![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Mortimer-model-sheet-600.jpg\")
Happy to be back, folks! Here\u2019s an animator breakdown of a Mickey Mouse short I have wanted to write about for a long time\u2026<\/p>\nHappy to be back, folks! Here\u2019s an animator breakdown of a Mickey Mouse short I have wanted to write about for a long time\u2026<\/p>\n
The rival\u2019s name in the film, Mortimer Mouse, plays as an autobiographical in-joke; in 1928, as repeated stories from Walt Disney dictate, Mortimer was his first choice as the name of his new mouse character. His wife Lillian disliked such a name, as she described it as \u201ctoo depressing.\u201d About eight years later, the mouse now designated as Mickey faces a former boyfriend of Minnie\u2019s aptly christened under his first name. As with other production records, notations on voice recording for Disney\u2019s short films in the 1930s have proven elusive. Keith Scott postulates that comic actor Sonny Dawson could have provided Mortimer\u2019s dialogue (and cackling laughter) in the film.<\/p>\n The story directors of Mickey\u2019s Rival<\/em>, George Stallings and Earl Hurd, were rooted in New York\u2019s animation scene; both worked at John Randolph Bray\u2019s studio. Renowned as the inventor of the celluloid process of animation, Hurd formed a patent company with Bray for their technique, while also working on his Bobby Bumps<\/em> series in the 1910s. Later, in the early 1920s, Stallings worked on a revived series of Colonel Heeza Liar<\/em> cartoons, which combined live-action and animation. Both men worked as part of Disney\u2019s story team by the mid-1930s, contributing to several Mickey Mouse<\/em> films and Silly Symphonies<\/em>. Clyde \u201cGerry\u201d Geronimi, one of the animators on the film, had a similar background, and knew Stallings and Hurd from his time as an animator for Bray. <\/p>\n The scenes during the picnic in Mickey\u2019s Rival<\/em> were re-assigned late in production. The “semi-final” production draft, dated January 30, 1936, contradicts the credits shown on the exposure sheets. Dick Lundy and Dick Huemer were originally given different scenes in the sequence, but the exposure sheets, which seem to postdate the draft, indicate Johnny Cannon, Paul Allen and Bob Wickersham as their replacements. Cannon animates the three during the picnic, with Mortimer playfully using drumstick bones as castanets. Allen animates the first scenes with the bull\u2014drawn with more naturalism than in Clyde Geronimi\u2019s caricatured depiction of the animal\u2014and Mortimer impressing Minnie, acting as a matador, using the picnic blanket as a cape to entice the bull behind his pen. Wickersham handles a nice bit of acting with Mickey, glaring at Mortimer as Minnie cheers, which turns to a nervous smile when she turns around to compliment his faux-bravado. Wickersham\u2019s work continues when Mickey pouts and sits down next to his roadster. <\/p>\n \n The last half of Mickey\u2019s Rival<\/em> is mostly the work of Geronimi and \u201cFrenchy\u201d de Tr\u00e9maudan. Geronimi animates all of the scenes with of the runaway bull after it escapes from the pasture, and Mickey\u2019s car during the second half of the film. In later years, Ollie Johnston, an assistant animator at the time, recalled his involvement in clean-up work for Geronimi\u2019s scenes. His work met with high esteem from director Wilfred Jackson and Geronimi. The assignment led to Johnston\u2019s promotion as Fred Moore\u2019s assistant by late March 1936. However, further research on the exposure sheets signifies that Johnston\u2019s name is nowhere to be seen. Larry Clemmons is credited as Geronimi\u2019s assistant on the documentation. <\/p>\n A couple of select shots are reused in Mickey\u2019s Rival<\/em>, such as the scene of Mickey\u2019s car peeking from the rock (credited to Geronimi), which occurs after Mortimer\u2019s horn scares it out of frame. The scene is later shown\u2014set in a wider camera fielding\u2014when it sees Mickey cornered by the bull against the tree, before springing to action. The bull skidding against the ground to reverse his path is used at least three times in the final sequence, alternating directional paths depending on its target, whether it is Mickey or his anthropomorphic jalopy. <\/p>\n \n Though the film version of Mickey\u2019s Rival<\/em> was in production in late 1935, the character had earlier roots in the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip. Floyd Gottfredson created a