Hickory Dickory Mickey

Alternate Titles

"Tic Tac Dans la Nuit" - France

"Die Schlaflose Nacht" - Germany

First television showing : January 13, 2001

Synopsis

Mickey promises to repay Goofy for a long ago favor by taking him to the airport early in the morning. So he has to borry Goofy's crazy alarm clock which in one way or another keeps him awake all night.

Characters

Mickey Mouse (Voice : Wayne Allwine)

Goofy

Bianca (cameo)

Pete (cameo)

Kangaroo (unnamed)

Credits

Writer : Robers Gannaway

Television

House of Mouse : "The Stolen Cartoons"

DVD

United States

Mickey's Magical Christmas : Snowed In at the House of Mouse

United Kingdom

Walt Disney's Laugh Factory with Mickey

France

Walt Disney's Rigolons avec Mickey

Germany

Walt Disney's Mickey's Spassfabrik

Comments

From Rich Bellacera : In this toon, Goofy calls Mickey and asks him to do him the favor of waking a 6:00am to pick him up and drive him to the airport. Mickey tries to weasel out, but Goofy reminds him of the debt Mick owed him. A flashback of of an old black and white toon where Pete, Mickey and Goofy looked as they had in the early days of Disney cartoons. Mickey was being held prisoner by Black Pete, whom Goofy knocked out with a sledge hammer, then used to break the prison wall releasing Mickey. When I saw Goofy with the rubber arms and legs and pie-eyes I really expected Mickey to call him "Dippy!" The rest of the cartoon involves Mickey's bout with an insessantly ticking alarm clock. Mickey's goldfish, Bianca, makes an appearance, sitting on Mickey's nightstand and at one point Mickey tries to drown the alarm clock in Bianca's bowl. Mickey even tries to smother the clock with pillows, which also cover poor Bianca. He even tries to send the clock, first back to Goofy, then to Australia, then back in time and finally to "Hades." Each time the clock returns eventually giving Mickey a surreal nightmare of explosions and such. Finally it is 6:00am and Mickey trudges out to Goofy's, picks him up and asks him "Which airport?" They proceed about a few feet when Goofy say, "The new one" and points across the street to the sprawling new Airport. Mickey kicks Goofy out of his car and throws his suitcases at him!

I thought the clock gag ran a bit long, but overall I liked it, perhaps because of the classic-looking animation, which I thought was a real treat. I give the toon an 8 out of 10.

Also, for those who don't know what Goofy said at the beginning of the call, it was "Hello Mickey, it's Goofy" and "oops!" ... backwards.

From Lee Suggs : Mickey has to make good on a promise he made to Goofy years ago. This was, of course, when Goofy broke Mickey out of prison when they were both black and white, pie-cut eyed characters. (I was thrilled that the animators did their research and drew Mickey and Goofy just like they looked in 1932.) Mickey's promise was that to repay Goofy he would take him to the airport at six a.m. (Another one of Mickey's talents, he's a prophet!) This all leads to Mickey borrowing Goofy's alarm clock to make sure he wakes up. What folllows is an assortment of wild and surrealistic gags revolving around Mickey worrying about waking up, and his irritation with Goofy's rather animated alarm clock. My favorite gag involved Mickey mailing the clock back to 1928, and it returning as a b/w cartoon clock from that era. What made this short really entertaining is the real struggle most of us have had, trying to sleep, when we have had to wake up very early. The wonderful gags and the clever ending make this one of the best "MouseWorks" shorts I've seen.

From Juan F. Lara : Gannaway created his trademark scenario of a world built to work against the main character. Mickey tried to drown out the clock's ticking. But the radio played only "the all-Tick station" and "the all-Tock station", while the TV had only "the Tick-Tock channel". In that same spirit everyone to whom Mickey would send that clock sent it back. The best gags in that funny sequence were the returns from Mars and from "Hades", because the returnees were off-stage. That left their appearances to your imagination, and made them menacing. Particularly the "Hades" one (I'm surprised the censors let that gag through.)

Most people have felt like the world was working against you once or more times. So it was easy to empathize with Mickey. The gags played off of Mickey's straightman persona very well. Mickey was a cypher trapped by things beyond his control. The setup also worked well because it played off of Mickey's reputation as the ultimate good guy. It's funny then to see Mickey caught in that embarrassing favor he owes Goofy. (Mickey was probably wrongly incarcerated in that flashback, but they left it open to speculate otherwise.)

Most of the gags were of Mickey trying to get rid of the clock. But twice they broke off from those gags for Mickey's nightmare sequences. Those scenes kept the short interesting to watch, and featured imaginative imagery. I liked the squash-and-stretch of the noisemakers that came in pairs, and the fluorescent colors used in Mickey's second nightmare. The alarm at the end of that nightmare fit Mickey's role as someone trapped and helpless from outside that nightmare fit Mickey's role as someone trapped and helpless from outside forces.

This short and "Donald's Halloweeen Scare" are the best MouseWorks shorts shown so far.

From Aaron : This has got to be one of my least favorite MMW Cartoons! This cartoon is pointless! Mickey seemed like a stupid airhead who had a bad temper. The talk about Mickey owing Goofy a favor was just a HUGE time waster. They didn't need to go and do this to Mickey! The cartoon didn't get any better when Mickey started going to bed! It was just mindless slapstick. Which is a fact. This is mostly a clock gag cartoon. SO they had a lot of time to fill. And they just decided to eat up time with a cartoon being about an annoying clock. The writers didn't seem to come up with any idea for Mickey. I happen to like Pinball Mickey a whole lot better.

By the way, the ending was also extremely stupid.

The clock gag ran way to long with its irritating noises and pointless channels. Also,the animation is the sloppiest. I was completely disatisatisfied. Let's hope that we see better MMW cartoons.

From Baruch Weiss : This short was humorous in the scenes of Goofy talking backwards in the phone and reminding Mickey of the favor he did for him years ago. Mickey promises to pay Goofy back even if it meant taking him to the airport at 6 AM. Then, he tells Goofy not to let him get out of it even if he makes up some excuse like his digital clock is broken. Moreover, Goofy asks what an airport and a digital clock are because, of course, such things did not exist back in those days (I mean the flashback) let alone Patrick Malone and this website where people can share their thoughts and feelings on the various Disney short subjects. Anyway back to the cartoon. Later on the plot got stale as it was similar to earlier cartoons, but I liked the part where the clock lands near a radio and dances to the music from "Steamboat Willie". In fact, in the premiere episode of House of Mouse (this cartoon is shown in that episode) Mickey leaves the club putting Donald in charge for awhile and he attempts, but obviously does not succeed, to entertain the audience by dressing up as Mickey from that cartoon. To conclude, Mickey awakes at 6 AM and takes Goofy to the airport only to find out that it was next door to goofy's house not that it is a bad thing. It sure would be nice if me and my family lived next door to O'Hare.

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