The Pied Piper

September 14, 2010 in ★★★★, Silly Symphonies, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Wilfred Jackson
Release Date: September 16, 1933
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

Still from 'The Pied Piper' featuring the pied piper and some rats

‘The Pied Piper’ is a vivid re-telling of the original fairy tale in operetta fashion.

Thus ‘The Pied Pier’, together with ‘King Neptune‘ (1932) and ‘Father Noah’s Ark‘ (1933), belongs to the operetta- like Silly Symphonies. In its score, composed by Leigh Harline, practically all dialogue is sung, making ‘The Pied Piper’ an animated mini-opera.

Its human designs are way more detailed and anatomically correct than in ‘King Neptune’ or ‘Father Noah’s Ark’, making these two films looking old-fashioned, already. Disney was advancing towards the later realism of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937) with a lightning speed…

Unfortunately, at the same time, a sugary approach is unleashed, as well. For example, the rats are not drown, but caught in an imaginary cheese. Likewise, the children, who are depicted as virtual slaves in Hamelin, do not just disappear, but they’re lured into ‘Joyland’, where even the crippled get cured. So, in the end, practically no harm is done to anyone.

And so, like the contemporary ‘Lullaby Land‘, ‘The Pied Piper’ is a strange mixture of ever advancing animation and rather infantile material. A great deal of the remaining Silly Symphonies would share this mixture, and even Disney’s first features, like ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ and ‘Bambi‘ (1942) are not immune to it.

The children designs used here would pop up in numerous sugary cartoons from the 1930s, including those from other studios. And, unfortunately, there would be a lot of them…

Watch ‘The Pied Piper’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Silly Symphony No. 39
To the previous Silly Symphony: Lullaby Land
To the next Silly Symphony: The Night before Christmas

Old King Cole

September 13, 2010 in ★★★½, Silly Symphonies, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: David Hand
Release Date: July 29, 1933
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

Still from 'Old King Cole' featuring a castle in a book

Old King Cole throws an annual party at his castle, which ends at midnight.

One can regard ‘Old King Cole’ as a remake of ‘Mother Goose Melodies‘ from 1931. Both cartoons feature nursery rhyme characters singing and dancing. Although King Cole himself still has the same design he had in the earlier cartoon, the complete short shows an enormous progress in animation, which is elaborate and fluent throughout.

In ‘Old King Cole’ the long song-and-dance routine is executed much more complexly than in the earlier short. Indeed, at times it is even reminiscent of the musicals of the era. It belongs to the operetta-Silly Symphonies of the mid-1930s, with all characters singing their lines. It features several original arrangements of classic nursery rhymes, with the sequence of the nine little Indians leading to a stunning finale, with all characters dancing to an Ellingtonian jungle rhythm.

But then Hickory, Dickory and Dock spoil the fun, telling the audience it’s midnight, and all nursery rhyme characters flee back to their books. King Cole himself has the last shot, singing goodnight to the audience.

‘Old King Cole’ contains no story whatsoever, but the film’s sheer joy, its complex designs and its bright colors make this cartoon yet another highlight within the Silly Symphony series.

Watch ‘Old King Cole’ yourself and tell me what you think:


This is Silly Symphony No. 37
To the previous Silly Symphony: Three Little Pigs
To the next Silly Symphony: Lullaby Land

Birds in the Spring

September 10, 2010 in ★★★, Silly Symphonies, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: David Hand
Release Date: March 11, 1933
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Still from 'Birds in the Spring' featuring a bird listening to its eggs

‘Birds in the Spring’ is a Silly Symphony about a mischievous little bird who encounters a.o. a rattlesnake and some angry bees.

This short can be regarded a study in realism, using birds. The realistic birds portrayed here are a far cry from the primitive and cartoony designs of ‘Birds of a Feather‘ from 1931. They fit perfectly in the equally realistic and elaborate backgrounds. The difference between the two shorts shows the enormous and unbelievable growth the Disney studio had made in a mere two years. The snake and the bugs in this cartoon, on the other hand, are not half as good, and fail to evoke any feeling of realism. A cousin of the badly designed snake would appear, however, in ‘Mickey’s Garden‘ (1935).

In his autobiography Pinto Colvig reveals that all the chirps, whistles, warbles and tweets in this cartoon are made by two women, Esther Campbell and Marion Darlington.

