Shorts Review: Mickey Mouse – Cable Car Chaos

 

 

Welcome to Season 2 of Mickey Mouse!

We join the famous mouse couple as they travel via cable car through beautiful San Francisco. Mickey makes the mistake of promising to show Minnie the entire city. The cable car stops in Chinatown (or as they like to call it around these parts…Chinatown). The duo decides to stop for dim sum (I’d love some!) and Mickey jumps off to help the dainty Minnie Mouse disembark. Before the very, very slow Minnie can reach her beloved, a parade led by a Chinese dragon walks past the cable car. For some strange reason, one of the parade goers throws a firecracker into the cable car and scares the crap out of the driver. He leaps into the air, gets stuck in the roof, and kicks the cable car into gear. The trolley takes off, leaving poor Mickey behind. Our hero runs into a nearby bike shop, purchases a new ride, and takes off after his girl. He somehow catches up to the speeding car and almost saves Minnie but only manages to pull off her white glove.

That is when the amazing cable car goes straight up a 90-degree hill, once again leaving Mickey behind. He slowly pedals his way up the massive incline as Minnie takes it upon herself to stop the runaway trolley. She tosses an insane chicken into the overhead bin before trying to pull the still-unconscious driver out of the roof. Unfortunately, she only manages to pull off his pants, flinging him into the air. He bounces off a light pole and lands right on top of Mickey, who JUST made it to the top of the hill, knocking them both back down the hill.

The only other person on board that can drive this crazy thing can only do it with the instructional pamphlet, which is in the overhead bin with the chicken…at least until the guy opens the bin and the chicken flies off with it. Minnie tries to pull on the cable car’s handle but fails. Boy, does she get mad when the handle laughs at her feeble attempt to stop the racing car. She rolls up her arm-sleeves and throttles the throttle. Turning into a super muscular She-Minnie, our little lady pulls the handle so hard the car starts to go backwards.

Mickey, once again just reaching the crest of the hill, almost gets hit by the cable car. Instead, he starts pedaling backwards down the extraordinarily steep hill. The cable car goes just a bit faster and Mickey finds himself pedaling his bike THROUGH the car. The two reach the tops of the opposite hills before coming back down to the valley and smashing into each other. Our masterful mouse tries to save the day but Minnie informs him that she’s got it. A fight ensues. The duo argue all the way down yet another hill, smashing into buildings on both sides of the road as if they were pinball barriers.

At  the end of the road, the cable car races off a pier, bounces off a fisherman’s net, and flies high into the clouds. The fog clears and the pair can now see all of San Francisco. From the top of a Golden Gate bridge tower.

These Mickey Mouse shorts rarely disappoint. Somehow, in a mere five minutes, they are able to convey a whole storyline with a slew of emotions. While it was nice to see the usual hero-saves-the-damsel story, it was even more amazing to see Minnie put on her big girl panties and take control of a situation herself without relying on anything else. Too often, Minnie just has to stand still and bat her eyelashes and everything is solved for her. This time around, she could save herself and everyone else without emasculating Mickey. He still got to attempt to save the girl, even if it was unnecessary. She even let him take credit for her “seeing everything” at the very end. What a great way to start a new season.