El Rival de Mickey

Mickey has long been regarded by critics as having a one dimensional personality. This is true for the most part as personality animation didn't come into fruition until the mid-30s, which is when Mickey started to be rivaled by characters with more personality.

In this short, he displays a more three-dimensional and flawed personality. As he and Minnie go on a picnic, a former boyfriend of Minnie, Mortimer, joins them, to Mickey's chargin. While Mickey is visibly jealous, Mortimer comes across as a showoff and unlikeable; Even his anthropomorphic car has a haughty personality. One wonders how Mortimer's relationship with Minnie ended the first time around.

It has been said that Mortimer was the name Walt initially chose for Mickey, but his wife didn't like it and chose Mickey instead. Considering the murkiness of Mickey's origins, this story might be apocryphal, but who's to say. Assuming the story is true, the plot and circumstances make for an interesting inside joke.

This is one of the few shorts, where Mickey come across as more human and thus more relatable.

Mickey and Minnie are out in the country for a nice quiet picnic. But that's soon rudely interrupted by the arrival of Mortimer Mouse, who promptly gatecrashes their pleasant afternoon.

Mortimer is a loudmouth show-off with a big car, Minnie instantly swoons over him (how shallow is that?) even though he takes great pleasure in tormenting and humiliating Mickey. He even sets a mad bull loose on him, which destroys any remaining hope of a relaxing picnic. Chaos follows as per normal. Not that funny though.

Isn't it weird how much Mickey's car looks like Benny the Cab from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

While not quite a classic, this is a very entertaining and fun Mickey Mouse cartoon. The story is simple but effective, and the scripting is rock solid. There are also some entertaining parts, the bull was a good character. But even more successful is for starters the animation, a very fluid and colourful style is used here and it works wonders. The music is wonderful, it is cheerful and it is lively, like music in a cartoon should be. The voice acting for its time is impressive, with Walt Disney applying his squeaky voice again for Mickey and doing a stellar job, and Marcellite Garner also impressive as Minnie. At the end of Mickey's Rival, I asked myself who did I prefer Mickey or Mortimer? I would have to go with Mickey, even with his whimsical charms I could tell how really obnoxious Mortimer was.

Overall, entertaining, a classic, not quite, but fun, you got it! 9/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

A picnic with Minnie is destroyed by the arrival of MICKEY'S RIVAL, the thoroughly obnoxious Mortimer.

This excellent little film features both terrific animation & lots of laughs. It is great fun to see the Mouse triumph over both his detested competition and the fierce bull which disrupts their outing. Mickey gets his squeaky voice from Walt Disney, who, it is interesting to remember, first planned on naming his wee buddy "Mortimer."

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 always pay off.

It's not the best Disney short film, but it's still good. Highly recommend.