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.

The Grasshopper and the Ants

I’ve said before that there are so many Disney shorts that sometimes it becomes mundane to view them all, day after day. That was part of the point of this project, to see everything, so I can tell what was important, what was a turning point, and what was something we should watch over and over again. I have to say that The Grasshopper and the Ants is all three of those things.



This short is probably one of the finest Disney shorts ever made. Definitely one of the top ten. It is entertaining, inspirational and extremely fun. The characters are realistic, the animation is top notch, and the story is superb.

If you don’t know the basics, there is a grasshopper who hops through the forest, playing his fiddle and enjoying life to the fullest. He even sings a song, “The World Owes Me a Living,” that reflects his world view. Everything in his life is owed to him by the world at large, thus, he does not need to look to the future.



This does not work well with a colony of nearby ants. When the grasshopper distracts one of them from preparing for winter, the queen of the ants gets quite upset and tells the grasshopper that he will suffer that winter. The grasshopper isn’t convinced, to say the least.



Of course, though, winter comes around, and the grasshopper collapses outside the ants’ tree. The ants are busy inside making merry with all the provisions they gathered, but they take time to take in the grasshopper and warm him up. The queen chastises him, but lets him stay if he’ll entertain them with his fiddle.



It’s a fabulous story, with a great moral and well drawn characters. The grasshopper is voiced by Pinto Colvig, who would go on to become the voice of Goofy, and the theme song here, “The World Owes Me a Living,” would become Goofy’s theme as well. One of Goofy’s earliest solo shorts, Goofy and Wilbur, even features a grasshopper. Colvig’s voice acting here adds a touch of likeability to the grasshopper that could have been missing otherwise.



The ants are great as well. The ants get easily distracted by the grasshopper’s fiddling, in a nice touch. It shows the audience that the work of the ants is not something they enjoy, but it’s still necessary. The regal air of the queen adds to that. She chastises the grasshopper and is proven right.

This is a case of all elements of a short working together properly – animation, voice work, music, effects – they are all great. The snow effects, the fades – all the effects shots are well done. The Grasshopper and the Ants is obviously an influence on later works – from the aforementioned Goofy shorts all the way up to A Bug’s Life. That’s a great tribute to a fantastic short.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Shanghaied

Shanghaied is a good old fashioned adventure story, with Mickey Mouse playing the role of the swashbuckler. If you recall, in his first adventures, this was Mickey’s style, such as in The Gallopin’ Gaucho, and he returns to it here, as an adventurer on the high seas.

This is the first Disney short I can remember that begins in media res, or in the middle of things. It’s a popular storytelling device today, beginning the action of a TV show or movie and explaining how we got there along the way. In this short, we begin with Mickey and Minnie as Pete’s captives on a pirate ship, without explanation of how they got there.



This is a significant change for Disney. In all of the shorts until this one, lots of time and effort has been spent on exposition. Think about it. We often get to see Mickey in his routine or everyday life at the beginning of a short, or we see him walking up to the door of Minnie’s house or other locations. This is the first time we’re thrown in the deep end of the pool and told to keep going.

It works, though, as we are instantly aware that Pete is bad news and he wants to do harm to Mickey and Minnie. Mickey’s escape features some great gags, such as Pete being knocked over and having a rolling chair’s bottom attached to his peg leg. That makes for some funny moments when Mickey and Pete are swordfighting.



Seeing Mickey as the swordfighter is a great treat. We see the main mouse at the peak of his powers. It’s fun to see Mickey in charge of the situation, even when his swordfish falls apart and he is unable to continue the swordfight.



The action continues out on the deck of the ship, where a contingent of identical pirates swarm after Mickey and Minnie. Much like the stable boys in The Steeple Chase, these pirates are the generic bad guys that will later become the Beagle Boys of the Duck comics and cartoons. It’s interesting to see them used here first.



Mickey forces the pirates back with a variety of gags, including launching pots out of a cannon that stick on their heads and heaving a stove at them that the pirates get stuck in. The final gag is reminiscent of Jungle Rhythm, with Mickey launching a harpoon that corrals all the pirates and Pete, sticking them in an arc over the ocean.



