PLANE CRAZY (1928)

 RELEASE DATE: Tuesday 15th May 1928

 

SYNOPSIS: Mickey Mouse wants to impress his girl Minnie, so he takes her for a joyride in his new aeroplane. This is officially the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon, although it wasn't seen by many people on its original release. The little mouse wouldn't find global fame until Steamboat Willie the following year. While this was originally a silent film, it was later re-released with sound, which is the version we watched.

IRVYNE: It's interesting that right from the beginning, the character of Mickey Mouse was so well defined. He had his shorts and his ears, although he didn't have shoes yet.

I love in these early cartoons that they have such a carefree sense of whimsy. This film completely understands that it's a cartoon, and the natural laws of physics and gravity didn't have to apply to anything! If it was worth a gag, the animators were free to break any rule they wanted to.
 

HAKU: The play between the sexes is interesting. It's very much of its day. Mickey wants to kiss Minnie, she says no, so he FORCES her to kiss him!
 

IRVYNE: You've got to accept these early films as products of their time. There's no way they'd get away with this stuff now. In this cartoon (and a few of the others) there's a lot of cruelty to animals. All for comedy of course, but you certainly wouldn't release this today.
Even though it's dated though, Plane Crazy is still funny. It still makes me laugh, so I guess good comedy is always good comedy.

HAKU: It was definitely ahead of its time.