Mickey's Mellerdrammer Review: The Weird 1933 Cartoon Disney Wants You to Forget

So, should you actually watch Mickey's Mellerdrammer today? Only if you are a massive animation history nerd who wants to see the stuff Disney tried to bury deep in their vaults. Normal viewers are probably gonna find this super awkward, if not totally offensive. 😬

Basically, Mickey and his cartoon pals put on a DIY theater version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic book in a barn. The whole thing is a messy relic of 1930s minstrel tropes that makes you cringe pretty hard.

Right at the start, Mickey uses an actual firecracker to blow black soot onto his face for his makeup. It is wild to see that gag used so casually.

Then he puts on a curly wig made of cotton or something to play Uncle Tom. He also plays Topsy, switching characters by just swapping wigs behind a screen.

Honestly, the backstage antics are way more interesting than the actual play they are putting on. I love how Horace Horsecollar is backstage making sound effects with random junk.

He uses a rusty piece of sheet metal for thunder and rattles some chains. It feels so real to how crappy school plays actually worked back then.

Then you got Clarabelle Cow playing Eliza. She has to escape across "ice floes" which are literally just crackers scattered on the stage floor.

The fierce dogs chasing her are just Pluto and some buddies wearing fake teeth. Pluto looks so happy just to be included, honestly. 🐶

It is goofy, sure, but the racial caricatures hang over everything like a heavy wet blanket. It came out in 1933, the same year as the film version of Oliver Twist, and man, pop culture back then was just a different, weirder beast.

You can see the roots of silent era gags here, like the stuff in Felix Monkeys with Magic, but with sound and Mickey's trademark squeak. But the blackface stuff just kills the comedy vibes completely.

The audience in the cartoon eventually starts throwing vegetables at Goofy, who plays the villain. Goofy's fake mustache gets knocked off and he just kind of stands there looking dumb.

That part actually made me laugh out loud because Goofy is just so hopeless. But then we get back to Mickey in the wig and the vibe gets weird again.

It is a short cartoon, barely eight minutes long, but it feels longer because you are constantly bracing yourself for the next bad stereotype. Don't expect some hidden masterpiece here.

It is just a historical curiosity that shows how much things have changed since the early days of Hollywood. Mostly for the better.