This is one of my favorites so far, just because it is so different than everything else. Starting the action when things are well underway is a good device, and the scenes of the swordfight are hilarious, because of Pete’s roller wheel leg. Shanghaied is an example of Mickey the hero at his peak, and that makes it a great short.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

The China Shop

The China Shop is another of the Silly Symphonies that features inhabitants of a store coming alive after dark. It’s similar to Midnight in a Toy Shop in many ways, but also things like The Bird Store. The magic of what happens after dark is a recurring theme in the Disney shorts, and continues here.

The basics are that a china shop is owned by an old man, who delicately places his china pieces throughout the store before leaving. All around the store are very precious pieces, such as a gentleman and lady, pitchers, plates and statues of different types. Of course, after he leaves, it’s time for the china to come alive.



That means it’s time for the patented Silly Symphonies silly dance routines. These are sometimes superfluous, but not here. The dancing shows the joy and happiness of the china pieces after the owner has departed, and sets the tone for the happy spirit that gets interrupted later on in the short. It’s a good piece of work by the animators, to convey emotion from plates or steins.



The centerpiece of the short, however, is the gentleman and the lady. Their dance together is very reminiscent of the same scene from Midnight in a Toy Shop. These are realistic human figures, which is a significant thing for Disney. There are very few realistic figures in the Disney shorts so far, and it is something we will see more of as we get closer to the features.



Their revelry is interrupted by a statue of a satyr, who steals the lady away and locks her in a cabinet. The gentleman tries to come after her, but the satyr begins throwing the china at him, shattering the majority of the things in the shop. This mass chaos and destruction in the shop is different from the other “things come alive at night” shorts, in that things do not go back to normal in the morning.



The gentleman wins, of course, besting the satyr with a few punches and a well placed kick, before the clock shatters the satyr with its pendulum. The gentleman rescues his lady friend, and all is well.

Until the owner comes back, that is, and surveys the damage. As I said, this is a change from previous shorts, in that the frivolity and fun that the toys/china have at night is still there in the morning. Things don’t go back to normal.



All is well, though, as the shop owner changes his sign from “Rare China” to “Rare Antiques” and charges more for the broken pieces. Ah, capitalism at its finest. The China Shop isn’t the best piece of work, but it’s not the worst, either. It’s really just a middle of the road Silly Symphony, which is to say it’s fun to watch but by no means indispensable.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

The Night Before Christmas

I’m a sucker for Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday of them all. Halloween is a close second, but Christmas is my favorite. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that The Night Before Christmas was a great delight to me.

This is an unofficial sequel to Santa’s Workshop, the earlier Silly Symphony that featured Santa and the elves getting ready for Christmas night. Here, we get to see the fruits of that labor, as Santa delivers the toys to the boys and girls who have been waiting for them all year long.



This is presented as an interpretation of the famous poem by the same name, but the poem is used as a framing device more than anything. The words of the poem are sung at the beginning, until Santa arrives at the house. From that point until near the end of the short, the action is all about Santa delivering the toys, which does not follow the poem.

The Santa presented here is the same one that was in Santa’s Workshop, with a red bulbous nose and overstated girth. You might recall that I did not enjoy that style then, and I still don’t. But in this short, it seems to fit better, because Santa is the magical person in an ordinary world, which makes it seem more realistic, if that makes sense.



The fun part of this is looking at how people were celebrating Christmas in 1933, versus how things are done today. I had forgotten about the fact that many people, per the German tradition, did not set up their tree until Christmas Eve, to reveal it to the children the next morning. In the short, Santa brings the tree and the toys help him set it up.

We get to see a parade of the toys, which is a familiar Disney theme. We saw in Santa’s Workshop, in an earlier Silly Symphony, Midnight in a Toy Shop, and it pops up again later in things like Babes in Toyland and in the parks with the Christmas parade. Here, we even get a familiar face in the parade.



This Mickey Mouse toy is a cute addition, because it really was a popular toy at the time. I have one that was my grandfather’s, and have copies that were made later as a “retro” toy that my son played with. It’s a nice little Easter egg for this short.



Of course, the Christmas spirit is front and center in this. It really warms my heart to see the toys gathered around the tree, and how they dive for cover when the kids come down the stairs. It’s like an early version of Toy Story. Funny how these early shorts seem to influence later films again and again. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.



The final scenes where Junior gets a puppy and Santa leaves the house just add to the overall fun of the short. This is one that tugs at the heart strings, and leaves you in the mood to hang some twinkling lights. If you’re like me, the malls already have them up, so start getting in the spirit!

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.