"Director: Rick Calabash"

• Mickey's Magical Christmas - Snowed In At The House Of Mouse | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £4.25   |  Saving you £7.74 (182.12%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Though promoted as a "full-length holiday movie", Mickey's Magical Christmas is more of a Christmas special spin-off from Disney's House of Mouse TV series. The premise is something like an animated Muppet Show: Mickey, Goofy and Donald run a nightclub for an audience of Disney characters, with plenty of songs, skits and cartoons. There's not much story to this holiday special--Mickey whips up an impromptu party for stranded guests and instils a "Humbug" quacking Donald with the holiday spirit--but it's full of sight gags and comic bits with dozens of Disney characters, from Ludwig von Duck to Pumba and Timmon. The special begins with the short Pluto's Christmas Tree and ends with the entire 1983 short film Mickey's Christmas Carol. However, the highlight is a comic retelling of The Nutcracker with Donald as a reluctant Mouse King (complete with phony Mickey Mouse ears) and John Cleese as the exasperated narrator. The special is utterly unmemorable as a whole, but nonetheless bright, light, cute and sure to keep the attentions of young tots. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Mickey's House Of Villains | DVD | (06/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mickey's House of Mouse Villains seeks to do for Halloween what Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed In at the House of Mouse (2001) did for Yuletide. It's an anthology set on Halloween in the titular house, a nightclub where characters--including Donald Duck, Goofy, Jafar, Cruella de Vil, and Captain Hook--gather to watch Disney cartoons. There's a perfunctory framing plot with the villains taking over the House, but the 65 minutes is almost entirely filled by eight short cartoons. Five are very recent, with clinically clean computer animation, and three are vintage gems glowing with the warm detailed look of Golden Age Disney. These are Trick or Treat (1952), Donald Duck and the Gorilla (1944), and Lonesome Ghosts (1937), in which Mickey, Donald and Goofy star in what was surely the inspiration for Ghostbusters. The best of the new adventures is Mickey's Mechanical House, in which the mouse moves into a futuristic house which goes disastrously wrong. It's made all the more entertaining by a poetic rhyming narration delivered by John Cleese. Young children will love it all, while older fans may prefer a compilation of vintage Disney shorts. On the DVD: Mickey's House of Mouse Villains DVD contains a well-designed animated quiz game, "Wheel of Misfortune", that should entertain young fans for a while. Otherwise, the extras consist of three trailers and a "Fright Reel": a three-minute compilation of Disney clips with two Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. The choice amounts to the same sound effects with or without music. The sound is good, except for the three vintage animations, which are in mono. The picture is 4:3 and is generally very sharp, though varies a little with the source material. --Gary S Dalkin