Hole in One (Disney Mouse, That Is)

A drunken mouse in a Disney cartoon? Well, we’re certainly not talking Mickey. Or Timothy from Dumbo, for that matter. We’re talking pre-Mickey, back in the silent days when Walt Disney was making his Alice comedies featuring a live-action Alice and animated animals.

In Alice’s Tin Pony (1925), Alice doesn’t appear very much. It stars B-list Felix knock-off Julius. There are some good gags, but the best one doesn’t involve Alice, Julius or a tin pony (a pun on “iron horse” as the cartoon is centred around a train). A drunken cowboy mouse staggers into a peg-legged bear bandito. The bear kills the mouse, who collapses into a pile of mouse goo. Then he kills the mouse’s ten-gallon hat, which sprouts wings and flies out of the picture. A pretty imaginative scene. I really like how the mouse looks through the hole in his body and behind himself.



The drawing’s not at the calibre of even the earliest Mickey cartoons, but I’d rather watch an angel-winged cowboy hat than most Mickey cartoons any day.