Mickey's Christmas Carol... An Epilogue

With Christmas winding down, I thought we would take one more look back at my favorite holiday tradition, viewing Mickey’s Christmas Carol, through the eyes of a collector. MICKEY’S CHRISTMAS CAROL… An Epilogue comes to us from the Spring 1984 The Disneyana Collector, and certainly gives me a number of items I am already adding to next Christmas’ list.

New Disney animated feature films are generally heralded with promotional advertising and various character merchandise… and Mickey’s Christmas Carol is no exception. Although termed a featurette rather than a feature, the film has been given the same treatment accorded a full-length movie as far as character merchandise is concerned.

Disneyana collectors who like to gather such promotional merchandise relating to films will be pleased to know that Mickey’s Christmas Carol left behind it an abundance of collectibles. There’s a set of five Grolier matched porcelain pieces – the 8 1/2” plate, the bell, the 7” tall figurine, the 2 1/2” disc ornament and the 3 1/2” miniature plate – all with the same scene involving Scrooge McDuck, Tiny Tim and Mrs. Cratchit (Minnie Mouse).Other Christmas Carol commemorative merchandise, most of which can be found at Mickey’s Christmas Chalet at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, include a porcelain figurine of Scrooge and Tiny Tim in a musical rocking chair, napkins, coasters, a pin-back button, a ball tree ornament, a lidded tin container with various scenes from the movie on the sides, a round art-glass ornament, a Read-Along record and a tape, a Little Golden Book, a tote bag, two different photo-etched tree ornaments and a set of five porcelain bisque figural tree ornaments, including Mickey, Minnie, Scrooge, Tiny Tim and Jiminy Cricket. Yet to arrive on the scene, probably by fall, are a mug and a set of 2 1/2” round disc ornaments with a different scene on each.

Many of the pictorial subjects appearing on the promotional merchandise portray actual scenes from the film but some of the items are related to the movie only by virtue of the Dickens-type costumes worn by the characters depicted. In any case, collectors agree that the Christmas Carol merchandise makes up “the happiest collection on earth.”