Get a Horse! is a 2013 black-and-white/color traditional/CGI hybrid Walt Disney Animation Studios short film. The short features archival voice recordings of Walt Disney as Mickey Mouse.[1] It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film of 2013, but lost to Mr. Hublot. It was also released in theaters on November 27, 2013 with Frozen.
Synopsis[]
The film begins as a typical 1920s black and white Mickey Mouse cartoon, with Mickey Mouse walking from his house and spotting Horace Horsecollar pulling a hay wagon with all their friends playing music. He hops on the wagon and helps Minnie Mouse and Clarabelle Cow onto the wagon. Just then, Peg-Leg Pete shows up in his jalopy, his horn bellowing "Make way for the future!" Pete spots Minnie and gives her a flirty gaze, but Mickey puts Clarabelle in the gaze in Minnie's place and Clarabelle plays the bagpipes with her tail and udder, causing Pete's viewing line to droop in disgust and horror. Mickey then switches Minnie back and they laugh. Angry at being pranked, Pete snatches Minnie and rams his car into the wagon, sending Mickey flying towards the screen. Seeing Mickey bounce off the fabric, Pete hurls him and Horace harder into the screen until they burst through the screen and land in the colored, CGI-animated modern world. There, it's on a stationary point of view in one take for the whole short.
As Pete taunts Mickey from inside the screen and closes the hole in the screen, Mickey tries to get back into his world, pulling back the curtains to reveal a wider screen. Horace then walks onto the stage wearing a Captain America t-shirt and carrying a cellphone, Milk Duds and popcorn. Mickey decides to use Horace as a mock biplane to fly around the theater and fire at Pete with Milk Duds. When they crash land onto the stage, Mickey finds the smartphone Horace brought (and apparently stole) onto the stage, so he calls Pete on his candlestick phone and Horace sprays foam from a fire extinguisher into the smartphone and out from Pete's phone.
Pete's car then lands in a frozen lake and the screen fills with water, giving Mickey the idea to poke a hole in the screen with his tail and let the water leak out, causing Pete, Minnie and the other cartoon animals to flood out onto the stage. Mickey and Minnie's reunion is short-lived, however, as Pete gives chase to the characters in and out of the screen until he snatches Minnie again, punches Mickey onto a support beam and nails the screen shut. Horace and the others decide to swing from the beam and try to break through the screen like a wrecking ball, but the plan only manages to flip the screen upside-down, causing Pete to fall from the ground.
Mickey flips it again and Pete lands on the ground, his car crashing down on him. Getting an idea, Minnie encourages Mickey to flip the screen again, this time having Pete land on a cactus, which sets off a chain of events. First, Pete gets electrocuted on some telephone cables, then he has his face get hit by all the steps on a ladder. Then he lands his rear end on a pitchfork, then he falls onto a seesaw, where he gets hit on the head by numerous tools. A sledgehammer then rams the pitchfork deeper into his rear. Finally, the sledgehammer falls on the opposite side of the seesaw, where Pete is launched and lands face first in his jalopy.
Horace, Mickey and Minnie begin to laugh hysterically at Pete's pain. Suddenly, Horace's hand gets stuck behind the screen due to him pounding the screen. Mickey tries to pull him out, but only succeeds by spinning the screen horizontally. To Mickey's realization, it re-winded the scene. Seeing this as an opportunity, Mickey and Horace begin spinning the screen around until Pete is completely knocked out.
Minnie then drives Pete's car with Pete in tow and completely tears the screen down, revealing the black-and-white world in color for the very first time. Mickey and his friends dance for a moment and re-enter their world. The horn that was on Pete's car tells an unconscious Pete to "Get a horse!" before Mickey and his friends bring down a new screen, then Mickey waves goodbye to the audience. During the closing iris, Pete, comes to and tries to get back in through the screen, only to get his head stuck. Seconds later, the flap on Pete's pants open up to reveal the words "The End" on his butt and Pete bellows "Hey!!" as the screen cuts to the credits.
After the credits, the castle is in black-and-white and Clarabelle jumps over it, making the arch with milk.
