Boat Builders (1938)

Just perfect...

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a Mickey Mouse color short featuring Donald and Goofy. There will be spoilers ahead:As with virtually every Disney produced short, the animation here is generally excellent. The premise is basic and the results are predictable. What makes these cartoons work is the gags and the animation. You know at the outset that things won't end well for our heroes. It's just exactly what's going to go wrong that you wait for.The three decide to build a boat from a kit. All they need to do is assemble the parts. Much easier said than done. From the first step (unpacking the keel and ribs) the three are clearly in way over their heads.The chief problem is clearly a failure to communicate, as the three seem to be working in complete and blissful ignorance of what the other two are doing. This results in two of the funniest sequences, where Mickey plays havoc with Donald as he tests out the wheel while Donald is trying to paint the rudder and then later, when Goofy uncrates the mermaid which serves as decoration and Mickey carries her off and Goofy thinks the mermaid is flirtatiously playing a game with him. The results are less than pretty.The end is very funny even when you know what's going to happen. So don't book your space on their boat just yet, as they have a few kinks to work out at this point.This short is on the Disney Treasures Mickey Mouse In Living Color DVD release and is well worth seeking out. Recommended.

Before VHS tape and DVD technology, many old movies and old cartoons were re-released every few years. I was a preteen in the early 1950's and vividly remember first seeing the 1938 "Boat Builders" just before a Roy Rogers Saturday matinée flick at the local theater. It was the funniest cartoon I had ever seen. I laughed aloud continually through the entire seven minutes as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and their animated friends build a boat and launch it with outrageous slapstick humor aplenty. The whole audience joined me in the laughter. Several years later I watched "Boat Builders" again. It was still funny and enjoyable, the animation still amazing. I'm rating this cartoon from the standpoint of a preteen. For youngsters yesterday, today, and tomorrow, this one is a winner.

If Mickey, Donald and Goofy build themselves a boat ('so easy even a child can do it') do you REALLY think that by the end of the cartoon it is still going to be standing? Obviously not.Their usual lack of skill and ignorance for each other's well-being cause enough problems during the actual building of said boat but it is when Minnie christens the boat 'Queen Minnie' that all their hard work slaps them in the face.And who would have known that Goofy was dumb enough to think a figurehead is a real lady and fall in love with her.Mildy amusing.

A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.Folding-kit BOAT BUILDERS Mickey, Goofy & Donald attempt to put together their small ship with predictably disastrous results.Featuring first rate animation & a very funny plot, this classic little film reunites the three buddies in another cartoon not dissimilar to CLOCK CLEANERS (1937), their hit of the year before. Goofy & the Duck carry most of the show, with their voice artists - Pinto Colvig & Clarence Nash - giving topnotch performances. Voiced by Walt Disney, Mickey easily steps into the position of good guy & regular fellow. Miss Minnie has a quick cameo and sharp-eyed movie mavens will spot Horace Horsecollar & Clarabelle Cow among the crowd at the launching.Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.