‘Birds in the Spring’ may have inspired ‘Morning Noon and Night‘ (released October 1933), the first of several Silly Symphony-like cartoons produced by the rival Fleischer studio.

Watch ‘Birds in the Spring’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Silly Symphony No. 34
To the previous Silly Symphony: Santa’s Workshop
To the next Silly Symphony: Father Noah’s Ark

King Neptune

September 9, 2010 in ★★★★★, Silly Symphonies, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: September 10, 1932
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

Still from 'King Neptune' featuring several mermaids on a rock

King Neptune is a merry sea giant, who gets angry when a bunch of horny pirates capture one of his topless(!) art deco mermaids. This leads to a war at sea, complete with an aircraft carrier whale and sea creature dive bombers.

‘King Neptune’ introduces a new concept to the Silly Symphonies, that of operetta. No longer the characters act silently to music, now they actually sing in operatic fashion. In the mid-thirties operetta was very popular in Hollywood, and in 1933 the operetta format would spread through the series, and it even shortly invaded Mickey Mouse films, like ‘The Mad Doctor‘, ‘Ye Olden Days‘ and ‘The Mail Pilot‘ (all 1933).

This trend led to curious mini-musicals, like ‘Father Noah’s Ark‘ and ‘The Pied Piper‘ (both 1933). The style reached its apex with ‘The Goddess of Spring’ (1934), in which the singing in all its seriousness became downright ridiculous. The operetta style survived into 1935, after which it disappeared from the Disney cartoons. However, Walt Disney’s first feature, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937), clearly uses the operetta-style, probably because it already had been conceived at the end of 1933.

King Neptune is kind of a stock character. In many ways he’s just Old King Cole from ‘Mother Goose Melodies‘ (1931) in an updated form – rather awkwardly still wearing gloves. This character would resurface as Santa in the next Silly Symphony ‘Santa’s Workshop‘ (1932), as Noah in ‘Father Noah’s Ark‘ (1933), and as King Midas in ‘The Golden Touch’ (1935).

The pirates and mermaids are nowhere near realism, yet they’re designed and animated much better than the hunters in ‘The Fox Hunt‘ (1931), showing that Disney was making fast strides to realistic human designs already at this stage .

‘King Neptune’ is only the second Silly Symphony in color, yet unlike the first, ‘Flowers and Trees‘, it was made with color in mind from the start, and it shows. What a lush, elaborate, colorful and stunningly beautiful short this is! The cartoon simply bursts with color. Nevertheless, at several points the artists were still struggling with the new language of color. For example, one fighting scene on deck is almost rendered in reds only, in another scene the turtles have almost the same color as their background rock, failing to stand out. However, two color Silly Symphonies later, in ‘Santa’s Workshop‘, these problems appeared to have been solved, for that cartoon juxtaposes the most vibrant colors in all its scenes.

Apart from the use of color, ‘King Neptune’ is astounding because of its astonishingly elaborate animation. It’s packed with special effects, and complex and beautiful animation. The opening shots alone, in which King Neptune introduces himself, contain excessive, complex cycles of bubbles and fish. But the short’s highlight is the epic battle, which contains scenes of unprecedented complexity.

More impressive Silly Symphonies were soon to follow, but ‘King Neptune’ itself already is no less than a masterpiece. All previous Silly Symphonies literally pale compared to this one, let alone contemporary cartoons of other studios.

Watch ‘King Neptune’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Silly Symphony No. 30
To the previous Silly Symphony: Flowers and Trees
To the next Silly Symphony: Bugs in Love

The Wayward Canary

September 8, 2010 in ★★½, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 5 comments

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: November 12, 1932
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★★½
Review:

Still from 'The Wayward Canary' featuring two canaries and a charicature of Douglas FairbanksThe Wayward Canary’ follows the same story line as ‘The Barnyard Broadcast‘ (1931) and ‘Mickey’s Revue‘ (1932). Like in these films, a song-and-dance routine is interrupted by numerous animals causing havoc.

This time, Mickey gives Minnie a canary for a present. It appears to have numerous offspring. These little birds escape and fly all over the house. Before they’re all caught, the complete house is wrecked.

Among the numerous gags there’s a surreal one when Pluto and a cat run through a wringer, which renders them flat. By 1932 such extreme body deformities had become extremely rare in Disney cartoons, and soon they would vanish altogether, as they were not in tune with Disney’s search for the ‘plausible impossible’. It was up to Tex Avery at Warner Brothers to revive gags like these in the late 1930s.

