“Three Blind Mouseketeers” (1936) has three mice outwit a cat, four years before Hanna Barbera would perfect the formula. “Chicken Little” (1943) is the strangest one of the entire collection as this take on the old tale finds Foxy Loxy manipulating the chickens through a book titled Psychology, which was originally intended to be Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Volume 3 opens with a retelling of Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper” (1990) with Mickey starring in the dual title roles. The newest cartoon of the collection, it was released with The Rescuers Down Under.
There are two Silly Symphonies from 1933. One tells the story of the Brothers Grimm “The Pied Piper” while in “Old King Cole” the King throws a party for a group of nursery-rhyme characters. And two featuring Goofy as a knight. In the black-and-white “Ye Olden Days” (1933), Mickey must rescue Princess Minnie from an arranged marriage to Goofy, who then went by the stage name Dippy Dawg. Set during the same period, everyone looks like Goofy in “A Knight For A Day” (1943).
Volume 4 presents the Academy Award-winning “The Tortoise And The Hare” (1934) based on Aesop’s fable. Toby Tortoise and Max Hare, a precursor to Tex Avery’s Bugs Bunny, would both return in the sequel “Toby Tortoise Returns” (1936), squaring off in a boxing ring.
“Babes In The Woods” (1932) presents a variation on the Brothers Grimm “Hansel and Gretel.” “The Goddess of Spring” (1934) finds the Disney animators’ attempting their first realistic human-looking characters with the story of Persephone’s abduction by Hades from Greek mythology.
The disc concludes with two tales of American folklore. “Paul Bunyan” (1958) tells the story of the mythical giant lumberjack, and “The Saga of Windwagon Smith” (1961) is a tale set in the Old West about a sailor wanting to sail across the American prairie in a covered wagon. The Sons of the Pioneers accompany the latter. The familiar Disney animation style is noticeably different.
Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows,” the inspiration behind Disneyland’s Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, is featured on Volume 5. It was originally released in 1949 paired with Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” under the title The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
The remainder of the disc is made up of Silly Symphonies. Hans Christian Andersen’s “Ugly Duckling” (1939) is a color remake of the 1931 black-and-white Disney cartoon and is the last entry in the Silly Symphony series. “The Grasshopper And The Ants” (1934) is based on Aesop’s fable. Both won an Academy Award.
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