Get a Horse!

As a huge fan of classic Disney and as someone who likes a lot of their modern stuff(though there have been a fair share of misfires), Get a Horse was really delightful and while Frozen is a great film and one of their best since the Renaissance this short that preceded it was even better. The animation mixes black and white classic animation and colour CGI, with the crisp and fluid black and white and the colourful and vibrant CGI that moves more naturally than that on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse it not only looks great but it is very cleverly used as well. The soundtrack is lively and with beautiful orchestration and themes that you'll recognise immediately. The sound effects are well-incorporated, some from the very early stuff that are preserved quite well, and are not misplaced or bizarre-sounding. Get a Horse has humorous dialogue and a story that is from start-to-finish boundless fun and energy and it's as clever as the animation too. Just as good are the gags, they're reminiscent of classic Disney but there is also a very modern Disney vibe, so it will appeal to anybody, child and adult, regardless of where abouts they were born. All the characters engage, with a delicious villain in Pete and Mickey who has the kindly quality he has now and also the heroic character in the old classic Disney. Minnie is sweet as well, and it was great to see Horace and Clarabelle, two characters often neglected(or they were for a long time before House of Mouse came on the scene). The voices are fine too, though it was initially a tad odd hearing (modern) Pete voiced by someone other than Jim Cummings, like the sound the original voices are well-preserved. All in all, delightful and recommended without any hint of hesitation. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A blast from the past as Mickey Mouse and friends deal with the lascivious Peg-Leg Pete in this respectful and loving tribute to Walt Disney's early Mickey Mouse cartoons. It's done with a delightful mix of hand-drawn black & white animation in the style of those early cartoons and modern CGI color animation, still holding true to the original models of the characters. I love that they also used some archival audio from Walt, Billy Bletcher, and Marcellite Garner. Frankly, it's the best Mickey short in decades. I've always enjoyed the first Mickey cartoons a lot. The character has long since become the poster child for corny but this short hearkens back to a time when he was fresh, playful, and funny. Kudos to Lauren MacMullan and co. for this creative and clever short that mixes the present and the past in a way that should bring smiles to the faces of young and old alike.

When the film begins, you don't think it's a CGI or 3-D film. It looks like a Mickey Mouse film circa 1929--complete with scratchy film stock! However, when the baddie, Pete, tosses Mickey THROUGH the screen and he becomes a full-color 3-D character, you know you are in for something unique! What's next? See the film--it's well worth it.

This is an interesting case where it turns out that I liked the short more than the feature film it accompanied. In the case of "Get a Horse!", it was shown before the Disney CGI film "Frozen"--a moderately enjoyable full-length film. However, the short was indeed magical and appeared to be a real work of love. I say this because the folks who made the film did a great job of trying to replicate the exact look and sound of the very early Mickey Mouse cartoons--something that is no small feat! Unlike most 3-D films I've seen, I think it's very important you try to see "Get a Horse!" in 3-D. This is because rarely has another 3-D film tried so hard to incorporate this sort of camera-work into the film (another exception being the underrated "How to Train Your Dragon"). Most 3-D films, to me, seem as if they just tacked on the 3-D at the end and didn't plan for the use of 3-D all along (this is especially true of the live action 3-D films).

Overall, a wonderful little film that no doubt will get nominated for Best Animated Short for the Oscars. If it doesn't, I'll be incredibly surprised as the film isn't just fun but an amazing film technically.

UPDATE: I just saw this short again as part of the Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts show in selected theaters. Although it was NOT shown in 3-D this time, it didn't really seem to matter. Why I am doing this update is that in comparison to all the other nominees, "Get a Horse!" is light-years better. And, because it's so far superior I am changing my original score from 9 to 10. What a wonderful film and I like the rather playful and fun nature of the short.

Get a Horse! (2013)

*** (out of 4)

This winning short from Disney was originally released and played before the FROZEN feature. The story is quite simple and Mickey and Minnie are trying to battle Peg-Leg Pete who eventually throws Mickey off the "movie" and into the movie crowd. Once in the crowd Mickey has to use some imagination to try and rescue Minnie who is still in the movie. GET A HORSE! was rather remarkable to see on the big screen because it starts off in B&W just like the original Mickey Mouse shorts and I thought this was a great way to show younger kids a bit of the past. Once the characters start falling from the movie, Mickey then turns to color and he even makes the screen wider to fit today's movies. For the most part I thought this 6-minute short contained a lot of wonderful imagination and especially once the characters were off the screen and seeing how they could defeat the villain. There were a lot of great laughs throughout the picture and especially with some of the harmless violence that was in so many of the original cartoons.

This short is such an amazing little visual work of wonder, it's really one of those types of animations that will make you fall in love with the cartoon shorts of the 30s all over again, and it actually changed my outlook on modern animation a little. It's fantastic just how well they replicated the endearingly scratchy antiquated animations of the olden days, they did it almost perfectly, except for the voices which aren't quite tinny enough and the movements are a bit too fluid in parts, but they did a brilliant job with this nonetheless, I love how the use the very old characters of Clarabel Cow and Peg leg Pete in such a fun way. And the short gets really good when the characters actually realise they're in a cartoon and literally break the fourth wall as they burst out of the movie screen and run back and forth between the 'real' world and the world of their adventures as it wonderfully dances between both visual styles of animation, juggling the both of them beautifully, making them appear as two sides of the same coin. It's very respectful to the vintage style of the animation while still subtly having an element of passing on the torch to it, "Make way for the future!" is a line I don't really care for, but it did kind of sum up a part of what I thought the short was driving at, things change into other things all the time, like the telegram gradually became the telephone that Mickey calls Pegleg Pete on, perhaps animation was always meant to become what it largely is now, and while it's not my personal preference when it comes to animation, I'm glad it's still thriving and bringing joy to children to this day. Beautifully done and very sweet short, I appreciate what it tries to do, well worth seeing for the concept, animation magic and the nostalgia, enjoy! 💓