Silhouette of the Cactus Kid

Peg Leg Pete puts the El Adobe Café into darkness in The Cactus Kid, a 1930 Mickey Mouse short. We get a couple of silhouette drawings interspersed with cycle gunshot effect animation.



The cartoon has butt and crotch pain gags and Mickey playing a piano. In other words, a typical 1930 Disney cartoon. There are some cactus overlays and a shelf-on-the-bar overlay which, I guess, was elaborate for the time it was made.

Declared the Motion Picture News: “Good cartoon. MICKEY is a cowboy in this and rides to a saloon to make love to a rodent senorita. The villain enters and there is considerable fun. It averages well with others of this popular series, and has a sufficient number of laughs to please most audiences.” Variety decided: “For any house that wants to add novelty, comedy and a sure-fire audience-pleaser here's a pip rolled into six minutes. They don’t get into the Paramount [Theatre, a Columbia house in New York] by mistake and Walt Disney and his associates have combined pen and sound effects for beaucoup laughs.” Mickey Mouse was still in his heyday.