Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey Saves Santa and Other Mouseketales

Nearly 80 years later, Mickey Mouse is still the leader of the club! In "Mickey Saves Santa," the lead episode in this Disney Channel compilation, Mr. Claus and his reindeer are stranded atop Mistletoe Mountain, and it's up to Mickey and Donald Duck, with help from viewers, to choose the right "mouseketools" that will help them, and Santa, on their way. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse hails from the Blue's Clues interactive school, and features computer-generated incarnations of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and Minnie. Unlike the more contemporary, older-skewing House of Mouse --which brightened Disney's "One Saturday Morning" programming block--Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is geared toward preschoolers, encouraging viewers to participate in each learning adventure, while also promoting shape and pattern recognition, counting, and other creative skills. DVD extras include two other fun, albeit non-holiday, episodes--"Goofy's Bird" and "Mickey-Go-Seek—and a celebratory "Hot Dog" dance-along to a tune supplied by They Might Be Giants (who also contributed the Clubhouse theme song). Hardly a Christmas classic, this is still a strong optional purchase. Aud: P. (D. Liebenson)