"A Silly Symphony"
Synopsis
Characters
Credits
Sources
Cut Scenes
Videos
Laserdiscs
DVD
Television
Technical Specifications
Released by United Artists Pictures
Gallery
Storyboard sketches from "The Night before Christmas."
Click on the thumbnail for the full-sized picture
Click here to submit a comment of your own.
A sequel to the 1932 short Santa's Workshop.
Mickey Mouse makes a surprise appearance as one of the walking toys in the parade.
From Jerry Edwards : I generally love Christmas-themed films and shorts. But this is generally uninteresting to me. It just doesn't have a Disney "look" and "feel" to it for me. My wife, when she first saw this cartoon, thought it was done by the Fleischer Studios. The deletion of the censored scenes removes what little interest the short held for me.
From David Willis : Another short that always gets shown around Christmas time. This short was on the TV recently (not on the Disney Channel UK) and the cut scenes were not cut out.
From Ida : Santa is awesome again! It´s lovely to see how Santa plays with the toys. Because of Santa it must be 10!
From Dino Cencia : One of the best holiday Christmas shorts. This short is great to watch around Christmas time if you have this short on VHS or DVD. Also, Disney companies should make a DTV video clips with Santa Claus and Christmas songs. I love the part when Santa takes all the toys and puts them under the tree. That's like on Christmas Eve when you're sleeping and Santa comes down the chimney puts gifts under the tree. Great christmas short! I give this a 10000. Merry Christmas!
Referenced Comments
"'T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house ..."
So begins Clement Clarke Moore's famous poem and this short as well. Beginning where the previous years' Silly Symphony "Santa's Workshop" left off, we pick Santa already on his way to a house chock full of kids. Disney always had a soft spot in his shorts for orphans (at least the more well behaved ones, but that's another story) and from the stockings that these kids have hung up, you can tell that their life is probably not the greatest. One is held together with a diaper pin, another has no bottom at all. Yet another, probably too young for any reasonably sized stocking, has hung up a diaper in lieu.
But of course, Santa does come for these kids, sliding down the chimney with a rain of soot and ashes. Unfortunately, someone left the coals burning a little too long, but Santa takes it with good humor. Now, if you remember from "Santa's Workshop", all Santa had to do was blow his whistle and all the toys marched into his bag. Here is no difference, as he wakes them up with a little reveille blown on a toy horn. In fact, the toys get most of the hard labor here in decorating the tree just right, right down to a toy fire truck blowing artificial snow onto it.
Santa still has to fill the stockings himself, though, and needs to be a little creative as some of the stockings don't even look like they would hold feet. A baseball bat slides neatly down one patched stocking and the one with no bottom? A neatly unfolded umbrella takes care of that problem which neatly holds the remainder of Santa's sack.
The work being done, and it being Christmas Eve, what better excuse is there but to take a little break for a party. The toy musicians break loose into a jazzy rendition of "Jingle Bells", the dolls make a circle around the tree and begin dancing, even Santa himself can't resist joining in on a toy piano. But maybe he should have had one of his elves tune it a bit better as the last note comes out badly out of tune. That's enough to startle the kids upstairs out of their slumber and they cascade out of bed to see what the noise is all about. Apparently no one in this household can keep quiet for too long, because as the children gaze in wonder at what is happening, one lets out an ill-timed sneeze.
That small sneeze is enough to let Santa and the toys know that maybe the party has gone on too long. Santa quickly shooes the toys back into place and makes his escape back up the chimney before the children can rush downstairs to explore. Down they come in a torrent and, even though it's still only Christmas Eve, who can blame them for breaking into their presents. One young lad (the same one that let out the sneeze) has to try to look up the chimney to catch just a tail end view of Santa, but gets a faceful of soot as a reward. But he finds one more present under the tree, which he finds contains a puppy which licks his face clean.
And, as the children rush to the window to watch Santa merrily riding away into the moonlight...
"They heard him exclaim as he rode out of sight,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"