Mickey Plays Papa

Mickey Plays Papa is a short that features a couple of left turns, but is all the better for it. It also features some great gags, very good animation, and some of the best work on Pluto I have seen in the Disney shorts. It all adds up to make a good gag short, if not all that memorable in the long run.

I say that this short takes some left turns, because the opening sets the viewer up for a vastly different experience than what actually happens. The opening scene features a stormy night outside Mickey’s house, with a mysterious figure creeping into view. Immediately, expectations have you ready for a haunted house or mystery story. In fact, Mickey and Pluto are in bed reading such a story, a murder mystery. It’s the arrival of the mysterious stranger that changes things.



The stranger leaves a baby on the front porch, and the child starts crying, which sends Mickey and Pluto into fits. The cries sound more like screams, which play right into the mystery/ghost vibe established early in the short. It is amazing the work that the animators do in this early part of the short. All the shots feature incredible darkness and establish the mood of dark and creepy.



Then, the baby appears, and the mood changes. Mickey and Pluto set about to entertain the baby, with disastrous results. As a parent, watching Mickey’s struggles to get the child to stop crying were quite funny. I particularly enjoyed Mickey trying to be Charlie Chaplin, to no avail.



Pluto takes over the next sequence as Mickey figures out that the baby is hungry. Pluto, hearing this, brings the baby his bone. Again, a great gag. That’s followed by a few minutes of Pluto doing all sorts of things, from swallowing a duck toy to ending up in a trunk.



The finale of the short comes when Mickey is trying to figure out how to get the baby his bottle. In an accident, Mickey gets the nipple of the bottle stuck on his nose and can’t get it off. He finally is able to pull it off, but the resulting force sends him crashing into a bookshelf. When he emerges, his nose is stretched out, and that causes the baby to laugh, finally. Mickey takes advantage and does his best Jimmy Durante impression to close the short.



Besides the great gags, the other thing that impressed me with this short was the depth of the animation. The characters have more dimensionality and look more rounded than they have in some of the previous Mickeys of this era. The opening shots of the stranger creeping around Mickey’s house are so well done that they look realistic. It’s a great compliment to the gags that make this one worth watching.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Peculiar Penguins

Peculiar Penguins is a fairly straightforward story, and it’s a Silly Symphony that manages to push some borders and use great characters to tell an entertaining story. It’s a love story at heart, and there’s a lot of heart warming stuff to enjoy in this short.



That’s probably odd to say when talking about a short that is set at the North Pole. But, Peculiar Penguins quickly goes from a general look at penguins to a focus on two penguins in particular, as a male penguin tries to impress his female friend. His first gesture is to take an icicle and top it with snow, making an ersatz ice cream cone. I found that pretty funny, considering that they are in the coldest place on Earth.

That trick works, but then our male penguin gets a little ambitious, and decides to go diving for fish to present to his lady friend. Here’s where I think the animation is particularly good. When you see the penguin under the water, chasing the fish, it’s clear that it is underwater, but you see the fluidity of motion and the natural effects of swimming so clearly. It’s probably the best underwater scenes Disney has done yet.



He runs into a problem, though, as the fish he gets for the female penguin is a blowfish, and after she swallows it, the fish continues to blow up, inflating her with him. After getting the fish out, the female is angry. She slaps the male around and dives away.



One thing I’ll say is that the animation is especially good here as well. Putting expressive faces on these penguins could not have been an easy thing to do. But the female is able to express disappointment, anger and indifference over just a few seconds. That’s quite a feat for a series of drawings.

Anyway, as the female swims away, a shark comes to menace her. Seeing the opportunity, the male jumps in to save her. His battle with the shark is the best sequence of the short. There is some great animation work here as well. We get to see the penguin and shark swimming towards and away from the camera in quick, bold strokes, and we also get great gags like the penguin propping the shark’s mouth open with a stick.



Finally, of course, the shark is defeated, and the penguins reconcile. That sets up the final scene, which is a great shot of the penguins meshed together, forming a heart, as the Northern Lights cascade around them. The shot is held for quite some time, and it provides a beautiful ending to this short.



