Pluto's Surprise Package

A Walt Disney PLUTO Cartoon.

PLUTO'S SURPRISE PACKAGE consists of a very stubborn little turtle, which makes the Pup's job of bringing in the mail rather difficult.

This is an enjoyable cartoon, but the plot is certainly nothing new - Pluto meets yet another small critter with a mind of its own. Notice that the Pup is rather rusticated in this film, which makes one wonder if Mickey has moved to the woods, or if this is his vacation home.

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 storm of naysayers, 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.

The mailman has come and Pluto emerges from a cabin to go retrieve them (from seeing all the different cartoons, how many homes does Pluto live in?!). Pluto thought that one of the packages in the mail contains dog bones, but when it starts sprouting legs, Pluto discovers that the package contains a turtle.

The turtle wants to go swim in the pond, but Pluto wants to put it back in the box and take it back inside the cabin, along with the rest of the mail. Not too much to laugh at in this cartoon - just some cuddly cute scenes and a frustrated Pluto trying to get the turtle to cooperate. But, the ending does tug at your heart strings a little.

Grade C+

Pluto's Surprise Package is nothing new story-wise coming across as routine, but it is crisp in the pace and has enough imaginative gags and physical humour to amuse. The animation is often beautiful especially in the colours though the fluid backgrounds are also to be admired, and the music is jaunty and accompanies the humour and what's going on on screen very well as is so typical of the Disney cartoons. Pluto is very cute and energetic as he always is.

Overall, the story is nothing extraordinary, but overall Pluto's Surprise Package is a very nice and amusing cartoon.

8/10 Bethany Cox