Classic Disney Shorts: Difference between revisions

And the rest, as they say, is history.

 

** From roughly the 1950s through the mid-1990s, Mickey's more adventurous side was usually seen only in comics. Even today it's easy to meet many who are surprised that Mickey can be a more interesting character. Of course, if he wasn't, then how would he have held his initial fame?

** 2010's [[Epic Mickey]] by Junction Point, now owned by Disney, makes Mickey almost as mischievous as he was originally. At first, the announcement that Warren Spector would be working on it caused fans to believe he would make a terrible game. However, once his Disney fandom was revealed, and that he was going to be bringing back characters, locations, and whatnot from older, forgotten, and scrapped cartoons, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|people were quite happy]]. It also helped that [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] [[Oswald the Lucky Rabbit]] returned for the game as well.

** [[Word of God]] says that when not "acting" (the term used for when on screen in shorts and the like), Mickey and Minnie are married.

* '''[[Donald Duck]]''': The [[Ensemble Darkhorse]], a hot-tempered waterfowl who often ended up being the [[Butt Monkey]]. (Debut: ''The Wise Little Hen'', 1934). Though Mickey remains the face of the company, Donald is arguably the true moneymaker as far as long-term commercial success, spawning his own little corner of the Disney Universe that expands towards comics, cartoons, and video games.

* '''[[Goofy]]''': An anthropomorphic dog (though his species [[Furry Confusion|has been debated]]), and the world's biggest klutz. Often [[Too Dumb to Live]]. He was originally called "Dippy Dawg", but they wisely changed his name. (Debut: ''Mickey's Revue'', 1932)

* '''[[Pluto the Pup]]''': Mickey's loyal pet dog. (Debut: ''The Chain Gang'', 1930)

Other characters included Mickey, Donald, and Goofy's nemesis, [[Pete]] (sometimes known as Bad Pete, Black Pete, Pegleg Pete, Pistol Pete, and so on); Donald's rich uncle Scrooge McDuck and his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie; cheerfully egotistical Horace Horsecollar and his [[Grande Dame]] Clarabelle Cow; opera singer Clara Cluck; two mischievous chipmunks named [[Chip and Dale]] who often have a bone to pick with Donald; and many, many more.

 

 

 

If you're looking to find all of these shorts, all of them have been neatly compiled into a series of truly excellent DVD compilations in a series of sets called the '''Walt Disney Treasures''' series. All of these collection DVD sets with the classic shorts included on them are convieniently listed below just for you:

* '''More Silly Symphonies''': The succesor to the previous collection. Compiles the remaining 38 Silly Symphonies theatrical shorts.

 

 

 

For noteworhy Disney staff, go [[Noteworthy Disney Staff|here]].

 

For non-series specific Disney shorts, see [[Miscellaneous Disney Shorts]].

* [[Plane Crazy]]

* [[Steamboat Willie]]

* [[The Mad Doctor]]

* [[The Band Concert]]

* [[Flowers and Trees]]

* [[The Golden Touch]]

* [[The Old Mill]]

* [[Education for Death]]: a chilling and brutal look at a German boy growing up in Nazi Germany. Unlike [[Der Fuerhers Face]], this cartoon was '''''not''''' meant to be a funny, Allies-Defeat-the-Axis-type of [[World War Two]] cartoon

* [[Brave Little Tailor]]

* [[Lonesome Ghosts]]

* [[Clock Cleaners]]

* [[Adventures in Music Duology]]

* [[Mickey's Christmas Carol]]

* [[Runaway Brain]]

* [[How to Hook Up Your Home Theater]]

 

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* [[Mr. Vice Guy]]

* [[Number One Dime]]

* [[Tame His Anger]]

 

 

* [[Accordion Man]]: ''The Cactus Kid'' (1930) for one.

* [[Acme Products]]: Only, in this case, it would be Ajax Products.

** Let's not forget Mickey Mouse's "Runaway Brain" from the 90's, which was the first ([[Kingdom Hearts|but certainly not]] [[Epic Mickey|the last]]) attempt at returning Mickey to his adventureous, edgier roots. Whether it succeeded or not is up for debate.

** The later Donald Duck shorts from the '50s and onward show how desperate the writers were to come up with new ideas-one short has Donald become so obsessed with obtaining honey that he dresses up as a bee to steal honey from an [[Too Dumb to Live|actual hive]], instead of just going to the store and buying some honey in a jar like any sane <s> man</s> duck would do.