This short is quite an improvement over the last penguin short, Arctic Antics. The animation quality is amazing in this one, and the use of color really brings out the differences between the penguins, and helps with the emotional storytelling. I liked this one quite a bit, and recommend it highly.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Orphan's Benefit

I was watching Orphan’s Benefit, the latest Mickey Mouse short today, and I kept thinking that there was something familiar about it. So, I looked it up, and there’s a good reason for that. This short was remade seven years later, with the same title, and pretty much the same plot. I had seen the 1941 version before, but the 1934 version is very notable.



The main thing to see in this short is the transition from Mickey, the solo star, to the leader of the gang. Mickey rarely even appears in this short, and he does not drive any of the action. Mickey shows up to introduce the event, prompt Donald on his lines, and play piano for Clara Cluck. Other than that, he’s not involved.

Instead, the action is borne by the side characters. Donald Duck makes his crossover from the Silly Symphonies to a member of Mickey’s supporting cast here. And it’s likely this short that won him the recurring role in the Disney pantheon. The animators had the brilliant idea of having Donald attempt to recite “Little Boy Blue” and be interrupted by the orphans. Combine that with Clarence Nash’s vocals, and you have comedy gold.



Here is where we see Donald’s famous temperament for the first time. His signature angry stance of one arm out in front and the other swinging back and forth is on display here. This is where we see Donald become the character he is today. He really is the most fully formed character from the beginning that Disney produced.



That’s not the only cast member getting an upgrade here, though. Goofy appears alongside Clarabelle and Horace as part of a dance troupe. But this is no longer Dippy Dawg. Goofy’s trademark hat, his nose and face have all taken the shape that they would retain for his solo shorts. It’s a much more expressive and well done Goofy here, and he has now joined the gang.



There are also appearances by Clara Cluck, who would return in the remake of this short, but is not part of the Mickey gang as a whole. She makes other appearances throughout the Mickeys, but is not the featured character like Donald and Goofy will become.



Other than the promotion of Donald and Goofy, this short is as a whole unremarkable. There are some fun gags, but it’s really a take off on the old performance shorts we have seen going all the way back to Alice’s Wild West Show. It’s a make shift stage with some silly vaudeville acts, just like many other shorts we have seen. That doesn’t mean that it’s not funny, but it’s nothing spectacular. Still enjoyable and well worth viewing.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

The Flying Mouse

The Flying Mouse is, on the surface, an unremarkable Silly Symphony. It doesn’t feature any real recurring characters or new innovations in animation. But there are things in this short that make it one of the most interesting Silly Symphonies I have seen yet.

Let’s start with the story. The basics are this: a young mouse, who yearns to do something different, tries to fashion some wings for himself. In the process, he ruins his family’s day, and becomes dejected. As soon as he does, though, he sees a butterfly being menaced by a spider, and comes to its rescue. The butterfly turns out to be a fairy, who grants the mouse’s wish to fly.



The granting of the leathery wings, though, does not solve the mouse’s problems. His new flying self is not accepted by the birds, and scares away his family. He gets mocked by a group of bats for not being a bat or a mouse, and ends up going away crying. His tears bring the fairy back, and she removes the wings, sending the mouse running back for joy to his mother.



Does anything about that story strike you as odd? Walt Disney, a man who came up in the world wishing to do something different, to take flights of fancy, if you will, puts out a cartoon saying that such wishes might not be good? The basic message of the short is that you should stick with what you know, and not wish to be different. That just seems very different from the normal message of Disney films to this point.



As I watched the short, this was the thing I could not get over. How would Disney agree with such a thing? After all, this was still 1934, and Walt was heavily involved in the production of the shorts. Sure, I imagine he was not as hands on as he might have been earlier, but this seems directly in conflict with Walt’s values of wishing upon a star and reaching for new ideas.



That conflict is hard to resolve, but should not obscure other interesting things about the short. For example, the fairy in this short is the predecessor of later fairies we will see, such as Persephone in The Goddess of Spring or the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio. It’s a nicely drawn human figure, and shows Walt’s boys thinking ahead.



There is also the mouse character. The main character is a familiar design, and will be used again later in Disney shorts. It’s a different design than Mickey, and the first real 3-dimensional mouse seen in the Disney films. It will be used later in The Country Mouse short, if I’m not mistaken.

I have not said yet if I like or dislike this short, and that’s because I can’t make up my mind. The animation is good, the song “You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Nothin’” is also good. But the message of the short leaves me stunned, and I find that hard to get over. Give it a watch and see what you think.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

The Wise Little Hen

Once again we’ve reached one of the landmark shorts in Disney history. This time, it’s the first appearance of the final member of the Fab Five – Donald Duck. With this appearance in The Wise Little Hen, Donald joins the pantheon of Disney stars, and our Fab Five of Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Donald is complete.



