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.

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.