Puppy Love

Not one of my favourites but very cute all the same. Maybe the musical number goes on longer than it needed to, and as sweet as Fifi is- she reminds me somewhat of Lady from Lady and the Tramp- she is little more in my eyes than just a plot device. However, it does look great, the black and white looks nice and crisp, and the beginning has a lovely amorous feel to it. All the characters are well drawn, even if more refined later on. The music is energetic and bouncy, with some lush pathos as well. The songs are really catchy as well. The story could have been just a routine and potentially too simplistic Mickey and Minnie chemistry story, but actually there is some romantic conflict centring around a misunderstanding. I liked how Puppy Love set up the short with its love themes, with the birds cooing, the squirrels snuggling up and the fountain of Cupid. Puppy Love has a lot of gags, some are subtle like Mickey leaving with Minnie's hat, some are cute like the antenna balls and some are funny like Pluto replacing the chocolates with the bone and when Mickey slams the gate. Minnie's outburst "I hate him. I hate all men" is hysterical, though I can sense that somebody will come along and say that it is sexist. Mickey and Minnie are still likable characters and seem to have genuine affection for one another, and Pluto is amusing too. Overall, a cute and funny short. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

While Mickey & Minnie romance, Pluto finds time to engage in some PUPPY LOVE with Fifi.

Fifi makes her first appearance as Pluto's paramour in this humorous black & white cartoon. The Mice nicely perform the film's title tune. Walt Disney supplies Mickey's voice.

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.

This is a sappy cartoon starring Mickey and Pluto who visit Minnie and Fifi to court them, respectively. In the meantime, we see birds, squirrels, and stone cupids on a foundation courting as well. Very cleverly done.

All is well until Fifi eats the chocolates Mickey gave Minnie, and Minnie gets mad at Mickey because she thought it was a mean joke. What results are hilarious quarrels between the opposite attracts, including the birds, squirrels and stone cupids as well.

Quite a bit of laugh-out-loud moments and a satisfying scene where Mickey and Pluto give Minnie and Fifi a taste of their own medicine. A funny one here!

Grade A

Mickey and Pluto are heading over to Minnie's house. There, Pluto meets up with Minnie's dog and it's obvious that they are in love. Mickey gives Minnie a box of chocolates and they spend some time singing. However, when they stop to have some chocolates, they find the box is filled with a bone--not candy. Minnie thinks that Mickey did this on purpose and throws him out of the house. Only later does she realize that it was the dogs who did this and she apologizes.

All in all, a rather enjoyable short even if it was a bit short on plot. Oddly, while you see Minnie's dog (which looks a bit from the late Disney film "Lady and the Tramp") in a few early shorts, it disappears altogether and isn't seen again in the films. Poor Pluto! colorized