The Grocery Boy - February 11, 1932

56th in the Mickey Mouse short film library is the gem The Grocery Boy. This toon stars Mickey as a grocery boy delivering food to sweetheart Minnie. Pluto also tags along and causes quite the disturbance.


The toon opens with Grocery Boy Mickey preparing a basket of food for one of his loyal customers. He and pal Pluto delightfully weigh potatoes.


Suddenly the phone rings. On the line is a very agitated Minnie Mouse wondering where on earth her groceries are.


Mickey assures his love that her food is on the way, and just for good measure he "gives" her a kiss through the telephone. By this time, Mickey's and Minnie's relationship has been firmly established by their films together. It's funny and cute to see Mickey act like a love-sick teenager.


Minnie immediately hangs up the phone, appalled by Mickey's crass behavior. Of course, any girl can't help but smile after being given a kiss by Mickey Mouse.


As Mickey hurries over to Minnie's house (it's literally about 3 houses over), Minnie prepares herself for her boyfriend's arrival by putting on her face. The gag used her is great as Minnie pulls a puff out from her...chest.


Minnie is in love with Mickey, but she still enjoys being the diva every now and again. Once Mickey delivers the food, Minnie decides to give him the cold shoulder.


Believing Minnie really does want him to leave, Mickey reaches for what he thinks is the door handle only to find the ironing closet. As the ironing board crashes down on his head, the iron itself smashes his face flat.


Distraught over Mickey's injury, Minnie rushes to her lover's side. Her kiss upon Mickey's head bump allows it to magically disappear.


With their love banter over, Mickey and Minnie can start making dinner. As Minnie stirs the cake mix, Mickey peels beans while the pots on the stove bubble over-- all to music of course!


As the mice are busy, hungry Pluto spots the turkey just sitting in the oven. Minnie immediately catches the dog eying the meal, and her screams cause Pluto to run for his life with turkey in mouth.


The chase is on as Mickey runs after Pluto to save the turkey from certain destruction.


Pluto manages to get the tablecloth wrapped around his body, and as Mickey hangs on for dear life a bust of Napoleon knocks off its pedestal and onto the Mouse's head.


The Grocery Boy is part of the banned toons "From the Vault" because of this scene where the Napoleon head bust becomes a blackface character after Pluto crashes into the furnace.


Finally Minnie and Mickey manage to corner Pluto under the dining table. But the pup gets the upper hand as he pulls the turkey from Mickey's hands. At the same time, Minnie accidentally causes the table to expand, and the beautiful cake she made splats onto Mickey's head.


In the end, the dinner doesn't matter as long as these two lovebirds are together.


The Grocery Boy is a simple story with a lot of heart. The toon greatly showcases Mickey's and Minnie's personalities, and it's always fun to watch the two fall even more in love with each other.

Mickey Steps Out - July 7, 1931

30th in Mickey's cartoon series is the simple yet charming Mickey Steps Out. The short is a standard song-and-dance but does include an interesting piece of dialogue spoken by a certain pup.


The short opens with Mickey getting ready for a day out. The Mouse's routine includes shaving, a funny little gag in itself.


On the way over to Minnie's, Mickey is knocked over by the ever playful Pluto. By this time, it has been firmly established that the pup belongs to Mickey.


Minnie of course is playing her piano, and Mickey can't resist the urge to dance and perform tricks for his sweetie.


Unfortunately Pluto happens to spy a black cat, and soon the chase is on inside Minnie's humble abode. After wrecking the piano, the two animals take the Mice on a wild rug ride around the house.


The chase ends with the cat tricking Pluto into running headfirst into the stove, which causes soot to fly everywhere. Covered in soot from head to toe, Pluto bursts from the stove and shouts "Mammy!" a reference to Al Jolson. This marks Pluto's second time talking, the first having been in The Moose Hunt.

The Delivery Boy - June 13, 1931

Mickey's 29th toon is The Delivery Boy. The toon features Mickey and Minnie as well as the emerging character Pluto in his fourth cartoon.

The toon opens with Mickey as a delivery boy traveling along the road with his trusty pal Pluto in tow.

Along the same road, we see Minnie happily washing her laundry. Unfortunately as she dries her unmentionables, a nearby goat promptly gobbles them up.


Seeing Minnie, Mickey is unable to pass up the chance to have a little fun. He tries startling his love, but the joke soon turns in Minnie's favor.

The two lovemice frolic off under an apple tree and sing a rousing version of "Sitting Under the Old Apple Tree".

Meanwhile, a curious Pluto gets into a sticky situation when his nose leads him to a puddle of tar. A funny gag is seen as Pluto mimics the dancing of Mickey and Minnie.

Mickey soon gets a bit carried away in the song and causes a beehive to land on his mule. The mule kicks the delivery wagon, and the entire load of instruments is sent into the air.

The instruments rain down upon the apple orchard, allowing the mice to play another tune: "Stars and Stripes Forever".

The nearby farm animals also join in on the fun and play various instruments. I particularly enjoy the caterpillar drummer gag.


One of Mickey's specialties in these early song-and-dance toons is using various animals as instruments; here he uses a turtle to play a drum and a mule to play cymbals. Mickey and Minnie seem to be master musicians as they can both play horns while pounding on the piano with their feet.

As the song plays on, curious Pluto begins to sniff around even more. As he moves along, he passes a string of signs warning (in different languages) of explosive danger ahead.

This toon is placed in the From the Vault section of the DVD for the joke included here. The Hebrew sign not only is shaped like a stereotypical Jew, but the "hat" atop the sign becomes a turtle who does a stereotypical Jewish dance.

Pluto makes his way to the dynamite site where, funnily enough, Peg-Leg Pete can be seen in a brief cameo. As the dynamite is thrown, Pluto decides to play a game of fetch and brings the explosive back to Mickey and Minnie.

