Felix the Cat Saves Christmas is a 2004 direct to DVD film, produced, written and directed by Don Oriolo and starring Felix the Cat, with the story being set in the Joe Oriolo incarnation of the series.
The film starts with Felix arriving in town on a train, heading to Poindexter's house to spend Christmas with him. Poindexter is busy reading a book by the fireplace in his house, and tries to find another book to read from his library, but gets disturbed when Felix rings the doorbell. Poindexter finds Felix frozen outside, but brings him in to thaw him out. Poindexter offers Felix a present—a book on Sodium Phosphate Potassium Nitrate & Other Fun Chemicals. Felix reluctantly accepts the gift (but tosses it aside when Poinsy isn't looking) and whistles for his Magic Bag, which comes down from the chimney. Felix pulls out a present for Poindexter out of it—which turns out to be a mere snowball. Felix uses this to trick Poindexter into playing around with him in the house. Meanwhile, the Professor is spying on the city in his lab (with Rock Bottom eating dinner nearby), bitter about the Christmas spirit in the air. Bragging about how he's been a rotten person ever since he was a child, planning evil deeds while other kids played in the snow and got toys, he decides to ruin Christmas for everyone by using a Snow Making Machine, which creates a winter storm so strong that it would keep Santa Claus from delivering presents, thus forcing Christmas to be cancelled. Felix and Poindexter get the news of the bad weather, and decide to travel up to the North Pole with Poindexter's rocket plane to help Santa out and save Christmas, with Professor and Rock Bottom trailing behind them, trying to stop them from foiling their plans...
To date, this film is the last piece of animation starring Felix the Cat, being one of three direct to video films that were planned, but ultimately ended up the only one getting made. It was also the last Felix work made by Felix the Cat Productions before the series was sold to Dreamworks in 2014 (and then acquired by NBC/Universal in 2016 when they bought out Dreamworks).
Tropes:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Poindexter's rocket plane, which is portrayed in very low grade CG.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Poindexter manages to send a snowball at Felix in house by quickly plotting a Rube Goldberg-esque pattern with his calculator.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Professor has an entire song number, "It's Not Easy Being Mean", where he brags about how he's always been a bad guy, even when he was a toddler. In a flashback during his Motive Rant, it shows that he read books like "The ABCs of World Domination" as a kid.
- Christmas Episode: The film is set on Christmas Eve, and is centered on Felix foiling Professor's plan to ruin Christmas.
- Continuity Nod: While Master Cylinder does not appear in the movie, he's briefly mentioned in passing by The Professor.
- Deface of the Moon: During this Villain Song, Professor launches a rocket to the moon (with Rock Bottom tied to it), which blows off part of it and turns it into a crescent moon.
- Evil Is Petty: Professor tries to use a weather control device to ruin Christmas, purely because of bad memories he had of the holiday as a child.
- Fluffy Dry Cat: Happens to Felix.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs:
- When Felix is ringing Poindexter's doorbell, he calls “Hold your retro rockets, I'm coming!”
- When Felix and Poindexter break into Professor's lab, and Professor finds out they got in by distracting Rock Bottom with a steak, he mutters "Never send a Rock Bottom to do the work of a Master Cylinder!"
- Human Popsicle: When his weather control machine blows up in the end, Professor is sent flying into icy water, and is later seen carried into a Paddy Wagon while frozen solid in a block of ice.
- Incorrect Animal Noise: Rock Bottom at one point is attacked by a group of squirrels that make dolphin sounds.
- Motive Rant: When Felix and Poindexter confront Professor in the climax and ask him why he's trying to ruin Christmas, Professor launches into a rant about his backstory of why he had such bad memories of Christmastime.
- Mythology Gag: When Poindexter falls off the bookshelf early in the film, the flash cards used are the same stock explosion artwork used in the Joe Oriolo Felix cartoons. It's also a reference to the old Running Gag of Poindexter frequently getting caught in self inflicted (yet harmless) explosions in those cartoons.
- Psycho Poodle: At one point in the Villain Song, as an example of how bad he is, Professor is shown dripping a chemical onto a little girl's poodle, turning it into a giant monster that attacks a city.
- Thick-Line Animation: With the exception of Felix and his magic bag, the film's art style is drawn in this manner.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: Involving Felix, Poindexter, the snow kids and a snow monster chasing each other through a series of spiky ice formations.
- The Scrooge: Professor. He tells his backstory that he's despised Christmas ever since he was a child, he was busy perfecting his evil plans while other kids were getting silly toys. He even says Scrooge is one of his favorite heroes of all time, quoting his famous "Bah, humbug!" line.
- Start of Darkness: Late in the film, Professor goes into his backstory of how, as a petulant toddler, he was never invited by kids to play with them during Christmas, and only got coal for Christmas, which he implies was part of what set him down the path of villainy and gave him his bad memories of Christmas.
- Villain Song: "It's Not Easy Being Mean", sung by Professor early in the film and explaing how he's always been a rotten person.
- Vocal Evolution:
- Felix, voiced by Dave Coulier in this special, has a very low sounding falsetto compared to how high he sounded in the original Joe Oriolo cartoons, since Dave's voice couldn't naturally hit that kind of pitch.
- Professor's voice (provided by Jason Marsden) is much less raspy and noticeably deeper than in the Joe Oriolo cartoons.
- Weather-Control Machine: Professor uses his Snow Making Machine to create a winter storm to prevent Santa Claus from delivering presents, thus forcing Christmas to be cancelled.
