This is a fun Mickey and Minnie cartoon, where they tend to their yards while singing and dancing to some very catchy and toe-tapping tunes. It makes you feel cheerful and happy enough to join in the song and dance.There's also some slapstick fun when Pluto chases a cat with a lawnmower tied to his tail, trimming ahead as he ran. Very fun stuff here!Grade A
... View MoreThis is an early Disney short featuring Mickey Mouse. There will be spoilers ahead:This is another short long on music and short on plot. It's really a series of set pieces driven by gags. The scene where Minnie does a duet with a bird is very nice. It's triggered by Mickey playing "barber" to a shrub.There's more than one run in with a cat, which causes no end of trouble later on. Though this starts out with Mickey mowing his lawn (Pluto's actually harnessed to the mower and is technically doing the work) most of this is Mickey flirting with Minnie, with a few really good gags.What energy there is to this is supplied by a hungry cat which makes a couple of mistakes, thus setting up a good bit of the action here. It's a recipe for disaster and laughs. Pluto and cats typically don't see eye to eye and this short is no exception. Cat + Dog + lawnmower=mayhem.This short is available on the Mickey Mouse In Black and White Disney Treasures DVD set and is well worth tracking down. Recommended.
... View MoreNot one of my favourites by all means, but I do like it very much indeed. If there is anything that I didn't like so much about it it was that while Mickey and Minnie's dance sequence after that of the turtle was cute, it was little different to what we have already seen before and added little to the rest of the short. That aside, Mickey Cuts Up is charming and lots of fun. The animation is clean and bounces along beautifully, Mickey imitating a bird sticking out its head in the birdhouse was the standout, and the music has jaunty character all the way through. I loved the gags as well, those with the owl and fish may disturb some but were funny to me and that of Mickey acting like a turtle with the birdhouse on his back was playful in a deliciously innocent sense. Mickey and Pluto with the lawnmower and the interplay between Mickey and Minnie were positively charming, and you will get much pleasure from the wonderfully chaotic climatic chase sequence. Minnie is pretty and likable and Pluto is his usual energetic self, but Mickey is the revelation here. His charm, innocent-and very childlike playfulness and cheeky nature make him come alive and into character that feels real. All in all, a really well done short that manages to make yard work, my idea of a nightmare in honesty, fun. 9/10 Bethany Cox
... View MoreA Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.MICKEY CUTS UP while mowing the lawn, playing with Miss Minnie and enjoying the day until a black cat upsets Pluto...This humorous little black & white film has its minimal plot pushed largely by the musical score, which includes `Shine' and `Ain't We Got Fun.' Mickey may be the only one in the world who can flirt with his girl while riding on top of a lawnmower pulled by a dog. Walt Disney gives the Mouse his squeaky voice.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 storm of naysayers, 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.
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