User Reviews

Mickey Mouse and the gang go and play some polo.On Mickey's team there are Donald Duck (on a mule), Goofy and The Big Bad Wolf.They're playing against some well known comedians of that time.That team includes Charles Chaplin, Harpo Marx (on an ostrich), Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.The referee is Jack Holt.Also in the audience there are some big names such as Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, W.C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Greta Garbo and Harold Lloyd.The Disney characters include Pluto, Clarabelle Cow and the Three Little Pigs.It's a lot of fun to watch The Big Bad Wolf huff and puff and blow.There are many other funny parts in this Disney short, like when Hardy is under his overweight horse and Laurel not being too helpful.Or when Donald loses his nerve (again).And it's fun to watch Chaplin with his cane and Harpo with the ostrich.In David Hand's Mickey's Polo Team from 1936 Walt Disney is the voice of Mickey Mouse and Clarence Nash is the voice of Donald Duck.This cartoon is a fine piece of history.

It's a polo match that pits Movie Stars vs Mickey Mousers. Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx, and Charlie Chaplin are the movie stars. Mickey leads The Goof, Big Bad Wolf, and Donald Duck. There are a myriad of movie and cartoon characters in the stands.

This is an animated colored short. Its greatest value is that it's like a time capsule of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It has many of the classic Disney characters and the old Hollywood stars of that era. It's also a load of fun.

one of the better 1936 mickeys. mm hardly appears in it though, the main player is donald duck as he battles it out with harpo marx, and he swallows the ball and becomes a target for the rest of the players. The laurel and hardy characters are spot on and overall the animation is a treat. Available on dvd now along with all the mm 1935-1938 shorts.

Had this Disney cartoon been made a decade later, this would have probably been seen as a rather poor cartoon, as the plot itself and gags aren't all that great. However, for the 1930s (when most short cartoons were pretty lame compared to those from the golden days at Looney Tunes and MGM), it's pretty good. The animation and colors in particular are very nice. Plus, from a historical point of view it's both a great opportunity to see the older style Goofy and Donald characters which look far different from how they look now. And, also from a historical standpoint, it's a great chance to see many of the stars of the day lampooned as cartoon characters--making many cameos (that, again, aren't all that funny). You'll see many recognizable ones such as Clark Gable, W. C. Fields, Chaplin, Harpo Marx and Shirley Temple, but also many of the older stars who are unfortunately forgotten today, such as Harold Lloyd, Jack Holt and Edna May Oliver. Not super funny, but fascinating and worth a peek.

This is an OK celebrity cartoon. The early versions of the Disney characters oppose a group of early stars in a polo match. Things move a hundred miles an hour. The game is rather pointless, just an excuse to show off the characters. So we don't really have much of a plot like some of the similar efforts. The caricatures are a little weaker than some I've seen, but it's still worth seeing.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.

MICKEY'S POLO TEAM (Mickey, the Goof, the Big Bad Wolf & Donald Duck) enter the field against some of Hollywood's funniest fellows - Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx & Charlie Chaplin.

This very enjoyable little film features excellent animation and lots of laughs. The Disney artists get to display their skill at caricature, with all of the movie stars being perfectly recognizable. Frenzied & flustered, Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash) dominates the proceedings, leaving no doubt as to who was the top toon at the Disney Studio. It's humorous to watch the various Disney characters act with complete equality alongside their Hollywood counterparts - the unspoken, and very true, assertion being that their fame was as big as any flesh & blood inhabitant of Tinsel Town.

Notice how all of the riders have a mount (not always a horse) which is a reflection of the player's personality - the Big Bad Wolf and his steed are both dastardly, Donald and his mule are both stubborn, Harpo's ostrich is as zany as his master. Babe Hardy's frustrations with his gigantic horse are very funny.

The fun isn't confined to the field - there's plenty going on in the stands. Hollywood's biggest star, Shirley Temple, is there with her buddies the Three Little Pigs. Irritable W. C. Fields is seated with Greta Garbo, Harold Lloyd, Eddie Cantor & Charles Laughton - costumed, naturally, for his title role in THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1933). Meanwhile, Edna May Oliver is regretting her decision to sit alongside Max Hare, and, most hilariously of all, Clarabelle Cow is taking advantage of her close proximity to do a little sweet romancing with Clark Gable.

Polo was very popular among the Movie Capital's male celebrities, including Walt Disney. It not only provided great exercise & excitement, but also a kind of elitism, as only the wealthy had both the leisure & the funds necessary to devote to the sport. Jack Holt, who serves as referee in the cartoon, was an avid real life polo player.

It was originally planned to depict Will Rogers as part of the Hollywood team, but after his tragic death in Alaska on August 15, 1935, the Disney animators replaced him with Harpo.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.

I've never seen humans drawn so ugly. Not so much the Polo players like Laurel and Hardy (I always like them) but more the spectators in the audience. I don't know who that huge-headed, bulbous-eyed guy was supposed to be but he freaked me out.

Anyways, it's Disney stars vs Real Actors in this Polo match (A rather odd choice of sport. Was it popular in the '30s?) and nothing really funny happens. Sure there are a couple of clever moments but, like far too many Disney toons, it's all a set-up for everything to come crashing down.

Vividly animated as it may be, it's still a bit too boring and doesn't hold up against Looney Tunes when it comes to hijinks.

This is possibly the second-most caricature laden short (after Mother Goose Goes Hollywood) that Disney ever did and they aren't just playing polo, either. Half the fun is spotting familiar faces (cartoon characters and caricatures of celebrities), while the other half is watching the strangest polo match ever put on celluloid! Every time I've seen this one, I wonder what various celebrities thought of this one, if they saw it at all, particularly what Clark Gable may have thought! Very visual, with the gags principally being sight gags and the Disney principals taking a back seat to the caricatures. Well worth watching. Most recommended.

