19 November 2013

TIM AT TFE: 85 YEARS A MOUSE

A mid-week essay: celebrating Mickey on the 85th anniversary of his big breakthrough, Steamboat Willie.

3 comments:

  1. Loved the article! Makes me want to go watch the 10 Mickey shorts you named off (though I have seen Steamboat Willie and the Band Stand and maybe a few others!)

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  2. Great article! Film Forum in NYC ran a shorts program in honor of Mickey's anniversary, and although they played Thru the Mirror and Mickey's Trailer, they also played quite a few I'd never seen before. I think this is the full list:
    Plane Crazy
    Steamboat Willie
    The Barnyard Concert
    The Gorilla Mystery
    Blue Rhythm
    Building a Building
    Puppy Love
    Thru the Mirror
    Mickey's Rival
    The Worm Turns
    Mickey's Trailer
    The Nifty Nineties (which had animated versions of "Fred" and "Ward" in it!)
    A preview of Get a Horse!

    And it ended with an odd short - it was produced for the Mickey Mouse Club, according to the credits, and it was "Minnie's Yoo Hoo" as sung by Mickey, and then as a singalong for everyone in the audience (with Mickey encouraging them to sing louder.)

    It was a lot of fun, although I do wonder why they chose some shorts and not others. "Nifty Nineties" is pretty dire, although I and probably a few others in the audience appreciated the Fred and Ward bit.

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  3. Yeah, "The Nifty Nineties" is pretty useless. Honestly, there's not a single Mickey short after 1940 that comes anywhere close to the level of his early stuff, but that one is still a standout for how little of real merit it contains.

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