It would be a while longer before Goofy and Donald really moved into Mickey’s world as his supporting cast, but Donald’s appearance here is striking for a few reasons. Compared to the other characters who appeared after Steamboat Willie (Goofy and Pluto), Donald appears in a fully finished form. He would evolve his look a bit, but his character, voice and clothing are all the same as we would see them today.



In the story of this short, it’s a familiar parable. The titular hen has a basket full of corn to planet, and approaches her friends Peter Pig and Donald Duck to get their help. Predictably, both beg off, faking a bellyache, so the hen goes out and plants the corn on her own, with her chicks helping out.



When the time comes to harvest the corn, Peter and Donald are together, and again fake a bellyache when the hen comes up to ask if they will help. Their tunes change of course, when the hen has finally harvested everything and cooked up a feast. Corn muffins, corn on the cob, corn chowder and cornbread are all set out on the hen’s table.



She gets the last laugh, though, inviting the boys over for dinner, but giving them a vial of Castor Oil for their tummies instead of food. It’s an old story, but a good one, and one that should be repeated often these days.



The striking thing is how much of a finished product Donald really is. Clarence Nash’s voice is instantly recognizable, and his trademark sailor outfit is there as well. He is the character that we would all know and love. But why did he survive this short and not Peter Pig or the hen?

I think the majority of it has to be Clarence Nash’s voice work. From the second Donald opens his mouth, he is a funny and memorable character. There’s nothing that particularly stands out about his design, although it’s good. But the distinct voice makes Donald an interesting character.

The Wise Little Hen is important for Donald’s appearance, but it’s also a good short. The hen comes across as likeable and funny, and Peter and Donald are also well done. I highly recommend any Disney fan to check this one out and see where one of Disney’s biggest stars got his start.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Gulliver Mickey

Once again today we have a short that could be considered a sequel. This time, Mickey gets in on the act, with Gulliver Mickey, a direct descendent of Giantland. Just like before, the short features Mickey telling his nephews a story, involving himself as the main character of a popular story. Before it was Jack and the Beanstalk, and here, it’s Gulliver’s Travels.



I have not read Gulliver’s Travels in quite some time, so forgive me for not being overly familiar with it, but this seems like a faithful adaptation up to a point. Mickey is shipwrecked (seems to happen to him a lot) and is washed ashore and falls asleep on the beach. When he awakes, he is tied down by the little people of Lilliput (although they are not identified as such in the short).



From there, we get some nice scenes of Mickey interacting with the Lilliputians. I have to say, though, that these scenes are lacking in something. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s possible that it’s just the harmlessness of the interactions that is bothering me. Mickey goes through the whole thing with a smile, chuckling at the little people’s attempts to destroy him.



It’s rather disconcerting, seeing giant Mickey smiling away as the little people shoot him with cannons, poke him with swords and drive their ships into his backside. It is supposed to be humorous, seeing the futility of these small people, but it really comes off as cruel to me. I think there is a failure of the animators to make this section worthwhile. It goes on for a while, and there’s really no muscle to it.



Things change at the end, as a giant spider, with Pete’s face, shows up, to battle Mickey and terrorize the town. This battle is the main conflict of the short, which makes the ending so much worse. Instead of Mickey defeating the spider and earning the trust of the townspeople, we simply fade back to the living room, where Mickey’s acting out the battle with a pillow.



Sure, this leads to a great gag with one of Mickey’s nephews scaring him with a plastic spider, but it leaves the Gulliver story unresolved. Simply having the townspeople celebrate him and thank him for beating the spider would have made the middle section better, and enhanced the ending of the short.

I have to say that this is the first Mickey short where I thought that the later criticism that Mickey is not a starring character was valid. This is a short that could have been much funnier with Donald or Goofy in the lead role. Mickey was a vehicle for a story that could have been told with anyone. Roles like this are likely what lead to him being phased out of the lead roles and the supporting cast taking on more of the burden in his shorts.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

The Big Bad Wolf

Today’s short puts to rest a long running myth among Disney fan communities. We’ve always heard from grumpy Disney fans that “Walt didn’t like sequels,” or that “Disney didn’t used to do sequels.” I’ve long believed and stated that this was untrue. Sure enough, today we get The Big Bad Wolf, a sequel to The Three Little Pigs. And guess what? It’s fantastic.

