Classic Disney Shorts: Difference between revisions

** 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.

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.

Occasionally, the classic characters would appear in [[Disney Animated Canon|feature films]], usually anthology films like ''[[Fun and Fancy Free]]'', ''[[Saludos Amigos]]'', ''[[The Three Caballeros]]'', and, most famously, the ''[[Fantasia]]'' films. In the '90s, [[Chip and Dale]] received [[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|their own series]], as did [[DuckTales|Uncle Scrooge]], [[Goof Troop|Goofy]], [[Quack Pack|and Donald]]. Recently, they've made appearances in series such as ''[[Mickey Mouse Works]]'', ''[[House of Mouse]]'', and ''[[Mickey Mouse Clubhouse]]'', as well as the direct-to-DVD ''[[Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers]]''. Some of these characters, mainly Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, also feature prominently in the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' games. The second game paid [[George Lucas Throwback|tribute]] [[Homage|to]] [[Retraux|black and white Disney shorts]] with the level "Timeless River".

* [[Lonesome Ghosts]]

* [[Clock Cleaners]]

* [[Adventures in Music Duology]]

* [[Mickey's Christmas Carol]]

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{{tropenamer|The [[Classic Disney Shorts]] are the [[Trope Namer]] for:}}

* [[Mr. Vice Guy]]

* [[Number One Dime]]

'''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.

** To an extent, Figaro (in the shorts, he was typically shown as a foil for Pluto), even if he doesn't excel much past a [[Bratty Half-Pint]].

* [[The Chew Toy]]: Donald.

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

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

* [[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.

* [[The Everyman]]: All of the main trio, to some degree: Mickey (when he's not too good at being a hero), Donald (when he's not being too [[Morally-Ambiguous Ducktorate|nasty]]), and Goofy (when he's not being too clumsy) have all functioned as everyday working stiffs in viewer identification scenarios.

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

* [[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.

** 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]])).

* [[Ghost in the Machine]]: ''Reason and Emotion''

* [[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''.

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

** Most of the main cast's younger relatives were [[Bratty Half-Pint|Bratty Half Pints]] of the highest order, Junior in ''Bellboy Donald'' (not so much P.J.), Huey, Dewey and Louie, Mickey's Orphans, and sometimes Goofy Junior (not so much Max), just to name a few.

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

* [[Literal Ass-Kicking]]: Donald was often a victim of this.

* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Goofy suffers one throughout "The Art of Self Defense", which takes "Shadowboxing" to its literal extent and has him be the punching bag for the various moves demonstrated.

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

* [[Not Allowed to Grow Up]]: Everybody but [[A Goofy Movie|Max]] and P.J., apparently.

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

* [[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.

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

* [[We're Still Relevant, Dammit!]]: The ENTIRE ANGLE of the [[Kingdom Hearts]] games and especially [[Epic Mickey]].

* [[Who Is Driving?]]?: ''Mickey's Trailer'' (1938)

* [[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.