Mickey's Revue

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

The local community gathers to see MICKEY'S REVUE, a collection of madcap musical moments.

This early black & white film is driven almost entirely by the lively soundtrack - music mavens will recognize 'The Skater's Waltz,' 'Swanee River,' 'Goodnight Ladies,' 'Merrily We Roll Along,' & 'Mendelssohn's Spring Song.' More importantly, it was the cartoon debut of Goofy, seen here in his (mercifully brief) early incarnation as Dippy Dawg. Incidentally, Clarabelle Cow is not one of the three dancing bovines on stage; she can be plainly seen in the audience applauding their performance.

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.

In this black and white short, Mickey and Minnie put on a show. In the audience is a loud, obnoxious dog laughing as loud as he can. This character would eventually become Goofy. He looks quite a bit different here, sporting a beard. Goofy's bit is the highlight of the short, it's easy to see why the character was a hit with audiences. A particularly well animated sequence features a bunch of kittens helping Mickey and Minnie out with their musical presentation.

Once again, a successful performance is compromised by the incursion of Mickey's dog and a herd of kittens. Actually, the kittens are this time contributors to the music and it works quite well. Pluto, on the other hand, has the usual cat/dog thing going on and he does what comes naturally. I just feel I've seen all this before.

Some of the fascination of researching the early beginnings of Walt Disney Studios is how his now familiar, lovable cartoon characters first came about. One of the company's more popular animated figures is a dog named 'Goofy,' who could talk and laugh, unlike his canine counterpart, the earlier introduced Pluto. Goofy's first incarnation was with Mickey Mouse and his gang, including Minnie, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow in May 1932's "Mickey's Revue." Mickey's 41st cartoon used the practice as other Hollywood studios did in their early live-action musicals by rolling out their stars onto the stage performing song-and-dance acts. To save time and money, Disney's version of Mickey's musical show reused portions of previously-released cartoons. Some of the cartoon's acts were first seen in 1931's 'The Barnyard Concert,' 'Mickey's Follies' and 1929's 'The Opry House.'.

The film debut of Goofy's character was in a cameo appearance in "Mickey's Revue" as an amused, but obnoxious spectator sitting in the audience enjoying the show. Disney writer and voice artist Pinto Colvig came up with the caricature inspired by a "granny, half-baked village nitwit' he knew in his hometown. The canine's first appearance was named Dippy Dawg. He was an elderly dog sporting glasses. Dippy is portrayed as possessing a unique style of laughing, reflecting how good a time he was having watching the revue. Dippy Dawg made six guest appearances for the next two years in Disney cartoons before he was officially renamed 'Goofy' in August 1934's "Orphan's Benefit." From there Goofy became a regular member of Mickey Mouse's gang and proved to be one of the more popular characters in Walt's house in cartoon land. Goofy's star status rose so high he received his own cartoon series and TV specials throughout the years.

The first appearance of Goofy under his original name, Dippy Dawg.

Mickey, Minnie, Horace, and Clarabelle put on another big show, with Goofy as the running gag - eating peanuts and laughing to the annoyance of the audience.