Among Minnie’s household there is a lighter with a swastika on it [update: see animation historian David Gerstein’s comment below for an explanation]. She also has signed portraits of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Together with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, these two actors were the co-founders of United Artists, the company Disney had joined in 1932.

These portraits are the first caricatures of real people in a Mickey Mouse film. Although Mickey and Minnie were only slowly shedding their barnyard background, these signed portraits are not too surprising accessories, considering Mickey’s enormous popularity in the early 1930s. Moreover, they suggest that Mickey and Minnie, although being cartoon characters, live in the real world, among other Hollywood stars. This concept would be developed further in the next year, in the superb ‘Mickey’s Gala Premier‘.

Watch ‘The Wayward Canary’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 48
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Touchdown Mickey
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Klondike Kid

Trader Mickey

September 6, 2010 in ★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 comments

Director: David Hand
Release Date: August 20, 1932
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★
Review:

Still from 'Trader Mickey' featuring Mickey playing saxophone to a cannibalMickey is a trader in Africa. He is captured by a bunch of hungry cannibals, whose king laughs with Goofy’s guffaw*.

The cannibals ruin Mickey’s trade, which consists mostly of musical instruments. When Mickey grabs a saxophone, he launches a long song-and-dance-routine, making the short old-fashioned when compared to contemporary Mickey Mouse cartoons like ‘Barnyard Olympics‘, ‘Mickey in Arabia‘ and ‘Mickey’s Nightmare’.

The cartoon is hampered further by severe and backward caricatures of African natives. They’re shown as extremely dumb, and halfway apes and humans. Among the offensive images are shots of cannibals playing instruments with their feet, and others of cannibals with gigantic duck-like lips. In any case practically all the gags originate in the cannibals’ ignorant use of Mickey’s trade, which make the film a tiresome watch today, despite its jolly atmosphere. The cannibals would also appear in Floyd Gottfredson’s contemporary Mickey Mouse strip, starting at August 17. The strip borrowed several images from the animated cartoon, including the fat king and his cook.

‘Trader Mickey’ was the first short directed by David Hand (1900-1986), who’d become Disney’s third director after Wilfred Jackson and Burt Gillett. Hand had joined the Disney studio as an animator in early 1930, just after the departure of Ub Iwerks. As a director he would create many wonderful shorts, like ‘The Mad Doctor‘ (1932) and ‘Who Killed Cock Robin‘ (1935). Then he advanced to features, directing ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937) and ‘Bambi‘ (1942). Hand would leave the Disney studio in July 1944 to set up his own studio in England.

Unfortunately, ‘Trader Mickey’ cannot be regarded a great start of Hand’s directing career. It’s a weak film, based on ingredients from the equally weak ‘Cannibal Capers‘ (1930) and ‘The Delivery Boy‘ (1931). Hand would nevertheless maintain a high standard in all his next films, the only other failures being ‘Mickey’s Man Friday‘ (unfortunately also starring cannibals) and ‘The Robber Kitten‘, both from 1935.

Watch ‘Trader Mickey’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 45
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Nightmare
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Whoopee Party

*Goofy himself had just made his first appearance in ‘Mickey’s Revue‘ from three months earlier and there was not yet an indication that this character was here to stay, or that this laugh was exclusively his.

Barnyard Olympics

September 3, 2010 in ★★★★★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 comments

Director: Wilfred Jackson
Release Date: April 13, 1932
Stars: Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pete
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

Still from 'Barnyard Olympics' featuring Mickey Mouse on a bicycleAs the title implies, there’s a great sports event at the barn.

Mickey is joining a cross country race that involves running, rowing and cycling (which is beautifully animated). His main opponent is a rather unrecognizable Pete, who looks like just a big mean cat without a peg leg.

‘Barnyard Olympics’ was inspired by the upcoming Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 1932. It’s a brilliant gag cartoon: it’s fast, consistent and exciting, and without doubt one of Mickey’s finest. It immediately starts with an excellent gag when a spectator suddenly discovers he’s being filmed and waves at ‘the camera’.

In a way ‘Barnyard Olympics’ marks Goofy’s debut. He’s not seen at all, but during a boxing match his characteristic laughter, provided by story man Pinto Colvig, can already be heard. In Mickey’s next film, ‘Mickey’s Revue‘, Goofy would appear on the screen himself.

