Mickey's Fire Brigade

Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy are firemen. A house is in fire and instead of fighting the fire the fire is fighting them. This Disney short is packed with a lot of action. It is funny sometimes, especially the little sequences with Goofy. Enjoyable.

Surely one of the greatest short cartoons ever made. Second for second, this is the most action packed cartoon i've ever seen. Mickey donald and goofy battle a big house fire and rescue clarabelle cow. The opening sequence is the title of the cartoon burning up and it pulls back to reveal the house on fire. The music in these 1935 mickey mouse cartoons is always spot on, adding to the drama. The flames are anthropomorphic ones, i.e they are animated, they run around like kids, they have legs, they grab windows and shut them etc. It's a visual feast of a cartoon,and it clocks in under 8 minutes. It's the kind of thing they don't do anymore, but it is available on dvd with all the colour 1935-1938 mickey mouse cartoons, and these are worth seeing.

Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are firefighters who are given the task of putting out the fire in a big house. They are undaunted as they incompetently battle the flames. Clarabell the cow is taking a bath and refuses to listen. It is doubtful that there is anything left of the house in the end, but it's an action packed, constantly moving feature that never wavers.

A hotel is burning and Mickey's Fire Brigade is answering the distress call. But Mickey, Goofy and Donald are not so great when it comes to fighting fire. In fact, everything that can go wrong between their ramshackle fire truck and worthless tactics does.

Donald's fight with the fire gets a bit too personal, Mickey cannot keep the wild hose under control and Goofy does a bit of peeping on a cow taking a bath (cows are always naked anyway) who doesn't realize the hotel is on fire. And why does she have horns if she is indeed a SHE???

Most bizarre, of all their hijinks, is the scenes in which Goofy chucks everything he can get his paws on out the window, only to be incinerated in the fire truck furnace. What??? This I totally do not understand. Was this an attempt at irony? It comes of as just plain confusing.

A funny and imaginative cartoon nonetheless.

I don't know about anybody else but this is one of my favourite Mickey Mouse cartoons. And it is not just because Mickey, Goofy and Donald, who delight in everything they are in are together. Speaking of this trio, they are wonderful, they still have their warm personalities and all are funny. They are further advantaged by some fun voice work from Walt Disney, Pinto Colvig, Clarence Nash and Evia Allman.

The story is also a lot of fun, the cartoon is quite short but it is never dull and goes at a cracking pace. The animation is excellent too, very vibrant in the backgrounds and the characters move convincingly. Also technically, Mickey's Fire Brigade is very impressive. The music is rousing and energetic.

Where Mickey's Fire Brigade really works is in its humour. For me, this is one of the funniest Mickey-Donald-Goofy cartoons, I couldn't count the number of times I was laughing so much, so much so my sides got sore quite quickly. The writing brought a smile to my face, while the sight gags such as Mickey's fight with the water hose, Donald's battle with flames and Goofy being incinerated in the fire truck furnace(bizarre but it still worked) are well and truly spectacular.

So all in all, technically polished and hilarious in its humour, Mickey's Fire Brigade is a definite winner. 10/10 Bethany Cox