Thursday, 4 November 2010

Mickey mouse christmas

Mickey Mouse's first Christmas was in December 1928. He just barely managed to come into existence; the short "Gallopin' Gaucho" with newly recorded soundtrack is ready to go into the cinemas. The second Christmas brings the mouse a comic strip contract. Silly Symphonies series is about to be premiered with "The Skeleton Dance". Ub Iwerks is about to quit. It took up until the year 1932 for Mickey Mouse to star in a Christmas cartoon, and it is a cartoon which would probably not have been made in current times.
The name of the cartoon was "Mickey's Good Deed" and it was a black and white cartoon, which got colorized later and released in 1991 as Mickey Mouse Christmas. The story is about Mickey being a homeless, unemployed musician, who plays music on a cello in the street, with Pluto, begging. It is obvious that this cartoon was inspired by Charles Chaplin; Mickey behaves a lot like the Tramp. Having been given only screws instead of small change, Mickey goes around unhappy, trying to find a place to play. He settles in front of a rich man's house, where a spoiled child is breaking all the toys he received for Christmas. Kid sees Pluto, wants the doggie, a bunch of money is offered to Mickey to sell the dog. He of course refuses and runs away from the butler, who waves the money. During the chase his cello gets broken. Pluto and Mickey continue walking and find a woman crying in a shed, which looks as if it is about to fall apart.
They look through the window, in a room where the woman is crying, seeing dozens of children sleeping and the room poorly decorated for Christmas. It is obvious that there is not going to be any presents for the kids this year. A photo shows "dad" as being a prison inmate, it looks like Peg Leg Pete. Mickey and Pluto are visibly moved and shaken, Mickey decides to sell Pluto to the rich man, with the promise to feed Pluto properly. Mickey takes the money and buys a lot of presents for the kids, placing them as Santa Claus under the Christmas tree in the shed. He is clumsy and wakes up the whole house at his departure, but the kids have eyes only for the presents, there is a huge celebration.
Back in the rich man's house, the spoiled kid terrorizes everyone, mistreats Pluto and demolishes the house. The rich man gets enough, has butler throw the dog out and gives a spanking to the complaining brat. Mickey is roasting a wiener outside, sad that Pluto is gone, he made a replica out of snow. Pluto finds him, running away a baked turkey got entangled in Pluto's tail, they meet, are happy and all is well.

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