other people to watch the window unveiling. Donald then wanders off to buy some hot chocolate. After he gets his cocoa, literally every little noise he hears in the mall seems to play the tune to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". An exasperated Donald can't escape the tune until he finally finds a door into another room. He enters a dark room and thinks he is finally safe when he discovers that he has stumbled onto the Mousy's window display, where the animatronic dolls begin singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and Donald has become extremely annoyed.
Back in front of Mousy's, a woman announces that the unveiling will commence. A curtain rises to reveal Donald damaging the window display to the horror of the crowd. Donald himself has only realized what he had done upon the rise of the curtain and is quickly horrified at what he had done. Donald tries to explain but Daisy and the boys, extremely disappointed in Donald's lack of the Christmas spirit, tells him that this is a new low, even for him and leaves the mall sadly without him as Donald, knowing he deserved it, watches on brokenly, feeling deeply remorseful about what he did. Soon, Donald is thrown out of the mall by a security guard who angrily rebukes him for lacking Christmas spirit and damaging the Mousy's window display. Walking back home sadly, even collapsing in mid-way to his knees, Donald feels guilty about how his nephews had rejected him as their uncle and finally realizes that he should have enjoyed Christmas more with his friends and family just as Daisy asked him to. After seeing Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie ordering hot chocolate but sadly walking away, still unable to face them, Donald sees a group of carolers trying to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," unable to sing together. Annoyed at their terrible singing, Donald takes charge and conducts the group. The lovely singing causes a small crowd to form, with people joining in and singing with the carolers. Soon the crowd draws in Daisy and the boys, who see Donald finally showing his Christmas spirit. As Donald apologizes to everyone for ruining the display, he joins the others convened around a Christmas Tree outside singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in harmony.
"Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas"[]
Mickey with Santa Claus.
The fifth and final segment of the movie begins when Mickey makes decorations for the Christmas party until Pluto keeps interrupting. When Pluto tries to put the star on top of the Christmas tree, he accidentally destroys all the decorations and knocks down the Christmas tree. An exasperated Mickey scolds Pluto and harshly sends him to the doghouse. Feeling disgraced and rejected by his owner, Pluto decides to run away from home by removing his collar and hopping on board a train. Pluto finds himself shipped to the North Pole, where the reindeer adopt him and call him "Murray" (as in Murray Christmas).
When Mickey drives with the new Christmas decorations, they crashed into the bridge, and the truck runs over them. So Mickey arrives back home, he deflates his inflatable Santa, he cleans up the mess with trash bags, rips apart one of his trash bags, and puts the decorations back up. He begins regretting his outburst at Pluto, and when he goes to Pluto's doghouse to apologize, he finds Pluto missing. Mickey calls Minnie for help, but it goes straight to her answering machine, while she's blow drying after a shower, then he tells Minnie by message that all looks lost: Pluto ran away, Christmas is ruined, canceling the party, etc. Then he goes all over Mouseton, posting "Lost Dog" posters in hope that someone can help him. He even turns to Santa for help at a department store. What he doesn't know is that this Santa is not a usual department store Santa, but is the real deal. Meanwhile, Pluto is feeling homesick, and when Santa comes by with a picture of him and a glum-looking Mickey together, Pluto decides to return home. Santa and the reindeer drop him off back to Mickey's house for their annual Christmas party. As the special ends, Mickey and Pluto join the rest of the cast, singing the same medley of various Christmas carols from the first movie.
Recurring "Grumpy Dog" character[]
Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas features a "grumpy dog" character that appears in four of the five segments in the film, except Belles on Ice which was the only segment not to feature a "grumpy dog".
"Christmas: Impossible"[]
The "grumpy dog" character is the Frosty Freight delivery worker that delivers the package containing Huey, Dewey, and Louie to Uncle Scrooge's mansion after their trip to the North Pole and Santa's workshop.
"Christmas Maximus"[]
The "grumpy dog" character is at the train station ticket counter as this segment opens. He softly mutters a "thank you" to the unseen ticket counter worker. Later in this segment, the character is a passenger on the train. Max spills his drink on the character while stumbling down the aisle of the train car.
