The Nifty Nineties (1941)

How sad is this?

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a vintage Mickey and Minnie House cartoon short, where Mickey courts Minnie during the "Gay Nineties." He takes her to a vaudeville show, showing both a sad and hilarious stories, and then go for a drive in a horseless carriage. Along the way, they see Goofy and Donald Duck and his Duck family ride by.It's a somewhat adorable cartoon, but reminds us too much of an old time classic movie instead of a conventional Disney cartoon short. It's minus the slapstick humor, the classic cartoon personalities and adventurous story.It's not the best Mickey and Minnie cartoon out there, but it has its magical and heartwarming moments.Grade B-

The Nifty Nineties has to be one of my favourite Mickey Mouse cartoons. The Technicolour animation is beautiful, vibrantly coloured in fluid in movement. Equally as wonderful is the music, from the nostalgic strains of the strings as Mickey and Minnie walk into the vaudeville theatre to the jauntiness of the Fred Ward-caricatured Two Boys from Illinois scene the incidental music is a sheer delight, while of the songs Father Dear Father is a perfect merging of image and music and is incredibly emotional, Strolling Through the Park is a song I appreciate much more now(for some reason it was always the song I remembered least from The Nifty Nineties) and In The Good Old Summertime is wonderfully nostalgic and amorous. I loved seeing the fashions, cars and bicycles of the 1890s too, and also the cameos of Goofy, Donald, Daisy, Donald's Three Nephews and a horse that looks oddly reminiscent of the horse from Wind in the Willows. And if you're wondering where the why did the chicken cross the road? joke came from, look no further than here. Overall, a timeless and still wonderful cartoon, that fills me with nostalgia and happiness every single time I watch it. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.Mickey & Minnie discover true love in THE NIFTY NINETIES - the 1890's, that is.This highly nostalgic little film is a delight, transferring Mickey & Minnie back about fifty years to the age of bloomers & bustles. In the vaudeville theater, the 'Father, Dear Father' slide presentation is an unexpected hoot. The song and dance guys (`Two Clever Boys From Illinois') are caricatures of the animators Fred Moore & Ward Kimball. Goofy and the entire Duck clan make quick cameos riding antique bicycles.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 short is a delightful look at the 1890s-a time not so far removed chronologically from 1941-and the use of Mickey and Minnie as a courting couple is a perfect fit for the whole concept. Enjoyable now, back then, large segments of the audience back then probably could recall the timeframe from personal experience. Well animated, as is generally the case with Disney at the time, it's good to see this in print. Well worth watching. Recommended.