Plane Crazy (1929)

In this early Disney film, we have Mickey Mouse attempting to build a plane. All the hard work goes for naught as it crashes into a hundred pieces. But he soon discovers an old jalopy. He adds wings and a propeller to it and off he goes. But before takeoff, who should appear but Minnie. She is invited to fly with him, but he has only one thing on his mind. She holds her own and things play out in an amusing way.

If you go on YouTube, you're bound to find or two uploads of Plane Crazy, the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon produced by Walt Disney productions in 1928 (his way of finding a new character after losing Oswald the Rabbit at Universal). And while the short was originally done as a silent short - from a biography I read, Steamboat Willie was the third Mickey Mouse cartoon - it can now be watched with sound. On the one hand it's crazy to think that it would ever be silent considering how the music and sound effects and occasional voices for Mickey and Minnie (both from Uncle Walt) work so in sync and, really, perfectly with it all. And yet on the other hand it's easy to see how everything is told visually, without any real dialog being needed anyway (there is a moment where Minnie goes "Who, me?!" when Mickey asks her to go on the plane, but it could be left off just as well).The gags come quick and fast, but the story is tight considering the suspense that happens once Mickey and Minnie get up in the air. Actually in a way this has more character stuff than in Steamboat Willie, which in that case was a little bit of story (the set up of Mickey as a captain and being chased by proto-Pete), but then with a lot of gags involving the playing of animals as musical instruments. Here it's all about this: what will Mickey get Minnie into next, and will he wise up and not be such a jerk? It's great to see an early Mickey short like this for a couple of reasons aside from the sharp quality of the animation - the timing of it all makes it, well, timeless far as storytelling goes, even with the old-school iris - one is that Mickey is not the perfect, bashful gentleman/mouse of later cartoons. He's actually kind of a jerk, and it's refreshing in that Bart Simpson way.The second reason is how self-conscious the creators, Disney and Ub Iwerks, were in some of the visual gags. It may have one of my all-time favorites, one that lays kind of the blueprint for cartoons for decades to come: at one point Minnie decides she's had enough of Mickey's horsing around and gets up and leaves to parachute off the plane (luckily her dress will do). Mickey follows her off, and we see him just suspended in the air, in a straight line really, without anything showing him going down. It's only when HE realizes he's off the plane that he rushes back to get on the plane, only for it to crash. That is the magic of animated comic cartoons right there in about 15 seconds of celluloid: you don't know you're going to die until you notice it.

Mickey Mouse is eager to learn to fly, so he builds a strange little airplane and takes Minnie along for a crazy ride. By the end, not unexpectedly, the plane is a wreck and Mickey is in the dog house with his sweetie.This is the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon, though in many ways the short film is very much unlike later Mickey films and was even quite a bit different than the second one (STEAMBOAT WILLIE). Unlike STEAMBOAT WILLIE, the animation quality is a tad crude and in its original form, PLANE CRAZY was a silent film. However, due to the popularity of STEAMBOAT WILLIE and its soundtrack with music and sound effects, Walt Disney decided in late 1928 to add a similar track to PLANE CRAZY. I am not even sure if the totally silent version still exists, but even if it doesn't, try watching the film with the sound turned all the way down to get the effect. You'll probably notice that it just isn't as cute or catchy as STEAMBOAT WILLIE, though you'll still probably see that compared to other cartoons of the 20s, it is still a tremendous film and still very watchable today.While some might poo-poo the film for its simple style, true fans of animation should see this landmark film--especially so they can see just how far the Mouse has come after all these years.

Although "Steamboat Willie" was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon released, this one was actually the first Mickey ever made. In fact, it was a silent film when it was first produced, but it was released after sound had been added. I remember the first time I saw this cartoon was on a video that I had rented in 1st or 2nd grade. I didn't really care much for it at the time, but now I like it. This and many other Disney animated shorts will entertain people of all ages, 3 to 103, all over the world.