48 Fun Facts About Disney Christmas

Which Disney character takes the Ebenezer role in the 1983 featurette Mickey's Christmas Carol?

Scrooge McDuck was named for Dickens's miser when he first appeared in a 1947 comic, so the casting wrote itself; the film grew out of a 1974 Disney record album that told the same story.

Which character plays the ghost of Jacob Marley in Mickey's Christmas Carol?

Goofy delivers Marley's warning in chains, then leaves the only way he can: dodging a cane on the staircase, he tumbles all the way down with his trademark holler.

Which character appears as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in Mickey's Christmas Carol?

Pete stays hooded until the graveside, where he lights a cigar, reveals the name on the tombstone and shoves the old miser into the open grave as "the richest man in the cemetery".

In his first new cinema cartoon for 30 years, Mickey Mouse plays which Dickens character?

Bob Cratchit put Mickey back in cinemas for the first time since The Simple Things in 1953, yet it is only a supporting part: Mickey gets the title, but the story belongs to his miserly boss.

For which award was Mickey's Christmas Carol nominated in 1984?

Best Animated Short Film was the category, but Mickey's comeback lost the Oscar to Sundae in New York, a short whose star was a caricature of the city's mayor, Ed Koch.

Which actor plays Ebenezer Scrooge and all three ghosts in Disney's 2009 film of A Christmas Carol?

Jim Carrey could play them all because Robert Zemeckis shot the film in performance capture, recording the cast digitally from every angle and animating the characters over them.

Who stars as Scott Calvin in The Santa Clause?

Tim Allen pulled off a rare treble in November 1994: in a single week he had the top movie, the top TV show with Home Improvement and the top bestseller with his book.

In The Santa Clause (1994), what is the clause of the title?

A legal technicality in the suit means that by wearing it Scott agreed to become Santa, and the clause enforces itself: within a year he has piled on weight and sprouted a full white beard.

Which Disney classic opens with a puppy unwrapped from a hatbox at Christmas?

Lady and the Tramp opens with a Christmas gift Walt Disney really gave: he once surprised his wife Lillian with a puppy hidden in a hatbox, and later gave the moment to Jim Dear and Darling.

What is the subtitle of The Santa Clause 3, released in 2006?

The Escape Clause lets a Santa undo his whole career; Jack Frost tricks Scott into invoking it, time rewinds to the night it all began and Frost takes the job instead.

In which country do millions sit down every Christmas Eve afternoon to watch the same Donald Duck Disney special?

Sweden has aired the 1958 special, known there as Kalle Anka, every Christmas Eve since around 1960, and each attempt by the broadcaster to cancel or alter it has met a swift public backlash.

What is the job of the elite elf unit in Prep & Landing?

Readying homes for Santa's visit falls to veteran Wayne and rookie Lanny, whose first mission together runs into a raging snowstorm that threatens the big man's stop at one child's house.

In Marvel's 2022 Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which actor do Drax and Mantis kidnap as a Christmas present?

Kevin Bacon, star of Footloose, is Peter Quill's boyhood hero, so his friends fly to Earth to fetch him as the perfect gift, breaking all kinds of laws on the way.

What is the subtitle of the 2011 Prep & Landing sequel special?

Naughty vs. Nice sends Wayne and Lanny after a computer-hacking kid on the naughty list who has got hold of classified North Pole technology.

At which two Disney locations is the Candlelight Processional held?

Disneyland and Epcot are the two homes today, but Florida's version began at the Magic Kingdom in 1971 and only moved across to Epcot in 1994.

What does the Candlelight Processional retell?

The nativity of Jesus has been read from the Bible between the hymns since 1960, while a choir standing on tiered risers forms the ceremony's 'living Christmas tree'.

Under which label did Disney release The Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993?

Touchstone Pictures was the name on the film in 1993, yet by 2001 Disneyland was handing its Haunted Mansion over to Jack and friends for the holiday season, and the makeover kept coming back.

Who actually directed The Nightmare Before Christmas?

Henry Selick ran the stop-motion shoot in San Francisco because Tim Burton, who dreamed up the story and characters, was tied up making Batman Returns.

In The Nightmare Before Christmas, what does Jack Skellington mistakenly call Santa Claus?

Sandy Claws is Jack's garbled name for him, and he sends trick-or-treaters Lock, Shock and Barrel to snatch the old man so Halloween Town can run Christmas itself.

Who wrote the songs for The Nightmare Before Christmas and sang Jack's vocals?

Danny Elfman, then frontman of the rock band Oingo Boingo, sang Jack's songs himself, while actor Chris Sarandon supplied the character's speaking voice.

Which actor played Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol?

Michael Caine vowed to play Scrooge as if he were working with the Royal Shakespeare Company, never winking at the camera or treating his co-stars as puppets.

Which Muppet narrates The Muppet Christmas Carol as Charles Dickens?

Gonzo got the part because writer Jerry Juhl wanted to keep Dickens's narration but felt a disembodied voice would intrude, so he put the author on screen with Rizzo the Rat as his sidekick.

Which song was cut from the theatrical release of The Muppet Christmas Carol?

When Love Is Gone, Belle's ballad to young Scrooge, was cut because Disney felt it would lose young viewers, and the footage then went missing until archivists found the negative in 2020.

Which Pixar film did Olaf's Frozen Adventure originally play in front of?

Coco was an unusual home for it: the short had been made as an ABC TV special, and Coco's co-director Adrian Molina called the cinema pairing 'a little bit of an experiment'.

