The Mad Doctor (1933)

Mickey is in bed when he hears some noise outside--a mad scientist has stolen Pluto! And, when you see this nut back in his lair, you see that he's abducted other animals on which to experiment! Obviously this is NOT your typical Mickey Mouse cartoon!! So, Mickey springs into action and runs to the castle--where he encounters skeletons and other ghastly creatures. However, by the end of the cartoon, all is right and poor 'ol Pluto is just fine! The print for this one is very poor--and in need of restoration. Perhaps the Disney folks haven't done this because it's such a dark and potentially disturbing cartoon. As for me, the more disturbing the better! After all, by the 1940s and 50s, Mickey was a wimp and I liked the darker and more morally ambiguous Mickey cartoons as they had a sharp edge--and none sharper than "The Mad Doctor"!

"The Mad Doctor" was considered by many to be very dark for a Disney short. The character of the Mad Doctor is quite creepy himself, and him trying to kill Mickey with a saw truly shows his evilness. But I'm not saying all of this is bad. This is actually part of why I love this short so much.Now I am a HUGE fan of golden-age cartoon shorts. And of course, some of the best of these classic cartoons come from Disney. I truly think "The Mad Doctor" is one of the best Mickey Mouse cartoons. It's dark, spooky and kind of eerie, but that just adds to how great this short really is. It's in black and white of course, since color wasn't very common in 1933, but the animation in this short is fantastic. Like other classic Mickey shorts, this one has a very rubbery feel to the animation, and that was really cool. The animation is just done so perfectly in this short, I can't find a single fault in it.The plot of this short is about Pluto being captured by an evil doctor who plans to attach Pluto's head to the body of a chicken. Mickey goes to the scary castle to rescue Pluto.Even the story of this short is kind of dark. Still, Ithis was a great cartoon. Sure it may frighten small children, but at least it has a happy ending."The Mad Doctor" is one of the best classic Mickey Mouse cartoons. It's dark, spooky, eerie, and kind of creepy, but it has great animation, an original, well-written story, and is very fun and enjoyable to watch.Rating: 9/10 "Excellent"

This is a fascinating cartoon-sort of a cross between Skeleton Dance and the much later Brave Little Tailor. A dramatic, rather scary short in spots, with some incredible visuals throughout, but most particularly a long scene set in a tunnel. Disney did some exceptional work in the early 1930s and the quality is still clearly evident even some 70 years later. There is apparently a computer-colorized version skulking about. I haven't seen it and, to judge by the colorized early Mickey Mouse black and whites that I have seen, I hope I never have it inflicted on my retinas. Part of the scariness here is the use of shadows in the black and white background. Colorizing this lessens the impact of those shadows. Excellent cartoon with an early appearance by Pluto. Well worth watching. Recommended.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.Brave Mickey tracks THE MAD DOCTOR who has kidnapped Pluto to a spooky old castle of horrors.This fascinating little black & white film was considered so frightful and inconsistent with other Mouse cartoons, it was hidden away for decades in the Disney vaults. Heavily influenced by the horror films of the early 1930's, there are some truly eerie moments as stalwart Mickey searches the castle and must deal with the dangerous skeletons that follow him, while poor Pluto is strapped down in the laboratory and threatened with a hideous fate by the deranged Doctor. Besides the plot, the animation is excellent, with the artists getting to entertain the viewers with intriguing experiments in light & shadow. Walt Disney supplies Mickey's squeaky voice.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 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 simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.