Mickey's Polo Team

one of the better 1936 mickeys. mm hardly appears in it though, the main player is donald duck as he battles it out with harpo marx, and he swallows the ball and becomes a target for the rest of the players. The laurel and hardy characters are spot on and overall the animation is a treat. Available on dvd now along with all the mm 1935-1938 shorts.

I've never seen humans drawn so ugly. Not so much the Polo players like Laurel and Hardy (I always like them) but more the spectators in the audience. I don't know who that huge-headed, bulbous-eyed guy was supposed to be but he freaked me out.

Anyways, it's Disney stars vs Real Actors in this Polo match (A rather odd choice of sport. Was it popular in the '30s?) and nothing really funny happens. Sure there are a couple of clever moments but, like far too many Disney toons, it's all a set-up for everything to come crashing down.

Vividly animated as it may be, it's still a bit too boring and doesn't hold up against Looney Tunes when it comes to hijinks.

Now playing is a polo match between "Movie Stars" and "Mickey's Mousers." On the stars team is Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin. Playing for Mickey's team is Mickey, "The Goof," Big Bad Wolf and Donald Duck. Jack Holt is the referee.

In the crowd are such luminaries as Porky Pig, W. C. Fields, Minnie Mouse, Eleanor Roosevelt, Shirley Temple and a bunch of other famous people. That is fun to look at, trying to spot as many people and caricatures as you know.

The players are introduced. Those intros are funny. For instance, Harpo comes out on a ostrich, Chaplin uses a cane instead of a polo stick, etc.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the rest of the cartoon, the last 65 percent, is not very funny. We see some Laurel & Hardy bits, some Harpo stuff and Donald Duck get pummeled by everyone. None of it is very funny.

A good premise and a great start but overall, a disappointing animated short.

Mickey Mouse and the gang go and play some polo.On Mickey's team there are Donald Duck (on a mule), Goofy and The Big Bad Wolf.They're playing against some well known comedians of that time.That team includes Charles Chaplin, Harpo Marx (on an ostrich), Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.The referee is Jack Holt.Also in the audience there are some big names such as Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, W.C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Greta Garbo and Harold Lloyd.The Disney characters include Pluto, Clarabelle Cow and the Three Little Pigs.It's a lot of fun to watch The Big Bad Wolf huff and puff and blow.There are many other funny parts in this Disney short, like when Hardy is under his overweight horse and Laurel not being too helpful.Or when Donald loses his nerve (again).And it's fun to watch Chaplin with his cane and Harpo with the ostrich.In David Hand's Mickey's Polo Team from 1936 Walt Disney is the voice of Mickey Mouse and Clarence Nash is the voice of Donald Duck.This cartoon is a fine piece of history.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

MICKEY'S POLO TEAM (Mickey, the Goof, the Big Bad Wolf & Donald Duck) enter the field against some of Hollywood's funniest fellows - Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx & Charlie Chaplin.

This very enjoyable little film features excellent animation and lots of laughs. The Disney artists get to display their skill at caricature, with all of the movie stars being perfectly recognizable. Frenzied & flustered, Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash) dominates the proceedings, leaving no doubt as to who was the top toon at the Disney Studio. It's humorous to watch the various Disney characters act with complete equality alongside their Hollywood counterparts - the unspoken, and very true, assertion being that their fame was as big as any flesh & blood inhabitant of Tinsel Town.

Notice how all of the riders have a mount (not always a horse) which is a reflection of the player's personality - the Big Bad Wolf and his steed are both dastardly, Donald and his mule are both stubborn, Harpo's ostrich is as zany as his master. Babe Hardy's frustrations with his gigantic horse are very funny.

The fun isn't confined to the field - there's plenty going on in the stands. Hollywood's biggest star, Shirley Temple, is there with her buddies the Three Little Pigs. Irritable W. C. Fields is seated with Greta Garbo, Harold Lloyd, Eddie Cantor & Charles Laughton - costumed, naturally, for his title role in THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1933). Meanwhile, Edna May Oliver is regretting her decision to sit alongside Max Hare, and, most hilariously of all, Clarabelle Cow is taking advantage of her close proximity to do a little sweet romancing with Clark Gable.

Polo was very popular among the Movie Capital's male celebrities, including Walt Disney. It not only provided great exercise & excitement, but also a kind of elitism, as only the wealthy had both the leisure & the funds necessary to devote to the sport. Jack Holt, who serves as referee in the cartoon, was an avid real life polo player.

It was originally planned to depict Will Rogers as part of the Hollywood team, but after his tragic death in Alaska on August 15, 1935, the Disney animators replaced him with Harpo.

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 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.