Plane Crazy
About Plane Crazy
Mickey tries to fly like Charles Lindbergh. A first plane falls apart in a mock flight. He builds another from a roadster, a turkey's tail feathers, and the wreckage. Minnie gives him a horseshoe and climbs in. The flight goes out of control. Clarabelle Cow is briefly aboard. Mickey forces a kiss. Minnie slaps him, bails out on her bloomers, and he crashes into a tree. He laughs at her. She walks off. He throws the horseshoe, it swings back around a tree, and it knocks him flat.
Cast & crew
More about Plane Crazy
Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks directed and wrote it. Iwerks animated it alone, in a back room, at more than 700 drawings a day for two weeks. It was finished as a silent and test-screened for a theater audience and for distributors on May 15, 1928. An MGM executive saw it. No distributor took it. After Steamboat Willie, Celebrity Productions released a sound version on March 17, 1929. Carl W. Stalling's score was recorded on October 26, 1928. The short runs 5 minutes 56 seconds. Columbia later reissued it.
Themes
Background
Mickey's plane is a joke on Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris in May 1927. The cartoon was drawn the next year and held until a sound release in March 1929.
Making
Iwerks drew the picture by himself in two weeks. The silent test in May 1928 did not sell. The soundtrack was added after Steamboat Willie had already opened.
Technique
A point-of-view dive was faked by piling books under a turning drawing so the ground seemed to rush up.
Music
Carl W. Stalling wrote the score for the sound release. It was recorded on October 26, 1928, before Steamboat Willie opened.
Preservation
Disney kept both the silent picture and the 1929 sound release. The silent version entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2024, and the sound version on January 1, 2025.
Notes
- It is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon finished, and the first to include Minnie. Steamboat Willie, released later, was the first Mickey cartoon the public heard.
- The silent version was copyrighted on May 26, 1928, and the copyright was renewed on March 14, 1956. It entered the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2024.
- The sound version was copyrighted on August 9, 1930, though the title card reads 1929, and that copyright was renewed on December 16, 1957. It entered the public domain on January 1, 2025.
- Walt Disney is the credited voice.
- For a shot that seems to dive at the ground, the animators stacked books under a spinning background so the artwork moved toward the camera.
Scenes
- Minnie parachutes on her bloomers. Mickey hits a tree, then laughs at her.
- The horseshoe he throws comes back around a tree and knocks him out.
Also available
- Internet Archive (PlaneCrazy_201511)
- Wikimedia Commons (Plane Crazy (1929) with sound.webm)
