CLOCK CLEANERS (1937)

RELEASE DATE: Friday 15th October 1937

SYNOPSIS: This is one of the most famous cartoons starring Disney's dynamic trio: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. In this story, they are given the task of cleaning a gigantic city clock. Each has their own task to complete, and of course, things don't exactly go to plan...

IRVYNE: You could tell that by the time they made this, they'd pinned down each character's distinct personality. You have Goofy who's just being an imbecile and doing stupid things, Donald is just constantly getting angry because nothing ever goes his way, and you have Mickey trying to save the day and usually failing spectacularly.

WENDY: I would never employ them. They don't do their jobs!

 

PASCAL: They tried... Mickey was TRYING to clean his numbers.

HAKU: That number 3 was VERY clean!

WENDY: And you've got to love those cartoon physics! Gravity? What gravity?

HAKU: You can see the frame rate has increased a lot since the early films.

IRVYNE: They would have had more animators, surely. The first few Mickey cartoons, they reckon were pretty much just animated by one guy. I'm sure by 1937 they had teams working on them. I do wonder though, if there was any crossover between these short movies and the big feature movie that was happening behind-the-scenes. Would some animators make Donald arguing with a spring and then go and animate the wicked queen in Snow White? I have no idea.

MALEFICENT: It's pretty funny that Irvyne and I seem to be able to understand everything that Donald says, and everybody else has no idea.

IRVYNE: I think that's just because we grew up watching these cartoons so much! It's like being exposed to another language! Wak wak wak! But it's also the main gag with the Donald cartoons, that no one can understand what he's saying, and he gets so frustrated with the world.
And speaking of Donald not being understood properly... The version we watched (which is on the "Silly Symphonies" DVD) has been CENSORED! When poor Donald is having an argument with the spring, it apparently upset a lot of parents, who thought Donald was saying the F word, among other colourful phrases, and Disney ended up redubbing part of his dialogue (not at all subtley either, I might add) Of course, there is no WAY Disney would have allowed Donald to cuss. He actually quacks, "Says who?" to which the spring replies, "Says I."
For the record, here is the original version. Does Donald appear to be swearing to you?

SHENZI: This is a fun cartoon. I love that slapstick humour.