Pluto's Purchase

A Walt Disney PLUTO Cartoon.

Butch the bulldog is out to steal PLUTO'S PURCHASE of a large bologna from the local butcher shop.

This is a routine, but enjoyable, little film. Mickey Mouse has a small role; Butch is as brutish as ever.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by 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 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 simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Mickey sends Pluto to go to the butcher shop to buy a piece of sausage and, when coming back home, Butch the bulldog sees Pluto and attempts to steal the sausage. Pluto ends up successfully defending the piece of meat and bringing back home to Mickey, not realizing that the sausage is actually a birthday gift for Butch.

There are scatter of funny moments in this cartoon, particularly where Butch runs into fences and things. This is probably the one cartoon where Butch acts the least meanest in. However, even though the sausage was for Butch, he wanted to steal it in the first place, so, it doesn't give the dog much redeeming qualities and the turn-of-events wasn't a very exciting angle for the entire cartoon.

Grade C-