Plane Crazy

Plane Crazy, perhaps one of Disney's biggest achievements considering it was animated by Ub Iwerks almost entirely. This was largely due to the fact that Walt and his remaining crew worked in secrecy on the debut of their brand new character: Mickey Mouse.

The short itself is relatively simple, Mickey Mouse is fascinated by Charles Lindbergh and sets out to fly in a plane of his own. He enlists the aid of the barnyard animals to help him build a plane, though this one fails. His second however, made out of a car and turkey feathers works much better and he even manages to get Minnie Mouse to come flying with him. Things however go wrong when the plane begins to go out of control and crashes.

Despite such a simple plot, this short is still rather amazing because of the fact that Ub Iwerks was singled out as the animator for it in the title credits, something which Disney would not do later on. But wait! There's more! The short itself is a step up from the previous Oswald shorts in a couple ways at the least, not only are the backgrounds more detailed but also in how the point of view is always changing. This is most evident when Minnie is alone in the plane when things change from side to side, also later on when the plane begins to spiral down the POV shifts to look straight at the ground and spins about during that sequence.

One last thing to really make a note of here is that Mickey is still far from the mascot that we know today, or even knew twenty years ago. His appearance is more oval shaped and he has spindle limbs, as well his personality far more mischievous as he forces a kiss from Minnie. Quite the change would be made to him, and Minnie over the coming decades.