Mickey Mouse and Lonesome Ghosts

One of my favorite cartoons is a Mickey Mouse short from 1937 called Lonesome Ghosts.

 

It stars Mickey, Donald Duck, and Goofy as Ghost Exterminators. Essentially, this is Ghostbusters. In fact, the Ghostbusters theme song has the line "I ain't afraid of no ghost," echoing a memorable line by Goofy in Lonesome Ghosts, "I ain't scared of no ghosts."

Lonesome Ghosts can be found on the animated feature The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad on DVD, which I watch annually at this time of year, as well as several other cartoon collections.

As a child I watched Lonesome Ghosts over an over, literally forward and back, on my Fisher Price Movie Viewer. This little hand cranked toy was the DVD Player (or maybe more accurately, VHS) of it's day. The cartoon came in a cartridge you would pop into the player, and crank to watch. It being 1973 or 1974, when I was 5 or 6, I don't remember many details, such as if Lonesome Ghosts was included with the player, but I don't recall watching any other cartridge. I found this Fisher Price Movie Viewer and Lonesome Ghosts cartridge on eBay.

Just pop the movie in, and you can watch it forward, or, as I used to do, for whatever reason, in reverse.

There are several Disney movies available for this player, such as Cinderella, Snow White, and Bambi. But, as when I was a little kid, I'm fine just watching Lonesome Ghosts forward and back.