"Donald's Gift"[]
The "grumpy dog" character appears a couple times in this segment. When Donald, Daisy, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie are waiting near the Mousy's stage in the mall, Dewey moves the dog's sleeve in an attempt to check his watch for the time. The "grumpy dog" character spills his hot chocolate as he moves his arm in response to Dewey's unexpected contact. He barks a grumpy "Very hot!" in response when Donald asks if the spilled liquid, now on the dog's shirt, is hot chocolate.
Later, after the Mousy's fiasco, Dewey tells an angry member of the crowd that "grumpy dog" is his uncle, not Donald. He causes the "grumpy dog" to spill his drink again when he hugs him in an attempt to sell the rouse to the crowd member. In response to this second spill and drawing the connection to the first, "grumpy dog" exclaims, "What are the odds?" and walks away.
"Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas"[]
As Mickey hands "Lost Dog" flyers to passers-by on the street, "Grumpy dog" grabs a flyer, crumples it into a wad, grumbles, and discards it at Mickey's feet.
Cast[]
- Wayne Allwine as Mickey Mouse
- Russi Taylor as Minnie Mouse, Huey, Dewey and Louie
- Tony Anselmo as Donald Duck
- Tress MacNeille as Daisy Duck
- Alan Young as Scrooge McDuck
- Bill Farmer as Goofy and Pluto
- Jason Marsden as Max Goof
- Corey Burton as Elf #4
- Jim Cummings as Blitzen
- Jeff Bennett as Donner, Elves #1 and #2, and Jailbreak Bob
- Chuck McCann as Santa Claus, Elf #3
- Kellie Martin as Mona
- Edie McClurg as Intercom Elf
- Clive Revill as Narrator
Additional Voices[]
- Gregg Berger - Worker
- Cork Hubbert as Man
- Rob Paulsen - Elf
- Peter Siragusa - Man
- Gene Weygandt - Elf
- April Winchell - Phone Woman
Loop Group[]
- Kirk Baily
- Sally Ann Brooks
- Oliver Brown
- David Cowgill
- Rachel Crane
- Jackie Gonneau
- Wendy Hoffman
- Nicolette Little
- Mark Robert Myers
- Zoe Poll
- Phil Proctor - Elf
- Al Rodrigo
- André Sogliuzzo
- W.K. Stratton
Reception[]
Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas received generally mixed reviews from critics, earning a 62% approval rating from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Songs[]
- Share This Day
- Make Me Look Good
Gallery[]
Edits[]
- During TV airings, the phone number on Mickey's "Lost Dog" poster is blurred out.
Trivia[]
- This is DisneyToon Studios' very first computer-animated film.
- It should be noted that Kellie Martin, who played Roxanne, Max's first love interest in A Goofy Movie, plays Mona, Max's second love interest, in the "Christmas Maximus" segment.
- Roxanne actually was supposed to be in the film in person instead of Mona, but was scrapped due to the animators not having the budget to animate her wavy, long hair, leading to fans wondering why they didn't give her a haircut.
- Pete, Clarabelle Cow, Chip and Dale, Aunt Gertie, Horace Horsecollar, and Figaro didn't make any appearances in this film.
- Despite their appearances on the cover, Goofy and Daisy didn't wear their regular outfits in the movie (but Minnie and Donald did).
- There were a number of segments conceived during the film's production that did not make the final cut. They included the following:
- The Christmas Cookie Caper - Mickey tries to find out who stole Minnie's Christmas cookies in a Private Eye-style mystery.
- A Fantasia-esque segment in which Donald leads various Disney characters in a grand musical revue of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with Goofy acting as one of the audience members.
- Prior to being cast as the backup skaters in Belles on Ice, the Hippos and Alligators were to have appeared in this segment as the Nine Ladies Dancing and Ten Lords a-Leaping, respectively.
- Other Disney characters that would have been featured included Clarabelle Cow, Ichabod Crane, and the Mad Hatter in the respective roles of the Eight Maids a-Milking, Twelve Drummers Drumming, and Eleven Pipers Piping.
- Christmas Wrapping - The origin story of how we see Minnie and Mickey met each other for the very first time on Christmas when both thought they would have to spend their holidays alone. Peggy Holmes stated on the DVD that Disney may do a short film that uses the plot of this segment one day.
- An untitled short about Goofy and Pete competing in some sort of winter-themed friendship contest.
