Pluto and the Gopher (1950)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Too much of everything

Best movie ever!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This Disney short rather highlights Pluto's limitations in cartoons and also owes a debt to the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Even my son mentioned it reminded him of the cat and mouse capers.Pluto finds a gopher in Minnie's garden and tries to get rid of the annoying gopher without much success. In fact in trying to get rid of him Pluto has destroys the garden in the process.Minnie Mouse makes a small cameo appearance but we have seen this variation of a formula before as Pluto tries to get rid of a pesky animal that is annoying him. An energetic short but also instantly forgettable.

This is a Disney 6-minute Technicolor cartoon from 65 years ago and it is exactly about what the title say: Pluto's encounter with a feisty little gopher. Minnie Mouse has a little cameo as in a couple other Pluto short films and she basically plays the character who always comes in when the gopher caused some mayhem and it looks like it was Pluto's fault. There is certainly a parallel to Tom's owner in the Tom and Jerry cartoons that were incredibly famous around 1950. Anyway, it starts chaotic here, but gets really much more when the gopher mistakes a green carpet for a meadow. Poor Pluto is really in trouble in this one. Unfortunately, in terms of the humor I cannot say I was too impressed or well-entertained. All in all, a fairly generic Disney piece that does not stand out for any reason. A bit of a disappointment given how prolific Nichols, Kinney and Schaffer were at this point. Not recommended.

A Walt Disney PLUTO Cartoon.PLUTO AND THE GOPHER he catches in Miss Minnie's garden create quite a disturbance inside & out.Although enjoyable, this is a routine film in which Pluto chases yet another canny little critter. The Gopher makes the second (and final) appearance in a Disney cartoon here, having previously provoked Pluto in BONE BANDIT (1948). Minnie Mouse has a small cameo role.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 will always pay off.

Who doesn't enjoy classic Disney shorts? I quite enjoy them, but I must confess that this one isn't one of the classics. Pluto on his own, fighting a small animal doesn't offer much variety. I have seen this before, like in Canine Patrol (1945) (fighting a turtle), Pluto's Playmate (1941) (a sea lion) or Bone Bandit (1948) (another gopher).