*** Donald and his nephews are given a similar treatment in a similar commercial, this one for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BklXn2w6zKc the Hudson AMC].

* [[Aside Glance]]: Goofy is a frequent offender, but none of the other characters are completely innocent, either.

** And earlier, there was the black and white cartoon ''Giantland.''

* [[Author Avatar]]: Mickey, for Walt Disney.

* [[Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game]]: The Goofy short ''How To Play Golf''.

* [[Bragging Theme Tune]]: Donald Duck's post-1947 theme. Possibly a subversion as none of it is true, aside from "[[The Chew Toy|Who get stuck with all the bad luck?]]"

* [[Bolt of Divine Retribution]]: ''Trombone Trouble''

* [[Bullet Seed]]

* [[Captain Ersatz]]: During the early '30s, Rudolph Ising of the Harman and Ising duo (who were both former employees of Disney) cooked up an incredibly blatant Mickey Mouse clone named Foxy for their Warner Bros. distributed animation studio. In fact, his image is proudly adorned on the main [[Captain Ersatz]] page. Fortunately, Walt himself got wind of the ripoff and personally asked Ising to stop using the character after only three measly shorts. However, Foxy was brought back for an episode of [[Tiny Toon Adventures]] called ''Two-Tone Town'' (albiet redesigned to look less like Mickey, while still having some similarities to a Golden Age rubberhose character).

* [[Catch Phrase]]:

'''Minnie:''' "Oh, my!" "Isn't that sweet!" "Oh, ''Mickey''..." }}

* [[Cartoon Conductor]]

** Mice have thin, naked tails, but Mickey, Minnie and Mortimer Mouse have tails that are unusually thin even for mice. Pluto has the same kind of tail, despite being a dog.

*** [[Chip and Dale]] have short tails that end in a point, sort of like deer tails. In [[Real Life]], it's the female chipmunks that have short tails.

* [[Cats Are Mean]]: Pete.

** Wait, Pete's a cat?

* [[The Chew Toy]]: Donald.

* [[Chaste Toons]]: It WAS the '40s...

** Subverted in that Goofy has a son in the '50s.

* [[Comic Trio]]: Mickey, Donald and Goofy. Arguably.

* [[Commedia Dell Arte Troupe]]

* [[Covered in Kisses]]: Occasionally, this happens to Mickey and Donald (thanks to Minnie and Daisy.)

* [[Cranial Eruption]]

* [[Cut and Paste Suburb]]: Donald and Goofy often live in this kind of neighborhood.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: The early concept art for the game ''[[Epic Mickey]]'' show a ruined [[Steampunk]] world filled with horrific chimeras created by a monstrous version of the Phantom Blot.

* [[Dead Baby Comedy]]: From ''Who Killed Cock Robin'': "We don't know who is guilty so we're gonna hang 'em all!" (sung to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell")

* [[Dogfaces]]

* [[Dripping Disturbance]]: What happens to Donald in ''Drip Dippy Donald'', which takes this trope [[Up to Eleven]].

* [[Edutainment Show]]: Several Donald shorts of the mid-to-late '50s had an educational bend, one of the most notable being ''Donald in Mathmagicland'', in which Donald learns that "there's a lot more to mathematics than two times two."

** Also, ''Scrooge McDuck and Money'', in which Scrooge gives lessons to his nephews on the capitalist economy.

* [[Everything Is an Instrument]]: A dominant trope in most of the early Mickey Mouse shorts.

** Averted in "Donald's Dilemma", because, contrary to the title, it's actually Daisy that has the dilemma...

* [[Extreme Omni Goat]]

* [["Faux To" Guide]]: Goofy always screwing up the narrator's instructions.

* [[Flying Broomstick]]: ''Trick or Treat''

** [[The Hero]]: Mickey - [[Chromatic Superiority|Red]]

** [[The Lancer]]: Donald - Blue

** [[The Big Guy]]: Goofy - Green (originally Orange)

** [[The Chick]]: Minnie - Pink, or Light Blue. Also associated with polka dot patterns.

** [[Team Pet]] - Pluto - Yellow

* [[Foe Yay]]: Pete kissing Mickey at the end of ''Symphony Hour'' has got to be a prime example.

* [[Funny Animal]]: Nearly the entire cast.

