Mickey Mouse as The Brave Little Tailor (1938)

Brave Little Tailor (1938) is a one-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Mickey Mouse series, produced in Technicolor by Walt Disney Productions, and released to theatres on September 29, 1938 by RKO Radio Pictures. It was produced by Walt Disney, directed by Bill Roberts, with principal animation by Fred Moore and Bill Tytla. It was nominated for the 1938 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, losing to Disney’s own Ferdinand the Bull. In 1994 it was voted #26 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.

The story is based upon the Grimm fairy tale “The Valiant Little Tailor”, and revolves around a medieval European village, which is being constantly terrorized by an evil giant. The king and his princess (Minnie Mouse) have been seeking a warrior to kill the giant, but no one is brave enough to step up to the job. In the village, a young peasant tailor (Mickey Mouse) kills seven flies at once while at his work, and accidentally interjects several other peasants’ discussion of the problems with the giant to brag loudly about his accomplishment:

Peasant (to his friends): Say, did you ever kill a giant?
Mickey (interjecting unwittingly): I killed seven (flies) with one blow!

Gossip that Mickey has killed seven giants with one blow quickly spreads around the kingdom. The king summons Mickey, and asks if he really “killed seven at one blow”. Mickey goes into an elaborate re-telling of how he killed the seven (flies, not giants as the king believes), which impresses the king enough to appoint Mickey “Royal High Killer of the Giant”. Upon learning the misunderstanding, all of Mickey’s confidence disappears and he attempts to stammer his way out of the assignment. The king offers Mickey both vast riches and the hand of Princess Minnie if he can kill (or at least subdue) the giant. Smitten with the princess, Mickey proclaims that he’ll “cut [the giant] down to my size]”, and sets off for the giant’s lair.

After only a few minutes, however, he is ready to turn back and give up, but the townspeople and Minnie are counting on him. “Gosh,” Mickey sighs to himself, wondering what to do. “I dunno how to catch a giant.”

Just then, the giant appears, forcing Mickey to scramble for a place to hide. The giant sits down to eat a cart of pumpkins(as if they were grapes), then a drink of water (using a water well as if it were a thermos) and a smoke (rolling a cigarette from a haystack Mickey was hiding in and lighting it with an oven). Mickey is caught in the giant’s cigarette, and gives his hiding place away by accidentally sneezing. The angry giant attempts to squash the tailor, who quickly produces sewing thread and a needle and bounds the giant’s limbs. With needle and thread, Mickey swings about the giant, sewing him up and causing him to fall and knock himself out. The giant subdued, Mickey returns home and is hailed as a hero. An amusement park is built on the site of the battle (powered with wind power from the snoring giant). The short ends with the king and a newly married Mickey and Minnie enjoying a ride on the carousel.

Note: This was the second to last Mickey Mouse cartoon to feature his original design; he’d be given smaller eyes with pupils, for his next films (The Pointer and Fantasia) by animator Fred Moore.