Topolino nel paese dei nani

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

GULLIVER MICKEY enthralls his young nephews with the story of his adventures among the tiny people of a faraway land.

With a nod of acknowledgement to Jonathan Swift, this is a well-made little black & white film featuring very fine animation of the miniature world Mickey discovers. Sleepy Pluto makes a tiny cameo appearance. Walt Disney gave the Mouse his squeaky voice.

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 always pay off.

Mickey Mouse is quite the story teller, telling the orphan kids about the time Mickey took on the role of in Gulliver's Travels, where he is a giant in the town and takes on its residents, dodging cannonballs and arrows.

It's fun seeing Mickey un-phased by the ignorant residents' attacks, and they should be grateful that Mickey fended off the real nemesis of the show - a giant spider who likes to punch.

Not the funniest of Disney cartoons, but a little entertaining.

Grade B-

Though Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoons made excellence use of music, they were nonetheless more action-packed and faster-moving than their "Silly Symphony" counterparts, and 'Gulliver Mickey (1934)' is an ideal demonstration of these contrasts. Set on entertaining his young nieces and nephews, Mickey invents a tale about his being shipwrecked on an island of Lilliputians, borrowing no small amount from Jonathon Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." After being tied down by flimsy ropes, the giant Mickey is bombarded by a seemingly endless barrage of cannonballs, all of which seem to bounce off harmlessly, and, indeed, Mickey even appears to be enjoying the treatment. Brushing aside arrows and cannons as though they are raindrops, he tramps through the miniature city, plays in the water with mini battleships, and takes particular delight in harassing the rear-end of the squeaky-voiced Lilliputian army commander.

All this fun comes to an end, however, when Mickey is accosted by an immense, six-legged spider-type creature, which chuckles an annoying laugh as it batters our hero across the face with its hands. Of course, this being Mickey's story, he eventually emerges victorious, recreating his triumph in the living-room by pummelling a pillow. Stylistically, there is nothing particularly notable about 'Gulliver Mickey,' and the black-and-white animation is substantially less attractive than the Technicolor Symphonies, such as 'The China Shop (1934)' and 'The Tortoise and the Hare (1934),' which were released the same year. Additionally, though the story is fast-moving, the cartoon does dedicate a lot of time to Mickey being battered with cannons, which is entertaining to watch but also somewhat unenlightening. For fans of Mickey Mouse and posterior-themed sight gags, you can certainly do a lot worse than 'Gulliver Mickey.'

Disney was always a big part of my childhood, and a vast majority of those that I loved then have held up now. Gulliver Mickey is no exception. The story may not hold that many surprises, however I loved the set-up with the idea to have Mickey narrating the story to give it a story-book feel and the ending was nice. The gags are not exactly laugh-a-minute or hilarious, but they are still very cute and amusing, the most inspired one being with day literally breaking. The animation is absolutely great, and the music is typically characterful and energetic. Mickey has been more interesting before, always have loved his heroic side, but I love his compassion here. The mice are sweet and even the orphans, who I can find brats in other cartoons they are in, have some likability. And I did like that the spider looked very like Pegleg Pete, with the face that is.

Overall, not among the best Disney shorts but still a very good one. 9/10 Bethany Cox