For the 2021 Christmas special episode of the podcast, Chris and Alex turn to the short Mickey’s Christmas Carol (Burny Mattinson, 1983), the Walt Disney Studio’s cel-animated retelling of the Charles Dickens masterpiece directed and produced by longtime Disney storyboard artist Burny Mattinson. Joining them to discuss Disney’s cultural relationship to Christmas and its longstanding history of festive-themed productions starring its most beloved characters is Dr. Amy M. Davis, Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Hull. Amy is the author of numerous books, articles and chapters on Disney and animation, including the monographs Good Girls & Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation (2006) and Handsome Heroes & Vile Villains: Men in Disney’s Feature Animation (2013), and the recent edited anthology Discussing Disney (2019). Listen as they discuss Disney’s synergistic company strategies when it comes to representing Christmas across its multimedia products; animated adaptations and what it means to ‘cast’ fantastical cartoon stars in recognisable roles; Disney, Dickens and even Mickey Mouse himself as master storytellers; the consistency of vocal performance across different iterations and phases of animated characters; the themeable nature of Mickey as he is ‘recostumed’ across time and space; and how Mickey’s Christmas Carol parallels the Mouse House’s relationship to the vault as an audiovisual archive given the cartoon’s heightened reflexivity and engagement with the audience’s media memory.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
Footnote #48 - Visual Effects
Dungeons & Dragons - The Fantasy Adventure Board Game (with Cat Mahoney)
Footnote #47 - Aura
Toy Story (1995) (with Lucy Fife Donaldson)
Footnote #46 - Multiplanarity
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) (with Sarah Thomas)
Footnote #45 - The Disney Renaissance (with Peter Kunze)
Beauty and the Beast (1991) (with Peter Kunze)
Footnote #44 - Hanna-Barbera (with Jared Bahir Browsh)
The Flintstones (1960-1966) (with Jared Bahir Browsh)
Footnote #43 - Disney Princesses (with Robyn Muir)
Wish (2023) (with Robyn Muir)
Footnote #42 - Tolkien’s On Fairy Stories
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Footnote #41 - Canons
Life, Animated (2016) (with Janet Harbord)
Footnote #40 - Puppetry
The Dark Crystal (1982) (with Tanya Kirk)
Arthur Christmas (2011)
Footnote #39 - Special Effects
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