Lonesome Ghosts is a Mickey Mouse short that was released on December 24, 1937.
Synopsis
Four ghosts, bored with having nobody around to scare, decide to look in the phone book and call some ghost exterminators to mess around with. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy arrive, are subject to the ghosts various pranks, and eventually scare them off when they crash into a mixture of flour and molasses that makes them look like really frightening trio of white slime monsters.
Characters
- Mickey Mouse (voiced by Walt Disney)
- Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash)
- Goofy (voiced by Pinto Colvig)
- Short Ghost (voiced by Billy Bletcher)
- Three other ghosts (voiced by Jack Bergman, Don Brodie, and Harry Stanton)
Legacy
The Lonesome Ghosts were originally planned to have been included as part of The Haunted Mansion alongside other Disney ghosts. They would appear in House of Mouse (including the direct-to-video film Mickey's House of Villains) and The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, and levels based on the short appeared in Mickey Mania and Epic Mickey.
Goofy's line, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts," would later be used in the Ghostbusters movies.
Releases
Television
- Disneyland, episode #1.1: "The Disneyland Story"
- Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, episode #15.11: "The Mickey Mouse Anniversary Show"
- The Mouse Factory, episode #4: "Spooks and Magic"
- The New Mickey Mouse Club, March 25, 1977
- The Wonderful World of Disney, episode #24.5: "Halloween Hall o' Fame"
- Good Morning, Mickey, episode #79
- A Disney Halloween
- Goofy's Guide to Success
- Sing Me a Story with Belle: "Sleepover"
- The Ink and Paint Club, episode #1.22: "Classic Mickey"
- The Ink and Paint Club, episode #1.55: "Oooh! Scary!"
- Have a Laugh!, episode #1
- Treasures from the Disney Vault, October 28, 2015
- Treasures from the Disney Vault, September 11, 2017
Home video
VHS
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- Mickey's Magical World
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Scary Tales
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Halloween Haunts
- Mickey's House of Villains
- Everybody Loves Mickey (non-U.S.)
- View Master Interactive Vision Disney's Cartoon Arcade
Laserdisc
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Scary Tales
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Donald's Scary Tales / Halloween Haunts
DVD
- Bonus on The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
- Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color
- Mickey's House of Villains
- Have a Laugh!: Volume 1
- Everybody Loves Mickey (non-U.S. release)
Streaming
- Disney+, November 12, 2019
Have a Laugh! changes
The following scenes were deleted from the short release due to time constraints:
- The opening scenes of the ghosts complaining about how bored they are; it opens with the ghosts looking over the ad in the phone book.
- The ghosts going over to dial the phone.
- Mickey's group asleep in the office.
- Mickey's group all exclaiming, "A customer!" when Mickey hangs up.
- The ghosts watching the exterminators arrive at their door, then disappearing.
- The ghost stalking Mickey sticking his fingers in the latter's shotgun so that it explodes and is destroyed; it cuts sloppily from Mickey aiming his gun at the ghost to the gun already destroyed by the ghost.
- Mickey opens a closet door the ghosts are hiding in and is flooded with spectral water that the ghosts use to surf on, with one riding in a motorboat on it.
- The entire second half of Donald's scene with the ghosts, including the numerous scenes of one ghost striking Donald on the rear with a wooden plank and Donald getting into a fight with this ghost and managing to punch the ghost so that it falls backwards and land an invisible pool of icy water.
- Goofy saying, "I ain't a-scared of no ghosts."
- The entire teasing scene with the ghost in the mirror.
- The scene with Goofy's alleged struggle with the ghost in the chest of drawers, including Goofy inadvertently strangling himself and then poking himself in the rear with a pin.
Trivia
- While this short is often compared to the Columbia Pictures Ghostbusters, it also heavily resembles the Filmation Ghostbusters. The comedic tone of the short, and the ghost exterminators using melee weapons to fight ghosts, are both reminiscent of the 1975 live action show. Owing to the more popular 1986 animated show are the fact that the ambulance the extermination team drive resembles the Ghost Buggy, while the headquarters of the exterminators resembles Ghost Command. Owing to both shows is the concept of anthropomorphic animals fighting ghosts (both shows had an anthropomorphic gorilla, while this short has an anthropomorphic mouse, duck and dog).