** And then there's the ever-complicated issue of Goofy, which comes from determining what Goofy (anthropomorphic man-dog whose is treated like a human) is in relation to Pluto (non-anthropomorphic dog, who's treated like a dog), whom he is occasionally shown to interact with. While it's possible that anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic dogs may simply exist side by side in the Disneyverse, it still has odd connotations (imagine if some humans were kept as pets, and treated as such, alongside seemingly similar humans).

* [[Gag Boobs]]: Clara Cluck, no doubt.

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: Okay, how did ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6dX-buqKDw this scene]'' from ''Truant Officer Donald'' get past the Hays Office in 1941?

** Pretty much ''any'' time Jenny Wren (a shameless [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]] version of [[Mae West]]...except as a bird) appears (or cameos) in the Silly Symphonies shorts. Also, there's this gem from the classic ''Toby Tortoise Returns'':

** Although it should be noted that in the context that line was said in, she was talking to Toby Tortoise, a rather slow-moving and slow-witted fellow who just got knocked out of the ring beforehand.

** The Goofy short ''Father's Day Off'' has Goofy's wife constantly cheating on him.

** ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV5juFWVjF8 Golden Eggs]''. It's not so much Donald [[Dropped a Bridget On Him|crossdressing as a hen to fool a rooster]] (though he does a [[Stupid Sexy Flanders|disturbingly good job at looking feminine]]), but just watch the rooster's reaction at about 4:20.

** In ''Up a Tree'', when Chip 'n Dale first look up their tree to see Donald climbing up it to cut it down, Dale says to Chip, "It's a duck with a big fanny!" (Though in the U.S., the term "fanny" is a euphemism for "backside" (the chipmunks obviously noticed Donald's backside), in the U.K., the term "fanny" is a euphemism for a certain part of a woman's anatomy (and thus was [[Edited for Syndication]])).

* [[Good Angel, Bad Angel]]: The entire premise of ''Donald's Better Self''.

** Pluto also had this in a few shorts, most notably ''Lend a Paw''.

* [[Hair-Trigger Temper]]: Donald Duck is famous for his.

* [[Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal]]: Mickey, Donald, Daisy, and (occasionally) Minnie.

** In the 1930s, the Big Bad Wolf was voiced by Billy Bletcher, the original voice for [[Pete]]. Fittingly enough, on ''[[House of Mouse]]'', he was voiced by [[Pete]]'s current voice actor, Jim Cummings.

** Also in the 1930s, Practical Pig was voiced by Pinto Colvig, the original voice for [[Goofy]]. Fittingly enough, on ''[[House of Mouse]]'', he was voiced by Goofy's current voice actor, Bill Farmer.

* [[Idea Bulb]]: Goofy gets one when trying to think of what to do about Mickey's birthday cake.

** Dale also gets ''two'' in ''Crazy Over Daisy'' when he and Chip try to think of a way to get revenge on Donald. The first bulb that Dale gets is small, but Chip dismisses it. The second bulb Dale gets is much larger and Chip approves.

* [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]]: There are still a handful of classic Disney shorts that didn't make their way into the Walt Disney Treasures lineup, including two of Goofy's 60s shorts, ''Freewayphobia #1'' and ''Goofy's Freeway Troubles'' (How to Ride a Horse and El Gaucho Goofy from the 40s aren't counted here, as they was technically part of other features, the former as part of ''The Reluctant Dragon'' (and can be found intact on Walt Disney Treasures: Behind the Scenes At Walt Disney Studios) and the latter as part of ''[[Saludos Amigos]]''), Chip 'n Dale's three solo shorts (although they are available on VHS and some of them on DVD) and poor little Susie the Little Blue Coupe didn't get into the Disney Rarities set (although it has somehow made its way onto public domain DVDs like Bazooka Joes cartoons, as well as included on DVD releases of ''[[The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad]]'' and ''[[The Love Bug]]'' as extras and as part of a series of DVDs called "It's a Small World of Fun"). They have also only released a select few of the early Alice Comedies on the Disney Rarities and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit sets, but many others are available via VCI and Inkwell Images DVD collections. Also, the obscure Disney short about "Menustration" hasn't been officially released, but has fallen into the public domain. Donald is also missing two shorts from the 1960s ("Donald's Fire Survival Plan" and "Steel and America"), and two '60s oneshots "Scrooge McDuck and Money" and "It's Tough To Be a Bird" have also not received a release.