precursor to the Mortimer character in his story \u201cMr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers\u201d<\/a>, which ran from September 22nd through December 29th, 1930. Coincidentally, Mr. Slicker robs the farm of Minnie\u2019s uncle, named Mortimer. In early January 1936, before the release of the cartoon, Mickey\u2019s Rival<\/em> had its own comic-strip counterpart<\/a> as a Sunday color story, which pitted Mickey and Mortimer against each other at Minnie\u2019s house. After the film\u2019s release on June 20th, Mortimer returned to Gottfredson\u2019s Mickey Mouse comic strip, renamed and updated as Montmorency Rodent in \u201cLove Trouble,\u201d<\/a> which ran from April 14th through July 5th, 1941. <\/p>\n In place of an authentic production draft, J. B. Kaufman has lent the information of each individual animator\u2019s work on Mickey\u2019s Rival<\/em>, based on his research for Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History<\/em>. If you are able to purchase the book, please do so\u2014the hard work of J. B. and Dave Gerstein is evident in its rich text, not to mention its wealth of artwork from the Disney Archives and various collections. Once I have finished the book, a full review will be written on Amazon, as promised. <\/p>\n \n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Mickeys-Rival-poster250.jpg\")
Production records for many of the 1930s Disney short films are scattered, even for a project that underwent intermittent changes. Mickey’s Rival<\/em> was in the production pipeline in late 1935 but was delayed for unknown reasons. Surviving model sheets indicate its original production number as UM 40 but was shifted to UM 42, and other Mickey Mouse cartoons pushed ahead of it. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Story-sketch-minnie600.jpg\")
<\/a>Director Wilfred Jackson (with assistant director Graham Heid) assigned the animators of different sequences throughout the film. Leonard Sebring animates the opening scenes of Mickey and Minnie preparing their picnic in the country, to the accompaniment of \u201cLet Me Call You Sweetheart\u201d (Leo Friedman\/Beth Slater Whitson, 1910). Their romantic excursion is disrupted when a sports car speeds down the road with a velocity that wraps their picnic blanket around Mickey. Les Clark handles the scenes of Minnie introducing Mickey to Mortimer\u2014\u201cthe perfect scream,\u201d as she describes him. Clark continues to display his clear, direct posing\/animation as Mickey endures his practical jokes. (Mortimer\u2019s tall stature and intolerable nature might remind some viewers of Charley Chase\u2019s character in the 1933 Laurel and Hardy feature Sons of the Desert.)<\/p>\n\n<\/a>\u201cFrenchy\u201d de Tr\u00e9maudan, one of the unsung animators at the Disney studio during the 1930s, is assigned to most of the scenes with Mickey and Minnie in the second half. (The production notes state a couple of scenes involving the bull and Mickey are jointly animated by Geronimi and de Tr\u00e9maudan.) Tr\u00e9maudan animates the final shot of the film, which displays subtle acting from the two characters. During the dissolve, as Minnie is seen seated next to an indignant Mickey, she keeps still as her eyes move slightly to him, awaiting a response without provoking further annoyance. After Mickey asks her if Mortimer is still funny, Minnie\u2019s head stretches at the mention of his name, now repulsed after his act of deserting the two when the bull emerged from the gate. The two shake hands as the film irises out, as the tune \u201cLet Me Call You Sweetheart\u201d plays in the underscore. (The original ending had Mickey playing one of Mortimer\u2019s gags on Minnie, with a trick extending glove.)<\/p>\n\n<\/a>Later, in the 1970s, Mortimer made a comeback, again in print media. In these new stories, he would engage in heated altercations with Mickey at Slim\u2019s Ice Cream, but would often be outsmarted by Goofy, much to his surprise and frustration. In the 21st century, Mickey and Mortimer\u2019s conflicts continued in stories by Italian artist Andrea \u201cCasty\u201d Castellan. Mortimer finally emerged in animated form on the television shows Mickey Mouse Works<\/em> and House of Mouse in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which used the revised Montmorency Rodent model. Most recently, Mortimer appeared in the Paul Rudish Mickey Mouse<\/em> series in \u201cA Pete Scorned,\u201d<\/a> in which he oversteps Peg-Leg Pete\u2019s authority as Mickey\u2019s tormenter. <\/p>\n\n