Disney Animated Shorts (1931)

In Traffic Trouble, Mickey Mouse is a cab driver fighting puddles, potholes and other cars for space on the road. He loses one passenger, but picks up Minnie. Can she get her to her destination on time? 

In The Castaway, Mickey washes ashore on a deserted island with a piano. His music starts attracting the animals of the island, but what will Mickey do when gorillas, lions and crocodiles take an interest? 

In Fishin' Around, Mickey and Pluto ignore the "No Fishing" signs and try their luck at catching something. But the duo have their hands full when the fish prove to be smarter than they thought. What will Mickey do when the police arrive? 

Much better. 

My reviews since Steamboat Willie have not been kind to the rodent. Each of the Mickey Mouse animated shorts has seemed to focus on nothing more than watching our title character make random noises to music (often while abusing other animals). 

Here we get some specific if slight stories. There are actual conflicts. None of it is Citizen Kane, but having some plot to propel you through seven minutes is essential. 

The best of the three was Fishin' Around. Besides the giddy thrill of seeing Pluto on-screen, there's a real tale here. It's basic (Mickey and Pluto trying to outsmart a school of fish), but it works. There's a nice book ending within it as Mickey sinks a No Fishing sign, only to end up on the run from the police when he's caught. 

Traffic Trouble has the most fun visuals. Mickey's cab is constantly stretching, contorting and losing pieces as it tries to reach its destination. It made me smile, but contains some of that animal abuse I've come to dread in these as Mickey turns a pig into an air pump. 

The Castaway is utterly forgettable. It's closer to the previous efforts I've come to hate. Mickey is shipwrecked on an island, but that's really just a set up for him to play some music. 

On the whole, these were much more enjoyable than what I've been getting from Disney. I hope it continues in 1932. 

Traffic Trouble - **1/2 out of ***** 

The Castaway - ** out of ***** 

Fishin' Around - *** out of *****

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Disney Animated Shorts (1930)

Produced by Walt Disney Studios

In Autumn, all of the creatures of the forest are busy making their preparations for winter. Squirrels gather nuts, a porcupine spears some apples and the beavers finish up their dams. Of course, each one of them contributes to the music of the forest in their own way. 

In Just Mickey, the titular mouse performs music on a violin for an unseen audience. He has to deal with an obnoxiously cackling heckler and cries his way through a sad number. 

In The Cactus Kid, Mickey arrives at a saloon in the Old West where Minnie works. At first, he fails to impress her, but when Minnie is abducted by a peg-legged villain, Mickey must become the hero. 

Each of the three Disney shorts here is six or seven minutes long. They are light on dialogue, story or characters and heavy on music. Like every single move a character makes finds a corresponding member of the orchestra. Color me annoyed. 

They're such simple plots, there isn't a ton to say. Just Mickey almost seems like a 3D short in places with the exaggerated scale and perspective they use. The only other surprise was to see Mickey strap on a pistol and get into a gunfight in The Cactus Kid. Not quite the image we have of the character today. 

These are all very slight, so I won't say much more. I was exceedingly bored by each of them. No official ratings, but I can't recommend anyone check these out.

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Mickey Mouse in Haunted House and The Opry House

Directed by Walt Disney
Produced by Walt Disney Productions

In Haunted House, our verminous hero finds himself stuck in the middle of a terrible storm. He seeks refuge in a dilapidated home, but soon learns this haven may be more terrifying than anything Mother Nature can dish out. Will the home's undead occupants prove too much for Mickey? Or will he be able to keep them toe-tapping to some organ music long enough to make his escape?

In The Opry House, the rascally rodent performs a vaudeville show for the residents of a small town. The mouse is literally a one man show. He sweeps the theater's porch, performs every role and plays every instrument. But will he be able to handle all of these responsibilities?


After the giddy kick-in-the-pants that was Steamboat Willie, I was excited to revisit some more of Walt Disney's early Mickey Mouse cartoons. The animator's sound breakthrough reveled in the hero's mischievous attitude and the short's innovative use of music and noise.

Sadly, these shorts feel like a bit of a step back. Mickey never really gets to shine through as a character. In Haunted House, he enters a house, gets frightened by some spiders and bats, and is forced to play music for a room full of skeletons. Stuff happens to him and he just passively takes it.

In The Opry House, he's just putting on his show. There's not a lot of conflict he's dealing with (except for his efforts to fit a portly audience member through the front door).

Both shorts are gag-driven and I could forgive the issues above if they were funny, but they're not. Haunted House is monotonously boring. Skeletons dancing over and over. At least The Opry House switched things up a bit by having Mickey perform different numbers. Even these though seemed more a showcase for an animation style (which is unavoidably dated) than for producing laughs.

Throw a racist portrayal of Mickey as a Hasidic Jew into the mix and I get nothing but disappointment. The Opry House is slightly better than The Haunted House, but both are pale shadows of Steamboat Willie.

Photos from Wayfaring Mouse and Mickey Mouse Cartoon

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Steamboat Willie (1928)

Mickey Mouse pilots a steamboat down a river, merrily whistling along to the music of the ship's steam engines. Mickey is not the captain, and when the real pilot shows up he angrily kicks Mickey out of the cabin.

The boat pulls into a dock and loads up on farm animals. Minnie Mouse arrives too late to board, forcing the quick-thinking Mickey to snag his squeeze with the boat's crane.

When a goat eats Minnie's sheet music and guitar, the mice are forced to improvise. Can Mickey still put on an impromptu show?  And what does the ship's captain think of this?

So here we have a piece of movie history. Walt Disney's first short to feature a synchronized soundtrack was actually Mickey's third foray onto the screen. Steamboat Willie was not the first film to use the new technology, but it was the most popular and launched a movie studio as well as a media and merchandising empire.

The technology is front and center here. Films like The Jazz Singer used "sound-on-disc" technology. The music and dialogue would play independent of the film. This worked wonderfully as long as neither the sound or the film skipped or changed speeds.   The technology required someone to constantly monitor the presentation.

"Sound-on-film" technology eliminated the synchronizing issue. The sound is on the same reel of film as the images so if the projector is at the wrong speed, the sound still plays with right frames of film.

As I said, Steamboat Willie was not the first to use "sound-on-film," but it was the film to popularize it.

So is the film any good?



It is, but it still has some of the issues we've seen in Disney's previous work.  Mickey as a character is a lot of fun here. He's mischievous and looking for a good time on his boat. His humor and playfulness are infectious in a way Disney failed to reach with his previous creations Julius and Oswald. It's easy to see how the mouse became an icon.

The other big boon to the story is the sound and it is a real achievement. After watching almost 20 years worth of silents, the contrast between those and Steamboat Willie is staggering. Every movement by each character produces a whistle or a grunt or a song.

In fact, there are moments where the novelty of the sound becomes an issue. In a couple of scenes, the film lingers only to show off the sounds being made. It's the equivalent of a 3D film constantly jamming foreground objects in your face. The filmmakers understand the novelty of what they are doing and show off a bit.

The other problem here is the way some of the animals get treated. Mickey plays a cat as an instrument by swinging it around by its tail, turns a duck into a bagpipe and pulls a half dozen piggies from their mom before playing the sow by pulling her... well, you get the picture.

The only thing that saves these sequences is their brevity and the fact that we've already built up some goodwill toward our hero. It's a minor quibble, but it's there and unfortunately distracting from this landmark film.

I've probably seen the opening 30 seconds of Steamboat Willie a hundred times, but this was the first time seeing all seven plus minutes. It remains a fun and impressive achievement. Flaws and all, this is definitely required viewing for film fans.

 **** out of *****

Photo from DisneyWiki

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