The Simple Things

In this Disney cartoon short, Mickey and Pluto go fishing by the beach (kind of makes you want to relax on a quiet, sunny day). Pluto has a run-in with a clam and Mickey's bait are chased by a hungry seagull.

As the Mickey's final cartoon in the Walt Era, the story could have been a lot better. It seemed that both Mickey and Pluto got the bad end of the stick in the plot, with Pluto getting the clam caught in his mouth and Mickey's fishing trip getting spoiled by the stupid, hungry and irritating seagull.

I remembered watching this cartoon as a kid and, while I enjoyed seeing Mickey and Pluto on screen, the seagull annoyed the heck out of me. Not one of the better Mickey cartoons.

Grade D---

Mickey and Pluto decide to go fishing by the ocean. They have little success because Pluto has an encounter with a clam and Mickey with a seagull. What could have been the enjoyment of the simple things becomes an incredibly unpleasant day. The clam seems a bit over the top. I've never liked seagulls. Basically it's about two pleasant characters having their days ruined through no fault of their own.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

Mickey & Pluto enjoy THE SIMPLE THINGS in life, like fishing together at the beach - until a pesky clam and an obnoxious seagull begin to ruin their day.

Although only 24 years old, Mickey chose this routine cartoon as his final film before retiring from theatrical animation, preferring to devote his time to television and theme park work. An immense celebrity by this time, but with his greatest cartoons long behind him, Mickey could well afford to rest on his laurels as the iconic Everyman of American animation. His retirement would last for 30 years, when he would return in 1983 for a nominal role in MICKEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL. His big screen appearances since then have been very sporadic.

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.

Since this was the last mickey mouse short it made no sense for that bird to be in the finale scene as the cartoon closes. i liked the title song. On one of the disney videos "Canine Comando"i saw a small segment of this short. I enjoyed the music.

The Simple Things (1953)

*** (out of 4)

Delightful animated short from Disney has Mickey and Pluto going fishing but both are terrorized by some local creatures. Pluto comes under attack from a clam, which leads to Mickey and his bait coming under attack by a seagull. THE SIMPLE THINGS is best remembered today for being the final Mickey short during his classic early days. With that in mind, the historic aspect alone makes this here worth watching even though the actual short isn't the greatest that the mouse appeared in. Still, there are enough good moments and laughs here to make it worth sitting through with the highlight clearly being the sequence where the clam gets inside Pluto's mouth and causes him some trouble. As you'd expect the animation is extremely good and we're also treated to a good score.