Mickey Mouse: In Living Color, Volume 2

As the 1930’s came to an end and Disney transitioned into the 40’s, Mickey Mouse saw his starring roles in cartoon shorts dwindle.  He was, more or less, unofficially retired by the time the decade came to a close and relegated to hosting duties on television and as the official mascot of the Disney brand.  There were several factors contributing to the decreased screen-time for the world’s most famous mouse.  For one, Disney had moved on to feature-length productions and was producing fewer cartoon shorts.  And when Disney was producing shorts, Donald Duck was usually the star, not Mickey Mouse.  As the Disney brand grew, Mickey was not surprisingly delegated as the face of the company.  As such, Disney felt that Mickey needed to be a role model.  While the Mickey who starred in numerous black and white shorts could be kind of mischievous and a bit of a trickster, this new Mickey needed to embody a more wholesome image.  Donald Duck could be the bad boy, and as a result, the funnier of the two characters which made creating shorts for him a natural process.  Donald Duck could be the hero or the villain of any cartoon he starred in, while Mickey was forced to be the straight man.  Another reason why Mickey made fewer appearances in animation is because he was voiced by Walt Disney himself.  As the Disney empire grew, Walt found himself too busy to voice Mickey.  Eventually, he would hand over the voicing duties to sound effects man Jimmy MacDonald because of his too busy schedule.

As a result, this final set of Mickey Mouse cartoons is much shorter than its predecessors.  It’s also not as good as the first Mickey Mouse:  In Living Color collection, but still contains some classic material and worthwhile bonus features.  Disc one includes the last of Mickey’s original run while disc two contains some of his more prominent starring roles and last theatrical short.  The set captures Mickey’s twilight years, and includes material from his three most prominent voice actors: Disney, MacDonald, and Wayne Allwine.  The set is, if nothing else, a nice piece of history for one of animation’s most famous characters.  The animation is top-notch Disney, as one would expect, making even the lesser shorts still fun to watch.

This may be a lesser set when compared with the previous one, but there are still some classic shorts to be found on disc one.  Mickey often finds himself paired with other characters, such as Pluto, Donald, and Goofy.  in “Tugboat Mickey,” Mickey, Donald, and Goofy spend their time repairing an old boat and little goes right.  There’s plenty of slapstick humor in the same style as other shorts that grouped this trio together.  In “The Pointer,” Pluto and Mickey are out hunting and soon find themselves nose to nose with a bear.  Pluto probably gets equal screen time as Mickey and arguably steals the short.  This is common for Mickey though as the guest stars tend to generate the most laughs.  A personal favorite of mine for nostalgic reasons is “Mickey and the Seal.”  I remember watching this one as a kid and it involves Mickey being followed home from the zoo by a seal pup.  They get into some humorous situations as Mickey is unaware the seal followed him which climaxes is in a very entertaining bath tub scene.  There are some duds though, such as “The Nifty Nineties” and “The Simple Things.”  “The Nifty Nineties” is basically a love letter to the 1890’s.  It contains some nice music and pretty backgrounds, but it’s just really boring.  Nothing happens.  “The Simple Things” is another Mickey and Pluto short, and also the last Mickey Mouse short until the 1990’s.  It’s not so bad in a vacuum, but a lot of the gags are recycled from older Mickey, Pluto and Donald cartoons and have become worn out at this point.

There are some curious inclusions amongst the cartoons as well.  Namely, there are a few Pluto cartoons here that would have made more sense as part of the Pluto collections.  Perhaps Disney felt it needed to include more content on this one, but “Pluto’s Party” and “Pluto’s Christmas Tree” would have been more at home on the Pluto sets, but I can’t say I’m disappointed they’re here.  It’s actually more of a hindrance to the Pluto sets that they weren’t also included there.  The short, “Plutopia,” included on this set actually also shows up on The Complete Pluto, Volume Two as well.

Still breathtaking more than 70 years later.

