Prod. UM26 - Mickey Plays Papa

First the copyright synopsis, so we know what we are dealing with, if we cannot quickly pull out disc 2 of the Treasures DVD - Mickey Mouse in Black and White Vol. 2.

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Directed by Burt Gillett, released 9/29/34, this draft dated 6/18/34.
Animation by Hardie "Little Toot" Gramatky, Marvin Woodward, Johnnie Cannon, Bob Wickersham, Tom Palmer (one scene), Fred Moore, Dick Lundy, Bill Roberts and, of course Ben Sharpsteen, also as supervisor of Cy Young and Roy Williams.

The story is simple and sweet, but somewhat curious. Maybe naive is a better description. The animation shows lapses back to the simpler style of a few years earlier, with speedlines galore, but we are also seeing small glimpses of things to come in the color Mickeys a year later. Hardie Gramatky's figure slinking about the house is very theatrical (but as such nicely animated), while Johnnie Cannon's scenes with a scared Mickey and Pluto even here seem a bit old-fashioned - the same goes for Lundy's scenes of Mickey in the kitchen. Fred Moore and Bill Roberts' business with Pluto is nice, but seems somewhat contrived, and not as "felt" as Norm Ferguson's animation of the time. But most important, the film is character-driven from start to finish, and whatever shortcomings the animation might have, the storytelling holds our interest in the characters, in a way a precursor to Snow White, which at this time had begun its preproduction...Things are finally somewhat back to normal, and I will be posting more regularly!