Mog’s Christmas Review

Channel 4 has developed a tradition of adapting popular children’s books into animated specials for Christmas. 2023 sees the second book in Judith Kerr’s Mog series getting this treatment.

Mog is a dim and forgetful cat that the Thomas family owns. Her peaceful life gets disturbed by a strange tradition the humans celebrate. This includes putting up decorations, cooking special food, having more humans visit the house, and worst of all, a walking tree. When Mog sees the Christmas tree walking towards her, she runs up on the roof and gets stuck.

For 50 years, Mog appeared in 18 books, a Christmas advert for Salisbury in 2015, and recently a stage show that toured the UK. Mog’s a lovely character since she’s a clumsy cat and the stories were told from a cat’s perspective. I love cats and that is what drew me into the special.

Mog’s Christmas was a cute short. There were lots of silly cat antics that cat owners can relate to like Mog slipping off the greenhouse roof, trying to eat the turkey stuffing, sleeping outside on a bin, and getting stuck on the roof. I have seen cats do similar actions.

Mog’s Christmas was a quaint, low-stakes story. It was just about Mog trying to avoid the Christmas chaos, feeling unloved since the family told her off, and getting stuck on the roof. It was a short story for children and had a calm nature. The short felt akin to other adaptations of British stories like the early seasons of Thomas the Tank Engine, the Paddington adaptations, and the animated series based on Beatrix Potter’s books. However, Mog’s Christmas story was thin and it needed to be stretched to meet the 30-minute runtime. There was a sequence where Mr. Thomas and the children went into town to buy a Christmas tree which was a nicely animated sequence to give the audience the Christmas feels but not much else. Mog’s dream was shown to be a surreal music video with a pretty little song sung by Sophie Ellis-Bexter.

Mog’s Christmas was a well-animated story. The team had made other shorts for Channel 4 like Snowman and the Snowdog, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and the other Judith Kerr adaptation, The Tiger Who Came For Tea. The animation was fluid, I enjoyed watching Mog come in from the garden through the cat flap and Mog’s grumpy expression. Scenes in the house had white backgrounds to make it look more like books and it allowed for nice transitions as Mog went from room to room, but it also meant there was a lot of negative space.

The short attracted some big-name actors for the voice roles. The most famous actors were Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy as Mr. and Mrs. Thomas and Miriam Margolyes and Zawe Ashton in supporting roles. Ashton only voices one scene as Mrs Gaynor, the mother to a baby that Mog didn’t like. The Thomas family were of similar make-up to the Browns in the Paddington franchise. There is also a mum, dad, son and daughter. Mr. Thomas was serious and up-tight and often said ‘Bother that cat.’ His son even copied his expression at one point. Mr. Thomas felt like Mr. Brown because of his personality and annoyance towards a destructive animal in their homes. Mrs. Thomas was a gentler figure as she tried to encourage Mog down with food and spoke like a mother to the feline.

Mog’s Christmas was a sweet offering that the whole family can enjoy, especially cat lovers. It should become a Christmas staple for British audiences for years to come.