The Chain Gang

Obviously, our celebrity mouse has committed some atrocity to be put in prison and forced to break rocks on a chain gang. He never claims his innocence. Because of the boredom of his guard, Mickey is able to start playing his harmonica and getting all the other prisoners involved. Soon there is a jailbreak and he is caught in the middle. Good Mickey Mouse episode.

'The Chain Gang' is a delightful Mickey Mouse short from his early sound period. I was surprised that this one features Mickey in prison (on a chain gang, no less), and we're never told how he came to be there in the first place. The cartoon manages to imply that he's guilty of something, rather than stitched up.

I'll just address a couple of points that modern viewers might miss. IMDb viewer Ron Oliver says that Mickey performs something called 'the classic "Prisoner's Song"' (I must have missed that one) in this cartoon. That's not correct. Mickey and the other inmates perform a maudlin waltz-time ballad that was very well-known in 1930, when this cartoon was made: so well-known that Disney didn't even bother to have his voice artists sing the words, apparently figuring that cinema audiences would recognise the song from its melody alone.

The song which Mickey and the others are performing has a lyric which begins like this: "If I had the wings of an angel, / Over these prison walls I would fly...". Since I recognised the melody, I thought it quite funny that these cartoon inmates were performing this particular song.

Many of the early Disney toons were quite vulgar, with gags featuring racial stereotypes or crudities such as Mickey playing a melody on a female dog's nipples. The nearest we get to such things in 'The Chain Gang' is one visual gag quite early in the toon. When the warder (played by Big Pete) threatens Mickey, the mouse raises one hand in a placating gesture with fingers splayed. Then he turns his head into profile to look at his own hand. At this point, Mickey grins mysteriously and then drops his hand. If you look closely, for one brief instant Mickey's head and hand are in just the proper position so that he's thumbing his nose. In the 1930s (and earlier) the gesture of thumb to nose was considered extremely vulgar in the United States; if Disney had tried this gag a few years later, with the Hays Office in place, he likely wouldn't have got away with it.

I shan't spoil the end of the cartoon for you. It was a big surprise for me, since Mickey ended up someplace unexpected. I'll rate 'The Chain Gang' 7 out of 10. Now that nobody recognises (nor stigmatises) the nose-thumbing gesture anymore, parents can put this cartoon on their family viewing list.

Not one of my favourite Disney shorts, but as ever likable enough. The story is somewhat unremarkable, and I don't think it is ever explained why Mickey was in the prison in the first place, for all I know it was just an excuse to put him in another setting and nothing else to it. This said, this short is still a lot of fun. The pacing is rapid without feeling too rushed, and there are some great sight gags, such as the prisoners speaking into the camera, the guards- who all look like Pete- shooting at one another and Mickey's means of escape. The animation is crisp and smooth, while the character animation doesn't stand out in the same way it does with other Mickey Mouse shorts, and the sequence with Mickey playing the harmonica does look as though it is from The Shindig, it is still very good. The music is energetic and beautiful, with the musical sequence in the middle actually tying in with the story and not taking too long either. Mickey is perhaps at his most cheeky and is always finding means of making us aware that he knows he has an audience(the point of the winking I think), and this persona pays off well for him, he is very charming for it. I also found it interesting that one of the bloodhounds looked remarkably like Pluto. All in all, a fun if not entirely short with a cheeky charmer in Mickey as well as great pacing and gags. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The early Mickey Mouse cartoons show a Mickey different from the solid, dependable mouse we've grown to know in his later years. Could it be that, in his formative years, Mickey was a scamp and a rapscallion? Actually, Mickey displays the same irreverence the Marx Brothers display and The Chain Gang is a prime example. Very good cartoon and one that will see print again. It surely deserves to and soon. Well worth tracking down. Recommended.

This is a rather odd Mickey Mouse cartoon, where he is part of a chain gang who likes to sing and dance. Old goodie-two-shoes Mickey ends up in prison, which is something very unconventional for the beloved mouse.

Definitely a different Mickey cartoon - a little suspenseful but minus the laughs.

Grade C