With ‘Barnyard Olympics’ Mickey entered the zenith of his career. His films from 1932-1934 are his best. Almost all portray him as the little, but brave underdog fighting the odds, and importantly, in these films Mickey still is the star himself. After 1934 Mickey became more and more of a straight man, losing screen time to Pluto, Donald and Goofy. Yes, the Mickey Mouse films from the second half of the 1930s are also great, but by then Mickey’s own stardom was in a clear decline. But in ‘Barnyard Olympics’, like the other films from 1932-1934, he’s still in top form as the greatest cartoon star of his era.

Watch ‘Barnyard Olympics’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 40
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Mad Dog
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Revue

The Mad Dog

September 2, 2010 in ★★★½, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: February 27, 1932
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Pete, Pluto
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

Still from 'The Mad Dog' featuring Mickey protecting Pluto against a dogcatcherWhen Mickey is washing Pluto, Pluto accidentally swallows a piece of soap.

He runs into the street where he’s seen as a mad dog. There he confronts Pete (with peg leg), who is a dog catcher and who wants to shoot Pluto…

‘The Mad dog’ is a fast gag cartoon with a clear story from the beginning to the end. By now, the Disney studio could produce amazingly consistent stories. Moreover, effect animation had fully penetrated the Mickey Mouse cartoons. The washing scene, for example, is full of difficult and extraordinarily lifelike animation of splashing water.

Watch ‘The Mad Dog’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 39
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Grocery Boy
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Barnyard Olympics

Mickey in Arabia

September 1, 2010 in ★★★★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Wilfred Jackson
Release Date: July 11, 1932
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pete
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

Still from 'Mickey in Arabia' featuring a snake-charmer‘Mickey in Arabia’ can be described as ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho‘ in Arabia.

In this short Mickey and Minnie are tourists visiting some mythical Arabian country on a camel. Here they meet Pete, who has both his legs here, and who apparently is some sort of sheik. Pete captures Minnie, which leads to an exciting finale, which consists of continuous series of gags.

Despite its all too familiar story outline, ‘Mickey in Arabia’ is a major step forward in the Mickey Mouse series. It places Mickey outside his familiar barnyard and performance settings, and sends him on an adventure abroad, similar to the ones Mickey was having in Floyd Gottfredson’s comic strip of the same time. Mickey is at his best as the little hero, and he excels here. Gottfredson himself sent Mickey to Arabia, too, but only two years later, at the end of 1934. His comic strip ‘The Sacred Jewel’ borrows a lot of images from this 1932 film.

The adventure notwithstanding, the Disney story men didn’t forget to fill the short with gags, making ‘Mickey in Arabia’ a fast paced and funny short. It also has a great score, which makes excellent use of Albert Ketèlbey’s ‘In a Persian Market’ to create an Arabian atmosphere.

With ‘Mickey in Arabia’, the studio had hit the jackpot storywise, and in the next two years Mickey would play the little hero more often, with delightful results. Indeed, already in the same year, ‘Mickey in Arabia’ would be topped by the even more excellent ‘Touchdown Mickey‘ and ‘The Klondike Kid‘.

Watch ‘Mickey in Arabia’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 43
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Musical Farmer
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Nightmare

The Grocery Boy

August 31, 2010 in ★★★½, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Wilfred Jackson
Release Date: February 8, 1932
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

Still from 'The Grocery Boy' featuring Mickey Mouse cookingMickey has to deliver groceries to Minnie. When he arrives, she’s baking a stuffed turkey in the kitchen. Mickey helps her cooking in a musical scene, based on the 12th Street Rag. But then Pluto steals the turkey, an event that leads to a grand finale in which Minnie’s kitchen is completely ruined. Nevertheless, Mickey and Minnie retain their optimistic spirit.

‘The Grocery Boy’, contains many fine gags, the best of which is Mickey throwing a dish in the trash can immediately after he has finished preparing it. The structure of this short is very similar to those of the earlier ‘Mickey Steps Out‘ and ‘Mickey Cuts Up‘ from 1931, being part musical number and part gags leading to ruin. The finale is fast-paced and gag-rich, and saves a film that started a little bit dull.

