August 22, 2013
Disney and Carroll
A Wonderful Collaboration
By Kelvin Cedeno
After the success of the 'Alice Comedies,' Charles
B. Mintz (husband of Margaret J. Winkler and new head of Winkler
Pictures) requested that the Disney Brothers come up with a series
of fully-animated shorts starring a new character. The 'Alice
Comedies' were getting too costly, and Mintz had heard that
Universal Studios was interested in purchasing their first cartoon
series. Thus Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was born. Disney would be
involved in creating 10 Oswald shorts, but there was trouble afoot.
Mintz felt Disney should take a 20% pay cut despite the massive
success of the character. The Disney Brothers broke their ties with
Mintz and Universal and took one sole animator with them: Ub Iwerks.
Together, they would create a new cartoon character that would
eclipse both Alice and Oswald in terms of popularity and become an
icon beloved the world over.
Part 2: Thru the Mirror (1936)

After his debut in 1928's Steamboat Willie,
Mickey Mouse was a Hollywood star if ever there was one. His 83rd
short was one that proved Disney just could never shake Lewis
Carroll off his mind: Thru the Mirror. Released on May 30,
1936, the film shared a similarity with Alice's Wonderland in
that while it wasn't a genuine adaptation, the influences were
notable. A few years earlier, Disney was attempting a feature film
adaptation of Carroll's books that mixed live-action with animation,
but the project was not meant to be (more on that in the next part
of this series). It obviously didn't stop him from dabbling with
Carroll's ideas, however.
Although this is only inspired by the Alice books
and not really based on them, the concept of putting Mickey Mouse in
a classic story adaptation is very familiar territory. The most
obvious examples of these would be 1983's Mickey's Christmas
Carol and 1991's The Prince and the Pauper, but Mickey
would also appear in similar (if less ambitious) adaptations during
Walt's time. In 1936, he starred in Gulliver Mickey, inspired
by Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. That short in many
ways acts as a companion piece to Thru the Mirror as both
feature Mickey reading the source material in question at the
beginning and later envisioning himself in a loosely-based version
of said story. He would later appear in 1938's Brave Little
Tailor based on the 'Valiant Little Tailor' fairy tale by the
Brothers Grimm. In more recent years, the television series 'Mickey
Mouse Works' had segments based on The Nutcracker and
Around the World in Eighty Days. Finally, in a more ambitious
take akin to his 80s and 90s shorts, Mickey would star with Donald
and Goofy in a 2004 direct-to-video version of The Three
Musketeers.
The opening shot of Thru the Mirror features
Mickey having fallen asleep after reading Through the Looking
Glass. Choosing this book as opposed to Alice in Wonderland
is an interesting decision for a few reasons. For one, traveling
through a mirror feels less tied to Carroll than falling down a
rabbit hole does, allowing the short to stand on its own. Second,
despite borrowing that method of travel from the sequel, this short
has far more in common with the first novel in that Mickey's size is
altered by food, and playing cards are a prominent element (as
opposed to chess pieces).

Thru the Mirror is essentially broken up into
thirds with the first third consisting of a series of gags as Mickey
explores the house. In true Carroll spirit, these gags find their
humor in either unexpected opposites (eating the shell of a nut
after tossing out the interior) or in puns (Mickey finding the
aforementioned scenario 'nuts'). All of the objects in Mickey's
household are personified, the only other real link to Looking
Glass as opposed to Wonderland.
The middle third, likely a nod to Fred Astaire, is
where the marriage of visuals and music really comes into play and
is perhaps the most memorable portion of this short. Astaire had
starred with Ginger Rogers in the Irving Berlin musical Top Hat
to great acclaim the previous year, so it doesn't seem out of the
question that he was on the minds of the Disney animators and story
team. Coincidentally, author Graham Greene had this to say about
Astaire in his Spectator review of 1936's Follow the Fleet:
'Mr. Astaire is the nearest approach we are ever likely to have to a
human Mickey Mouse; he might have been drawn by Mr. Walt Disney,
with his quick physical wit, his incredible agility. He belongs to a
fantasy world almost as free as Mickey's from the law of Gravity.'
The whole middle act essentially feels like a Silly
Symphony as the music and visuals are tied together tightly and take
center stage with virtually no dialogue. Mickey himself has less
than 10 lines of dialogue in the entire short, most of it coming
from the first third. It further strengthens the notion that film is
a visual medium and what you show far exceeds what you say. Looking
at the elaborate dance routines calls to mind some of the grandiose
numbers choreographed by Buzby Berkley who was behind such films as
42nd Street and Footlight Parade, and would later
choreograph the full 'If I Only Had A Brain' scene in The Wizard
of Oz which was later pared down. Walt regularly screened
live-action films for his team so they could study various
filmmaking techniques. With that in mind, they likely viewed some of
Burkley's films to get a feel for staging.
The Queen of Hearts, as depicted in this short, is
clearly meant to be Greta Garbo. This actually marked her third
appearance in a Disney short, the first being Mickey's Gala
Premiere from 1931. Her design in that film was done none other
by Joe Grant ' his first job at Disney. Just four months before
Thru the Mirror was released, Garbo was briefly seen as a
spectator in Mickey's Polo Team. Her last appearance would be
in the 1938 Silly Symphony Mother Goose Goes Hollywood as See Saw
Margery Daw. The King of Hearts, just like his wife, is based on
a notable Hollywood name, Charles Laughton in this case. He won the
Oscar for portraying the title character in 1933's The Private
Life of Henry the VIII, and it's that portrayal that influenced
the King of Hearts. A more literal spoof of Laughton's portrayal
would be found alongside the aforementioned Garbo cameo in
Mickey's Polo Team.

