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.

Steamboat Willie

Perhaps Mickey Mouse's most famous cartoon short, Steamboat Willie is also one of the Disney companies oldest fully animated shorts, losing out by just a hair to "Plane Crazy."

Now, the one thing to note about Mickey is that in the older Black and White days, he was.....crazy. Not quite the Mouse we know today, Mickey was much more cheeky and full of energy, constantly using his surroundings to make music in the shorts whether it's an inanimate object or a living animal.

Steamboat Willie follows Mickey Mouse as he works on Pegleg Pete's boat, though the latter character takes a backseat this time around. Noticing Minnie as she rushes to catch up to the boat for a ride, Mickey helps her on board and what follows is a series of gags that starts with a goat eating Minnie's sheet music for "Turkey in the Straw." As Minnie uses the goat to play the music by cranking it's tail, Mickey runs around the boat using everything possible to play the song in time. I do mean everything. A cat is thrown around, pots and pans banged on, a duck, piglets and the mother pig are all used to play along in time to the music. It was sort of disturbing to see Mickey Mouse of all people being so abusive towards animals, yanking on their neck, tails and using the one pig as an accordion, all with a smile on his face.

The short itself holds up pretty good considering just how old it is. While it doesn't have the same charm as later Mickey shorts, it has it's own unique charm in it's zany pace. Of course, the animation is rather crude but from here out things can only look up for Disney as it's animators refined their technique which we will see tonight with the review of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas

Of course there's a Santy. Otherwise, we'd have a lot of jobless elves running around. Just one of many humorous quotes from Once Upon a Christmas, another of Disney's anthology Christmas specials. Unlike Winnie the Pooh, this one has consistently good animation and features a wider variety of our usual gang.

Opening the first of our three shorts is something familiar to us all, a wish that Christmas happened every day. However, as Huey, Dewey and Louie find out this isn't always a good idea. It's sort of a variation of "Groundhog Day" and spends it's time pointing out Donald's card, that Christmas isn't about the tree, the presents or snow but about the love and warmth we share with our family.

Our second story features Goofy and a much younger Max as they dare to ask the question. Is Santa Claus real? Max isn't quite sure if he believes or not, and Pete is hardly any help as he only enforces the more adult view that Santa is not real. However, good old Goofy in all his more child mind set believes in him right down to the core. Even when things get dark and all hope seems lost, Santa himself arrives to brighten their hope and renews their belief.

Our final story is a classic Mickey and Minnie one as our two favorite mice try and find each other just the perfect gift. It plays out much like "Gift of the Magi" and has almost a classic Mickey short feel to it, but with that extra little Christmas twist to things and serves as a pleasing finale to the movie.

One final note is that aside from the characters mentioned above, we are also treated to seeing Pluto, Chip an' Dale, Uncle Scrooge, Daisy and Aunt Gerdy. The latter of which seems to be a newer character to the Duck family.

Three Musketeers (Disney)

Mickey, Donald and Goofy once again team up, this time as the Three Musketeers in this feature length outing.

We open to our narrator, who introduces us to the story through his comic book and with the help of a song he wrote. All of the songs are a bit peppy, and have comical twists to classical music including Beethoven and Tcaikovsky. Sometimes it's a bit too comical, though it is a rather fun new approach to songs that might otherwise lose the interest of the target audience.

Our three heroes it seems are actually working as janitors for the Musketeers, which is lead by the villainous Pete (complete with his peg leg!). Quite quickly we learn that he is our villain, despite it being rather obvious, and that he plots to become King by kidnapping Princess Minnie Mouse with the help of his three goons and his lieutenant Clarabelle.

Through the short movie, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy learn what it takes to be Musketeers and never give up even after failing twice to hold their own. But when they work together, they easily save the day.

Fun songs aside, I actually enjoyed the rare use of Clarabelle instead given how her role could easily have been neglected. Even then, for a rather straight forward plot the Three Musketeers is a fun romp and one of the far better direct to video releases that Disney has put out.

Mickey's House of Villains

I'll admit, when I heard this was coming out I was pretty excited. Who couldn't be? A feature length film centered around the villains. When I finally saw it there was a mixture of feelings, surprise, excitement and a bit of confusion. While it was still a huge step in the right direction for giving the villains some spotlight, part of me was a bit surprised at how it was done. Though now that I look back, it does make sense.

What follows is a longer than normal episode of House of Mouse. For those not in the now, House of Mouse is a nightclub run by Mickey and the gang where all of the various Disney characters can come and dine while watching cartoon shorts.

Now, House of Mouse may not be the most amazing t.v show put out by Disney I still have to give them a lot of credit for actually dipping into their older shorts from time to time to use in this show. That aside, it's also rather fun getting to see everybody in the same location, Cruella and Hook rubbing shoulders with Maleficent etc.

Back to House of Villains. The choice of shorts is actually pretty fun, though I do have to question what they were thinking adding in a short of Goofy in a yellow leotard. Then again that is pretty scary so it's fitting. Aside from that we also are treated to "Lonesome Ghosts", "Trick or Treat", and "Donald and the Gorilla" for the older Walt made shorts. As well we get a few Mickey Mouseworks notably one where Mickey and Pluto are in a crazy house.

While the shorts themselves are quite entertaining on their own, the plot of Jafar leading the villains to take over is just as much fun. The real showstopper however is when all of the villains join together to sing "It's Our House Now" as they kick out our favorite mouse and all the more friendly characters.

For the villains, we really do get quite the helping of them as pretty much every Animated Classic villains makes an appearance even if for a brief moment, Monstro aside given how he's a whale. What I enjoyed was scanning the crowd to pick out who was present and spotted a few lesser seen characters such as Lucifur and Big Bad Wolf.

If you're a fan of Disney, Villains or Halloween this is definitely for you and worth a look.

Mickey's Treat

It's October, which means the Halloween marathon is kicking into gear today! Going to start out with something most people won't watch, at least if they do not have young children.

So. Mickey's Treat. Much like "Enchanted Tales" this show is much more enjoyable as a young child. The basic...story is that Mickey and the crew are going to Pete's Halloween party. On a regular basis the story halts so that he can ask for the viewers help. Very slowly we make our way over the Candy Corn Patch and through the spooky woods. Upon arriving at the Tower, Mickey pulls a rabbit out of his hat to help them gain entry to the party. Nowhere near the best of Halloween specials that we've seen from Disney, especially compared to Disney's Halloween Treat.

Avoid it unless you're a hard-core Disney fan, Halloween fan or just can't help the curiousity and check it out.