In the cartoon short Mickey’s Circus, released on this day in 1936, Captain Donald, his trained seals and ringmaster Mickey Mouse find that it’s no circus when you perform for orphans. The orphans shoot Donald out of a cannon, and both Mickey and Donald find themselves unwillingly teetering on a tightrope that has been oiled …
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In Alpine Climbers, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck wreak havoc during their ascent up the Swiss Alps in what starts out as a peaceful climb, but when Pluto falls in the snow and becomes a PUPsicle, a helpful St. Bernard rescues him and warms him up with a swig of brandy from his keg. While …
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When Mickey’s Rival was released on this day in 1936, audiences learned that the rival for Minnie’s affections is a mouse named Mortimer. Interestingly, the slender, smooth-talking prankster mouse exhibits many more mouse characteristics than Mickey, including a pointier noise, mouse whiskers, and long teeth. Mortimer also has pupils in his eyes, a feature that …
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Reflecting back on this day in 1936, the Mickey Mouse cartoon short Thru the Mirror was released. When Mickey falls asleep reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, Mickey dreams that he travels through his own looking glass, into a wonderland of talking furniture and objects. After eating nuts given to him by a …
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Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Certainly not Walt Disney Productions, because after the 1933 success of the Academy Award®-winning Three Little Pigs, three little sequels followed. First was The Big Bad Wolf (1934), followed by Three Little Wolves (1936) and The Practical Pig (1939). Three Little Wolves, which was released on this day …
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There’s something a little bit ridiculous about Grand Opera anyway, but give the conductor’s baton to Mickey Mouse and make Clara Cluck and Donald Duck the stars of the show—as they are in Mickey’s Grand Opera—and you know this most highbrow of art forms is about to get a good-natured skewering—Disney style. Listening to Clara’s …
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Walt Disney was a huge fan of polo, so he had the horse sense to include his favorite sport into a short cartoon, Mickey’s Polo Team. Walt’s pitted one polo team, which included the likes of Hollywood legends Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and Harpo Marx, against another squad made up of a few other …
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Sixty years before Toy Story was released, some play toys came to life in Broken Toys, which “played” in theaters on this day in 1935. The Silly Symphony begins with a toy soldier being thrown in the dump, where he encounters a gang of other toys that also come to life — many of which …
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In Cock o’ the Walk, a Silly Symphony released on this day in 1935, an arrogant prize fighting rooster comes to town and attempts to steal the hand of a cute chicken from a scrawny rooster. But the underdog proves he’s no chicken when he hops in the ring with the troublemaker, and when he …
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Across the ends of the Sea of Discord are two lands, Land of Symphony and Isle of Jazz, and the inhabitants of each land are actually living musical instruments who only “speak” by using the natural sounds of their instruments in the Silly Symphony Music Land, which played its way into theaters on this day …
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