In addition to the short-form cartoons are the longer feature appearances of Mickey.  Included on disc one, is “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from Fantasia and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” from Fun and Fancy Free.  These end up being about three to four times the length of a typical cartoon short, and are essential to the Mickey Mouse legacy.  “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” kind of goes without saying, but for the record I will state it’s an iconic piece of American animation and possibly Mickey’s most famous appearance.  “Mickey and the Beanstalk” is less known, but important because it was the unofficial passing of the torch for the voice of Mickey from Walt Disney to Jimmy MacDonald as portions of the cartoon feature Mickey voiced by Disney and portions by MacDonald.  For a long time, it was thought that this was the last time Disney voiced Mickey, but it was actually revealed by MacDonald to film critic and set host Leonard Maltin that Walt reprised the role of Mickey for the intros to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse television show.  Those intros, five in total, are included as a bonus feature on this set and are impossibly cool for fans of Disney and Mickey Mouse history.

The Prince and the Pauper is hardly a classic, but it’s nice to have it included all the same.

Disc two contains more special features as well as Mickey’s most recent cartoons.  The long-form shorts “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” and “The Prince and the Pauper” are featured.  I’ve written more than once on this blog about “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” so I won’t go into much detail here, but there’s some bonus content with some animators who worked on it which is worth checking out.  It’s a neat cartoon for many reasons, but also because it’s the first time Mickey Mouse was voiced by Wayne Allwine, who would eventually go on to become the longest running voice of Mickey Mouse until his death in 2009.  The cartoon also features the Uncle Scrooge character voiced by Allen Young, who would of course go on to voice Scrooge in the very successful DuckTales series.  The cartoon is also the last time Donald Duck was voiced by his original voice actor, Clarence Nash, making “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” one of the most historically significant cartoons ever produced by the Disney company.  “The Prince and the Pauper” is another twenty-four minute short.  Coincidentally, it was released to theaters with The Rescuers Down Under while “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” was released with The Rescuers (Disney apparently likes to group its mouse characters together).  It’s a fairly unremarkable short but does feature some nice animation, though its brightness contrasts it with the muted pallet of “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” in a way that kind of puts me off.  It is notable for being the last time Disney used the Xerox process for its animation, a process that had been in use since 101 Dalmatians.

Runaway Brain feels like it’s mostly been forgotten, which is a shame because it’s great fun.

The last short include on the collection is, up until very recently, the last Mickey Mouse short, “Runaway Brain.”  Released in 1995 along with A Goofy Movie, it features Mickey and Minnie (voiced by Allwine’s real-life wife Russi Taylor) and marks the debut of mad scientist Dr. Frankenollie (named after longtime Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston), who is voiced in the short by Kelsey Grammar.  The plot involves Mickey forgetting his anniversary with Minnie and trying to make up for it by volunteering for a science experiment to earn money for a Hawaiian vacation.  Mickey ends up as a mindless beast and it’s a pretty entertaining cartoon short.  It served as a nice way for Mickey to bow out of animation, though starting in 2013 new Mickey Mouse shorts have been in production featuring a new style and approach in terms of both look and content.

Mickey Mouse: In Living Color, Volume Two isn’t quite as good as Volume One, but there’s enough here that any Disney fan should own it.  More than anything, this set is a piece of Disney history as it documents the changing look of Mickey Mouse as well as the men who gave voice to him.  There’s a little bit of sadness to it as well, as Mickey quietly exited the world of animation with little fanfare or celebration.  It seems like he deserved better, and it’s too bad that generations of kids have grown up without new Mickey Mouse cartoons.  The most recent shorts produced actually aren’t bad, and the few I’ve seen I’ve enjoyed but it doesn’t seem like they get much attention.  Disney would do well to make an effort to keep Mickey’s animation presence alive and well by celebrating his legacy more and pushing his current shorts.  Kids today deserve to know Mickey Mouse as more than a theme park attraction and brand.

Mickey Mouse:  In Living Color, Volume Two

• Society Dog Show
• The Pointer
• Tugboat Mickey
• Pluto’s Dream House
• Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip
• The Little Whirlwind
• The Nifty Nineties
• Orphan’s Benefit (1941)
• Mickey’s Birthday Party
• Symphony Hour
• Mickey’s Delayed Date
• Mickey Down Under
• Mickey and the Seal
• Plutopia
• R’Coon Dawg
• Pluto’s Party
• Pluto’s Christmas Tree
• The Simple Things
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• Mickey and the Beanstalk
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol
• The Prince and the Pauper
• Runaway Brain