While having Garbo and Laughton appear here was
surely meant to be a wink to 1936 audiences, it does actually come
with psychological implications. Psychologists have surmised that
the human mind doesn't conjure up completely new faces while
dreaming. Instead, it will take from real life ones it has seen,
even if the results may be distorted. With that in mind, it's
possible Mickey had recently watched The Private Life of Henry
the VIII along with one of Garbo's films recently, thus their
presence in his dream.
The last third of the short, in contrast to the
comedic beginning and musical middle, consists of action. It's
interesting to note that unlike the heroine of Carroll's books,
Mickey isn't just an observer. He more or less is in the beginning,
but he becomes a musical star in the middle and then an action hero
in the end. This sort of transition in his character was pretty
common in his 1930s shorts. Often they would start with him as a
simple, well-meaning person who would later be thrust into a
situation he would have to fight himself out of (1933's Ye Olden
Days is a prime example of this). Mickey doesn't feel too
threatened by either the King or the playing cards. In fact, he's
smiling through most of it, thus highlighting the fact that this is
a dream with no real peril.
The climax of Thru the Mirror calls to mind
the climax from 1961's Babes in Toyland. In that film,
Disney's first completely live-action one, a shrunken Tom Piper must
use his wits to battle the dastardly Barnaby. He uses small items as
creative defenses similarly to what Mickey does in this short.
There's also a certain level of irony on display here in that Mickey
is legitimately mouse-sized during this adventure and is thus
experiencing his own house from the perspective of his fellow kin
should they exist in this world the same way Goofy and Pluto
co-exist.
The lasting nature of this short has not been lost
on the Disney Company. The gag with the two gloves would later be
imitated by the Genie during the 'Friend Like Me' sequence of 1992's
Aladdin, while the equally iconic image of Mickey using the
cards as a peacock's tail has been used in several Disney television
promos. The music featured during the glove gag may come across as
strongly familiar to children of the late 80s and early 90s as it
was used for the closing bumper of the 'Walt Disney Mini Classics
VHS collection.' Various elements of Thru the Mirror have
also been cherry picked for video games such as Disney's Magical
Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse in 2002 and Epic Mickey in
2010.

Thru the Mirror, being one of the more popular
Mickey Mouse shorts, has appeared on several home video releases
throughout the years. It was part of 1988's 'Mickey's Magical World'
VHS compilation (part of the Walt Disney Mini Classics collection).
A decade later, the compilation 'The Spirit of Mickey' would again
utilize this short. Because of its obvious ties to Alice in
Wonderland, it has appeared on several releases of the 1951
feature: the 1995 Archive Collection laserdisc, the 2004 Masterpiece
Edition DVD, the 2010 Un-Anniversary Edition DVD, and on the 2011 60th
Anniversary Edition Blu-ray (the latter of which oddly uses the new
title card designed for the 'Get A Laugh' re-edit). Finally, it has
appeared on non-Alice DVDs twice: 2001's 'Mickey Mouse in
Living Color' (part of the Walt Disney Treasures series) and 2009's
"Walt Disney Animation Collection, Volume One: Mickey and the
Beanstalk.'
In the next part of this series, we'll be taking a
look at the culmination of Disney and Carroll's ideas with the
iconic 1951 animated feature film Alice in Wonderland.