Mickey and the Seal

Mickey and the Seal (1948)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

One of the better Mickey Mouse shorts has him at a zoo where he feeds a seal who decides to sneak home with him. Back at the house Pluto notices the seal and starts to go crazy, which gets him kicked out of the house. Soon afterwards Mickey decides to take a bath, which leads to his own encounter with the slippery seal. MICKEY AND THE SEAL is certainly one of the highlights of the entire series thanks in large part to Mickey never being more charming and a seal that is downright lovable. What's so great about this film is that the two are just a terrific comic duo and this is never more true than in the sequence where Mickey is trying to take a bath and doesn't realize the seal is in there with him.

Mickey visit the seal and feeds the seals fish from his basket. While temporary leaving the basket behind, a baby seal sneaks into it and follows Mickey home. There, Pluto spots the seal and attempts to tell Mickey about it, and he won't hear of it. While taking a bath, the seal joins in the bath time as well, where Mickey finally spots him.

There's nothing really much to laugh about in this cartoon, just a bunch of adorable-looking seals who really like to take baths. But, it can be heart-warming for people, though.

Grade C

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

A baby seal creates happy havoc for Mickey & Pluto.

Although a far cry from the great Mouse classics of the 1930's, MICKEY AND THE SEAL was still considered competent enough to earn an Oscar nomination in 1948. The scene in which a frantic Pluto watches Mickey, all unawares, sharing his bathtub with the little creature is very humorous.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & 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.

This is one of the better of the 1940s era Mickey Mouse shorts and the typical Disney attention to detail is still there, although you can sense that some of the enthusiasm for short form cartoons is beginning to wane just the teensiest bit. The basic premise of the cartoon-feed something and it's yours whether you want it or not-is getting a bit stale, but here it's quite entertaining. This shows from time to time on The Ink and Paint Club. Well worth watching.

This will always be my go-to when I'm feeling down. 10/10 guaranteed to make you smile and laugh as wide and as hard as you possibly can. Recommended for all ages, especially arctic animal enthusiasts.