At one o'clock, Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Jiminy Cricket), who shows him visions of his time as an employee under Fezzywig (Mr. Toad).

As Scrooge asks the spirit if the events can still be changed, they see two gravediggers (Weasels) remarking how no one came to mourn the man they are burying.

Falling into his own coffin which opens to show the flames of Hell, Scrooge vows to change his ways before finding himself in his bedroom on Christmas Day.

Filled with glee, Scrooge begins spreading happiness and joy around London, donating a sizable amount of money to the gentlemen's charity and reconciling with Fred.

The film also includes unidentifiable dog, fox, pig, squirrel, bear, raccoon, goose, and chicken characters.

Nash was the only original voice actor in the film as Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse) had died in 1966, Pinto Colvig (Goofy) in 1967, Bill Thompson (Scrooge McDuck), Cliff Edwards (Jiminy Cricket) and Billy Gilbert (Willie the Giant) in 1971, and Billy Bletcher (Pete and the Big Bad Wolf) in 1979.

Siskel felt there was not enough emphasis on Mickey's character, in spite of the title, and that it did not rank with most of Disney's full-length animated features.

Ebert stated that it lacked the magic of visual animation that the "Disney people are famous for" and that it was a "forced march" through the Charles Dickens story without any ironic spin.

[10] Mickey's Christmas Carol was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Animated Short Subject of 1983,[11] losing to Jimmy Picker's Sundae in New York.

Colin Greenland reviewed Mickey's Christmas Carol for Imagine magazine, and wrote that "it is surprising how entertaining this is, perhaps because it is actually a Scrooge McDuck movie (of course), with the effete rodent very much in a minor role as Bob Cratchit".

[12] In 2019, Robert Keeling of Den of Geek noted as it "not exactly a faithful retelling – surprisingly, the issue of Scrooge’s mother and sister dying never comes up – but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable and warm festive offering nonetheless".

It started on NBC (1984–1990) with 12 new additional sepia title cards illustrated by Michael Peraza Jr. to match the 12 he had done for the original film to help bridge the segments together.

In recent years, however, Mickey's Christmas Carol is only aired in a half-hour time slot and in high definition matted widescreen, presumably to be more suited for modern television screens.

The aforementioned broadcasts in the 1980s and early 1990s spanned a full hour, with the first half consisting of the following older cartoon shorts: Donald's Snow Fight, Pluto's Christmas Tree, and The Art of Skiing.

On November 5, 2013, the 30th Anniversary Edition of this short was released on DVD and for the first time on Blu-ray, but it was further cropped to 1.78:1 widescreen[14] and featured a heavy use of noise reduction.