MarzGurl's Christmas in July - An All Dogs Christmas Carol

(Clips from the movie are shown)

MarzGurl (vo): Hey, everybody, consider this a Christmas in July because I'm here to talk about the very last piece of Don Bluth related work that has absolutely no involvement from Don Bluth, An All Dogs Christmas Carol, because if you've never seen Charles Dickens' most beloved story about learning the meaning of Christmas as performed by cartoon dogs in modern day San Francisco, then you've never seen A Christmas Carol at all! I note here, of course, that that last sentence should be read with extreme sarcasm because this movie is complete and utter garbage, but for completion's sake, here I am to give this movie a brief running over. The movie is short, just a little over an hour, but I have to admit, it feels particularly long. Maybe that's because it's just plain bad, but I think that its badness also stems from the fact that the movie is written and paced just plain awfully. It feels like two or three different movies fighting for attention at times, and of course, this takes place somewhere in the middle of the mess that is All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 or the TV series, not in the realm of the first movie, you know, the good one. So because of that, continuity is all kinds of jacked up, so just screw it at this point, it's just about a bunch of dogs. I barely want to refer to them as their original character names, because the only one that acts anything similar to his original character is Itchy, and that's because you just can't make Dom DeLuise come off as anybody other than Dom DeLuise.

Charlie: (singing) The music might play on 'til midnight!

Itchy: (spoken) We're hoping that our neighbors don't mind, ohh!

MarzGurl (vo): The movie starts with the dog angel, Annabelle, reading a story to a bunch of Heaven puppies. Wow, that just sounded really stupid to say, I'm sorry.

Annabelle: This is a holiday story about three ghosts, two bad dogs, and an EVIL witch!

MarzGurl (vo): Okay, not really the story I remember, but I'm listening now. Can I just say before we continue that the animation is already really bad? I mean, really, that should be obvious, but it bears mentioning. Lip flaps not matching, stuff looking either too stiff or too rubbery, and it just gets progressively worse from there.

Annabelle: In fact, the witch was my evil cousin, (spooky voice) Belladonna!

(The puppies gasp and whimper in fear)

Female angel puppy: Do you mean...the boogey-dog?

Annabelle: Yes.

MarzGurl (vo): Wow, okay, first of all, Belladonna did indeed show up in the TV series a couple of times, I don't ever recall her being referred to as the boogey-dog, however. Second of all, really, boogey-dog, really, that's what you came up with? Would it kill you to call her a devil or a demon or something, I mean, God forbid we're talking about a bunch of angel dogs sitting around up in Heaven talking about a Christian holiday, and we're too scared to say something more threatening than boogey-dog? Censorship, man, it's crazy! Okay, so I guess this takes place during the TV show because Charlie and Itchy are their Earth selves, and here they are, preparing with other dogs for Christmas Eve with a bad musical number.

Sasha: (singing) The little ones tucked in their baskets

Gray dog: (singing) Dreaming sweetly of (spoken) Santa Paws!

MarzGurl (vo): This musical number features really bad transitions, slides and wipes, and shows you the lamest Tiny Tim ever, with the worst wrapping of a busted leg ever.

Charlie: So, you got lots of loot for Timmy? (shakes the money jar) Ka-ching!

Sasha: Yes, and it's really gonna help the little guy, Charlie.

MarzGurl (vo): Wait a minute, the movie also sets up bones as being the dogs' means of currency, yet here they are, donating coin money? One, where did they get it, and two, what's the conversion rate between bones and US dollars? Carface and Killer show up and crash the party and steal a bunch of stuff, of course, as there'd be any doubts, but he does it using some hypnotizing demon whistle. Yeah, remember this part of A Christmas Carol? (sarcastically) It's executed so perfectly using cartoon dogs. So Charlie and Itchy take it upon themselves to solve the problem and get all the stuff back, especially Timmy's operation money. Oh look, they're doing that gag from the first movie except without the little girl, so it isn't nearly as endearing. So the part that's actually A Christmas Carol is one movie, then another movie in this movie is the part where Charlie and Itchy try to take back robbed goods, and then another part of it is the part where we learned that the devil is trying to build a giant zombie making dog whistle in San Francisco. Why does she want to do this?