Call it the Godfather Two of shorts, or the Toy Story 2 of animated shorts. But The Big Bad Wolf lives up to its predecessor in every way. The storytelling is superb, the animation is fluid, crisp and dynamic and the music returns from the original to provide a great overall package.



In this one, the wolf is playing a dual role – he is out for revenge on the pigs, but he’s also playing the role of the Big Bad Wolf in the Little Red Riding Hood story. The main focus of the story is the re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood. There are some notable changes, however.



Red runs into the pigs early on, and the pig with the brick house warns her not to take the shortcut through the woods to Grandma’s house. Despite their earlier experiences, the other two pigs laugh at the possibility of the Big Bad Wolf getting Red, and agree to go with her on the shortcut. When will they ever learn?

Of course, the wolf shows up, and chases them off. There’s a funny bit where he pretends to be a fairy, but is soon revealed, leading the pigs to run back to the brick house while Red tries to make it to Grandma’s.



We all know the story, of course. The wolf makes it to Grandma’s first and dresses up as the old woman, to surprise Red. The pigs, though, make it back to the brick house before damage can be done. Taking the role of the woodsman from the original story, the brick house pig grabs his toolkit for exterminating wolves and heads for Grandma’s house.



The best gag in the whole short to me is how the wolf gets defeated. We get set up with ghastly expectations, seeing the array of weapons the pig has to beat the wolf. There are knives, cleavers and more. Instead of using those, the pig dumps unpopped popcorn in the wolf’s pants, then tosses in some hot coals. The result is a wolf running off into the sunset with popcorn flying out of his backside.



This short does not let up. Although it’s not as gag packed as some of the Mickeys, the action continues at a rapid pace from the opening sequence. There is some disconnect at the two pigs ignoring the danger of the wolf, but it’s quickly forgotten. Just like before, the wolf design is spectacular.

Contrast this short with yesterday’s subject, Funny Little Bunnies, and it’s almost a night and day comparison. Funny Little Bunnies was much more full of caricature and cuteness, whereas The Big Bad Wolf is a study in dynamic characters and action. It all depends on your tastes, but my preference is for The Big Bad Wolf.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Funny Little Bunnies

Funny Little Bunnies is not for the faint of heart. I’ll be honest, if you can overload on cuteness, you should avoid this short at all costs. This is quite possibly the most cutesy short ever made by any cartoon company. Disney merchandising today would have bunny plush throughout the land if this one was a hit.

The short itself starts from a good place – Easter. It purports to be an inside look into the world of Easter bunnies as they get ready for the holiday. As such, it’s a good companion piece to Santa’s Workshop, in that it shows how the holiday comes to pass. But the bunnies and their antics are too much.



You might get the impression from this that I did not like the short, which is not the case. It’s just way too much with the cute little bunnies. The bunnies go through all sorts of routines to prepare for Easter, and that is very well done. The design of the characters, though, is almost overwhelmingly cute.



The faces on the bunnies look very rounded and full of smiles, much like a young child’s face. I’m sure that’s intentional, because the short seems like it was made for children. You get the impression when watching it that you are supposed to marvel and wonder at the magic of Easter. That’s easy to get when working in Santa’s Workshop, but it’s a little tougher for the bunnies.



That said, the processes in this short are well done. By that I mean the ways the animators thought up for various Easter treats to be created. We have chocolate bunnies being chiseled out of chocolate, eggs dropped from a group of hens into a boiling pot, pain being applied by tails, brushes and other ways. All of this shows you the different things the bunnies do to make Easter baskets.



You can’t help but smile while watching this short, because everyone in it is smiling as well. There is no story or conflict to speak of, as it’s very much an “assembly line” sort of cartoon, showing us how things are made. That’s where I think it falls down. If there had been some sort of backup in the works or an issue with the production, it would have made this short much more interesting.



As it stands, Funny Little Bunnies is the type of thing that young children would really enjoy, but it lacks the sophistication or storytelling style of the better Silly Symphonies. That said, around Easter time, watch this with your kids and have a blast.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Playful Pluto

Sticking with yesterday’s theme in Camping Out, the next Mickey Mouse short, Playful Pluto, is really a gag fest. But this takes it a step further, in that the short does not feature a real story, but instead runs from scene to scene using Pluto’s antics as the continuous thread. It’s a different way to do things, but an effective one.

