Christmas Carol is as famous a Christmas tale as they come, with its darker themes, disturbing imagery, and combining it all with the truest warmest feeling of good will and cheery nature that something like this could only deliver so powerfully. While it’s hard to show something like that to kids at such a young age, Disney came up with a version starring all their favorite Disney characters in the titular roles, in Mickey’s Christmas Carol. This movie version is a great one to show kids; as it captures the mature serious edge of the story without going too overboard and still makes it kid friendly.

The story is essentially the same from the book, though it has to factor in the dumbing down for the kids and the smaller running time with only 30 mins to get the whole story across. Everything has the same beats and moments to it, but because of those restrictions it does leave the film sometimes feeling a bit too rushed. Sometimes the ghosts can go by a bit too quick, particularly the ghost of Christmas Present and since so little is shown, the ending and resolution of Scrooge isn’t as strong. Also, it does have to do some exposition at times that could have been done a bit more subtle as its animation and visually telling the story is better than spelling it out. But that stuff is mainly nit-picking; for what this story could have been it handles itself very well. The story captures the light-hearted nature, helped with how many charming Disney character are everywhere, but it doesn’t shy away or hide the harsher stuff too, they still kill off Tiny Tim. This is perfect for a younger audience member to get introduce to this great story and open them up to the plethora of other versions later on in life.

Since Disney has so many famous faces, placing them into the roles of the Christmas Carol fits really well and opens up the characters in very connectable ways. Scrooge played by Scrooge McDuck, it’s hard to get more perfect casting than that, he’s always been the stand-in for the Scrooge of Disney already so to see it come to life is just perfect. His voice, the late Alan Young, is also wonderful in his performance; how easily he can go from the crabbiest man to the sweetest soul without problem really gives credit to the man’s talent and the man himself. The others fit into their roles nicely too; Mickey Mouse is a perfect Bob Cratchit, Donald easily fits as the nephew even if the voice of him sounds more like an deflating balloon than anything else, Jiminy Cricket as the ghost of cricket past, the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk as Christmas Present, and especially Pete as the ghost of Christmas Future smoking a cigar are all perfect choices.

The animation has that wonderful Disney charm and works really well in this story. The story book aesthetic on some of the lines and backgrounds really ups the fable-like story and the Disney characters fits perfectly into this style. While the characters are bright, colorful and expressive, the lighting in the movie is the perfect tone when it needs to get dark; the shadows of the characters, the harsher tones of color when things get intense, the overly warm feeling it exudes when it’s happy and bright, it all works wonderfully. The animation is good at getting the light-hearted tone of Disney cartoons, but it also handles the softer harsher moments as well.

This version is a great one to show the kids and get them introduced to the story of Christmas Carol in a smaller charming way. The characters fit into their roles well, the story is a bit rushed but overall gets the message across, the animation is great at getting both the dark and light sides of the story, and it’s an overall great version to show the kids. Check it out and see for yourselves.