Following the success
of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts, Randolph Hearst's
King Features Syndicate (the major syndicate) soon approached Disney and
a deal was struck. The First Mickey Mouse daily strip appeared
in Hearst's newspapers throughout the country on January 13, 1930. Ub Iwerks left the
Disney Studio at the end of January; incidentally, one of the animators
he offered to join him was young in-betweener Floyd Gottfredson, who was
to take up the Mouse strip; fellow animators persuaded Gottfredson to
stay. Ub eventually returned to the Disney Studio in September 1940, and
Disney and he remained good friends. The first strips
were adapted from Mickey Mouse shorts; the first continuity, known as
"Lost on a Desert Island", was based on Plane Crazy and
The Castaway. The Castaway was in fact released on April
6, 1931, only. As for Plane Crazy, it was actually the very first
Mickey cartoon ever produced (May 15, 1928), but it was released on March
17, 1929, only (after Gallopin' Gaucho, the second short, finished
in August 1928, but released after Steamboat Willie, on December
30, 1928). The reason is that, while the animators were busy producing
Gaucho, Disney tried to sell Plane in New York but was told
nobody was interested in cartoons any longer; the cartoon crazed was subsiding,
replaced with a new one: sound. Disney decided to produce an animated
short with sound; for his foray into sound, conceiving the cartoon &
the sound effects at the same time (ie, making the short with sound in
mind, timing every scene) was somewhat easier than dubbing a finished
cartoon (which was eventually done for Gaucho, then Plane);
it also allowed to include special sound gags, from the very first scene
on-- Mickey whistling, tapping his foot & turning the wheel in time,
blowing the whistles. "The first few [ones] were gag-a-day strips that even without Ub's full attention retained his unique brand of humor and artistic nuance. A typical scene would involve castaway Mickey Mouse following mysterious footprints along a deserted beach only to discover that they were created by a pelican nonsensically wearing human boots [Monday, January, 27]. the gags, like the cartoons, featured Ub's trademark punctuation marks and sweat bubbles accentuating the action within." (The Hand Behind the Mouse, p 81).
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Mickey's
inspiration is presented first in the strip as he reads How to Fly
and dreams of becoming "such a great aviator" as "Lindy". |
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The
construction of the plane is concentrated into a single panel, with
a couple of barn animals lending a hand. The dachsund-rubber-band-motor
gag is reprised. |
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In
both cases, the first flight is short-lived; in the short, Mickey crashes
into a tree; a bit of practicality seems to have been infused into the
fantasy world, as it appears that the dachsund-spring, once unwound,
can no longer propel the plane. The apprach to the crash is also lighter:
it is not pictured, and ends on a "cute" gag, with Mickey
waving at the read (a repeat of the previous strip), apparently amused. |
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The
stretching and turkey gags are reprised as well. The banner text keeps
quoting or paraphrasing Mickey. |
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The
dachsund propeller gag, not surprisingly, is featured as well. |
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The
string of barnyard misadventures is ommitted and replaced with a cute
original gag: like the animal amalgam in the last panel, the strip takes
bit and pieces of the cartoon and condenses it, or, like the tractor,
stretches it into a new narrative. |
Bibliography:
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse in Color-- 1930s Disney Comic Strip Classics;
Another Rainbow, 1988; articles by Geoffrey Blum & Thomas Andrae, and interview
with Floyd Gottfredson by Disney Studio archivist David R. Smith
The Hand Behind the Mouse-- An intimate biography of Ub Iwerks, the man Walt
Disney called "the greatest animator in the world"; Leslie Iwerks
& John Kenworthy; Disney Editions, 2001
Mickey; Pierre Lambert, Démons & Merveilles, 1998
( to p 2 / back to strip notes )