The Nuttiest Nutcracker (1999) Review

The Nuttiest Nutcracker (1999) Review

Here’s a weird one for today. Remember as a kid, there were certain times of day you were allowed to watch TV? Maybe it was early in the morning, or right after school, or just before bedtime. You hoped something good was on, because you were going to watch TV no matter what. 

I remember The Nuttiest Nutcracker played on Teletoon during the holiday season for a number of years in a row, and I got excited the first time I heard about it. The commercial made it look fun—it’s based on the classic story The Nutcracker, in which a Nutcracker comes to life to take on an evil Mouse King—and it reminded me of Toy Story, but something about it didn’t look quite right…my then-primitive mind couldn’t determine why, though. 

It was animated using 3D computer graphics, just like a Pixar film, only it didn’t have the budget of a Pixar film. The Nuttiest Nutcracker was a direct-to-video Christmas movie, with a budget of about 80,000 dollars. It has jerky animation, dead-eyed characters, and bland designs. And that’s just the visuals. The story and characters are extremely bad, and strange.

I didn’t know the story of The Nutcracker before I watched this, so I always thought talking food was a normal part of it. No, not so much, apparently. There’s Mac the Macadamia nut, Gramps, an old walnut, and the sugar plum fairy? An actual sugar plum. But there’s also Marie, the main human character, who is annoying as hell, and the Mouse King is a fat, red-suited goof voiced by Jim Belushi. The voice cast has some other talent, too, including Cheech Marin and Phyllis Diller. The combo of talking food and animation style now reminds me more of Veggie Tales than Toy Story. 

I didn’t think much of this movie as a kid—I was disappointed by it, and it was one of those situations when nothing else was on, so I just watched it anyway—but looking back on it, I can’t believe how weird it is. An army of food, including a child peanut with a backwards hat, a black-eyed pea, and a broccoli in a tutu, fights an army of mice soldiers, they all talk, Marie is caught in the middle, there’s a Nutcracker prince in there, somewhere…it’s just too much weirdness to cover. I’m probably forgetting half the crap that happens.  

The Nuttiest Nutcracker is almost so bad and bizarre I would recommend it, however I’m not sure how readily available it is. If you can find it on DVD online for 99 cents (or, better yet, a pirated version uploaded online for free), consider checking it out if you have an appetite for cheap, bizarre, early computer-animated films with a Christmas flavour.