The Gallopin' Gaucho

The Gallopin' Gaucho (1928)

*** (out of 4)

Mickey Mouse is visiting Mexico and walks into a Cantina where he sees Minnie Mouse dancing up a storm. Naturally he jumps in and two begin to have a swell time but then a large cat jumps in and steals her. THE GALLOPIN' GAUCHO was the second of three Mickey cartoons that were made in 1928 and there's no question that, drawing wise, Mickey went through some changes since the first one. With that said, out of the three films this here is clearly the weakest but it's certainly still worth watching and especially if you're not too familiar with these early films. There's certainly good animation throughout but there's really no giant laughs to be had.

Both "Steamboat Willie" and "Plane Crazy" are timeless classics. Personally, while very entertaining, due to its somewhat minimal story, I didn't find it as much as a classic. Still it has held up well, with some nice black and white animation, plus the music is absolutely wonderful here, particularly in the sword fight between Mickey and Pete. Speaking of Mickey, he is so cool here, he smokes, dances the tango and challenges others to sword fights. Minnie is also quite hot, and Pete is suitably villainous. Walt Disney does a great job with the vocals, making the most of the little amount of dialogue he has, as a vast majority of the cartoon is driven by visuals and music. All in all, entertaining and worth watching. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Mickey is a gaucho--an Argentinian cowboy. He rides an ostrich for some reason. He goes to a cantina where Minnie is a dancer. They hook up, but it isn't long before she is kidnapped by Pete, the giant cat. There are all sorts of interesting implausibles, mostly involving mouse tails. Anyway, it's a decent little film. Mickey starts to gain a little personality.

Personally, unlike the other reviewers of this cartoon, I found "Galloppin' Gaucho" very entertaining and I personally prefer it to Mickey Mouse's first two cartoons before it, "Plane Crazy" and "Steamboat Willie", for the following reasons: 1. In the previous episodes, Mickey Mouse was quite a horrible, prank-playing character, who could be quite mean to Minnie Mouse or innocent animals. In this episode, he was not particularly mean to anyone (anyone innocent, anyway) and was very good to Minnie. 2. The plot in this cartoon is somewhat cliché, but I found it very entertaining all the same and is a plot change from the Looney Tunes cartoons I usually watch (where no respected girlfriend is featured). 3. As I mentioned before, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are very "cool" in this episode and they both dance very well (in a sort of slow-music style).

In this cartoon, Mickey Mouse is travelling on an ostrich/rhea, in South America and he stops at a bar by the road. There, he sees a very attractive female mouse, dancing to the guitar. She too notices Mickey and also finds him very attractive and they dance together (once both have impressed each other a little more). Suddenly, Minnie Mouse is snatched away by a huge (but normal size in real-life comparison from mice to cats) and fierce cat, who obviously plans on eating her. He takes Minnie away to his abode and Mickey quickly decides to go on after her. Will Mickey Mouse save his new love in time? I recommend this cartoon to anyone who enjoys Mickey and Minnie Mouse cartoons in general and to people who like old cartoons with a clever slapstick style intertwined with the story. Enjoy "Gallopin' Gaucho"! :-) 8 and a half out of ten.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

THE GALLOPIN' GAUCHO must speed to rescue cantina dancer Minnie from the foul clutches of Pete, the outlaw cat.

This ancient black & white film was only the second Mickey Mouse cartoon released with synchronized sound. It's fun watching The Mouse doing a Douglas Fairbanks spoof - using his tail the way Doug did his bullwhip in THE GAUCHO (1927). Is Mickey's faithful Argentinean mount an ostrich or a rhea? The Disney animators were already making full use of underwear & posterior jokes. Pete still has both legs in this one.

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, Bambi, Peter Pan and Mr. Toad. 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.