Dec. 16 – Mickey’s Christmas Chaos

Alternatively known as Mickey’s Christmas Crisis, Mickey’s Christmas Chaos is a Mickey Mouse Works cartoon from 2000. If you’re like me, you were probably “too old” for The Disney Channel around the turn of the millennium and are not too familiar with the Mouse Works toons. This was basically Disney’s attempt at creating a new series of cartoon shorts starring its classic characters. They’re 2D animated and usually run around 7 minutes and were shown on television as opposed to being a theatrical short. They vary in quality, and while very few measure up to the classic shorts, I’m happy they exist.

These shorts originally aired in blocks, but were eventually repackaged as part of the House of Mouse series which launched in 2001 as part of ABC’s One Saturday Morning programming block. House of Mouse basically packaged these shorts, and select classic shorts, together with a wrap-around animated segment taking place at the actual House of Mouse which was basically a club owned by Mickey and all of the animated characters would show up for the party. Again, it’s not a show I’ve seen a lot of and what I have seen never really wowed me, but I still think it’s great some attempt was made to keep these characters in a starring role.

Mickey’s Christmas Chaos originally aired as part of the Mickey Mouse Works shorts.

Mickey’s Christmas Chaos first aired September 16, 2000 alongside Mickey’s Mix-Up and Whitewater Donald. It was then included in episode 44 of House of Mouse, “Clarabelle’s Christmas List,” where it was re-titled for some reason as Mickey’s Christmas Crisis. That episode aired December 2, 2002. As the title implies, this is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that takes place around Christmas and features Mickey’s loyal dog Pluto and adversary Mortimer Mouse.

The short was re-packaged with other Mouse Works cartoons as Mickey’s Christmas Crisis for the House of Mouse program.

The episode opens with Mickey (Wayne Allwine) emerging from his home to decorate his house for Christmas. Pluto (Jim Cummings) is alongside him and we learn that Mickey is aiming to win a local decorating contest. He decorates his house as only a cartoon character can affixing some garland to a toy airplane which flies around the house spreading the garland around while Pluto (in a sort of nod to Pluto’s Christmas Tree) flings ornaments from his tail to decorate as well. Next door, Mortimer Mouse (Maurice LaMarche) emerges from his house to mock Mickey’s decorating. He seems to think tacky is good as he brags about his electronic talking Christmas wreath while looking down on Mickey’s more traditional wreath. They then engage in a game of one-upmanship, as they each keep making their wreath more extravagant until Mortimer slips a toilet seat into Mickey’s box which he affixes to his wreath then reacts with horror.

Mickey and Pluto have a deocrating contest to win.

The two mice then turn to one-upping each other via lights. Mickey has tastefully outfitted his house with Christmas lights, while Mortimer just throws a bunch of traditional lights onto his house such as lamps and bulbs. It’s hideous, but he seems to like it. Mickey counters by turning on his lights, which like Clark Griswald, causes a brown out across town. The heat from the lights even gives Mortimer a sunburn.

I think it’s fairly common knowledge now, but Mortimer was originally the name for Mickey but Walt’s wife Lilian disliked it. The character Mortimer was later created for Mickey’s Rival and designed to resemble Walt Disney.

It’s then onto the tree, and Mickey sets up a rather nice one in his yard by basically planting a box of Christmas decorations in the ground. Mortimer sets his tree up Grinch-style, opening it like an umbrella and allowing presents to fall out. Mickey then starts spreading items out on his lawn which include a church diorama and Uncle Scrooge and his nephews as carollers. Mortimer starts doing the same and even uses Pete as an angel to decorate his lawn while Mickey has a Goofy Claus. Mortimer swipes Goofy, and Mickey in turn swipes Mortimer’s nut roaster. They then get kind of nasty and even destroy each other’s trees, which also destroys Mortimer’s house momentarily.

Nice job, boys.

Then the two start just stealing each other’s decorations in outlandish fashion. Mickey has some extensive technological implants in the neighborhood which allows him to swap houses with the pull of a lever. Mortimer, to his credit, has a giant bucket-crane to pluck decorations off of Mickey’s house to place on his. Things then take a real Looney Tunes turn. When it appears Mortimer has won, Mickey gives him a wreath. It has a black ribbon on it that reads R.I.P. and when Mortimer sees that he looks over his shoulder at his Christmas tree which is loaded with bombs and TNT. The resulting explosion takes out both houses and leaves both mice covered in soot, but Pluto’s dog house is intact. The decorations fall out of the sky and land on Pluto’s house right as the mayor shows up to judge the contest. Pluto is awarded first prize, and when Mickey and Mortimer are about to come to blows a “Peace on Earth” marquee behind Pluto’s house reminds them what season it is. They then exchange gifts, seemingly putting an end to their feud, but each mouse takes a peek in the gift before opening it. They both angle their box at each other in an unassuming manner and when both open the package a spring-loaded boxing glove shoots out of each one knocking them both out.

Mortimer’s a jerk, but Mickey gives as good as he gets which is unusual for him.

Mickey’s Christmas Chaos is a screwball cartoon. It’s much more Warner Bros. than Disney with two characters basically taking each other out and trying to raise the stakes with each gag. It’s not nearly as smart or as funny as a Warner Bros. short though. I like the little cameos of other characters including Scrooge and Chip and Dale and Mortimer is a great foil for Mickey. He doesn’t really get nasty enough though and I wish he at least had some good insults, but his dialogue is fairly routine. Same for Mickey, though at least he gets to be a bit more antagonistic than he typically is. This isn’t a perfect Mickey and he gets mad and even a little mean, especially with the bomb-tree. I also like that Pluto gets to be the only good character in the short, and in the end it’s he who is rewarded.

The animation is 2D, but fairly simple. The characters look nice and they animate in a very 90s fashion. Their movements are a bit exaggerated and they have a rubbery look to their limbs. The backgrounds are a bit disappointing though, especially in the long shots. There’s a disconnect between them and the action. As a result, this and basically all of the shorts from this series look inferior to the classic shorts, but I suppose that’s not surprising since those were made for the movie theater and not television. The thing that disappoints me a little though is these shorts aren’t even on par with the late era Disney Afternoon shows like Bonkers. This show came at a time when there was a shift in children’s programming and it wouldn’t be long before some networks pulled out of Saturday Morning all together and it’s reflected in the diminished budget for shows of this era.

This one surprisingly doesn’t end with the two making up.

“Mickey’s Christmas Chaos” isn’t a bad cartoon, but it’s hardly memorable. That’s the case with most of the Mouse Works cartoons that I have seen. The ones I’m most familiar with are the Donald Duck ones included on the Chronological Donald – Volume 4, and even those I’ve only watched once or twice. As I said before, I’m happy these shorts exist and that the modern character actors got to voice these characters outside of Disney Park exhibits and early childhood shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but they’re not on par with the classics. Disney also hasn’t done much with these shorts since they ceased airing, but they’re actually pretty protective of them across streaming sites which stands in contrast with their attitude towards their classic shorts. Most have never received a home video release, and this cartoon is no exception (though snippets of it appear in Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse) in that regard. Disney basically stopped airing House of Mouse in 2009, so it’s probably not getting shown on television this month. And as I mentioned, it’s surprisingly tricky finding this online somewhere, but if you’re willing to dig, it’s there. Definitely search for the House of Mouse episode “Clarabelle’s Christmas List” instead of just looking for this cartoon. If you don’t want to look for it though and would rather watch Pluto’s Christmas Tree or Toy Tinkers then I don’t blame you one bit.