The tape also had a few extra Disney holiday cartoons shown before the "Christmas Carol" episode (such as Pluto chasing the Chipmunks living in their Christmas tree, and Donald battles his nephews in an over the top snowball war). It was fun to watch - even in July!
When I first saw this short, I was whisked away into the story and imagination of Disney (as usual) and I fell in love with it ever since. I was most especially touched by the song 'Oh, What a Merry Christmas Day.' I finally read the lyrics here and I love it now that I know what it is the singers were saying. The music really lifted my spirits.
My favorite parts of the short is when Scrooge goes up the stairs and looks back when he feels he is being followed. I also like (and laugh) every time Jiminy Cricket whisks Scrooge over London and Scrooge shouts "Spirit look out!" I get a kick out of the line "What's wrong Scrooge? I thought you enjoyed looking down on the world." I was sort of spooked by Pete's character and Scrooge's near death experience when he is thrown into the casket.
I have the story on a record player/record and I always listened to it when I gave the video a break. You could say that I love this story so much!
Casting proved to be fairly simple. Who else but Uncle Scrooge could have played Ebenzer Scrooge? And the part of kindly Bob Crachit naturally fell to Mickey. Jiminy Cricket, Willie the Giant ("with pis-nachios!"), and Pegleg Pete make excellent ghosts. Donald even seems natural forgoing his natural irrasciblity to become the good-natured Master Fred. The only role the animators had problems with was Goofy as the ghost of Jacob Marley. It was difficult, they said, to make a character scary enough to cause Scrooge to repent, yet stay within Goofy's natural personality. In the end, though, the character works out nicely.
Mickey's Christmas Carol is fairly faithful to the original Dickens novel. If the short has any real failing it is that it is too short. One gets the feeling that certain scenes are rushed, so we don't get a real complete insight into what turned Scrooge from a reasonably decent person into the tightwad that he was to become. In later scenes, we just barely get to know the Crachit family when the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come sweeps in. Too much depends on our pre-familiarity with the story. Had we not already known that Tiny Tim had a life threatening illness, we might not have guessed it from the context given here until we see the scene at his grave. In my opinion, Disney should have taken the risk and made it into a full-length feature.
Still in all, the short works. The story holds together well, and none of the characters seem forced. It is heart warming in the best Disney tradition without being mawkish, and richly deserves the status of a Christmas classic.
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