May 6, 1938 – The Mickey Mouse Short Film Mickey’s Trailer Premieres in Theaters
“The worst is over – it’s all downhill from here!”
On May 6, 1938, the Mickey Mouse short Mickey’s Trailer was released to theaters. The short was directed by Ben Sharpsteen, and stars Walt Disney as the voice of Mickey Mouse, Clarence Nash as the voice of Donald Duck, and Pinto Colvig as the voice of Goofy. The short features many mechanical gags that are reminiscent of the early Mickey Mouse shorts.
The audience first sees Mickey’s trailer, in front of a picturesque background of the mountains. The door opens, and Mickey steps out in his nightgown, excited at the prospect of a beautiful day. He pulls a lever next to him, and the whole trailer begins to rattle as he goes back inside. Suddenly every bit of the trailer, from the white picket fence to the “lush green lawn”, folds back into the trailer. A car rolls out of the side, with Goofy sleeping in it; He awakens and slips into the front seat and gets ready to drive. The “picturesque” scenery folds up behind them and slips into the trailer, leaving behind a view of the city dump, with some refineries for good measure in the distance.
Mickey snatching some corn from a nearby field
As Goofy drives the trailer on a dirt road, he begins to sing “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” Inside the trailer, Mickey begins to fix breakfast, grabbing water from a nearby waterfall for the coffee, cutting some corn from nearby stalks, and, with Goofy tempting it with some hay, getting some milk from a wandering cow. Also inside the trailer is Donald, fast asleep on the top bunk. The alarm clock goes off, which is rigged to pull away his covers and force him to get up. Slowly he tries, but ends up falling back asleep. Mickey, from the kitchen, pushes a button, which turns the bedroom into a bathroom, and Donald excitedly enters the bathtub and begins to sing a nonsensical song as some robins watch at the window.
Mickey pushes another button, and the bathroom becomes a dining room, and Mickey sounds the alarm for breakfast. Goofy leaves his post as driver to get his food – with the car driving into an area marked with a “road closed” sign. As the car stumbles over several bumps in the road, each bump makes part of Goofy’s breakfast disappear. He watches Mickey and Donald enjoy their corn on the cob, and as he reaches for a cob, he accidentally sticks his fork in a light socket, which pops all the kernels from the cob. So he has popcorn for breakfast.
Donald clings to the phone for dear life as he is projected through the window
Mickey finally notices that there is nobody in the car, and turns to Donald, asking who is driving. Goofy responds that he is, and it suddenly dawns on him that he should be in the car driving. When he dives out the window to get back in the driver’s seat, he unwittingly knocks the connector loose from the trailer, sending Donald and Mickey flying the other way on the perilous path. Inside, the pair are knocked about as they continue sliding backwards on the one-way path. A truck slowly climbs its way up the mountain pass, but they fortunately miss it as the trailer uses the fence as a track. Donald tries to use the phone to call for help, only to have to cling to it for dear life as he is outside the window.
Just as the two think they’ve avoided trouble after a curve, they hear the sound of a train, and look out to see it fast approaching the bridge. Donald’s kneels to pray. They narrowly miss the train as they cross the bridge; both breathe a sigh of relief, only to see that they’ll be coming across it again, and again they narrowly miss it. As they fall off a curve and fly down the side of a mountain, they luckily get connected to the car again. Goofy informs them that he got them down safe and sound, unaware of the adventure they had without him.
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