Director: Ben Sharpsteen
Release Date: August 3, 1935
Stars: Clarabelle Cow, Donald Duck, Goofy, Mickey Mouse
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
‘Mickey’s Fire Brigade’ is the second of the classic trio cartoons featuring Mickey, Donald and Goofy, and the first of its kind in color.
When one compares this cartoon to the similar ‘The Fire Fighters’ from 1930, one can see what stunning progress the Disney studio had made in a mere five years: the backgrounds, the camera angles, the character animation, the effect animation: everything has improved considerably.
What’s more, its gags are faster, more clever and better constructed, and they build up to a wonderful finale. Among the numerous brilliant ideas are a burning title card, water splashing against ‘the camera’ and a bathing Clarabelle Cow who is not amused when saved by our heroes.
This cartoon is both Goofy’s first color appearance as the last time he’s seen in the design he got in ‘The Whoopee Party’ about three years before. In this film he’s got a particularly goofy cuckoo theme song, while some of the anthropomorphized flames play ‘who’s afraid of the big bad wolf’ from ‘Three Little Pigs‘ on the piano.
Watch ‘Mickey’s Fire Brigade’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 77
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Garden
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Pluto’s Judgement Day
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 
2 comments
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August 26, 2010 at 10:14
Gijs
Thanks for the compliments, for the link and also for the correction! It appears I’ve been trapped in the Dutch spelling of Clarabelle Cow’s name. I will correct her name throughout the site.
August 26, 2010 at 05:43
ramapith
It’s fascinating to see how the staff struggled with the question of who, exactly, Goofy was; was he more disturbingly stupid or weird (cf. “Cuckoo” theme song) or simply eccentric, dreamy and slow? Ideally, I think he ought to be the latter, but the studio seemed to approach it in stages.
Hey, how did I miss your blog before? Wonderful cartoon analysis—definitely adding to my blogroll.
Quick nitpick—Clarabelle Cow’s name should be spelled like that, not as “Clarabella.” Sorry to gripe. Keep up the great work!