Clock Cleaners is a color Mickey Mouse animated short. It was released in 1937.
Synopsis
Mickey, Donald, and Goofy each face different obstacles while cleaning a giant clock tower. Mickey tries to remove a sleepy stork that is nesting in the gears while the main spring causes trouble for Donald. Later, a conk on the head by a mechanical bell ringer causes Goofy (who mistook it for an actual person) to dazedly stumble along a high ledge and through a perilous trek, while Mickey does his best to make sure his pal doesn't take a nasty fall.
Characters
- Mickey Mouse (voiced by Walt Disney)
- Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash)
- Goofy (voiced by Pinto Colvig)
- Pluto (only his barks in the censored version, voiced by Pinto Colvig)
- Stork
Releases
Television
- One Hour in Wonderland
- Walt Disney Presents, episode #7.4: "Donald's Silver Anniversary"
- The Mouse Factory, episode #1.15: "Back To Nature"
- The New Mickey Mouse Club, episode C-011, January 31, 1977
- Walt Disney's Mickey and Donald, episode #65
- Good Morning, Mickey, episode #56
- Goofy's Guide to Success
- Mickey's Mouse Tracks, episode #77
- Donald's Quack Attack, episode #60
- The Ink and Paint Club, episode #1.22: "Classic Mickey"
- Have a Laugh!, episode #10
- Treasures from the Disney Vault, June 28, 2016 (Censored)
Home video
VHS
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Mickey's Crazy Careers
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics - Special Edition: Fun on the Job!
- Everybody Loves Mickey
Laserdisc
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics - Special Edition: Happy Summer Days/Fun on the Job!/The Goofy World of Sports
DVD
- Everybody Loves Mickey
- Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color (Censored)
- Bonus on The Great Mouse Detective (Gold Collection) (Censored)
- Walt Disney's Funny Factory, Vol. 3: Goofy (Censored)
- Have a Laugh!: Volume 2
- Epic Mickey Collector's Edition Bonus DVD (Censored)
Streaming
- Disney+, November 12, 2019 (Partially Censored)
Trivia
- This short was ranked #27 in The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals, a book by animation historian Jerry Beck.
- This short was featured as a transition level in Epic Mickey.
- This short was mentioned in the remake of Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse.
- When visiting Mickey's house in Disneyland in California, this cartoon will often times play in the living room in black and white.
Censorship and Controversy
During the 1990s, Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association forced Walmart to discontinue the sale of the VHS tape Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Fun on the Job, which contained this short. The reason for this was that during his argument with the main spring, Donald Duck allegedly shouts what instead sounds like curse words at the mainspring (Donald actually says "Says who?" and calls the spring a "snake in the grass"). These were misinterpreted as profanity by most people due to Donald's unintelligible "duck voice" provided by Clarence Nash. It should be noted that Disney would not have been allowed to release the cartoon in theaters if such foul language were actually used; the Hays Code was heavily enforced since 1934 and would have prevented Disney from doing so.
Due to this controversy, when the cartoon was included on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD set Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Donald's line was replaced with the line "Awww, nuts!", taken from On Ice (the edit is made obvious because the viewer can hear Pluto barking when Donald says this), and the "snake in the grass" line was also redubbed with Donald's angry gibberish. This same edit also occurs on the DVD release of The Great Mouse Detective (which includes the cartoon as a bonus feature), the Funny Factory with Goofy DVD, and the Epic Mickey Collector's Edition bonus DVD, and was also present when the short was broadcast as part of Treasures from the Disney Vault on Turner Classic Movies.
However, the scene was shown with its original dialogue in the TV special One Hour in Wonderland, which is included as a bonus feature on the Alice in Wonderland: Masterpiece Edition DVD. Additionally, the Have a Laugh! broadcasts of the cartoon on the Disney Channel and the Have a Laugh!: Volume 2 DVD have reinstated the original line (though a different title card was made for this release).
More recently, on Disney+'s version of the cartoon, which uses the 2001 restoration from the Walt Disney Treasures DVD set Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Donald's "Says who?" line was restored, but the "snake in the grass" line was still replaced with Donald's angry gibberish.
Have a Laugh! changes
The following scenes were deleted from the short release due to time constraints:
- Donald initially starting to wash the mainspring, but gets entangled in it.
- Mickey's entire struggle with the stork.
- Donald's argument with the mainspring.
- Part of Donald's body swaying in a ticking sound.
- The first time the Lady Liberty bell ringer rings the bell and the second time the Father Time ringer rings it.
Gallery