Watch ‘The Grocery Boy’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 38
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Duck Hunt
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Mad Dog

The Beach Party

August 27, 2010 in ★★★½, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: October 28, 1931
Stars: Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

Still from 'The Beach Party' featuring Clarabella Cow and Minnie Mouse picknicking on the beachIn ‘The Beach Party’ Mickey, Minnie, Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar and Pluto go picnicking on the beach. All goes well, until an evil octopus ruins their picnic, and they all have to battle against him.

‘The Beach Party’ is one of four 1931 Mickey Mouse cartoons to feature no musical routine, at all. Clearly, the Disney studio grew more and more confident in telling stories instead of musical numbers. And rightfully so, because ‘The Beach Party’ shows that Disney studio was more capable than any other studio in telling a good gag-filled story leading to a great finale. These were a welcome replacement to the tiring song-and-dance-routines. And so, by 1932, the musical numbers had almost disappeared from the Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Nonetheless, ‘The Beach Party’ knows no dialogue, and most of the movement is rhythmical, and set to a musical beat. The film’s greatest idea is the battle, because the gang’s means to chase the octopus away are entirely based on their eating habits as shown before. Such subtle and sophisticated story telling was unknown outside the Walt Disney studio at that time.

Notice, too, how Pluto and the crab resolve into speed lines when fighting. This effect was still pretty new at the time. The gag with the crab would be reused six years later to much better effects in ‘Hawaiian Holiday’.’The Beach Party’ is no classic, but secretly this film, too, shows Disney’s ambitions.

‘The Beach Party’ is also the first of only two shorts in which Mickey, Minnie, Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar are presented as four close friends, the other one being ‘Camping Out’ from 1934. Their friendship would become common practice in Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comics, starting with ‘Mickey Mouse and the Ransom Plot’ (July-November 1931).

In these comic strips Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar would become real personalities, something that never happened in the Mickey Mouse films. Indeed, soon after Mickey changed to color in 1935, Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar vanished from the screen, apart from an occasional cameo. Unfortunately, the same thing occurred in the Mickey Mouse strips: Horace’s and Clarabelle’s last major adventure with Mickey was ‘Race for Riches’ (July-September 1935), after which they were replaced by Goofy.

Watch ‘The Beach Party’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 34
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Barnyard Broadcast
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey Cuts Up

The Barnyard Broadcast

August 26, 2010 in ★★★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: September 30, 1931
Stars: Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Still from 'The Barnyard Broadcast' featuring Horace Horsecollar playing sawMickey’s got his own radio station at the barn. There, Minnie, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow perform some music to broadcast.

All goes well, until a cat and her little kittens cause havoc in the studio. Mickey has a hard time chasing them away, and during his efforts all instruments are destroyed.

‘The Barnyard Broadcast’ reuses the cat from ‘Mickey Steps Out‘ from two months earlier, and it introduces the numerous kittens that would cause Mickey lots of trouble in the subsequent films ‘Mickey’s Orphans‘ (1931) and ‘Mickey’s Revue‘ (1932). After that their role would be taken over by the orphan mice, introduced in ‘Mickey’s Nightmare‘ (1932).

After ‘Mickey Steps Out’, ‘The Barnyard Broadcast’ is another attempt in building a finale in a string of gags. The film is not entirely successful in this and only gains momentum when Mickey chases the cat away with a broom. The technique would be perfected in the subsequent films, ‘The Beach Party‘ and ‘Mickey Cuts Up‘.

Watch ‘The Barnyard Broadcast’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 33
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Fishin’ Around
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Beach Party

Fishin’ Around

August 25, 2010 in ★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: September 1, 1931
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★
Review:

Still from 'Fishin' Around' featuring the gamekeeperMickey and Pluto go fishing in a no fishing area, but the fish are making fun of them.

Pluto even gets under water, sniffing the bottom of the lake and meeting an enormous fish. This scene reuses quite some animation of Pluto sniffing from Pluto’s debut ‘The Picnic‘ (1930). Then a gamekeeper appears, but Mickey and Pluto escape him. The goat-like gamekeeper would return in Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comic ‘Dr. Oofgay’s Secret Serum’ (July 1934).

Like ‘Traffic Troubles‘, ‘The Moose Hunt‘ and ‘The Beach Party‘ from the same year, ‘Fishin’ Around’ is a genuine gag cartoon. It is the weakest of the lot, however, and can hardly be called a classic. The tricks the fish pull at Pluto and Mickey are amusing, but nothing more than that. Both the fish and Pluto steal a lot of screen time from Mickey, who is blander than ever before in this short.

