October 15, 1937 – The Mickey Mouse Short Film Clock Cleaners is Released to Theaters
“Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock…”
On October 15, 1937, the Mickey Mouse short film Clock Cleaners was released to theaters. The short was directed by Ben Sharpsteen, and stars Walt Disney as Mickey Mouse, Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, and Pinto Colvig as Goofy. The short is also notable for being edited; at one point, Donald yells “Says who?” to the spring mocking him, which was misconstrued in the 90s as Donald cursing. However, the Hays Code, adopted in 1930, would not have allowed such language in the first place.
At the top of a high clock tower, the bell rings three o’clock. Mickey is seen on the clock face, standing on the second hand and cleaning the numbers. Inside, Goofy is seen brushing the gears, and Donald grabs a mop to clean the main spring, even though there are several signs telling him to keep off the mainspring. As he cleans the spring, his mop gets caught, and as he pulls it loose, the spring uncoils, trapping Donald inside.
Even while sleeping, the stork is able to outwit Mickey as the mouse tries to throw the stork out of the clock tower
Mickey begins sweeping inside, and hears snoring from nearby gears. He spies a stork asleep in a nest above some gears, and tries to wake it. The stork ignores Mickey, continuing to sleep, and eluding the mouse with every move. The stork then throws Mickey out the window. As this happens, Donald attempts to put the spring back together, only to have it taunt him and knock him into the cogs nearby. Donald is knocked back and forth, and is unable to stop moving his body back and forth after being thrown from the cogs.
Goofy is seen cleaning the bell of the tower, when it strikes four o’clock. He is hit in the head by the mechanical statues that ring the bell, and begins to walk around in a daze. Mickey notices just in time that Goofy is about to fall off the building, and begins to run around after him, preventing him from falling to his doom. Unfortunately, Goofy falls through a missing ring in a ladder, only to be shot back up by a flag pole, sending him and Mickey flying into the clock tower. They land on the main spring, just after Donald finally got it back together, and all three are sent flying into the cogs the Donald was knocked into before, unable to stop their bodies from dancing back and forth from the cog’s motion.
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