- The initial idea for the Mickey and Pluto segment involved Mickey sending Pluto off to the North Pole to compete in the Reindeer Games to win some dog treats. However, the animators decided that they wanted the segment to feature Mickey more.
- Before it was decided that Minnie and Daisy would compete in a skating competition, a number of other ideas for what the event would be were tossed around before that. These included a parade float contest, a store window display competition, and a cooking show bake-off.
- Originally, Huey, Dewey, and Louie had to retrieve the key to the Naughty and Nice List from a pedestal on a block of ice with a polar bear swimming around it. This setup got scrapped as it was eventually deemed too bizarre.
- The animators came up with several different toys for the scene in which Huey, Dewey, and Louie lose the key including Key-to-my-Heart Katie, Go-Go Ginny, Deputy Duck, and the Dog Pound Pals. In the end, Jailbreak Bob won out.
- The framing device initially featured Mickey decorating for the holidays, which would have led to him uncovering a memento that reminded him of each story. A book was eventually chosen as it would evoke classic Disney film openings.
- Mousy's Department Store is a spoof of the real world department store chain Macy's (which was later reused in Little Rodentia from Zootopia).
- Continuity errors: This film is quite difficult (practically impossible, really) to place within the greater continuity of all of the previous appearances of Max, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. This means that this film isn’t canon to those aforementioned appearances and therefore, set in an alternate continuity.
- In the previous special, Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, the four of them were all children, with Max presented as being even younger than his appearance in Goof Troop and Donald's nephews presented as still living with him. This indicates that Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas took place at some point prior to the events of both DuckTales (in which the nephews, still as children, live with Scrooge McDuck after Donald joins the Navy) and Goof Troop (in which Max is an 11½-year-old preteen). By the time of A Goofy Movie and Quack Pack, Max, Huey, Dewey, and Louie have all grown into high school-aged teenagers, with An Extremely Goofy Movie having Max grown further into a college-aged teenager. In the House of Mouse TV series, Max is still a teenager[1] but old enough to be employed as a parking valet, while Huey, Dewey, and Louie (who were often seen in their Quack Pack designs, albeit recolored) are on the cusp of young adulthood.[2] Because of this Christmas special presenting Donald's nephews as children at the same time that Max is a young adult (with the four even interacting together in the very last scene), Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas is virtually irreconcilable with the larger continuity of all of the aforementioned TV shows, movies, and even its own predecessor Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas.
- Additionally, Goofy's house appears to have a rather large front yard that extends off to the side where Pete's house stood in both Goof Troop and Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, meaning that Pete's house is missing from where it ought to be in this special, although Pete himself doesn’t appear in the film.
- And while the house's exterior does bear a decent resemblance to that of the Goof House seen in Goof Troop its interior more closely resembles that of the very different-looking Goof House seen in Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, which itself had a completely different interior room layout (as well as a very different exterior design) from the house seen in Goof Troop (e.g. - the living room and kitchen sit on opposite sides of the house, instead of both sharing the same side and back end of the house like they did in Goof Troop). Since Goofy and Max only first moved into their Goof Troop house in that series's first episode, the house they lived in in "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" has to have been a different house that they lived in prior to their first moving to Spoonerville. So, if Goofy, in this special, is supposed to still be living in the same house he's lived in since Goof Troop, the inside of the house really shouldn't resemble the very different house from the first film, yet it does, further adding to this film's inconsistencies with all that came before it.
- Plus, both the interior and exterior of McDuck Manor as seen in this movie bare very little resemblance to their appearance in DuckTales.
- This was Max Goof's last appearance in any official Disney animation until his photo cameos in the DuckTales reboot episode "Quack Pack!" sixteen years later.
- This is the oldest aged appearance of Max Goof after An Extremely Goofy Movie.
References[]
- ↑ As stated by Minnie in the episode "Max's New Car"
- ↑ In House of Mouse, Huey, Dewey, and Louie are voiced by Tony Anselmo (who also voiced Donald Duck) who gave each of them a voice sounding similar to, but still younger than, their Uncle Donald.
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da:Mickey fejrer jul i Andeby es:Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas fi:Mikki Hiiri – Joulu Ankkalinnassa it:Topolino: Strepitoso Natale! pl:Mickey: Bardziej bajkowe święta pt-br:Aconteceu de Novo no Natal do Mickey