Mickey Down Under (1948)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Charles A. Nichols

Writers:

MacDonald MacPherson (story) &
Jack Huber (story)

Release Date:

19 March 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Family | Animation | Short | Comedy

Plot:

Mickey is running a banana plantation. Pluto is frightened by Mickey's boomerang and gets tangled up with it...

Plot Keywords:

Banana Plantation | Ostrich | Ostrich Egg | Boomerang | Pluto The Character

Cast

Pinto Colvig	...	Pluto (voice)
James MacDonald	...	Mickey Mouse (voice)

Runtime:

7 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Australia:G

Company:

Walt Disney Productions

Trivia:

First Mickey Mouse cartoon to feature someone other than Walt Disney as Mickey. Shortly before this cartoon was made Walt chose sound-effects-wiz James MacDonald as the new Mickey Mouse voice.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Walt Disney Cartoon Classics Limited Gold Edition II: Life with Mickey (1985) (V)

Mickey's Aussie Adventure

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

In an Australian rain forest, Mickey & Pluto encounter much trouble with a brutal boomerang and an enraged ostrich.

MICKEY DOWN UNDER has some humorous moments - especially when Pluto gets the boomerang lodged in his mouth - but basically the cartoon is quite routine. Disney had covered this kind of material many times before.

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 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 always pay off.