L'eroico ammazzasette

One of my favorite Disney cartoons when I was growing up, as I would always rent this cartoon at the local video store when it was part of a video compilation of cartoon shorts.

This short stars Mickey Mouse as the Brave Little Taylor who single handedly takes on a giant when he was invading his peaceful village. It is fun to see Mickey worm himself in and around the giant as he attempts to bring him down.

The giant himself is pretty comical looking, but you could tell he is a force to be reckon with as the entire earth trembles as he stomps by. It is also nice to see Mickey in an underdog role without any magic tricks to save the day, instead, relying on his physical self.

This cartoon short serves a good message that heroes can come in small packages, and quick wit and thinking can defeat even the strongest or biggest foes.

Grade A

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

A BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR, mistakenly acclaimed as a great champion, is sent to stop the depredations of a fearsome giant who is terrifying a tiny kingdom.

This is one of the truly classic color Mouse films, featuring excellent animation, sly humor & some genuine thrills. This vivid, fast-moving reinterpretation of the Brothers Grimm tale gave Mickey one of his grandest adventures and he obviously relishes his return, albeit briefly, to the top of the Disney heap. Without Donald, Goofy or Pluto to steal the limelight, Mickey proves to be a most dashing hero. Miss Minnie's involvement in the cartoon is mainly to add encouragement to Mickey's resolve and provide a reward for his heroics. Walt Disney supplies Mickey's 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 will always pay off.

This short, nominated for an Oscar for 1938, is the best color Mickey Mouse short, certainly and maybe the best short ever starring this most illustrious of rodents. Because of a misapprehension of a simple declarative sentence, our stalwart sets out on a course to become a somewhat reluctant hero. Well-executed and with Disney's usual attention to detail, this is an excellent cartoon, but it had the great misfortune to come out in the same year as an equally marvelous cartoon (also made by Disney) and so did not bring home the statuette for Walt. Most recommended.

Watching this in the early 80's as a child I loved this short. And now in 2018 watching it again, I assumed it was at least made in the late 50's. Because of the quality and craftsmanship. Shocked and even more impressed now that I now it was created in the late 30's. Still holds up and should be on the shelf of any Disney or animation fan.

The next short in the Disney Plus 'Shorts' section was "The Brave Tailor", a Mickey Mouse effort from 1938, that is a loose retelling of the Brothers Grimm Fairy tale.

A Kingdom has been terrorised by a giant (Eddie Holden) and requires a brave knight to eliminate him. Mickey Mouse (Walt Disney) kills seven flies in one go in his workshop and opens his window to brag about it, the villagers he speaks to are already talking about killing the giant and when Mickey says he "killed seven with one blow" a misunderstanding sees him hired as a giant killer. Though naturally reluctant, he's offered the hand of Princess Minnie (Marcellite Garner) as a reward and decides to give it a go.

This is one of the absolute undisputed classics and it brought back vivid memories from my childhood seeing it again. The animation style is already iconic, even this early on with the character designs spot on. The audio mix is less successful, with some decisions, such as the realistic rather than stylised performances from the crowd sounding jarringly odd. If you wanted to be hyper critical about the story, it doesn't actually add up to very much once the quest has started.

Those are quibbles really, in a cartoon that is an undisputed classic and well worth the nostalgic occasion.