With all Disney’s cinematic successes over the past decade – from more traditional animation such as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast to the CGI wonders of the Toy Story films, A Bug’s Life etc – we can be excused for forgetting just who got the whole ball rolling in the first place. Yes, a certain Mickey the mouse, Pluto his dog, Donald the Duck and Goofy the – umm, whatever the hell he is...

Mickey’s House of Villains sees the Disney super-hyper-mega-corporation returning to their original bread and butter stars, assembling a clip show of sorts to serve as a Halloween special. Unlike typical clip shows, however, this features some shorts that appear to have been created especially for this production – well, they’re quite shiny and new at any rate – and more excitingly, some of these demonstrate a flair and creativity that I’m sure many assumed the House of Mouse had lost in recent years in favour of blanded-out, soulless kiddie-mush.

Speaking of the House of Mouse, this is the name of the nightclub which is the setting of this piece. With Mickey em(i)ceeing, it’s time for a Halloween celebration, with many Disney favourites from through the years rocking up for a bit of entertainment. There’s a bit of concern, however, as an inordinate amount of villains seem to have shown up too – ooh, here’s hoping they behave themselves like good little baddies!

As is clip show tradition, brief linking segments introduce an assortment of short cartoons dating from as far back as 1937 to present day. Demonstrating the development cum watering down of characters such as Mickey and Donald over the years, we get everything form the classic bendy-legged Mickey through to his rather flat modern day incarnation, along with his squeeze Minnie, Donald’s nephews Huey, Dewie and Louie, Pluto – the only poor sap in this universe who never got given a voice – and Goofy in a selection of vaguely “spooky� themed shorts. Sure, they never had the double-pronged bite of their main competitors, the Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies stable of stars (for their Acme Disney could only counter with an Ajax), however there’s still good entertainment value to be had for youn gand old. It is actually a couple of the newer episodes, most notably a fabulous art-deco Seussian tribute where Mickey moves into a new-fangled electric house, that show there’s plenty of exciting creativity thriving away in the dungeons of Disney around the world, and if perhaps they’d stop pumping out flaccid sequels to past glories for a while and let these people get on with something a bit more original, there could be some real magic to be spun once again.

It’s a strange fallacy that kids don’t like those “annoying black bars�, yet the irony is I’ve not met one littlie that has ever even noticed their presence. Chalk it up to ignorant parents channelling said ignorance into their children – hey, sadly it wouldn’t be the first time... Anyway, this comes in full frame, despite the package’s claim of a 16:9 transfer, and it looks very nice – even Donald would be hard pressed to find something to lose it over here. One of the most important armaments when creating children’s animation is colour, and here it is bountiful. All the new footage is simply brimming with life, whilst even the older stuff – creations that date back up to 65 years – appear to have had restoration work done to have them looking better than they have in decades. Not surprisingly this older footage does show up some deficiencies – there are a few speckles, the occasional touch of grain and some colour fluctuations – however otherwise the image throughout is very pleasing, and certainly suitable for such a presentation.

While we are given an audio track in Dolby Digital 5.1, really it may as well be in simple 2.0, as there’s little to no advantage taken of the format. As this was originally made for TV this is hardly surprising – so don’t come into this expecting the subwoofwoof to give Pluto a run for his money, or to have Donald careening around your entire room on one of his many tanty tirades. You can, however, expect good, well-balanced sound which is clear at all times – even the old footage has had some fabulous restoration done to it. As for lip synch, I hold out the cartoon card – I mean, seriously, what do you expect?!

With a main feature running time of just 65 minutes you’d hope for a plethora of extras to up the value stakes. There are a couple of things included, however there’s really little time value to be had. What we do get is a virtual music video-styled thing running for 3:04 called Fright Delight, a collage of baddies doing their baddie thang ranging from the days of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Alice in Wonderland through to later creations such as A Bug’s Life and Dinosaur. Two versions are presented, the ‘House mix’ which features sound effects with orchestral accompaniment, and the ‘Villains’ mix, which eschews the music in favour of just the effects. Speaking of which, these are both presented in DD5.1, and actually take advantage of the format, with bits and pieces whooshing about the room, and the subwoofwoof given a chance to play – a little bit. The other extra is an interactive game entitled Reel of Misfortune. A fairly simple, but very well put together, creation aimed at the kids (although I failed on my first attempt – oh the shame!), it throws up multiple choice questions about a selection of the most villainous of Disney villains, with enough correct answers allowing you to escape.

Kids should love this release, whilst parents should at least find more to entertain them than many other releases aimed at the littler ones. You may not need to run screaming from the lounge room for this one - gawrsh!