The Wayward Canary

I don't consider The Wayward Canary among the best Disney shorts. The theme, of characters causing chaos mainly, is a similar theme explored in Mickey's Orphans and Mickey's Nightmare, and it is a theme that some will love and one that some may have liked at first but starting to get tired of, I myself am in the middle camp. While funny, the finale in which the canaries are chased and everything is destroyed is rather predictable as well. That said, the gags are very creative with dipping themselves in ink, so that they leave a lengthy trail everywhere they go, staining shirts, carpet and numerous other things and one of the canaries flips a hot coal from the fire into Pluto's bottom. And what's more they are also hilarious. The animation is superb, with a lot of detail and beautiful shadings. Mickey and Minnie are both animated well, but the revelation was with the canaries, the flying around Mickey and Minnie and back and forth into each background is a difficult but great technique done by hand and done brilliantly. The music, as I've said many times, has always been a big part of the overall success of these shorts, and it is energetic and lovingly orchestrated as you would expect. It is interesting also for the sight of the autographed photographs of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, possibly a thank you from Disney. Mickey and Minnie are likable protagonists, Pluto is cute and energetic and while you do wonder whether that many birds can be reproduced it is more than made up for the canaries' graceful movements and mischievous streak. In conclusion, very funny and superbly animated with great characters, which makes up for any predictabilities in the story theme and the ending. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Utter chaos ensues when THE WAYWARD CANARY Mickey brings Minnie turns its tiny babies loose in the house.

This black & white little film has some fun humor, although the plot is quite familiar. The swastika on Minnie's cigarette lighter (?!) has nothing to do with the Nazis; it is an ancient symbol used in many cultures centuries before the Third Reich. The autographed photos on Minnie's desk are of Doug Fairbanks & Mary Pickford. Walt Disney provides Mickey's squeaky voice.

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, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. 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.