MICKEYS SPOOKY STORIES is a series of animated shorts on Disney+. Mickey Mouse and his buddies gather around the campfire to tell "spooky" stories before trick-or-treating. In these bite-sized episodes (3.5 minutes maximum each), the gang takes turns telling short Halloween stories. With fun, stop-motion animation, the series delivers fun entertainment, light on scares, and heavy on redemptive messages that teach valuable lessons.
While the series features several mentions of magic, mummies and ghosts, these motifs are rarely the point of each episode. Instead, the stories set the stage for the redemptive and biblical themes at the basis of each story, such as treating others kindly, not judging someone by their appearance and making friends. However, there are many occult themes, such as ghosts flying through walls, a skeleton's head falling off when scared, and an accidental mummy summoning unfolds. While these elements are mostly played for laughs and never intended to scare the audience MOVIEGUIDE® suggests caution for all children and sensitive adults due to magical and occult elements.
(B, OO, V, MM):
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Mixed worldview with strong biblical elements mixed, with occult elements. It’s short, three-minute episodes heavy on biblical themes such as friendship, looking beyond appearances and stepping in to defend those who can’t help themselves. It rebukes envy, thievery and kidnapping. However, magic does play a part in this series. Instances of magic use are typically confined to stories being told around the campfire, it is important to mention that characters both good and bad are seen to use magic. Some uses are using a spell book to summon candy, mummies and other creatures, divert an evil witch, cast a sleeping spell and more.
Foul Language:
“Spooky” is often used;
Violence:
A witch casts a sleeping spell on someone, a witchs broom is caused to go hayfire and she flies away, characters are chased around by monsters such as mummies, werewolves and more, a skeleton is frightened and his head falls off;
Sex:
A kiss on the cheek;
Nudity:
None;
Alcohol Use:
None;
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
Obsession with candy; and,
Miscellaneous Immorality:
Magic use by characters both good and bad (bad rebuked), one use of a spellbook, stealing candy (rebuked), summoning monsters and candy with magic, a ghost learns how to become “spooky” but later repents when he has become too spooky, and one instance of kidnapping.
MICKEYS SPOOKY STORIES is a series of animated shorts on Disney+. Mickey Mouse and his familiar buddies gather around the campfire to tell “spooky” stories before trick-or-treating. In these bite-sized episodes (3.5 minutes maximum each), the gang takes turns telling short stories in keeping with Halloween. With fun, stop-motion animation, the series delivers fun entertainment, light on scares, and heavy on redemptive messages that teach valuable lessons.
While the series features several mentions of magic, mummies and ghosts, these motifs are rarely the point of each episode. Instead, the stories set the stage for the redemptive and biblical themes at the basis of each story, such as treating others kindly, not judging someone by their appearance, making friends, and good triumphing over evil. However, there are many occult themes such as ghosts flying through walls, a skeleton’s head falling off when scared, and an accidental mummy summoning unfolds. While these elements are mostly played for laughs and never intended to scare the audience MOVIEGUIDE® suggests caution for all children and sensitive adults due to magical and occult elements.
MICKEY’S SPOOKY STORIES begins around the campfire. The Mickey Mouse gang tells “spooky stories,” with Goofy going first. He relays a story of a Goofy Ghost who’s laughed at by trick-or-treaters. He asks two ghosts for help to become spookier. However, he bumbles and fails through all the training until he ultimately gets it. Ultimately, he spooks the trick-or-treaters and winds up spooking them too much. He regrets his actions and, to make it up to them, pulls a trick of levitating pumpkins and candy, making his friends happy again.
In the second episode, Daisy Duck tells the story of Prince Duck, who stumbles into a witch’s abode. The witch casts a spell and puts him in eternal sleep, intent on eating his candy. But Princess comes to rescue him immediately. Unable to reverse the spell, Daisy wakes him with a kiss on the cheek. They escape the witch’s house, with the witch in hot pursuit. Daisy casts a spell that makes the witch’s broomstick go haywire, allowing them to escape and live happily ever after.
In the third episode, we see Donald Duck’s tale of Donald and Mickey, who are full of a night of trick-or-treating but greedily desire more Halloween candy. A witch flies by and drops her spell book. Mickey picks it up and attempts to cast a spell for more candy but summons a mummy who wants their candy instead, followed by musical skeletons. The monsters chase them until Mickey can finally reverse the magic and turn them all into a big pile of candy instead, which the two of them happily devour.
Episode 4 tells the story of Minnie-Spider. While she loves giving out candy on Halloween, no one visits her house because they’re afraid of her, so she is very lonely. However, she can’t stand by when she notices Werewolf Pete taking Mickey’s and friends’ candy bags. She rebukes him, only for him to chase her. The gang realizes she’s not an evil monster and helps her trap him in a giant spider web. Werewolf Pete apologizes for his behavior and learns that they want to share what they have if he treats people kindly. Everyone else learns they should’ve seen Minnie Spider’s appearance to get to know her.
Episode 5 is the last story. It’s Mickey’s turn. He tells the story of when he forgot to buy a costume for Halloween. He runs into a Halloween hotel to get a last-minute costume, with time running out to go trick-or-treating. But looking in the mirror, he sees a monster looking back at him! He runs for help before realizing the monster works for the hotel and is friendly. The story ends with Mickey asking the monster to go trick-or-treating with him as friends.
Once again, Disney doesn’t present a proper biblical theology about witchcraft and the occult. As with all sin, dabbling in the occult is rebellion against God and, ultimately, demonic.
Deuteronomy 18:10-12: “There shall not be found among you anyone who. . . practices divination, or a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.”