Mickey's Sideline (1932) - Weirdly fun backyard chaos

Skip this if you cannot stand scratchy audio and kids yelling at the top of their lungs. But if you like seeing a tiny, pre-superstar Mickey Rooney bossing around other kids in a giant flat cap, Mickey's Sideline is a weirdly fun twenty minutes. 🎬

Modern kids will absolutely hate the grainy black-and-white look. Classic comedy buffs, though, will probably eat it up.

This is part of those old "Mickey McGuire" shorts based on vintage newspaper comics. It is basically the budget version of the Our Gang comedies, like Wiggle Your Ears, but with way more dirt and slightly meaner jokes.

The plot is barely there. Mickey and his backyard gang are trying to play some sports, but everything goes wrong immediately.

Actually, the best part is seeing a very young Billy Barty. He just wanders around doing weird stuff in the background while the bigger kids scream their lines.

There is this one kid, Donald Haines, who has this incredibly odd squint. I kept staring at him instead of Mickey because his face is just so expressive in a silent-movie way.

The Weird Little Details

At one point, a kid gets hit and the sound effect is just a loud CLANG like a metal pipe. It makes no sense for the scene, but it made me laugh out loud. 😂

The editing is super choppy too. One second a kid is on the left side of the screen, and the next frame he is suddenly on the right, like he teleported.

It is those little mistakes that make these old shorts so cozy to watch. They did not have time to fix stuff, they just had to ship the film to theaters.

• Mickey's giant pants that look like they could fit three of him.
• The random dog that clearly wants to leave the set.
• Billy Barty being absolute gold.

Do not expect some deep masterpiece like A Woman of Affairs. This is raw, silly slapstick from a time when kids played in actual trash heaps for fun.

It just ends really abruptly too. No big wrap-up, just boom—title card.

Honestly, I kind of love that. It does not waste your time.