Plane Crazy

Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks
Plane Crazy , 1928
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJQMiUq1eKI
5:56
Animated Short

Techniques
Plane Crazy was the first Disney animated short to feature Mickey the Mouse. It was created utilizing traditional cel animation techniques; whereby each frame is hand drawn with pencil and paper and backgrounds generally being painted separately with watercolors. The pencil drawings are then transferred to a clear celluloid sheet and photographed over the painted backgrounds in sequence creating the illusion of movement.

The cartoon premiered on May 15th, 1928, as a silent film, with little critical acclaim. During the production of Steamboat Willie in September of that year, Disney had developed a technique to sync music with animation, by animating a ball bouncing to the timing of the film. Using this method, an orchestral conductor could follow along to the bouncing of the ball and guide the orchestra to play to correct timing that normal music sheets didn’t allow. Carl Stalling, an American composer, would go on to join Disney in October of that year to add music to previously silent Mickey Mouse shorts; namely Gallopin' Gaucho, The Barn Dance, and of course Plane Crazy (Barrier, p.54). It was re-released with sound on March 17, 1929.


Representation
The short depicts Mickey Mouse in his first ever on-screen incarnation attempting to build a plane with a barnyard of various cartoon animals. Modeling himself after Charles Lindbergh, who had just completed the first solo transatlantic flight in May of 1927, Mickey eventually transforms a Model T into the ideal flying machine.

We see the first depiction of Minnie Mouse as well, who joins him on his inaugural flight. After some cartoon hijinks getting the plane off the ground, Mickey shows his early 20th century attitude towards women by attempting to force Minnie into a kiss after being told no. Following some back and forth, Minnie ejects herself from the plane parachuting to safety, while a startled Mickey crashes into the ground. The film ends with Mickey getting what’s coming to him, when he’s knocked unconscious by his own actions.

Reception
As mentioned, the film originally premiered in hollywood in 1928 failing to pick up distribution. One producer would tell Walt; “They don’t know you and they don’t know your mouse” (Gluck, Web). This would largely be due to the glut of similar animated films out at the time, Plane Crazy would fail to do anything innovative, and Mickey’s design was largely “formulaic”. (Barrier, p.49)

Of course following the release of Steamboat Willie and the sound version of the film, Plane Crazy would go on to garner positive attention as the popularity of the mouse exploded. The Film Daily would state that its “unusual ingenuity [...] extract[s] a volume of laughs that are by no means confined to the juveniles.”(Film Daily, p.12).

Because of the implication…

It’s hard to watch this early Disney cartoon and not think about the strange turn the film takes when Minnie and Mickey are alone in the air together. What starts as a cute air date between two consenting mice quickly turns sour when Mickey’s advances are rebuffed. Instead of taking it with grace and respecting Minnie’s boundaries, Mickey in a position of power (life and death as the pilot of the aircraft), flips and dives the plane to force her into doing what he wants. Of course this is a silly cartoon made in the 1920s, not meant to be taken seriously, but it raises the question of consent and the attitudes towards women in society at the time.
I’m not here to throw stones at the people of the past, as even back then people knew the situation was “saucy” (Variety, p.11). It does ask an interesting question however, in today’s day and age, where we deal with these legacy characters and their corporate friendly spit-shined image, how do we recognize and integrate their problematic past with their contemporary mythos?

In the case of Plane Crazy, as the Variety article puts it, I see it as “permissible” (Variety, p.11). Not because Mickey comes off as the hero or likable in any way, but because it’s pretty clear from the narrative framing that we aren’t supposed to think he’s doing the right thing. The comedy comes from the downfall his actions lead him to. Minnie walks, his plane is destroyed, and Mickey will likely deal with concussion symptoms for some time. This is not a film glorifying his actions. However the comedic lighthearted tone of a real contemporary issue may rub people the wrong way, insofar that it doesn’t go far enough to dissuade the audience from rooting for the guy. His can-do attitude, and cute design make the viewer root for him, at least a little bit, even when we peer into the real selfish and misogynist attitude under his facade. The real rat gleams through, and we cheer.

Works Cited
Barrier, Michael J. Hollywood cartoons : American animation in its golden age. New York : Oxford University Press, 1999.
The Film Daily. “"Plane Crazy"— Walt Disney Powers Cinephone.” The Film Daily, 24 03 1929, https://archive.org/details/filmdaily4748newy/page/n719/mode/2up?q=plane+crazy.
Gluck, Keith. “The Birth of a Mouse.” The Walt Disney Family Museum, 18 November 2012, https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/birth-mouse. Accessed 30 May 2023.
Variety. “"Plane Crazy" Powers Cinephone.” Variety, 3 04 1929, https://archive.org/details/variety94-1929-04/page/n9/mode/2up?q=plane+crazy.