Long time readers know that I prefer good, solid storytelling in my cartoons (and in any other medium). However, Playful Pluto is designed to show you snippets of a day in the life of our favorite cartoon dog. It’s more of a gag-filled pastoral than a plot driven action scene. That’s what makes it work so well.

The short opens with Mickey and Pluto out in the yard, raking the leaves. Since this is something I used to do in my yard with my dog, it was a great shot for me. Of course, Pluto has to jump in the leaves, and spread things all over, causing chaos.



From there we get a variety of scenarios. Mickey turns on a hose and Pluto attacks it. But he tears the hose and Mickey has to go to the basement to turn off the water. Pluto is holding a flashlight in the basement and swallows it. This causes him to run upstairs and burst through the screen door.



Pluto then ends up in a set of drawers, then is plagued by flies that come in through the hole on the screen door, before finally getting caught up in fly paper that Mickey put down to trap the flies.



As you can see, there’s no coherence or plot to the short, but it still works. It’s the kind of random, one after the next kind of thing you would expect from a dog. The title is really apt – Playful Pluto. This short is all about Pluto, and what he does day to day.

A tip of the hat to the animators on this short, because the key to this is selling Pluto’s emotions. Making a playful dog the lead character could have been difficult, since he is not pretending to be human or anything of the sort. But the animation conveys his frustration, anger or happiness with ease, making it easier for the viewer to connect to him.



I imagine that this short is what convinced Walt that Pluto had a viable road ahead as a solo cartoon star. Mickey is in the short, but he’s rarely the central character. Pluto carries the action.



The gags in this are well done, but not so uproarious that they are far fetched. Most of this is stuff you can imagine your dog doing. The flashlight gag is out there (Pluto swallows a flashlight then hiccups and his body illuminates), but the rest are pretty normal. A dog that jumps in leaves, runs through screen doors and does the rest of the stuff in this short is realistic, which makes it that much funnier.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Camping Out

Camping Out is a nonstop gag fest with Mickey and the gang, and as such, is probably the funniest Mickey short in quite a while. It’s also one of the few that features Mickey and Minnie hanging out with Horace and Clarabelle. But the stars of this short are the mosquitoes.

Things start out innocently enough, with the four friends enjoying a camp out. Clarabelle is baking, Minnie is tending the camp, Mickey is playing harmonica and Horace is relaxing. It’s very interesting that this is one of the few times these four are together. We’ve seen it a couple times before, but as Horace and Clarabelle begin to fade into oblivion, it’s nice to see them in this short.



A mosquito starts messing with Mickey, and Horace and Mickey swat it away, bending its stinger. When the mosquito reports back to its parents, then war is declared on Mickey and the gang, and the fun truly begins.



From the moment the mosquitoes appear on screen, the gags come a mile a minute. They are fun gags, with the mosquitoes attacking, and the gang trying to repel them. The action starts out in the camp, with the group using their picnic food to attack. Mickey loads up a can of peas and fires them at the mosquitoes, impaling the peas on their stingers and weighing them down. Horace fires molasses at the mosquitoes, sticking them to a tree, and then to himself.



That’s just a couple of examples. The work on the gags in this short is the best of the Mickey shorts in quite some time. There are so many that it’s impossible to list them. One of my favorites is seeing the mosquitoes lift Horace off the ground when he opens an umbrella to shield himself from the onslaught. Even with Mickey hanging on, the mosquitoes still get him up.



When Mickey and friends retreat to their tent, there are even more. The mosquitoes attack Horace’s backside when he is backed up to the tent, so he decides to one up them. Placing a waffle iron on his behind, Horace presses up against the tent, and the mosquitoes attack, denting their stingers. A neat gag follows as the mosquitoes get their stingers straightened out by a pair of pliers.

It’s Mickey who provides the final solution for the mosquitoes. He funnels a pipe from the tent into a pair of Minnie’s bloomers, trapping the bugs inside as they enter. This provides Horace the opportunity to kick the mosquitoes in the rear end as they leave.



It’s noteworthy how much of this short revolves around Horace’s actions. It’s easily the most work he has done in these early shorts. His gags are the funniest, and his actions are a driving force throughout. Certainly the best short for Horace fans.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.