An All Dogs Christmas Carol

Directed by:	Paul Sabella
Written by:	Jymn Magon
Release date:	November 17, 1998
Available on:	VHS iTunes

An All Dogs Christmas Carol was a direct-to-video movie spun off from the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Synopsis

As the movie begins, Annabelle, the head angel in Heaven, begins to tell a litter of puppy angels the story of how Charlie Barkin and Itchy Itchiford saved Christmas in San Francisco from the "Boogie Dog" (as the puppies called her), Annabelle's evil cousin BellaDonna.

The story begins on Christmas Eve, and in the outdoor bar run by Charlie Barkin's confidante Sasha, Charlie, Itchy, and the rest of their gang celebrate the night before Christmas with a litter of homeless stray puppies, and all the while, attempt to earn enough money for a lame puppy named Timmy, who needs an operation to cure his leg. However, Carface Carruthers and his not-too-bright sidekick, Killer, are not into celebrating the holidays. The bulldog of a Scrooge has come to collect his loans back—with interest. And, as he told the group, he intends to claim what's his, and using a hypnotic dog whistle created by BellaDonna, he robs the party of their valuables—and the donations meant for Timmy's operation.

After several failed attempts to claim the whistle, the angels discover that Carface is working with BellaDonna to ruin Christmas for all, by building a king-sized version of Carface's dog whistle that, at the stroke of 12 midnight ushering in Christmas Day, will hypnotize every dog in San Francisco to steal their human masters' presents. Also, they've discovered that Carface has made a deal with BellaDonna: he gets all the humans' presents, and BellaDonna gets to destroy Christmas for everyone.

Later, Charlie and Itchy are alerted by Annabelle to save Christmas, as it will be their most important mission yet. And to aid them toward their success, Annabelle provides her angels with a "Miracle Dog Tag", but she warns them that it won't locate the giant whistle, so Charlie and Itchy decide to use the magic of the dog tag to attempt to change Carface's mind about ruining Christmas. To that end, a take on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol follows suit.

Later that night, Carface is getting ready for bed so he'll be rested for BellaDonna's world domination plan, but is unable to fall asleep, so he turns on the TV and discovers that a Christmas show called "It's A Wonderful Carface" is playing. The narrator, who is Charlie Barkin in disguise, warns Carface that he will be visited by three spirits, and each of them will arrive at the sound of a bell. Carface turns off the TV, berating the warning, until the clock begins to chime, and Itchy appears as the Ghost of Christmas Past. He takes Carface into the past, and the bulldog remembers how much his human owner loved him—until the parents of the boy who adopted Carface ordered their son to remove him from their home. From then on, Carface was convinced that humans were completely untrustworthy and organized a crime syndicate.

Then, the Ghost of Christmas Present (played by Sasha) shows Carface two events: First, how his sidekick Killer celebrates Christmas (he's gotten his boss a new swiss army knife for Christmas) and then, a scene at Timmy's home and the fun the little puppy has with Martha, his human owner. She even shows that Timmy and Martha would do anything for each other—but Timmy would rather do the right thing and tell the truth, because when Timmy and Martha were playing, a priceless china plate Martha's mom treasured got broken, and Martha tried to cover up for Timmy, but Timmy wouldn't let Martha be blamed for his mistake, so he whined, indicating that he had broken the plate. Carface thought Timmy would be thrown out of Martha's home, but instead, Martha's mom commended Timmy for telling the truth. As he watched the scene, Carface hadn't realized that Timmy was in such bad shape, until Sasha told him that if Timmy did not get the operation he desperately needed, he would not live to see next year's Christmas.

After that visit, Carface decides to loosen himself up by reading the comics page from the newspaper, but later on, he starts stiffening up again when he reads the story in the paper, and as another bell sound rings throughout the room, he is taken into another world, where he meets the Ghost of Christmas Future, who, during a Gospel-style song-and-dance number of "Clean Up Your Act", turns out to be Charlie Barkin. This ghost shows Carface that Timmy is about to fall under the spell of BellaDonna's whistle, and at the stroke of midnight, Timmy becomes hypnotized and begins to walk out with Martha's Christmas present. Carface tries to snap Timmy out of his trance, but since he's invisible to others in the future, is unable to stop the puppy as he walks through the doggy door and is never seen again.

On this note, Carface decides that BellaDonna's plan must be stopped, but not before the Boogie Dog herself takes him and Killer to the abandoned Alcatraz Prison Island, where the giant whistle has been built. Everything goes as planned at first, but then Carface remembers Timmy and his human owner. He knew that if Timmy fell under the spell of the whistle, the little puppy might never see another Christmas. After his first attempt to shut down the whistle fails (BellaDonna melts the on/off switch), he attempts to short-circuit the whistle Ben Franklin–style, by climbing up the kite string feeding power to the whistle from BellaDonna's lightning storm and interrupting the electricity flow. The whistle is destroyed and the dogs of San Francisco are freed from its hypnotic influence.

BellaDonna demands to know why her whistle was destroyed, and, to Killer's surprise, Carface accepted full responsibility for thwarting her plan. The Boogie Dog attempts to destroy them, until Annabelle intervenes and buries her evil cousin in a snowbank.

On Christmas morning, Carface shows up wearing a Santa suit and returns all the valuables he stole the previous day, and even volunteers to donate money toward Timmy's leg operation. The movie ends with a gentle snowfall in San Francisco, the reprise of "When We Sing A Christmas Carol", and a wish for a Merry Christmas from Charlie, Itchy, and Annabelle to all viewers.