The Nifty Nineties

This short is a delightful look at the 1890s-a time not so far removed chronologically from 1941-and the use of Mickey and Minnie as a courting couple is a perfect fit for the whole concept. Enjoyable now, back then, large segments of the audience back then probably could recall the timeframe from personal experience. Well animated, as is generally the case with Disney at the time, it's good to see this in print. Well worth watching. Recommended.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Mickey & Minnie discover true love in THE NIFTY NINETIES - the 1890's, that is.

This highly nostalgic little film is a delight, transferring Mickey & Minnie back about fifty years to the age of bloomers & bustles. In the vaudeville theater, the 'Father, Dear Father' slide presentation is an unexpected hoot. The song and dance guys (`Two Clever Boys From Illinois') are caricatures of the animators Fred Moore & Ward Kimball. Goofy and the entire Duck clan make quick cameos riding antique bicycles.

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 blizzard of doomsayers, 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.

I saw this cartoon on the Disney Channel last summer and taped it along with 25 other Mickey Mouse cartoons. It shows Mickey as the owner of a brand new (ancient by today's standards)automobile in the gay (which in those days meant happy) nineties. He and Minnie go to a vaudeville show. I first saw this cartoon on a video that I rented back when I was in 1st grade. When this short came on and moved to the scene with Minnie and Mickey entering the vaudeville theatre,the two mice sit down and a slide show comes on. The slide show was entiteld "Father Dear Father" and was about a woman who had a drunken husband that refused to come home from the bar. Minnie began crying and Mickey comforts her saying, "It's okay, Minnie. It's just a show!" When I saw this same short on TV, however, the "Father Dear Father" scene had been cut. I think it's kind of stupid how they cut out scenes like this. I can understand why they would edit out ethnical stereotypes though.

A bit of a chore to get through. The characters have no personality and nothing interesting happens. It seems to be more to showcase an 1890s look without any substance.

I'm not much for Mickey cartoons made after the late 1930s, but here I'll make an exception. This is a cute short which looks back to the Gay Nineties, gently poking fun at the fashions, cars, and entertainment of the time. Though Mickey is not the rascally fellow he was in shorts such as Steamboat Willie (1928), he's still entertaining enough here and has amusing animation.

I'd recommend that you see it at least once if you love classic Disney animation and need to kill some time, or if you love that particular time period. Also, look out for cameos by animators Ward Kimball and Fred Moore during the vaudeville sequence!