Now playing is a polo match between "Movie Stars" and "Mickey's Mousers." On the stars team is Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin. Playing for Mickey's team is Mickey, "The Goof," Big Bad Wolf and Donald Duck. Jack Holt is the referee.

In the crowd are such luminaries as Porky Pig, W. C. Fields, Minnie Mouse, Eleanor Roosevelt, Shirley Temple and a bunch of other famous people. That is fun to look at, trying to spot as many people and caricatures as you know.

The players are introduced. Those intros are funny. For instance, Harpo comes out on a ostrich, Chaplin uses a cane instead of a polo stick, etc.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the rest of the cartoon, the last 65 percent, is not very funny. We see some Laurel & Hardy bits, some Harpo stuff and Donald Duck get pummeled by everyone. None of it is very funny.

A good premise and a great start but overall, a disappointing animated short.

I can't help but to think of the making of the short and Walt Disney's obsession with the game of polo. In reviewing an article by Wade Sampson titled Horsing Around with Walt, we are reminded that it was directed by Dave Hand, who had to be preoccupied with is upcoming directorial responsibilities for Snow White. Additionally, I learned that there was supposed to be considerable footage devoted to a caricature of Will Rogers, a polo-playing pal of Walt Disney. The fact that Rogers died in a plane crash while Mickey's Polo Team was in production led to his caricature being removed from the cartoon. The short emerged as a homage to polo in Hollywood in the 1930s and the many entertainers who played or attended the matches. The actor's used to have their polo handicaps published in Variety. The hanks on the field of Mickey's Polo Team were indicative of the feelings about the game in Los Angeles at the time. The fact that I, too, am a polo fan might shade my judgment of the short, but I found it very amusing.

This is a crazy cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and his friends who face off against a team of celebrities in a polo match. It's nice seeing the celebrities represented in this cartoon - Laurel and Hardy, Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin. There are even familiar-looking faces in the audience stands as well including Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, the Three Little Pigs and the Hare from Tortoise and the Hare.

Plenty of slapstick stuff, but the appearance of the many characters seem to be the only fun thing about this cartoon short. Other than that, the story just consists of lots of running and around and chaotic game-play. Not much entertainment here.

Grade D+

CALLING ON HIS own personal experiences with the gentlemanly game of Polo, Mr. Disney no doubt had the inspiration for the premise for this Mickey picture. Polo, long the province of the wealthy, was an activity in which both the producers and stars participated-if only to prove that they can!

THERE IS NO doubt that the subject matter of also hearkened to the older title MICKEY'S GALA PREMIER (1936); which was a well receiver and box office $ucce$$. It also was a veritable "Who's Who" of cartoon caricature; boasting of over 50 lampooning drawings.

IN THE CHOICE of the rosters of actors vs. animation, comedy ruled. Therefore, the "Live Action" people was composed of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Harpo. Mickey joined forces with the Big Bad Wolf, the Goof (Goofy) and rising star, Donald Duck.

IN AN EFFORT to extend the laughs, each player might have a mount, which both resembled its rider; as well as taking on some of the riders' peculiar idiosyncrasies. For example: Donald Duck rode a donkey, Laurel had a long faced & scruffy haired look-alike, Hardy's was a stout & fully-figured draft-horse and Harpo rode an Ostrich, complete with top hat and blonde fright wig.

THE MATCH WAS capably refereed by rugged Western-action star, Jack Holt; being a perfect neutral and authority figure.

IN SELECTING THE membership of the Gallery who viewed the proceedings, the bleachers were filled with caricatured versions of stars of the day, interspersed with a selection of 'veteran' characters from previous Disney offerings. For example, little Miss Shirley Temple is seated and cheering along with The Three Little Pigs.

THE RESULTING GAGS were executed in perfect timing to coincide with the particular brand of humor that was specialty of that character. Once again, Chaplin & horse skipped and had a bit of business with the goal posts, Laurel & Hardy had a protracted routine in helping Ollie to remount his pony, Harpo & Ostrich both silently mimed their reactions to the moving scrum of mounted players' charging and reversing field.

FINALLY, BY THIS time in 1936, Disney was doing his MICKEY shorts (and all others) in Technicolor; as he had been doing his SILLY SYMPHONIES for several years. The color work here is as fine as any and aids in amplifying both the action and the Fun.

AND ISN'T THAT the bottom line?

One of my personal favourite Disney cartoons without a doubt. I have always had a soft for the Disney cartoons, and Mickey's Polo Team is no exception. Apart from Donald and Goofy looking cruder than they do usually, though not as much as On Ice, the animation is colourful and fluid(Big Bad Wolf is the best animated of the characters), and the music is typically energetic and action enhancing. The story is simple, but goes by quickly with not a dull moment. As with Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, the gags and the characters are the real stars of Mickey's Polo Tem, plus it was really interesting to see Disney's characters and caricatures of famous stars of the time playing polo. I enjoyed seeing Mickey(though he doesn't get much to do), Goofy, Donald, Clarabelle Cow and Big Bad Wolf, as well as caricatures of Clark Gable, Shirley Temple, Harpo Marx, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Robin. Stars of the likes of Peculiar Penguins, Who Killed Cock Robin and The Golden Touch can also be seen. The gags overall are not as clever or as hilarious as Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, but there is still much to enjoy. The best of the laughs come from Laurel & Hardy(reminiscent of their films but still very funny) and Donald(very outlandish), though it was interesting to see Charlie Chaplin with his cane rather than a polo stick and the Clark Gable vs.Clarabelle Cow moments are amusing, likewise with Harpo. Overall, simply great. 9.5/10 Bethany Cox