Why was Olaf's Frozen Adventure pulled from cinemas in Mexico?

Audiences objected to its length loudly enough, with complaints to cinemas and a protest organized on Facebook, that Mexico's big chains began screening the feature without it.

In Olaf's Frozen Adventure, what does Olaf go door to door through Arendelle collecting?

Holiday traditions are what he is after, because Anna and Elsa realize that after years shut apart in the castle they have no family customs of their own to celebrate.

Who wrote and produced Home Alone?

John Hughes got the idea while packing for a vacation: listing things he must not forget, he thought 'I'd better not forget my kids', then wondered what his son would do if left behind.

In Home Alone, where is the McCallister family flying when they leave Kevin behind?

Paris is where mother Kate turns around, and she covers the last leg home riding with a polka band led by John Candy, who shot his whole cameo in a single day.

Which box-office record did Home Alone set after its 1990 release?

Highest-grossing live-action comedy was some feat for a film made for about $18 million: it took $285 million in North America alone, where only Star Wars and E.T. had then earned more.

What do burglars Harry and Marv call themselves in Home Alone?

The Wet Bandits is Marv's idea of a calling card: he plugs the sink and leaves the taps running in each house they rob, which later lets the police tie every flooded home to the pair.

Home Alone is set in the suburbs of which city?

Chicago's affluent suburb of Winnetka supplied the real house, but the rooms seen inside it were sets built in the gym of a disused high school nearby.

Which pair of Muppets play the ghosts of Scrooge's dead business partners in The Muppet Christmas Carol?

Statler and Waldorf, the old balcony hecklers, play Jacob and Robert Marley; Dickens wrote only Jacob, and the film added a brother so both could haunt Scrooge together.

Why did an Arkansas family's huge Christmas light display move to Disney World in 1995?

Neighbors took it to court over traffic that could turn a trip to the store into an hour's crawl; owner Jennings Osborne answered by adding more lights, and once judges ruled against him Disney gave the display a home.

Which actress played the Sugar Plum Fairy in Disney's 2018 film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms?

Keira Knightley took the role, but the ballet dancing went to Misty Copeland, the first African American woman to become a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre.

Who reads the story aloud at each Candlelight Processional performance?

A guest celebrity narrator reads between the hymns; James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, has done it, and a month-long run can take a dozen or more stars, each reading for a few nights.

Which Disney star played Mary Contrary in the studio's 1961 Christmas musical Babes in Toyland?

Annette Funicello, a Mouseketeer on TV's Mickey Mouse Club, starred opposite Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow of The Wizard of Oz, who played the scheming villain Barnaby.

Which Avenger spends a 2021 Disney+ series trying to get home to his family for Christmas?

Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner, is held up in New York when a threat from his past resurfaces, and reluctantly teams up with 22-year-old archer Kate Bishop, his self-declared biggest fan.

In The Santa Clause, what happens to Scott Calvin on Christmas Eve?

A man in red falls from his roof when Scott startles him, and at son Charlie's urging Scott finishes the night's deliveries himself before the reindeer whisk them both off to the North Pole.

In The Santa Clause 2, what must Scott Calvin do before Christmas Eve to keep his job as Santa?

Find a wife is what the 'Mrs. Clause' in his contract demands, so Scott leaves a toy copy of himself in charge, and the double seizes the North Pole with an army of toy soldiers.

Who plays Santa's daughter in Noelle, the 2019 comedy that launched on Disney+?

Anna Kendrick plays Noelle Kringle, who urges her stressed brother Nick, the next Santa played by Bill Hader, to get away for a break, then has to hunt him down when he never comes back.

The Mickey and Minnie segment of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas adapts a story by which author?

O. Henry's 1905 tale The Gift of the Magi has a wife sell her hair to buy a watch chain while her husband sells the watch to buy her combs, and Mickey and Minnie repeat the loving blunder.

How did the 2004 sequel Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas break from its 1999 predecessor?

It was made in CGI, a new look for Mickey and friends, and its ice-skating opener has rivals Minnie and Daisy call in the dancing hippos and alligators from Fantasia as backup.

Which animator directed Disney's 1978 Christmas featurette The Small One, then left to start a rival studio?

Don Bluth quit Disney in 1979, taking a group of fellow animators with him to form his own studio, and in 1986 his An American Tail out-earned Disney's own mouse film, The Great Mouse Detective.

In the 1952 short Pluto's Christmas Tree, which pair is hiding inside the tree Mickey cuts down?

Chip 'n' Dale usually torment Donald Duck, but their very first screen appearance, still unnamed, was pestering Pluto at an army camp in 1943's Private Pluto.

In Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, the villain Forte was transformed into what?

A pipe organ is a form Forte, voiced by Tim Curry, would rather keep: enchanted, he finally feels useful to the Beast, so he schemes to stop his master falling for Belle.

In Toy Story That Time Forgot, which toy is upset that Bonnie never casts it as a dinosaur?

Trixie, the triceratops voiced by Kristen Schaal, gets her wish among the Battlesaurs, a tribe of warrior dinosaur figures who have no idea they are toys.

In Home Alone 2, where is the McCallister family flying for Christmas when Kevin is separated?

Miami is where the family lands without him, while Kevin, on the wrong plane with his father's credit card, talks his way into a suite at New York's Plaza Hotel.

What is the name of the ticketed holiday night event that Magic Kingdom first held in 1983?

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party needs its own ticket, which covers free cookies and cocoa around the park and a nightly snowfall on Main Street, whatever the Florida weather.