One Froggy Evening (WB, 1955) dir. Chuck Jones

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The Michigan Rag was composed especially for this cartoon by composer Milt Franklyn, writer Michael Maltese, and director Chuck Jones.

Hiya, pals! We're going to grab a Mickey and Friends plush and watch some Mickey and Friends animation because it’s time for Mickey Mondays! We’ve got another 1930s classic this week, so let’s not waste any time!

The Animation: Released in 1934, Gulliver Mickey is so underrated to me. It’s not one I hear people mention very often in conversations about the best Mickey Mouse shorts. It’s a dreamy, chaotic early adventure for Mickey, and there’s just so much going on from start to finish.

Watching him travel to Lilliput and run afoul of its tiny citizens gives us some great visuals, including Mickey blowing away the ships. It’s a fast=paced story Mickey is telling to the orphans (the same ones from Orphan’s Benefit), and it might be familiar to anyone who has played Kingdom Hearts II!

Mickey’s story to the orphans reaches its peak when Mickey helps Lilliput with its giant spider problem. It’s always nice watching Mickey save the day, and there’s some fun animation in the short fight scene with the giant spider, voiced by Doanld Duck’s Clarence Nash. Always fun to see Mickey fight and be the hero.

Gulliver Mickey is well worth seeking out! Mickey’s battle with the tiny townspeople is a treat, and even scenes of Mickey struggling in a storm on the open seas has all the style and energy I love from 1930s animation. Disney Plus doesn’t seem to have it, but there’s a pretty good version on YouTube for free!

The Plush: I wanted something with a smaller Mickey, so here’s a set of Playskool Disney Babies Mickey and Minnie Mouse Vintage 1984 Plush. Aren’t they adorable? You can definitely tell they’re from the 80s. I’d love to add them to my collection someday. I have a weakness for baby versions of my favorite Disney characters.

More Than You Care to Know About Monsters by Dick Smith

Bottles (MGM, 1936) dir. Hugh Harman

A lavish Technicolor nightmare designed to show off MGM's latest color film achievements.

Buy me a coffee!

Revised and expanded version of this post: https://tymime.tumblr.com/post/648495121557585920/instead-of-whining-about-mickey-mouse-not-falling

While Mickey entering the public domain is exciting and all, I do think a lot of people are overlooking the many other animated characters that are available to use in their creative works. This list isn't entirely exhaustive, but it does highlight some of the most interesting and/or appealing characters, as well as ones that have the potential to be so.

Koko the Clown

One of the oldest cartoon stars from the Fleischer studio, almost all of Koko's silent-era cartoons are PD, and have been for quite some time. A handful of his appearances alongside Betty Boop are also PD.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Oswald's PD status has been greatly overshadowed by his fellow Disney star Mickey, but I believe that he deserves more recognition. All of the shorts produced by the Disney studio are PD as of this year, and let's face it, those are the only ones most people care about. Pegleg Pete's bear design is also PD.

Keep in mind that the blue shorts that Oswald wears in Epic Mickey and elsewhere are likely copyrighted, so I recommend steering clear of that.

I'm also not entirely sure you can use the name "Ortensia" for his cat girlfriend, since that name first appeared in Epic Mickey also. She was called "Kitty" back in the day, among other things.

All of Van Beuren Studio's cartoons

The Van Beuren Studio was active during the rubberhose era, and their cartoons, especially the earlier ones, are like a cruder, possibly even more bizarre cousin to Fleischer and Disney. They went bust in the late 1930s, and no one renewed the copyright later on, so the entirety of their output is PD.

Their most notable characters include Tom and Jerry, a pair of average Joes who always get into strange adventures. They shouldn't be confused with MGM's Tom and Jerry, and in fact they were called Dick and Larry when their shorts were rereleased for the home-movie market in the 1940s.

Also notable is Waffles and Don, who are basically just animal versions of Tom and Jerry. You might consider these two as a better alternative, just to avoid confusion.

There's also Cubby Bear, a pretty blatant Mickey Mouse clone, but unique enough that I don't think anybody’s going to confuse the two nowadays.

In the previous post, I mentioned a rumor that Disney threatened legal action over the character, but I can't find the source for that now. I may have been thinking of Milton Mouse, who was so extremely similar to Mickey that they actually did sue the studo for copyright infringement. So maybe don't try selling any Milton merchandise...

Finally, there's Molly Moo-Cow, who appeared in several Rainbow Parade cartoons in the mid-to-late 1930s. Molly is arguably not the most interesting character, but I have a fondness for her since we grew up with one of her shorts on a VHS tape.

Mickey Mouse is in the public domain, as is Minnie Mouse and Peg-leg Pete. There's some caveats to that, and I talk about that more in this other post, but for now, let's talk about other characters who you can also use to fill out the cast.

These characters should all be in the public domain, though some characters still have treademarks. I'll get into how to use them safely as we go. Anyways, let's start.

Other Disney Characters

Disney obvciously doesn't advertise this, but there's actually quite a few Disney originals who've actually been in the public domain for a while.

The Mad Doctor never had it's copyright renewed, and so it's very technically the first Mickey Mouse cartoon to enter the public domain. Keep in mind, the version of Pluto featured in the short isn't in the domain just yet, but the Doctor himself is free to use.

What's funny is that Disney would later use a version of Doctor for Epic Mickey. Obviously don't use that version of the character.

Aside from the Mad Doctor, we also have Oswald and Ortensia

Yeah, as it turns out, Oswald's been in the public domain for quite a while, but he's still trademarked by Disney. Easy recommendation... use the original "fat" design of the character and have him go by Lucky.

But before Oswald, we have the Alice Comedies

Everything about the Alice Comedies is Public Domain for a long time, and the Disney corporation very rarely acknowlege these characters existence. Which is a shame because These shorts were some of the first shorts Walt ever produced, and they have the unique gimmick of featuring a live action girl in an animated world.

Everybody already knows about Oswald, but nobody talks about Oswald and Mickey's older brother from these shorts, Julius the Cat

Like... yeah no, it didn't all start with a mouse. Or a rabbit. It started with a cat.

Foxy and Milton Mouse

Both Foxy (top) and Milton (bottom, pictured with his girlfriend Rita Mouse) were characters created by Warner Brothers and Van Beuren respectively to cash in on Mickey's success, and both characters are also in the public domain.

In fact, all Van Beuren cartoons are apparently in the public domain, and I encourage you to find their cartoons and use them as you please.

Fleischer Characters

Betty Boop is probably in the Public Domain, but there's a few caveats with this. From what I can tell, the name Betty Boop is trademarked, but the character herself isn't. Most of the old Betty Cartoons are free to use, but newer incarnations, including the versions used in 1985's The Romance of Betty Boop and 1989's The Betty Boop Movie Mystery are still very much under copyright.

To avoid any legal trouble, I have two big recommendations. Although everybody remembers Betty as having Black hair, in one of the few early instances of Betty being shown in color, she's actually depicted as Redhead.

This is Betty Boop in 1934's Poor Cinderella, and her hair color is pretty clearly red.

The other option is to just make her black.

Though there's been some debate as to whether Betty Boop was intentionally modeled after Esther Lee Jones or not, there's still no denying the influence of Jazz on the character. Betty Boop is a Jazz singer and is often depicted dancing to Cab Calloway. Hell, the Betty Boop musical features Jasmine Amy Rogers as the titular character.

Betty Boop aside, there's an entire world of defunct Betty Boop characters who are definately public domain, including Bimbo and Koko the Clown.

Next year, Popeye's also gonna enter the Domain. So keep an eye out for him too.