Mickey's Trailer
Mickey's Trailer is a 1938 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon stars Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy on a near disastrous road trip in a travel trailer. It was directed by Ben Sharpsteen and features the voices of Walt Disney as Mickey, Clarence Nash as Donald, and Pinto Colvig as Goofy. Animators include Ed Love, Louie Schmitt, Johnny Cannon, Don Patterson, Clyde Geronimi, Tom Palmer, Frenchy de Trémaudan and Cy Young.[2] Pete makes a cameo in this cartoon where he is seen driving a truck during the "Runaway Trailer" sequence featuring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. This cartoon was released about five months after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was the 100th short in the Mickey Mouse film series to be released, and the second for that year.[3]
Mickey's Trailer | |
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Super 8 cover | |
Directed by | Ben Sharpsteen |
Produced by | Walt Disney |
Story by | Jack Kinney |
Starring | Pinto Colvig Walt Disney Clarence Nash |
Music by | Oliver Wallace |
Animation by | Johnny Cannon Clyde Geronimi Ed Love Tom Palmer Don Patterson Louie Schmitt Frenchy de Tremaudan Cy Young |
Layouts by | Bill Herwig |
Backgrounds by | Bill Herwig |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 8 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Plot
The movie starts at what seems like a small house in a natural setting. Mickey walks out the door and says, "Oh boy! What a day!" Then, he pulls a lever and walks inside. The house is converted into a trailer (with the natural setting in the shape of a giant hand fan revealed to be a city dump) and Goofy's car is released from the side. Then, Goofy starts driving through the countryside while Mickey makes dinner-like breakfast (corn on the cob, baked potatoes, watermelon, coffee, and milk). Meanwhile, Donald can't wake up, even when his alarm clock rings and pulls off his blanket. Thanks to a secret controlboard, Mickey manages to rouse him for a machine-assisted bath, but he sees birds and tries to swat them with the towel. Later, the bath is converted into a dining area.
When Mickey rings the dinner bell, Goofy foolishly leaves the driver's seat - while the car and trailer are still in motion and without stopping - for breakfast, in which it drives through a closed road. After several mishaps during the meal, eventually having popcorn for breakfast, Goofy notices that no one is in the driver's seat and accidentally and unknowingly unhitches the trailer in his panic to resume driving and goes on his way. The trailer rolls downhill on an epic runaway adventure, nearly crashing into a truck and two trains and is a wreck on the inside (but okay on the outside) by the time it's miraculously rehitched to the car. Unaware of the dramatic events, Goofy, who was singing "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes" while driving down the hill, says in the end, "Well, I brought you down, safe and sound."
Voice cast
- Mickey Mouse: Walt Disney
- Donald Duck: Clarence Nash
- Goofy: Pinto Colvig[4]
Home video
A Fisher-Price version of the movie (and silent), was released for the Movie Viewer in 1974, and lasted until 1979. The short can be found on the Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color Volume 1 disc 2 and on the Walt Disney's Classic Cartoon Favorites Extreme Adventure Fun Volume 7, as well as the 1998 The Spirit of Mickey Mouse VHS. It was re-released on Blu-ray/DVD/Digital on the 2018 Celebrating Mickey compilation.
Legacy
This cartoon was later adapted into a Mickey Mouse comic strip story titled The Unhappy Campers in which they replaced Donald with Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse and Pluto. This was because Donald was not a character in the Mickey Mouse strip at the time.
The film is also part of the Christmas show From All of Us to All of You.
The film was also incorporated into the 1983 film The Outsiders.
See also
References
- Kaufman, J.B.; Gerstein, David (2018). Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History. Cologne: Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8365-5284-4.
- "Mickey's Trailer". www.bcdb.com, April 12, 2012
- Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 107–109. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
- Hischak, Thomas S. (2011). Disney Voice Actors: A Biographical Dictionary. McFarland & Company. p. 257. ISBN 978-0786462711. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
External links
- Mickey's Trailer at The Big Cartoon DataBase
- Mickey's Trailer on IMDb
- Mickey's Trailer at the TCM Movie Database
- The Encyclopedia of Disney Shorts entry on "Mickey's Trailer"
- Roadside Disney: Trailer Tales from 2719 Hyperion, essay on the topic of travel trailers in Disney films; May 6, 2008