Belladonna: Me? Hmmm, I get to ruin Christmas! (cackles)

MarzGurl (vo): Yeah, that's quite the plan. No, I'm not joking, that's the plot of this movie, or like three plots, really, it's an incredible mess. So here's where the rest of A Christmas Carol finally kicks in: Annabelle presents Charlie and Itchy with a deus ex machina in the form of a magic dog tag that will help them perform their task of saving the world on Christmas, which they then used to perform the Charles Dickens classic on Carface over the course of the night to try to change his heart or some junk. So the Ghost of Christmas Past comes to Carface in the form of Itchy. He visits his past where he was born, as well as visiting his past with his first human family, which by the way, is not possible, because he wasn't born in San Francisco in the 1990s, he was born most likely in New Orleans in the 1930s, but okay, movie, we'll ignore your blatant ignoring of plain face canon, that's cool. A bad musical sequence tells Carface's rewritten origin story where he turns bad because a family didn't like him peeing on the floor.

Carface: (singing) But I'm gonna see you through it all, cause you're my pal.

Itchy: (spoken) But he didn't say it, did he? Oh, man.

Carface: Now the kid blamed it all on me, so I stopped being a good little pup and turned into a hood.

MarzGurl (vo): Great, move on to ghost number two. Charlie's on again, off again girlfriend, Sheena* plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, and we're blessed with another musical number sung by Charles Nelson Reilly. I mean, really, I could have lived without it.

* NOTE: Her actual name is Sasha. Sheena is the first name of her voice actress.

Killer: (singing) I always get emotional at Christmastime, that heavenly time of year! (giggles)

MarzGurl (vo): Hope you feel guilty because the perfectly healthy puppy aside from the broken leg is gonna die soon, too! Oh, and he's gonna get thrown out into the street for making a mistake! FEEL GUILTY!

Mom: You mean...you (Timmy) broke the plate?

(Timmy whimpers)

Carface: No, no, no, kid, don't tell her that!

Mom: Good boy! You did the right thing, and I'm proud of you!

MarzGurl (vo): Oh, no, the puppy still has a home, that's good. Third ghost, Ghost of Christmas Future featuring Charlie the ghost, and to tell Carface that he dies and everybody's happy about it. He turns into a swing singer and gives us another embarrassingly terrible song.

Charlie: Show time! (singing) Look what you've done, you've been a very bad dog, my son!

MarzGurl (vo): This, somehow makes Carface not want Timmy to get involved in the Christmas ruining, evil dog whistle scandal or something, so then Carface is all, "NO!", but Belladonna is all,"YES!" So it turns out that they didn't solve anything or save anybody. The giant ugly dog whistle is hiding over on Alcatraz, as if that's not an obvious place to put a giant dog whistle or even a place where people usually take tours or anything where people can find it.

Belladonna: One minute to Christmas, suckers!

MarzGurl (vo): And then finally, Carface has enough sense to fight back and stop the whistle machine from starting up, except he gets scared and turns it back on, but finally with the power of cartoony exploding, he blows up the whistle and Christmas is saved! Carface is protected from going to Hell for a second, and then he gives all the stolen stuff back while threatening to be a jackass again sometime in the near future.

Charlie: You did the right thing for once.

Carface: (giggles) Yeah, don't expect it to last long.

MarzGurl (vo): Ah, the meaning of Christmas. Everybody sing!

Dogs: (singing) When we hear a Christmas carol, we know that it's Christmas at last! (ay ,ay, ay) / Everytime we hear a Christmas carol, we know that it's Christmas at last!

Sasha: (to Carface) Hey, why don't you stick around for the party, big boy?

Carface: I'd love to, but I'm gonna go visit my mom.

MarzGurl (vo): No, you're not, you were born in the 1930s and she's dead.

Timmy: Yes, God bless us, everyone!

MarzGurl (vo): Oh, yeah, this was supposed to be A Christmas Carol, wasn't it?

What can I say? It's a bad movie which is based on a far superior movie that had bad songs, bad dialogue, bad animation, was a terrible rendition of A Christmas Carol, and at times, got itself confused for two other movies that it wanted to be. It's not worth your time, even if you're an All Dogs Go to Heaven fan, and it certainly won't be worth your time once Christmas actually does come around, so just don't bother. Well, now that I'm done with Don Bluth related stuff, what comes next? We'll find out soon, hope you'll stick with me.

Charlie: And that goes double for us! (giggles) (A caption appears below saying, "No, it doesn't")

(The credits are shown with the song When We Hear a Christmas Carol playing)