Nevertheless, the film is a modest example of how the Disney studio tried to improve the quality of its animation. Notice, for example, the reflections and other water effects in this short. By now, they had become standard in Disney cartoons. Moreover, the cartoon starts with some quite convincing animation of Mickey rowing. There’s some clear sense of pulling weight here, even though these cycles are interspersed with less convincing animation.

Watch ‘Fishin’ Around’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 32
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Blue Rhythm
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Barnyard Broadcast

The Delivery Boy

August 24, 2010 in ★★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: June 6, 1931
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pete (cameo), Pluto
Rating: ★★
Review:

Still from 'The Delivery Boy' featuring Mickey and Minnie playing instrumentIn ‘The Delivery Boy’ we watch Minnie doing the laundry in a pasture, singing the 1905 hit song ‘In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree’.

Mickey surprises her, and they dance the Charleston together to the background music. Mickey is so happy, he boxes a wasp’s nest. The wasp’s nest hits his donkey and his whole delivery, which consists of musical instruments, is spread over the pasture.

Undaunted, Mickey and Minnie start playing the piano, and all the farm animals join in, playing ‘The stars and stripes forever’. The cartoon ends when Pluto retrieves a burning dynamite stick and everything explodes. Nevertheless, Mickey is still able to finish playing John Philip Sousa’s famous march.

‘The Delivery Boy’ is as joyous as it is boring. After three years of song-and-dance routines one grows rather tired of it. Moreover, cartoons like ‘Traffic Troubles‘ and ‘The Moose Hunt‘ had proven that Mickey could do very well without them.

Pluto would cause havoc again in some of the succeeding films, like ‘Mickey Steps Out‘ (1931), ‘Mickey Cuts Up‘ (1931) and ‘The Grocery Boy‘ (1932). In these films the song-and-dance routine would give way to well-build gag-filled finales, of which the one in ‘The Delivery Boy’ is an embryonic version.

Watch ‘The Delivery Boy’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 29
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Moose Hunt
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey Steps Out

The Moose Hunt

August 23, 2010 in ★★★½, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: April 30, 1931
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

Still from 'The Moose Hunt' featuring Mickey crying over PlutoIn ‘The Moose Hunt’ Mickey and Pluto are hunting moose.

They finally find a moose (or more exactly, the moose finds them). Unfortunately, in front of the moose, Mickey’s gun fails and soon the moose hunts both Mickey and Pluto. The chase ends with Mickey escaping on a flying Pluto.

‘The Moose Hunt’ is Mickey’s third gag only short, after ‘The Fire Fighters‘ (1930) and ‘Traffic Troubles‘ from earlier that year. It’s hardly as good as those earlier entries, though. Its pace is slow, and it contains some awkward gags, like the flying Pluto finale. It also contains a rare gag breaking the fourth dimension: when Mickey accidentally shoots Pluto, he suddenly addresses the audience with a “Is there a doctor in the house?”. Then, when Mickey begs Pluto to speak to him, Pluto actually speaks!

The self-conscious audience gag would remain a rarity at Disney, but it would become a staple gag at Warner Bros. when Tex Avery joined that studio. The two Pluto gags are totally out of character, and have nothing to do with him being a dog. After ‘The Moose Hunt’ we would never see Pluto flying or speaking again (apart from a short ‘Mammy’ at the end of ‘Mickey Steps Out‘), and after watching ‘The Moose Hunt’ it is easily understandable why not.

Luckily, there are other scenes that are more inspired, and in which Pluto behaves like a dog throughout. Indeed, in his very first solo scene, which reuses a little animation from ‘The Chain Gang‘ (1930), Pluto’s character as a little dumb and a little cowardly dog is pretty well established. Pluto’s looks are still unstable, but he’s excellently animated, throughout.

In ‘The Moose Hunt’ Pluto also gets his name (he was called ‘Rover’ in his first appearance in ‘The Picnic‘ from six months earlier). He now clearly is Mickey’s dog, not Minnie’s, like in the earlier film. It’s clear that the Mickey Mouse films could use an extra character, and after this film Pluto would appear in almost all succeeding Mickey Mouse films, stealing more and more screen time from Mickey.

