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Director: Jack King
Release Date: December 10, 1937
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Donald’s Ostrich’ is the first entry in Donald Duck’s very own series.
True, Donald had already gone solo in ‘Don Donald‘ and ‘Modern Inventions‘ from earlier that year, but those two cartoons had been released within the Mickey Mouse series. With ‘Donald’s Ostrich’ Donald Duck would really be on his own, only two weeks after Pluto had made the same jump with ‘Pluto’s Quin-Puplets’. Now he was ready to become Disney’s most popular star.
Unfortunately, this first entry is not really a success. In this short Donald Duck works at a remote train station, where he encounters an ostrich in a package. The ostrich has male plumage, but is clearly female, and called Hortense. Most of the gags are about Hortense, who, as an accompanying note says, eats everything, including a harmonica, an alarm clock, a few balloons, and Donald’s radio.
The radio, especially, takes much screen time, making the ostrich behave like e.g. a boxer and a race car. This string of gags is rather tiresome, and suffers from King’s slow timing, and it’s a pity Donald gets so little screen time himself.
Donald’s next two cartoons wouldn’t be better, but with ‘Donald’s Nephews‘, the studio would hit the jackpot. Hortense meanwhile would enter Donald’s life, too, in Al Taliaferro’s daily Donald Duck comic strip in May 9, 1938, causing a string of gags until May 24, and occasionally appearing afterwards.
Watch ‘Donald’s Ostrich’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Donald Duck cartoon No. 1
To the next Donald Duck cartoon: Self Control
‘Donald’s Ostrich’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Chronological Donald Volume 1’
Director: Charles Nichols
Release Date: March 19, 1948
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Pluto
Rating: ★
Review:
‘Mickey Down Under’ features Mickey and Pluto in some Australian banana plantation.
Pluto has troubles with a boomerang, while Mickey encounters an ostrich. Even though the animation of Pluto is inspired, ‘Mickey Down Under’ is a boring cartoon, and one of the weakest entries in the Mickey Mouse series. Apart from the boomerang, the setting can hardly be called Australian. On the contrary, the cartoon depicts some flora and fauna not indigenous to Australia: toucans, bananas and ostriches. The title music is that of a Pluto cartoon.
Watch ‘Mickey Down Under’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 120
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey’s Delayed Date
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Mickey and the Seal
Director: Walt Disney
Release Date: August 7, 1928
Stars: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pete
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
Although Mickey’s first cartoon, ‘Plane Crazy‘, couldn’t arouse any distributor, Disney made another cartoon with his new character, ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho’. It was to be Mickey’s second and last silent cartoon.
If possible, he is even ruder in this short than in ‘Plane Crazy’: according to a poster in the background, he is a sought-after criminal, we watch him smoking and drinking, and dancing a stout tango with Minnie (who’s wearing a bra in this cartoon).
Nevertheless, this cartoon is also the first in which Mickey shows to be a small, but clever and courageous hero. For when Minnie is abducted by Pete (who, in his first appearance in a Mickey Mouse cartoon, has both his legs), Mickey rescues her in a heroic fight. He then earns the kiss he tried to get by force in ‘Plane Crazy’. It was of course this character trait which was greatly expanded upon in later Mickey Mouse cartoons. Mickey’s nemesis, Pete, was in fact a much older character than Mickey – he already figured in some of the Alice cartoons and he was also Oswald’s adversary. His design was initially more dog- or bearlike, but in the Mickey Mouse cartoons it was settled that Pete was some kind of big cat.
Due to the melodrama ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho’ contains less gags than ‘Plane Crazy’, but it’s still a wonderful and fast cartoon with ingenious gags like the scene in which Mickey uses his own tail as a tackle. ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho’ also set out a storyline that was to be copied a couple of times (e.g. ‘The Cactus Kid‘ (1930), ‘Mickey in Arabia‘ (1932),’ The Klondike Kid‘ (1932)), and self-consciously parodied in ‘Gallopin’ Romance’, the film shown in ‘Mickey’s Gala Premier’ (1933). ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho’ itself was a parody of the 1927 Douglas Fairbanks film ‘The Gaucho’.
This cartoon was de facto the first production of Disney’s new fledgling studio (‘Plane Crazy’ was made secretly when Disney was still under Mintz’s contract). Ub Iwerks, who had animated ‘Plane Crazy’ single-handedly, could now be assisted by the young assistant animators Les Clark and the recently hired Wilfred Jackson to work on ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho’. Both men would have long lasting careers at the Disney studio.
Unfortunately, ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho’ didn’t stir the distributors any more than did ‘Plane Crazy’. Disney had to come with something original, if he would get Mickey on the screen. And with something original he came…
A few final trivial remarks
- Mickey has shoes in this cartoon, which he shortly looses while whistling his ostrich in one scene.
- Mickey’s eyes change from the goggly to the familiar ones during the same scene.
- The bird Mickey’s riding might very well be a Rhea, a relative of the ostrich, that lives on the pampas of Argentina, the place where the cartoon takes place.
Watch ‘Gallopin’ Gaucho’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 2
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Plane Crazy
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Steamboat Willie
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 