Friday 12 December 2008

MATRIMONIAL MAGIC

A few months ago, I revealed a startling revelation about the Mickey-mousehold...


No doubt there were those who were a tad shocked to discover what the world had assumed was a long-standing boy-and-girlfriendship had resulted in progeny (albeit acquired via the stork method), but to allay any disquiet from the Moral Minority or other interfering do-gooders, I'm happy to bring you this evidence of their true marital status...


This picture of Mickey and Minnie's wedding day bliss appeared on a silk handkerchief first manufactured, I would think, in the 1930s for use in a children's magic show. The little Mephistophelean profile in the bottom right-hand corner signifies that it was made for the oldest family-owned magic shop in the world, Davenports, founded in London in 1898 by Lewis Davenport a magician who - inspired by Mickey's huge popularity - incorporated a trick featuring Mickey in his own stage act.

Having settled the question of those mouselet's legitimacy, I'll leave you with a reminder of the fact that their dad is no slouch when it comes to magic as can be seen from his 1937 film, Magician Mickey...



2 comments:

Boll Weavil said...

I don't know whether I'm just jaded with today's offerings but looking at that cartoon, it's just incredible not only how good the animation is but how many ideas and gags are crammed into a few short minutes. The demand for non-stop laughs from a short such as this is far higher than would be physically possible in a live action piece of the same length.You wonder how someone thought it all up !

Prucl : The amount of energy used to type something on a computer, correct the mistakes and make it read correctly even though it's such a minor observation you probably wouldn't have bothered saying it if the recipient had been sitting in front of you.

Brian Sibley said...

The answer to your question - "You wonder how someone thought it all up!" - is that at the Disney studio (and all the other great Hollywood cartoon studios), these little seven-minute wonders were devised not by an individual but by whole teams of people with animators and story-men piling in all the gag ideas they could think of. It was truly a shared, collaborative act of creativity.