Mickey would go hunting moose again in the way funnier ‘Moose Hunters’ from 1937, which, incidentally, doesn’t star Pluto.

Watch ‘The Moose Hunt’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 28
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Castaway
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Delivery Boy

The Castaway

August 20, 2010 in ★★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Wilfred Jackson
Release Date: March 27, 1931
Stars: Mickey Mouse
Rating: ★★
Review:

Still from 'The Castaway' featuring Mickey at the piano and a great apeMickey is a castaway, stranding on a tropical island.

Luckily, a piano is washed ashore as well, so Mickey performs for the jungle animals inhabiting the island. Unfortunately, an obnoxious little tiger disturbs him, and a great ape wants to play the piano, too, wrecking the instrument.

‘The Castaway’ was a short made out of rest material, and it shows: Mickey’s looks are wildly inconsistent, there’s not even a hint of a story, and the whole film feels like a throwback to 1929. Nevertheless, this short contains nice effect animation of waves washing ashore. It also reuses some animation of dancing sea lions from ‘Wild Waves‘ (1929) and of a dancing ape from ‘Jungle Rhythm‘ (1929), the film with which ‘The Castaway’ has most in common, which is no advertisement. In fact, Walt Disney disliked the film, thinking it didn’t look like a Walt Disney picture. And indeed, it hardly does.

The gag in which a lion gets eaten by a crocodile was borrowed from a very early Mickey Mouse comic strip from February 1930, which incidentally was the last panel drawn by Ub Iwerks himself.

‘The Castaway’ is also noteworthy for being the first Disney short to feature music by Frank Churchill, who would score many Disney shorts, and who would become particularly famous for the hit song ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf’ from ‘Three Little Pigs‘ (1933) and the songs in ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937).

Watch ‘The Castaway’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 27
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Traffic Troubles
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Moose Hunt

Mysterious Mose

August 19, 2010 in ★★★★★, Betty Boop, Black and White Films, Max Fleischer films, Talkartoons | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 comments

Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: December 26, 1930
Stars: Betty Boop, Bimbo
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

Still from 'Mysterious Mose' featuring Betty Boop naked in bed

Bimbo is the uncanny phantom-like Mysterious Mose, who visits a frightened Betty Boop at night.

The cartoon has a jazzy score, using the St. James Infirmary Blues. Like ‘Barnacle Bill‘, it is wildly surrealistic, with all kinds of animals appearing out of nowhere and disappearing into nothingness again, and during the title song there’s metamorphosis all over the place.

‘Mysterious Mose’ is the third cartoon featuring Betty Boop, and the first with her in the starring role. She’s still unnamed here, but her development as as sex object is pushed further, when her night shirt flies off twice, leaving her naked in bed. She’s also animated much better than in her earlier two films, ‘Dizzy Dishes‘ and ‘Barnacle Bill‘. Her looks and moves are more stable, more feminine, and thus, more sexy.

Watch ‘Mysterious Mose’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Talkartoon No. 14
To the previous Talkartoon: Up to Mars
To the next Talkartoon: The Ace of Spades

‘Mysterious Mose’ is available on the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’

Barnacle Bill

August 18, 2010 in ★★★★★, Betty Boop, Black and White Films, Max Fleischer films, Talkartoons | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: August 31, 1930
Stars: Betty Boop
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

Still from 'Barnacle Bill' featuring Barnacle Bill and Betty Boop on a singing couch

‘Barnacle Bill’ is a literal visual illustration of the folk song of the same name, made famous by Hoagy Carmichael’s 1930 recording.

Barnacle Bill (another version of early Bimbo) is visiting Betty Boop, who’s called Nancy Lee in this cartoon and who apparently is the Captain’s love. All neighbors gossip about it, and when the captain arrives, he chases Barnacle Bill into the sea, where the latter dances with some remarkably humanized mermaids.

‘Barnacle Bill’ is the second cartoon featuring Betty Boop, and it introduces the strong sexual overtones, associated with the character in her early years. One example is Betty’s dress that rolls itself up, exposing her legs. There’s also a couch that itself replaces several chairs when Betty invites Barnacle Bill inside.