In a funny gag, all of Pluto's fleas flee the dog in order to avoid the explosive blast.

Right on cue, the dynamite explodes in perfect unison with the music. As the dust settles we see Mickey, Minnie, and a now hairless mule still playing on with just as much joy.

The Moose Hunt - April 8, 1931

28th in Mickey's short film series is the strange yet entertaining The Moose Hunt. While the film showcases solid animation and is the first of many Mickey and Pluto buddy films, its gags and premise are a bit... fanciful.

The toon begins with Mickey and Pluto gallavanting through the woods in search of a moose. The Moose Hunt is important for two reasons: (1)The toon is the first where Pluto is called by his name, and (2) it is the first to establish Pluto as Mickey's dog. Previously Pluto was seen as Minnie's pup in 1930's The Picnic.

Of course, technically that pooch was called Rover, so it would be correct in saying Pluto has always belonged to Mickey.

The Moose Hunt is labeled as "From the Vault" on the Mickey Mouse in Black and White: Volume 2 DVD due to the scene shown above. Mickey asks Pluto to perform a series of dog tricks, one of them to "speak". Pluto obeys by kneeling down on one knee and shouting "mammy", a parody of the famous performer Al Jolson's blackface routine in the movie The Jazz Singer. The gag was a fairly common one for the time, having also been seen in 1929's The Haunted House. Of course, today it is morally wrong to allude to such a rascist act.

Coincidentally, the scene also marks Pluto's first speaking role. In fact, part of the fanciful nature of this toon is the fact that Pluto speaks not one, but three times.

After Pluto literally speaks, Mickey plays fetch with his pooch. Pluto runs wildly into the forest and, unable to decide which stick is the original, picks up an oddly shaped branch.

Meanwhile, Mickey spots the "moose" running through the trees. He fires and becomes excited once he realizes he hits the creature; however, upon closer inspection it appears that the Mouse has accidentally shot and killed his pal Pluto.

Mickey, distraught over what he has done, cries over the fallen body of Pluto. This scene is remarkably moving and adds so much humanity to Mickey's personality. Even though Pluto looks to the camera and lets the audience in on his little joke, Mickey's cries of "is there a doctor in the house?" are still heart-breaking.

As Mickey begs his pooch to speak, Pluto jumps up and utters "kiss me!"

Happy to have his pal alive, Mickey once again sets out to find a moose. He blows his moose caller and immediately hears a call back. Pluto runs to investigate and seems to find the moose's scent among a small patch of trees; however, as the camera pulls back, the trees become the legs of a very large moose.

Oblivious to the fact he inadvertently found the moose, Pluto leads the animal straight to Mickey, who also fails to realize its presence. Finally, Pluto feels the hot breath of the moose behind him, and the dog nervously shouts, "The muh...the muh....the MOOOOOOSE!!!!"

Mickey instinctively readies his gun to shoot, but his nerves get the best of him as his violent shaking completely destroys his weapon. He and Pluto both run in fear with the moose in tow.

Our heroes run all the way to a cliff where, in what has to be the most fanciful moment in the entire film, Pluto magically flaps his ears and flies to safety. Apparently Pluto had his eyes set on Dumbo's job years before the elephant was even born.

The Moose Hunt is a fun cartoon which marks Pluto's first (but not last) "talkie". In later years the film will be somewhat re-imagined with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in 1937's Moose Hunters, though that film includes no flying nor talking dogs.

The Moose Hunt can also be seen (with editing) daily at Disneyland's Main Street Cinema.

The Haunted House - December 2, 1929

Mickey's 14th cartoon is the gem of a film entitled The Haunted House. By this time in 1929, the Disney Studio really began to fully understand its craft and started to experiment more and more with different animation techniques and special effects. The Haunted House is such a great Mickey toon because although it relies somewhat on a familiar formula (song-and-dance), it is a major step in good storytelling as well as a showcase for the best animation could be at the time.

The story of The Haunted House is very simple: Mickey weathers a storm and seeks shelter inside a nearby house. Taking a look at just this frame of Mickey, you can clearly see how well defined and animated the character is. I think this is telling of the major growth taking place in the Disney Studio.

Once inside the house, Mickey soon discovers that he is not alone. He stumbles upon skeletons and a cloaked figure which try to scare him.


In a strange twist, the cloaked figure orders Mickey to play the nearby organ so that the entire household can dance to the happy melody. From this point, the toon turns into a song-and-dance routine.

Much of the fun in the cartoon comes from the skeletons themselves and the stellar animation of them dancing. The gags are all great to watch, and they add so much to the short.

An interesting note is that one piece of animation featuring the skeletons dancing is lifted straight from 1929's The Skeleton Dance, the very first Silly Symphony.

Once Mickey finishes his music, he tries to escape the house but seems to run into seletons everywhere! Finally, however, he is able to get away and leave the house forever.

The Haunted House is currently on the banned Mickey shorts list, or Vault Disney. Towards the beginning of the film, Mickey is seen mimicking actor Al Jolson's now infamous black face routine in 1927's The Jazz Singer. Mickey's playful cries of "Mammy" are certainly not out of the ordinary for cartoons and movies from the late 1920s, but the depiction of black face is still considered rascist and morally wrong.


Another reason why this toon is banned is for another rascist depiction featuring two skeletons caricatured as Hasidic Jews. Again, this is not a gag uncommon in films from the this time period; in fact, many more depictions like this occur in other Disney shorts.


The Haunted House is full of great animation and special effects. The use of sillhouette, shadows, flickering candlelight, lightning, wind, rain, and bats flying straight towards the camera are prime examples of the growing sophistication Disney started to give its cartoons. This toon is certainly one of Mickey's best and a stepping stone for further more complex films.