Die Bootsbauer

Before VHS tape and DVD technology, many old movies and old cartoons were re-released every few years. I was a preteen in the early 1950's and vividly remember first seeing the 1938 "Boat Builders" just before a Roy Rogers Saturday matinée flick at the local theater. It was the funniest cartoon I had ever seen. I laughed aloud continually through the entire seven minutes as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and their animated friends build a boat and launch it with outrageous slapstick humor aplenty. The whole audience joined me in the laughter. Several years later I watched "Boat Builders" again. It was still funny and enjoyable, the animation still amazing. I'm rating this cartoon from the standpoint of a preteen. For youngsters yesterday, today, and tomorrow, this one is a winner.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Folding-kit BOAT BUILDERS Mickey, Goofy & Donald attempt to put together their small ship with predictably disastrous results.

Featuring first rate animation & a very funny plot, this classic little film reunites the three buddies in another cartoon not dissimilar to CLOCK CLEANERS (1937), their hit of the year before. Goofy & the Duck carry most of the show, with their voice artists - Pinto Colvig & Clarence Nash - giving topnotch performances. Voiced by Walt Disney, Mickey easily steps into the position of good guy & regular fellow. Miss Minnie has a quick cameo and sharp-eyed movie mavens will spot Horace Horsecollar & Clarabelle Cow among the crowd at the launching.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.

Another classic Disney short teaming their three stars of the time: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy (with an appearance by Minnie at the end). This time the trio are trying to build a boat from some sort of kit. It's a real boat but it comes ready-to-assemble with instructions and everything like a toy or model boat. The boys naturally have trouble, particularly Goofy and Donald. It's a funny cartoon with lovely animation and jaw-droppingly beautiful Technicolor. Good voice work from Clarence Nash, Pinto Colvig, and Walt Disney himself. Not the best cartoon featuring these three but a really good one.

Boat Builders was a solid Walt Disney cartoon. Featuring Mickey, Goofy and Donald, it has some really entertaining moments. My only real complaint is that some of the animation isn't always that great, there is the occasional stiff movement or the occasional flat background. That said the music is wonderful, and so is the voice acting, while Walt Disney and Clarence Nash both turn in fine work, it is Pinto Colvig as Goofy who comes off best.

Then there are parts that are truly funny, the scene with the loose plank was funny, but the best was when Goofy thinks a mermaid figurine is a real woman and starts chasing after her when Mickey takes her away. Overall, I enjoyed this cartoon. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This is a classic Disney cartoon featuring all of Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Minnie. The former three buys a boat kit and attempts to build a gigantic ship out of the it - it's like buying the parts and building a miniature model. But here, in funny cartoon style, the three characters decide to christen the ship after completion of the assembling and take it out to sea.

While assembling the ship, Mickey, Donald and Goofy meet all sorts of weird mishaps, from a rolled-up plank deck that won't cooperate to Goofy taking the boat's statue for a real woman who adores him. It really sends some good laughs your way and it's definitely very entertaining. You're in for huge laughs when the ending of the cartoon comes and Minnie gives the green light for the ship to sail!

Grade A