Giantland

A Mickey Mouse Cartoon

Release Date : November 25, 1933

Running Time : 8:00

Synopsis

Mickey tells a crowd of orphans a version of "Jack and the Beanstalk" in which he plays the leading role and takes on Rumplewatt, the "king of the giants - prince of the tyrants."

Characters

Mickey Mouse
Orphans
Rumplewatt, the Giant

Credits

Director
Bert Gillett
Animation
Johnny Cannon
Les Clark
Frenchy de Tremaudan
Gerry "Clyde" Geronomi

Source

Based on the story "Jack and the Beanstalk"

Video

Italy
Topolino Pesca Guai

Laserdiscs

United States
Mickey Mouse in Black and White: Volume 1
Japan
Fisherman Mickey
Mickey Mouse : The Black and White Years

DVD

United States
Mickey Mouse in Black and White
Germany
Mickey Mouse in Black and White

Television

The Ink and Paint Club: Episode 50: Storyteller Mickey
Mickey's Mouse Tracks: Episode 17
The Mickey Mouse Club : November 7, 1955

Original Animator's Drafts


Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6

Technical Specification

Color Type: Black & White
Animation Type: Standard animation
Sound Mix: Mono
Aspect Ratio: 1.37 : 1
Negative Format: 35mm
Print Format: 35mm
Cinematographic Process: Spherical
Original Language: English

Released by United Artists Pictures

Comments

From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project : Uncle Mickey Mouse is something we’ve seen a few times so far, in shorts like Mickey’s Orphans. Mickey seems like a good parent, and in Giantland, today’s subject, he goes to the time honored tradition of telling your kids a story. What a story it is, too.

MMickey tells his nephews the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, with Mickey playing the role of Jack. What’s so interesting to me is that this is a story that would be retold later in the Disney features, as part of Fun and Fancy Free. That story features Donald and Goofy as well, and fleshes out the story over a featurette rather than a short.

This short skips the portion of the story with Jack and the cow and the magic beans, and goes straight to Mickey climbing the beanstalk to Giantland. We are told it is Giantland by the sign on the ground as Mickey reaches the top, then hitches a ride on a butterfly to the castle of the Giant.

It’s not long until we are introduced to the Giant, who comes trodding down the path, singing that he is “the King of the Giants.” That’s rather odd, because there are no other giants in the short, so I’m not entirely sure who he is the king of, exactly. His introduction is a great piece of animation, though. We see the full shot of the giant, then go to a close up of his feet, and the world seems to turn underneath the power of his feet. It’s quite a good effect, and the first time we’ve seen something like that in a while.

You can imagine what happens from there. Mickey gets onto the dinner table of the Giant, unbeknownst to the big guy. He hides in the sugar bowl, in the cheese, and eventually gets swallowed by the Giant in a sandwich. That leads to the funniest part of the film.

Mickey hangs out in the Giant’s mouth for a good minute or two, dodging peas as the Giant drops them in, then sticks a pipe in and starts smoking Mickey out. The pipe is the one that gets Mickey, as he blows back into the pipe and spurts tobacco all over the room.

The mouth segment is funny, but then you have Mickey’s escape, which is pretty good as well. He manages to launch pepper into the Giant’s face, with an elaborate fork/spoon lever system, and escape out the front door.

OOne interesting twist here, though, is instead of chopping the beanstalk down when the Giant chases him, Mickey lights it on fire. The Giant is menaced by the firelings, my favorite little guys. Seriously, I want a plush of the little firelings. Disney, get on that.

In the end, Mickey prevails, of course. This short offers a good glimpse of Mickey the hero, who we don’t get to see as often anymore. It suffers though, from not having any of the supporting characters around. No Pluto or Minnie to offer a foil to Mickey. That’s really the only flaw I see, however, as this is a very entertaining and fun short to watch.

From Mac : We get to see some of Mickey's extended family in this one. Here the hoards of Mickey kids aren't explained as orphans or dreamed up children, but seem to be his nieces and nephews. Also check out the portraits in the background to see some other mouse relations!

But the kids are just a device to quickly cut right into the action of a Mickey-and-a-giant story. I'm actually glad that there are no other characters like Minnie or Pluto to complicate the story and instead the short focuses its short running time on Mickey in the giant's world. The artists clearly had a lot of fun playing around with Mickey at this scale and there's lots of excellent use of dark, light and shadows for dramatic effect throughout the short.

There's some really good bits in this short. Mickey ending up in the giant's mouth is great – and almost a little gruesome! I also like it when the giant falls off the beanstalk, hitting the ground with such force that the surrounding landscape is sucked into the gigantic hole that is created.

From Jerry Edwards : A fun cartoon full of action and gags. One gag I enjoy is the giant looking at a newspaper, which says "EXTRA ... GIANTS WIN." There is top quality animation in several scenes - Mickey riding a giant butterfly to the castle after he climbs the beanstalk Mickey in the giant's mouth - trying to avoid being swallowed and the giant chasing Mickey and falling, pulling much of the scenery down with him into the huge hole he makes with the fall. This was later redone as the Mickey and the Beanstalk segment of the 1947 animated film Fun and Fancy Free.
From Pete : I first saw this short when I was 14 years old and I couldn't help but notice that it is very similar to the 1938 Mickey Mouse short The Brave Little Tailor. In both cartoons Mickey must unexpectedly fight and kill a giant. One scene in this short tells you that The Brave Little Tailor was a remake of this short. The scene in which Mickey hides in a loaf of cheese and then the giant makes that cheese into a sandwich and eats Mickey is very similar to the scene in Brave Little Tailor in which Mickey hides in a batch of pumpkins that the giant eats. I think that Mickey getting swallowed once was good enough, I mean give the mouse a break! In conclusion this was a very good Mickey Mouse cartoon, and I hope to watch it again very soon.
From Ryan : This is a well done short. The animation is good and it's pretty funny. As Jerry Edwards pointed out above, it is similar to the later Mickey and the Beanstalk This is another one of those shorts that has those pesky orphans.
From Bill : Nicely done short, great animation, especially with Mickey on the giant's table, The size difference was well done, the giant was well drawn also. The gags of Mickey dodging the bowling ball sized peas and swimming through the drink the giant was having were clever. Good story. I know Ryan stated that this short had those "pesky Orphans" in it. I'm the opposite. I think they add a lot to the visual of the shorts they were in. They were cute, just like little Mickeys and in this short they were good and gave us a look at Mickey's warm side, telling the orphans a great bedtime story. I remember my cousin telling us stories like that when I was a kid. Even the ending when the "baby" Mickey in the highchair razzed him was cute. Good short.
From Gijs Grob : Mickey tells the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to his numerous nephews with him in the starring role. Here he meets his first giant. This giant is very well drawn, with great use of perspective and realistic details, especially in the hands. This must have been the closest the studio could come to the human form in 1933. The cartoon also contains many shadows. Both features are a testimony of Disney's urge to master more naturalism in his cartoons. Nevertheless, one can see that the animators were still struggling with such elaborate designs. The giant is not drawn very consistently, and some sequences are more convincing than others. The best and most beautiful scene is when Mickey ends up inside the Giant's mouth. Mickey would deal with giants again in The Brave Little Tailor (1938) and in Mickey and the Beanstalk (1947), a re-telling of the same fairy tale.
From Jose : I saw the colorized version of this cartoon. The most wonderful part is when Mickey enter in the mouth of the giant This cartoon is one of my favorites.

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