An All Dogs Christmas Carol

I watched this back to back with Christmas Carol: The Movie and while this is a doctored version, it remains the better of the two. Still pretty crappy, but the better.

Told with the spirited cast of All Dogs Go to Heaven, the story sees Charlie and Itchy as the heroes of the piece, although their ‘characters’ aren’t even in the Dickens classic. Carface (great name) plays the scrooged one and our boys must pretend to be three ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future to convince him to give up his hard-stolen spoils – spoils destined to help little Timmy get an operation he so desperately needs. Not having it all alone, they are invested with some magic via a dog licence from Annabelle, the Queen Angel dog. Can they show Carface the magic of Christmas and get Timmy helped in time?

It’s animated, so what do you expect?

At least this version is honest with itself. It knows it’s not high art and it acts accordingly. The animation is television quality throughout and that’s OK because it works. This film has no higher ideals than that which it is, and for that, I for one, am appreciative.

And if you are wondering, ‘What’s the difference between TV and movie animation?’ I’ll let you know. Feature film animation is generally drawn and redrawn until it’s perfect. Most every frame (25 per second) of a feature is hand drawn (or computer animated, granted) whereas TV animation is generally drawn on ‘twos’ (12.5 frames per second). This creates slightly less fluid motion, but speedier results and while this isn’t the ratio always employed for either TV or films, it’s a good basis to go from.

"God bless us, everyone!"

This film was shot in 1998, when computers and animation were firmly shaking hands and getting to know each other. Hence there are moments of traditional painted cel animation and more modern scanned and computer coloured artwork. However, both work for the film, and given that this has (more than likely) been made for TV or video, it suits the piece.

As a story it’s a fun take on the traditional Dickens work, and while not ground-breaking in the least, it speaks directly and clearly to its target audience of kids.

While we only receive a 4:3 transfer, the picture is remarkably clean and colourful. Christmas is arguably the most colourful time of the year and they haven’t skimped on the hues here. Kids will love the bright colours and funny animation without doubt. There are occasional film and cel artefacts, but these are acceptable and unobtrusive, although there are also instances of aliasing and pixellation. While these aren’t major, they are still present. Compression, too, plays a sinister role here as some parts are crushed a little tightly; see 47:39-43 as a good example.

Otherwise, if a little dusty at times, the overall picture looks fairly nice.

Dolby Digital stereo, of course. I never expected anything but. Still, it does the job satisfactorily with no real events distressing the listener. Dialogue is all clear, although on the parts of the animators, the lip synch isn’t always the best. Sometimes it almost seems to be foregone entirely, which isn’t good, but these instants are fleeting and may well be missed by most.

Sound effects are naturally comical and well placed, while the score by Mark Watters is effectual but pedestrian at best. There are even a couple of horrid songs thrown in, but I am constantly left to wonder how badly kids want to see songs in animation. Do they? Disney seems to have dried their well of songs in films (thankfully) but is anyone else following suit?

At least the other Christmas Carol attempted to fill the disc with a trailer, but herein we get stuff all.

This is a fairly low-budget production, and whereas that can let some films down, this hasn’t hurt this one at all. Realising it’s low-rent they have acted accordingly and produced a film best utilising their resources and it shows. While made for video or TV, some skimping has been done at times, but this is forgiveable. The script is childish, the animation funny, the jokes childish (again) and there’s no reason kids won’t like it. If they liked the original they’ll no doubt enjoy this one as much.

For the parents, this is similar to anything playing before or after school, so it won’t hold much for you guys.