* [[Kids Are Cruel]]: ''Elmer Elephant''

** Disney has been doing this for decades. Remember the Limited Gold Editions series of videotapes from the 1980s? There were ''two'' sets of those.

* [[Meaningful Name]]: Red, Huey's color, is the brightest hue, and blue is the color of dew, hence Dewey. This leaves Louie, and [[Incredibly Lame Pun|leaves]] are green.

** On the other hand, it's not like all artists and translations are at all consistent about which nephew wears which colored cap... the nephews being indistinguishable or swapping their caps has even been a plot point several times.

* [[Mickey Mousing]]: The [[Trope Namer]]

* [[Missing Episode]]: Several [[Alice Comedies]] and [[Oswald the Lucky Rabbit]] shorts aside, no shorts are lost. However, original prints of many of them containing their original title screens currently are lost and the [[Mickey Mouse]] shorts ''When the Cat's Away'' and ''The Jazz Fool'' currently lack their opening music.

* [[Narrator]] / [[Interactive Narrator]]: An important element of the "How To" Goofy shorts.

* [[Nightmare Dreams]]: Cartoons like ''Mickey's Nightmare'', ''Pluto's Judgment Day'' and ''Donald's Diary''.

* [[No Fourth Wall]]: Goofy seems to think so.

** At the end of ''Mickey's Amateurs'', [[Iris Out|the black circle]] that usually marks the end of the show closes around Donald's neck.

* [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]]: Clara Cluck again.

* [[Obstacle Ski Course]]: "The Art of Skiing" has Goofy doing all kinds of variations of this, most memorably accidentally skiing backwards.

* [[Old Shame]]: Director Wilfred Jackson disliked the early Mickey Mouse short "The Castaway", and from it's completion vowed to never again make another picture that didn't feel like a Disney cartoon, according to The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation.

* [[Screw the Rules I Have Plot]]: In the short ''Toby Tortoise Returns'', why didn't the game automatically go to Max Hare after Toby was knocked out of the ring by him? Instead, they just let the fight continue as if nothing happened.

* [[Screwy Squirrel]]: Chip 'n' Dale on occasion; Huey, Dewey, and Louie in many of their early appearances; and Mickey's Orphans (the crowds of mouse-faced kids in nightshirts).

* [[Slapstick]]

* [[Slipping a Mickey]]: Happens to Goofy in ''How To Be a Detective''.

* [[Soap Punishment]]: A lie detector uses this on the Big Bad Wolf in ''The Practical Pig''.

* [[Speech Impediment]]: Donald, to the point where his near-unintelligible speech sparked [http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/donald.asp an urban legend].

* [[Strapped to An Operating Table]]: ''[[The Mad Doctor]]''

* [[Sudden Downer Ending]]: {{spoiler|''Chicken Little''}}

* [[Talking Animal]]: Chip 'n' Dale, Goofy's mynah bird Ellsworth (a comic book character, most common in the 1950s, who wears clothes and is personified as a wise-guy intellectual - yet lives in a birdhouse and flies).

* [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics]] ([[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in an episode of ''House of Mouse'' in which Mickey and Donald convincingly disguise themselves as Minnie and Daisy by putting bows on their heads.

** Likewise, in such cartoons as "Alpine Climbers", "Lend a Paw" and "Mail Dog", which take place in a snowy area, there are times when Pluto turns blue from the cold.

* [[Tsundere]]: Arguably, Daisy.

* [[The Twelve Principles of Animation]]: These cartoons played a big part in refining them.

* [[Typewriter Eating]]: Present in ''Mickey's Trailer'', ''Donald's Cousin Gus'' and ''Pueblo Pluto''.

** Donald Duck had an entire suite of war shorts, from "Donald Gets Drafted" to "Commando Duck".

* [[Wafer-Thin Mint]]

* [[We Do the Impossible]]: In ''The [[Brave Little Tailor]].''

* [[Who Would Want to Watch Us?]]?: In ''A Gentleman's Gentleman'', Pluto buys a newspaper for Mickey, but stops to read a comic strip featuring himself on the front page. He laughs at his comic counterpart's misfortune, but then a similar situation happens to him.

* [[Wicked Witch]]: Witch Hazel

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Animated Films]]

[[Category:Disney Channel]]

[[Category:Edutainment Show]]

[[Category:Films of the 1940s]]

[[Category:The Forties]]

[[Category:The Great Depression]]

[[Category:Western Animation]]