"Pluto's Judgement Day" is a Disney cartoon from 1935, so this one is already over 80 years old and you see how old it really is best in here from Mickey's looks. It's a color cartoon though and Disney himself voiced Mickey here early on and at the very end. The star this time, however, is Mickey's dog Pluto and we find out about his hate against cats. But when Mickey mentions Judgment Day, then this results in the worst nightmare imaginable for Pluto as he is sentenced to death in a fire by a court full of cats. Everybody's feline: the judge, the lawyers, the jury, the audience. And the result, namely the verdict, comes as fast as you'd expect and also with the contents you'd expect. Not a problem at all that you know it is all a dream sequence because this way they get away with all the over-the-top stuff and absurdities even easier. The music is pretty good too. And if you take a look at the names of the voice actors here, it really is as good as it gets. And with all the horror elements, okay not THAT scary, there is still a happy ending in reality as Pluto just cannot resist the charm of a young kitten and the result may be a beautiful feline-canine friendship. Or will Pluto fall back to his old patterns? We won't know as the female cat does not return in any other cartoon. Still for me this is among the best the year 1935 has to offer in terms of cartoons and short films in general. A bizarrely entertaining and incredibly surreal watch that is best at its first viewing and one that you really wouldn't expect from Disney at that point. I highly recommend checking it out at least once. Of course, it is easy to find these days. Go for it and it is a must-see if you love old cartoons.

What happens when you're put up for judgment for the things that you've done? Pluto's Judgment Day is somehow a very funny short, but probably the most darkly, savagely satirical one that Disney made at the time. In Pluto's Judgment Day, Pluto gets scolded by Mickey for being the dumb mutt that he is - chasing cats and causing mayhem. But of course, that's what cartoon dogs do, right? The mention of judgment day puts a dream into Pluto's mind, and he has a really dark dream - let's just call it a nightmare - having to atone for his crimes against Cat-Kind: the one that he let get squashed by the steamroller; the one who is traumatized for life every time he hears a dog bark; the list goes on.The scariest part though is how Disney and company make this into a tale of not so much injustice but how scary justice CAN be when there is no good defense. To be sure, this is set in hell, but I have to think the idea is to make it a cautionary tale for people as well - what you do now in life, the small things, may not seem to matter if you can get away with them... but after-life? In a way this is like the unofficial rehearsal for the 1943 short Der Fuhrer's Face, where Donald Duck had to face the nightmare-space of the Nazi world. In this short instead of Nazis we get the sense of brutal, pitch-black comic sense of justice: the cats on the jury who go round the door from one side to the other without missing a beat, and sing, "We find the defendant GUILTY, GULTY, G-U-I-L-T-Y!" Is it Kafkaesque? Not exactly - Pluto knows what he's done wrong, and ultimately it's kind of a soft ending in the sense that Mickey makes Pluto and a little cat kiss and make up. But I think the terrifying part of the short are the implications that are set for this cartoon dog from these cartoon Cats From Hell. Maybe I read too much into Pluto's Judgment Day, but I found this short could apply to other cases, especially those where a "jury of your peers" is definitely not the case (ironic that there was a supposedly racist Uncle Tom bit that has been cut out of recent available copies, when I found that part of the satire is that this could apply to black people being on trial for whatever the case might be at the time).

This cartoon sees Pluto dream of a cat-controlled hell. After chasing a cute little kitten about the house and throwing mud everywhere, Mickey tells Pluto off and gives him some kind of Puritan Christian warning of hell and damnation.Once fallen asleep in front of the fire, Pluto's vision of cat-run hell and all the cats he's ever tormented coming back for vengeance quickly teaches him the error of his ways and he wakes up with a new-found love for felines.Kind of cute if you can get around the not-so-subtle Christian values message.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.After being unfriendly to one cat too many, PLUTO'S JUDGEMENT DAY finally arrives via a vivid nightmare.This is a fun little film, with some good imagination used to depict the Afterworld Court - staffed entirely by felines. Walt supplies Mickey's voice, who makes little more than a cameo appearance.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, Bambi, Peter Pan and Mr. Toad. 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.