Characters[]
- Mickey Mouse (voiced by Walt Disney, Clarence Nash (uncredited), Jimmy MacDonald (uncredited); all from archival recordings)
- Minnie Mouse (voiced by Marcellite Garner (from archival recordings), Walt Disney (uncredited, from archival recordings), Russi Taylor)
- Horace Horsecollar (vocal effects by Hal Smith (uncredited, from archival recordings))
- Clarabelle Cow
- Hay Wagon Band
- Pete (voiced by Billy Bletcher (from archival recordings), Will Ryan)
- Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (cameo)
Release[]
Get A Horse! debuted June 11, 2013 at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in Annecy, France.
It made its U.S. premiere on August 9, 2013 at the 2013 D23 Expo and theatrically accompanied Walt Disney Animation Studios' Frozen, which was released on November 27, 2013.
Home video releases[]
- DVD
- Frozen
- Frozen: Sing-Along Edition
- Blu-ray
- Frozen
- Walt Disney Animation Studios Shorts Collection
- Celebrating Mickey
Streaming[]
The short was added to Disney+ on November 12, 2021 as part of Disney+ Day. Until then, it was only available as part of the Walt Disney Animation Studios Shorts Collection on Netflix.
Production[]
Get a Horse! was conceived and directed by Lauren MacMullan (Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Simpsons), who became the first woman to solo direct a Disney animated film. She started working on the short after Wreck-It Ralph director Rich Moore told her that Disney was looking for some Mickey Mouse ideas for television. Being fond of the earliest Mickey Mouse shorts, mostly because of their simplicity and freshness, she decided on a style resembling the 1928/1929 animation. Produced in 18 months, its hand-drawn animation was supervised by Eric Goldberg and its computer animation by Adam Green. To achieve the 1920's look, aging and blur filters were added to the image, while for the CG part, they created new models, faithful to the character designs of that period.
It took about two weeks for the sound editors to edit Walt Disney's voice tracks to assemble the word "red" and make it sound like a surprised statement.
Archive audio re-usage[]
Active audio voice footage from various classic Disney cartoons were used in this short. Among them:
- The Gallopin' Gaucho (Minnie: "Help! Help! Help! Help!")
- The Barn Dance (some of Horace's whinnying)
- The Plowboy (Cow Moo)
- The Barnyard Battle (Pete: "Rowr!")
- Camping Out (Minnie: "Mickey,
look!") - Mickey's Service Station (Pete: "Hey!", Pete: "Yeah?!", Pete: "Who done dat?")
- Moving Day (Pete: "Too late!", Pete: "Hey,
you!Come back here!", Pete: "HEY!!!", some growls) - Alpine Climbers (Mickey: "
Eagle eggs!Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!Hot dog!") - Mickey's Circus (Mickey: "
Hey,get outta there!") - Mickey's Fire Brigade (Mickey: "Hey, fellers,
there's a woman up there!") - Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip (Pete: "It's you...", Pete: "All alone, without your
dog?", Pete: "I used to have a little cat once.", Pete: "Why, you little...!", Pete: "Take that!", Pete: "WOAH-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!!!", Mickey: "I'll save ya!") - Mickey and the Seal (Mickey: "Goodbye! Goodbye, little feller!"; some laughs)
- Mickey Steps Out (Mickey: "Minnie!"; some laughs, Minnie: "Mickey! Where are you?")
- The Gorilla Mystery, Puppy Love (Mickey: "Minnie!")
- Mickey's Parrot (Mickey: "Oh, my gosh!")
- The Moose Hunt (Mickey: [gasp!])
- Mickey in Arabia (Mickey: "Alley-oop!")
- The Klondike Kid (Pete: "Huh?")
- Gulliver Mickey (Mickey: "OW!")
- Mickey's Steam-Roller (Mickey: "Ha ha! Want some candy?")
- Orphan's Benefit (Mickey: "Attaboy!")
- Lonesome Ghosts (Mickey: "
Thetelephone!") - Brave Little Tailor (Mickey: "Whoopie!")
