Cold Storage

A Walt Disney PLUTO Cartoon.

Fred Stork, looking for a warm home for the rest of the freezing Winter, decides to appropriate Pluto's doghouse.

In COLD STORAGE the Pup struggles to retain his possessions from an interloper, a basic plot used several times before by the Disney animators. However, the Stork proves to be a worthy adversary and the little film provides a quiet chuckle or two.

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 will always pay off.

Not the best from Pluto or one of them, but Cold Storage is a very nice cartoon short all the same. The story- basically Pluto and a stork fighting over a doghouse and trying to keep warm- is very basic and at times too formulaic(actually a rather typical Pluto cartoon plot), and the pacing could have done with a little more snap. The best thing about Cold Storage is the animation, especially the background art which is vibrant and always interesting to look at. Colours wise, it is very bright and colourful, not too much though, and both Pluto and the stork are well-drawn. The music has a real liveliness and character, and the orchestration shimmers and rouses. The gags aren't necessarily big in variety but the timing of the gags is good and particularly the ending they are funny. Pluto and the stork work well together, the stork is funnier and more compelling but Pluto is more likable. All in all, wonderfully animated and on a good entertainment level but don't expect anything much new here. 8/10 Bethany Cox