Mickey's Elephant

This Mickey Mouse Silly Symphonies short from 1936 is very much inspired by their Warner Brothers rivals.

Mickey receives Bobo, a baby Indian elephant a gift from an Indian Rajah. While Mickey builds a house for his elephant Pluto does not seem to be thrilled.

In fact we see a Devil Pluto who splits from him and plays on his fears and negativity. He encourages him to be mischievous.

The shenanigans from Pluto leads to Bobo having a sneezing fit and ultimately blowing everything round him. Pluto realises that his devilish side might not always be acting for Pluto's own interest.

I love this short, and it is one of my favorite Mickey Mouse shorts from 1936. I am very particular about my favorite cartoon short from that year. Anyway, Mickey receives Bobo, a baby elephant from India, as a gift from the Rajah of Gahbooh. Naturally, Pluto first encountered Bobo's trunk through a fence while Bobo was playing with a ball, and the ball ended up going under the fence. Pluto got upset and marched away. But the mischievous Bobo pulls Pluto's tail and follows. Of course, Pluto disliked it, particularly as he started to suspect that someone was replacing him because of his evil side-a devil version of himself.

I love the adorable design of little Bobo; he is so cute. The lesson from this cartoon is to never listen to the devil within you.

In this cartoon short, Pluto, convinced by his inner-devil, thinks that he has been replaced as Mickey's pet by a baby elephant (which, by the way, looks like a overgrown and overly chubby Dumbo) the Bobo. He appeared to be too friendly with Pluto, which ticked the dog off immediately.

Many of these Disney cartoon shorts, unfortunately, follow the same formula of an overly cute animal character who antagonizes the main character. For example, in past cartoons, Frankie the bird drives Figaro crazy; a penguin eats Donald's prized goldfish; and in this cartoon short, Bobo tries too hard to force Pluto to be friendly with him. Also, in a lot of these cartoons with Mickey's name in the title, Mickey himself hardly appears in the story.

The animation Mickey and Pluto looked good as always, but the drawings for Bobo looked pretty hideous. Not much laughs here and the overall story was pretty boring and non-substantive - just Pluto not getting along with Bobo, while Mickey is sequestered to the sidelines painting Bobo's new house. The ending left things ambiguous. One of the worst cartoons featuring both Mickey and Pluto.

Grade D---

The King of Siam (or something) sends Mickey little Bobo, a baby elephant, for a new pet (he could have phoned ahead) and a pal for Pluto. So Mickey get down to hard work building an Elephant kennel.

Pluto's lil' Devil on his shoulder (er...where did the angel go?) tells him that the elephant is his replacement and to plot against him. Obviously Pluto cannot reads the innocence and friendliness in Bobo's eyes and relentlessly tries to run Bobo off. He just won't give in to his devil's side. Would this be allowed in the disgustingly PC world of Disney today. NO!

A mildly amusing cartoon.

You have probably guessed I love the Disney Silly Symphonies, they are just so cute, funny and endearing. While "Mickey's Elephant" doesn't rank as a favourite of mine like "Ugly Duckling", "The Old Mill", "Flowers and Trees", "Skeleton Dance" and "Wynken, Blynken and Nod"(and of course "Steamboat Willie" is timeless), it is very cute and amusing. While it is isn't particularly laugh-out-loud funny, and the pace is a bit too fast, it is very enjoyable, thanks chiefly to the lovely animation and the outstanding music. There is a nice story, and the characters are endearing, especially the baby elephant Bobo who is so cute I think. The voice acting is excellent, Walt Disney does a good enough job as Mickey, and there is a very good lesson learnt at the end. Speaking of the ending as someone on YouTube said quite rightly, I love how nobody wins-Bobo keeps sneezing, Mickey's hard work is ruined and Pluto is angry because his house gets blown away. Overall, a very nice watch. 8/10 Bethany Cox