cartoon best for kids: Mickey Mouse

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Friday, July 20, 2007

Mickey's Garden (1935)

Here's the last post in our short series dedicated to the unusual and "disturbing" Mickey Mouse cartoons from the mid-'30s. In case you missed the previous two entries, here are the links:

The Worm Turns
Pluto's Judgement Day

The subject of today's post is "Mickey's Garden", the second MM cartoon released in color (exactly on July 13th, 1935). As everybody knows, first color Mickey Mouse cartoon was the legendary masterpiece "The Band Concert", and both that cartoon and "Mickey's Garden" were directed by Wilfred Jackson.

I'm not sure if "Mickey's Garden" has been often shown on TV, and I certainly can't remember ever seeing it as the kid. "Mickey Mouse in Living Color" was my introduction to this cartoon, and it was in my opinion one of the greatest highlights and surprises of that entire DVD set.

Starting from 1932, Mickey Mouse cartoons began to deviate from the musical or purely gag-oriented cartoons and move towards the adventure stories. "Mickey's Garden" is a continuation of this direction, augmented with the strong dose of Disney-style surrealism. It's a beautifully animated and highly imaginative cartoon, with excellent design of various insect characters.

I wasn't able to find out more info about the animators who worked on this cartoon, and only Dick Huemer has been confirmed. However, another well known name is related to this cartoon: the in-betweening on "Mickey's Garden" was Ollie Johnston's first assignment at Disney. Johnston will quickly establish himself as one of Disney's principal animators.