‘Barnacle Bill’ uses musical dialogue almost exclusively. It contains some odd perspectives and flexible animation, but most important of all, it is wildly surrealistic, creating a completely original world of utter weirdness. For example, when Barnacle Bill threatens to bust in the door, the door shrinks and hides under the welcome mat. Later, we watch Barnacle Bill swim through the air, and dive into the couch. And when he leaves Nancy Lee’s apartment block, he sails one of the stairs. Touches like these make watching the cartoon a mind-blowing experience. I don’t think it’s considered a classic, but to me it should be.

Watch ‘Barnacle Bill’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Talkartoon No. 9
To the previous Talkartoon: Dizzy Dishes
To the next Talkartoon: Swing, You Sinners!

‘Barnacle Bill’ is available on the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’

Dizzy Dishes

August 17, 2010 in ★★★, Betty Boop, Black and White Films, Max Fleischer films, Talkartoons | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 comments

Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: August 9, 1930
Stars: Betty Boop (unnamed)
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Still from 'Dizzy Dishes' featuring Betty Boop and the waiter

‘Dizzy Dishes’ is a  jazzy cartoon about a waiter in a restaurant who should bring a roast duck to an extremely hungry customer, but who does anything but serving. While the waiter is performing on stage together with the roast duck, the hungry customer eats almost everything in sight.

The cartoon is very typical of Fleischer’s early Talkartoons. The animation is rather crude, and outside the songs there’s no lip synch, but there’s a lot of metamorphosis going on. Apart from that, practically everything can grow hands and feet, creating an urban and surreal world, very different from the merry worlds of nature and farmlands of the rival Walt Disney studio.

‘Dizzy Dishes’ is not too interesting, but it marks the debut of Betty Boop. She’s introduced as an unnamed and rather fat and unappealing dog singer. The animation on her is erratic to say the least, but it already contains some specks of eroticism. She was designed as  a caricature of singer Helen Kane, who was the first to sing ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’, which contains the Boop-Boop-a-Doop-phrases with which Betty Boop became famous.

Betty Boop’s creation is attributed to animator Grim Natwick (1890-1990), a veteran animator, who, according to his fellow animators, was the only animator able to handle the feminine figure. Interestingly enough, Grim Natwick later worked for Walt Disney, animating Snow White, the first realistically animated heroine, in ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937).

Betty Boop was in fact the only successful cartoon star conceived by the Fleischer studio after Koko the Clown. Later they had considerable success with Popeye and Superman, but these characters were owned by King Features and DC Comics, respectively.

Betty Boop would become more and more erotic, and she would soon rise to stardom, changing from dog to human in 1931, and getting her own series in 1932, which lasted until 1939. But by then the Fleischer’s years of surrealism and eroticism were long gone.

Watch ‘Dizzy Dishes’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Talkartoon No. 8
To the previous Talkartoon: Wise Flies
To the next Talkartoon: Barnacle Bill

‘Dizzy Dishes’ is available on the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’

The Picnic

August 16, 2010 in ★★★, Black and White Films, Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Burt Gillett
Release Date: October 9, 1930
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto (as Rover)
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Still from 'The Picnic' featuring Mickey and Minnie picnickingMickey’s driving to Minnie’s house singing his own theme song. They both are going on a picnic. While Mickey and Minnie are singing and dancing across the field to the tune of ‘In the Good Old Summertime’, hundreds of wild animals take their food away. The picnic ends in rain.

‘The Picnic’ is a rather plotless and unremarkable cartoon. It nevertheless contains a nice surreal gag in which a rabbit pulls away a hole. This kind of surrealism was rare at Disney’s at that time, but later, Tex Avery would reuse this gag many times at Warner Brothers and MGM.

‘The Picnic’ would have been forgettable, did it not mark the debut of Pluto. He is called Rover in this cartoon, and appears to be Minnie’s dog rather than Mickey’s, but he’s Pluto alright. At this point there’s no reason to believe that Disney intended to make the dog a regular character. Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comics of January 1931 cover similar grounds, but feature a very large dog called “Tiny”.

Nevertheless, in April 1931 Pluto would return in ‘The Moose Hunt‘. This time to stay*. In fact Pluto would become a more and more important character in the Mickey Mouse cartoons, at times stealing most of the screen time from Mickey, who would become more and more a ‘straight man’. Eventually, Pluto would be given his own series, in 1937.

Watch ‘The Picnic’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 23
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: The Gorilla Mystery
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Pioneer Days

* Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comics followed three months later, introducing Pluto on July the 8th.

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