YAY!!! I found a good version of The Nutcracker from Disney. Yep, I was surfing the Christmas Specials Wiki and I came across this, Mickey's Nutcracker. I've decided to review it to show that Disney has done a good version of The Nutcracker. Now Mickey's Nutcracker is a 1991 Christmas TV special that is a airing of a show shown at Disneyland in the Videopolis theater (now Fantasyland Theater). Now with that out of the way, let's start talking about Mickey's Nutcracker.
The Plot
The special opens at a party at Minnie's house with all of her friends such as Goofy, Tigger, and Roger Rabbit are there. I wanna go to that party. And many others are there with them celebrating Christmas Eve as they are celebrating and we see other characters that are introduced to us by the narrator, Tina, Ethel, & Conrad. These characters are important as they play a part later in the story. Later on, the narrator comes and gives Minnie, a nutcracker that looks like Mickey. And then all of the friends go home, so that the story can continue. At the stroke of midnight, the Nutcracker comes to life and dances with Minnie. We then seethe henchmen of the Rat King come and sneak in after the nutcracker. We then see the Rat King come in and if you pay close attention, it's the same actor that played Conrad. Which makes sense because the way Conrad was presented showed as being a bit snobbish and it seemed that he would fit the role of the Rat King. By the way, thank you for actually having him be a rat. Before that we see a group of toy soldiers led by Tina. Now the way, I picked up on this is that both Tina and the solider have a healthy appetite. The last of the three human characters to bring up is Ethel who also played a Snow Queen. The cue on this one was that both Ethel and the Snow Queen are rather boisterous. Now going back to the Rat King, his only weakness was sugar. I kept on making the joke that maybe he was diabetic. No, that wasn't the case, it was rather just that the rat king didn't like sugar,spice, & anything nice. Guess, he doesn't like the Powerpuff Girls then. Now the three human characters weren't the only ones pulling double duty when it came to roles as you see, when we got to the Nutcracker's kingdom, Candyland. We also see that Goofy is the mayor, Tigger is the sheriff, and Roger Rabbit is the kingdom's dentist. Yeah, keep me away from that dentist.
At the end of the show, the Rat King is reformed and the Nutcracker asks Minnie to stay as his princess. I have to say I applaud this special for actually treating the source material while still putting it's own spin on it. It was a great watch all around.
Narration
Now I do apologize but I couldn't find a cast list for this special. So, sadly the cast will go unlisted. Anyways, let's get moving on.
Mr. Narrator
I really liked the narrator in the special as he was very lively and he had great interaction with the characters. It was just so lively but not to the point, that he ever overtook the story. He even got to play somewhat of an integral part in the story such as he is the person that gives Minnie, the nutcracker and towards the end of the special, he was held captive by the Rat King. I also like the fact that with the setting and the sweater, he had an old time feel to him.
Characters
Now for this review, I will be breaking this down into Main, & Villain. With that out of the way, let's begin.
Now I won't be covering the Supporting characters as I feel I went over their roles and what they serve in the plot.
Main Characters
Minnie
Minnie, once again filled the role of Maria but unlike the other short, she was only Minnie and in a way, I think that worked better. She was still very sweet and the entire time throughout this special, I thought more of Dorthy from Wizard of Oz then Maria from The Nutcracker. As Minnie kept on pointing out that a lot of people that she met on our way to Candyland reminded her of her friends from her home. Though her actual home was never given a name. Still, this was very fun and I liked that touch. Now I should mention that even though Minnie recognizes people she sees along her way to Candyland as looking like her friends, this was not a dream. At first, this bugged me but I got over it pretty fast. It was something minor but I was able to overlook it.
The Nutcracker (Mickey)
Mickey was much better as the Nutcracker here then in the short. He was so friendly while still being heroic. Also, I liked the touch of him being a king of a land. Though I do think that this could've been explored on a bit. Though I'm okay with it not being explored as ultimately Candyland was just a destination that our characters were trying to get to. It was the idea of getting there that was important, not Candyland itself. Though I have to be honest the way, The Nutcracker defeated the Rat King was a bit of a letdown in how he just hit him with a bag of sugar and boom, he's a handsome prince. Yeah, for as good as this special, I didn't care for the ending. It took me out of the moment for a bit and the ending was disappointing for as majestic and magical, this episode was, that ending was cheap. Now I assume that with this being a Disneyland show and I think it came out before they taped it around the time it became popular and that was the ending for the show there too. Now a few shows like these do have cheap endings but I think for a TV airing, they would've made the ending a bit stronger. I don't know maybe, they were going for child friendly ending but that was just disappointing.
Villain
The Rat King
First off, I have to say THANK YOU for actually being a rat. With that out of the way, this character was so silly and over the top that I loved it. I mean I already talked about his weakness was sugar and that's explains why, the Nutcracker defeated him the way he did but it doesn't forgive the ending for being so anti-climatic. The Rat King as I said was so silly and wanted revenge on the Nutcracker for attacking him at Minnie's house. Hey, it may not be a good reason but at least he has a reason to want to go up against the Nutcracker and him not liking sugar explains why he wanted to destroy Candyland. I don't know if I brought that up but he also wanted to destroy Candyland.
My Final Thoughts
Overall, this is a great Christmas special. I loved the characters in this. It was just so much fun and something I had a blast watching. My advice is watch this but skip the ending as while the ending doesn't hurt the special, the special deserves a better ending then the one it was given. I would've loved to seen the Nutcracker and the Rat King duel it out in a one on one sword fight. Mickey's Nutcracker may have brought me closer to appreciating the actual Nutcracker tale. Now this has not been released on DVD, you'll have to YouTube to watch it but you gotta see it. Join me next time as I countdown what I consider the Top 6 Christmas Moments from Disney Animation. (So, no Santa Clause, sorry).
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