- Moose Hunters (Mickey: "Hot dog!", Goofy: "Moo
-Hoo!") - The Worm Turns (Pete: "I knew I'd get ya!")
- Officer Duck (Pete: "Daddy?
Aw gee. He thinks I'm his old man.", "Thislittlepiggy had none.", "Sure, anything for me oldpal", "Whee!") - Donald Gets Drafted (Pete: "Company, dismissed!")
- Thru the Mirror (Mickey: "Hello.")
- Mickey's Rival (Mickey: "Here, bully-bully-bully!", Minnie: "Oh, Mickey!")
- The Pointer (Mickey: "It's you!", Mickey: "Now, now, wait a minute, mister
Bear!") - The Dognapper (Mickey: "Ha!
Your game's up, Pete!") - Mickey's Mechanical Man (Mickey: "Oh, gee, Minnie.
Please, don't ever honk that horn again."; some laughs) - For Pete's laughs, audio from Two-Gun Mickey, Shanghaied, and Mickey's Christmas Carol was used.
- In Gulliver Mickey, Mickey howls in pain when one of the orphans stabs him. In Get a Horse!, Pete uses this howl during the chain of events.
Certain lines of archival dialogue from several different Disney cartoon are pieced together in the editing process in order to form new lines of dialogue in this cartoon, for example Pete's line of dialogue "All alone, without your little pal!" uses audio footage from Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip and Officer Duck pieced together. Horace also uses archive audio of Hal Smith as Philippe from Beauty and the Beast for one instance of his laughter.
Trivia[]
- This is the first Walt Disney Animation Studios short film to be produced in a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, unlike the short films which are usually produced in 1.85:1.
- Thus, it is also the first Mickey Mouse production to be filmed in that expansive widescreen ratio ratio, not counting the Donald Duck and Humphrey Bear shorts from the mid-1950s, nor the Adventures in Music short "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom" (1953).
- This is the only Walt Disney Animation Studios short film to be produced in two aspect ratios: 2.35:1 and 1.33:1. The film begins in 2.35:1 and color when the Walt Disney Animation Studios logo is shown, and then switches to a smaller 1.33:1 aspect ratio for the black and white sequence. When Mickey and Horace pops out of the screen, the film switches back to 2.35:1 and color.
- Similarly, Walt Disney Animation Studios previously did this dual aspect ratio shift from 1:85:1 to 2:35:1 as a storytelling device in the Disney Animated Canon's Brother Bear 10 years prior. This is also the first Disney theatrical production to be produced in two aspect ratios since Enchanted which was released 6 years prior.
- This is the first appearance of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in a Disney animated production (outside the Epic Mickey franchise) in more than 84 years. It is also the first Walt Disney Animation Studios production in which Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse have interacted.
- This cartoon is the first Mickey Mouse theatrical cartoon since Runaway Brain (1995), as well as the first shown theatrically before a Disney animated feature (in this case, Frozen) since The Prince and the Pauper (1990) which accompanied The Rescuers Down Under.
- Horace Horsecollar wears a Captain America shirt in the film.
- The candy that is used as ammo in the short is Hershey's Milk Duds.
- Get a Horse! won the Annie Award For Best Animated Short.
- Russi Taylor is the only current voice actor to reprise her role here, using snippets of her recording and Marcellite Garner's.
- Similar to the first four Mickey shorts (Plane Crazy, The Gallopin' Gaucho, Steamboat Willie and The Barn Dance), Mickey and Minnie do not wear gloves.
- When Mickey uses Horace as a bomber plane, the "Storm" section from Rossini's "William Tell Overture" can be heard, possibly in tribute to its use in The Band Concert.
- This is the second animated short in the Disney studio relationship to have a stationary view in the animation in one take. The first is Luxo, Jr.
Errors[]
- When Minnie was running to the hay cart to see Mickey, Mickey's body was transparent for at least 3 frames.
- Horace's hay wagon's shadow briefly disappears for two frames.
- Horace's shadow briefly disappears three times when dancing.
- When Minnie goes back out of focus, her left ear was transparent.
- When Clarabelle drinks her milk, her right ear becomes transparent.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
References[]
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