Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation,
Charles Nelson Reilly, Lacey Chabert, Joseph Ashton, Raphael Sbarge, Cathy Cavadini, Christopher Plummer, Susan Silo, Bronson Pinchot, James Belushi, Lindsay Schnebly
It’s only two days till Christmas and the largest order for toys ever has arrived in Toyland where the factory to build the toys for Santa exists. Mean old Barnaby (Christopher Plummer) is a scrooge like old man who hates Christmas and has plans to shut it down for good. The characters from Mother Goose live in Toyland, and with the help of Jack and Jill (Joseph Ashton and Lacey Chabert) and Humpty Dumpty (Charles Nelson Reilly) they set out to defeat Barnaby and keep the toy factory open.
This MGM animation release was intended for a theatrical run, but due to the failure of All Dogs Go to Heaven, it was determined instead to send this straight to video. Unfortunately Disney did a live action version of this story that flopped rather historically. Perhaps the worst flop in Walt’s history, this didn’t do too well. I tried watching the Disney version several times, and found it truly difficult to watch. Fortunately, this animated telling of the story is really well done. Much more interesting than the Disney one, the animation is really good, and the story is much more interesting. I felt that this was really well done, and I get the story a lot better than I ever did from the other version. This story is clear and concise, and I see what they were going for. Barnaby is a great villain is who just hates toys. Very well drawn and concisely told, this is a good version to watch if you’d really like to watch a story of Mother Goose’s characters come to life.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
