Since I'm seeing Kong: Skull Island tomorrow, I thought I'd watch this Mickey Mouse cartoon that spoofed the original King Kong. He's hired to watch the animals in a pet shop after the owner leaves for lunch. One of the caged animals is Beppo the Movie Monk. Minnie arrives to see Mickey and they have a little fun before Beppo escapes as he takes Minnie hostage on top of boxes resembling the Empire State Building. Plenty of pretty amusing gags abound. Mick's co-creator Walt Disney was doing his voice at the time though he only has a few lines here. I didn't think of the whole thing as hilarious but I admired the way the gags were presented. So on that note, The Pet Store was a pretty funny cartoon.

This is an early Mickey Mouse cartoon produced by Disney studio. There will be spoilers ahead:This is another short using a gorilla named Beppo as a foil for Mickey. This one is a good deal more playful in its confrontations than the others. Mickey sees a sign advertising for "A Boy" to fill a job at a pet store, one Tony's Pet Store. Tony is a rather stereotypical Italian and I suppose it might offend someone somewhere.Tony hires Mickey and then goes to lunch, leaving Mickey by himself, which is unwise. Somehow Minnie finds Mickey in the store. There are some very nice animated sequences in this part of the short which are similar to several earlier shorts, culminating in seeing Beppo, The Movie Monk.Beppo is a cheerful sort, with a movie magazine. There's a beautiful caricature of a notable film comic "aped" so to speak, by Beppo. Beppo then sees a shot of King Kong and decides to imitate Kong. There follows the best sequence of the film, which is also reminiscent of quite a few action sequences in earlier shorts. Tony's store is demolished swiftly. Mickey and Minnie, rather than face the music, re-hang the sign for "Boy Wanted" and beat a hasty retreat at the end.This short is available on the Disney Treasures Mickey Mouse In Black and White, Volume Two DVD set and both the short and the set are worth having. Recommended.

Of the three Disney shorts featuring Beppo the Gorilla, The Gorilla Mystery was my favourite, closely followed by this, The Pet Store. Mickey's Mechanical Man was very good as well. While not quite as good as The Gorilla Mystery, The Pet Store is still one of the finer examples of the gag-filled and slapstick Disney shorts. It is very well-animated, I have always loved Mickey's facial expressions and they don't disappoint, all the character designs are well done and the backgrounds are crisp and not sparse. The music is full of energy and is also beautifully orchestrated, while the story while slightly routine always maintains interest. The Pet Store shows Mickey as the bravest he's been since possibly The Klondike Kid, while Minnie is an appealing and not too dull and I did like that Beppo is gentler than his more antagonistic personality in The Gorilla Mystery. But it was the gags that made The Pet Store so worth watching. Beppo's King Kong imitation was inspired, but the best gags were when Mickey and Minnie run into each other running out of the store, fall down and then off into the sunset and especially when Mickey tries to dodge the boxes, gets clobbered every time, ducking, attempts to throw the cage and gets nailed on the head by the cash register drawer. I could see in these two gags where The Three Stooges got their inspiration from. All in all, great. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.It only takes a few moments for THE PET STORE to be turned into a complete shambles by its new employee - Mickey Mouse.This funny little black & white film has a plot that's largely driven by its music: Mickey, Minnie and the entire menagerie dance around frantically to the soundtrack until the climax, which has a nice spoof of that year's KING KONG (1933). Tony, the store owner, seems a very decent fellow, but apparently one encounter with the Mouse was enough - he never appeared in another Disney cartoon. Walt Disney supplied Mickey with 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.