Happy 8th Birthday!

A quick follow-up to our post earlier this week on character birthday commemorations--this poster was distributed to theaters during the fall of 1936 to promote Mickey's 8th Birthday. Mickey's official birthday of November 18th was not determined until the 1970s, hence the earlier dates featured on the poster.

Bring 'em Back Alive!

It is likely there are very few people under the age of sixty for whom the name Frank Buck would have any degree of meaning or recognition. A early-20th century adventurer, world traveler, animal collector, author and filmmaker, Buck would become forever associated with his famous mantra,"bring 'em back alive." For our purposes here, Buck would inspire tribute and parody in Disney-produced cartoons of the era.

Buck earned his reputation not so much as a big game hunter but as a big game collector. "Bring 'em back alive" was more than just a catchy motto, it was the basis of Buck's very own business model. His goal was not wall trophies but actual live specimens that he could sell to zoos and circuses. In the early 1930s, he became world famous when his animal collecting adventures were chronicled in both books and films. In an interesting contrast, his second movie, Wild Cargo, shared the screen with Disney's Silly Symphony Funny Little Bunnies at Radio City Music Hall during the spring of 1934.

Disney cartoon makers translated Buck and his adventures via gag and parody into the 1946 Donald Duck-Goofy short Frank Duck Brings ‘Em Back Alive. Donald assumes the Frank Buck persona as he heads deep into exotic jungles in search of a "wild man" that can be returned to the mainland for eventual circus sideshow display. The Goof plays the distinctly crazy yet still very clever quarry. The ensuing contest would be recycled shortly thereafter in 1947 when Donald would similarly chase the Aracuan Bird in Clown of the Jungle. Those cartoons, along with Goofy's own 1945 short African Diary, made spoof of Hollywood's then very popular jungle movies and serials, a genre that was inspired in part by Buck's early productions.

Buck was very popular with young people who were thrilled by his globe trotting exploits. He was especially proud of the elementary school reader he wrote entitled On Jungle Trails. Evidence of this juvenile-based popularity can be found in the treehouse hideout of Huey, Dewey and Louie in the 1949 Donald Duck cartoon Donald's Happy Birthday. Pinned on the wall is a poster emblazoned with a tiger and proudly advertising the Frank Duck Circus, a clever aside to both Buck and the earlier Frank Duck cartoon. Buck was the proprietor of animal attractions at both 1934 and 1939 World's Fairs, and he also established a combination base camp and zoo on Long Island in the mid 1930s that was famous for its Monkey Mountain habitat. Buck worked briefly for Ringling Brother and Barnum and Bailey in the late 1930s. Just prior to his death in 1950, he appeared as himself in the Abbott and Costello comedy Africa Screams.

Mickey's Mechanical Man - June 17, 1933

Here’s an interesting quote from Walt Disney:

“The robot angle is popular now. There have been several robots made that really do perform things, and the public is aware of the possibility of the thing.”

Is he referencing the now-famous Buddy Ebsen “little man” experiment? Or discussing the advent of audio animatronics as ultimately realized by such milestones as Great Moments with Mister Lincoln or Pirates of the Caribbean?

No, these words predate even those events by quite a number of years. They were written in January of 1933 as Walt put to paper his ideas for a cartoon short that would ultimately take the form of Mickey’s Mechanical Man, released on June 17 of that same year.

The cartoon was an odd and decidedly offbeat entry in the still clearly evolving Mickey Mouse series. As Walt noted, a fascination with robots and mechanical men was gradually emerging in Depression-era popular culture and it would reach a crescendo of sorts with Westinghouse’s introduction of Elektro the Robot at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. But while Mickey’s automaton marvel is certainly inspired by representations of robots in the science fiction pulp magazines of the era, the cartoon’s story and setting are much more pedestrian and decidedly non-“fantastic” in nature. For Sam, as Mickey named his mechanical wonder, is not destined for the amazing adventures experienced by his magazine and Hollywood counterparts, but was created in fact for a slightly less inspired function: boxing.

Sam’s adversary in the ring took its cue from another popular archetype of the period, a savage and menacing gorilla. Likely the short’s creative talent were aware of the impending April 1933 release of Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong, as the story’s boxing simian just happened to be named The Kongo Killer.

The story’s action and humor center on the literally one-note gag of Minnie’s car horn that sends Sam into a frenzied, out-of-control rage. It is ultimately that gimmick that empowers Sam to defeat his rival. In a fast paced sequence, boxing glove-donned arms and apertures rapidly and successively emerge from all over Sam’s body and pummel Kongo into submission.

While Walt’s original notes detailed scenes of Mickey actually building Sam and subsequently operating him by remote control, the finished short provides no apparent explanation of the robot’s origin, and he acts relatively autonomous from his mentor. Without this background, the cartoon takes on an almost matter-of-fact attitude towards its somewhat wacky premise, as if robot-gorilla matchups were common events during those early years of the Great Depression. But as in many of Mickey’s early black and white efforts, it’s the occasionally off the wall and weird ideas such as those realized in Mickey’s Mechanical Man that became many of the mouse’s more memorable moments.

In the end what I enjoy the most about this particular short is the simple tin can-style design of Sam and how it epitomized those early steam-powered, gear-filled representations of mechanical men. Cartoons are very often snapshots of popular culture, and Mickey’s Mechanical Man presented us with an early rendition of what would become a major icon of science fiction-themed entertainment.

Special thanks to Hans Perk who made available Walt’s original notes for Mickey’s Mechanical Man on his website A. Film L.A.

More Bunny Fun

Tying in to yesterday's Funny Little Bunnies post, David Lesjak was kind enough to forward on this great image from a piece of classic late-1930s Disneyana. The PAAS TRANSFER-O-S packaging featured one of the cartoon's stock players assisting Mickey with some egg decorating.

And be sure to check out David's Toons at War blog for an item that makes the unusual connection between Funny Little Bunnies and the 88th Signal Corps during World War II.