Mickey's Polo Team is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that was released in 1936.
Synopsis[]
Mickey Mouse is participating in a polo game, with a team that includes Goofy, the Big Bad Wolf, and Donald Duck, who is having trouble with his donkey. They are playing against Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx, and Charlie Chaplin (for which he is in his Tramp outfit). Actor Jack Holt, who is serving as referee, throws the ball, which begins the game. First out is Oliver, who is knocked off his horse when the two teams fight to get the ball from the other. He is hit on the head with horseshoes while on the ground. The Big Bad Wolf takes the ball and manages to keep it ahead of the others but Charlie Chaplin soon steals the ball and hits it into one of the poles, using his cane to turn himself around to go in the other direction and keep up with the team. Meanwhile, Ollie is struggling to get back on his horse because of his overweight body. As Mickey hits the ball toward his home goal, Harpo Marx and his ostrich are forced to duck under the sand to avoid being hit. Ollie is finally able to get onto his horse but his weight causes the horse's body to sag in the middle.
In an attempt to make the horse stay up, Stan Laurel pulls Ollie's horse's tail out and ties it in a knot, which works. However, the horse refuses to get back in the game and no matter how hard Ollie tries to entice it, it stays in place. Stan tries to poke it with a needle to make it get going, but it takes off before he can do so, throwing Ollie off and having him get poked instead. In the game, the Big Bad Wolf takes the lead with the ball again, but loses his mallet in the process and uses his breath to make the ball go forward instead. Shirley Temple and The Three Little Pigs mock him for doing this and blow raspberries at him. He gets angry and pushes back by blowing the fence they are behind away and clouding them with dust, but the distraction causes him to lose his lead in the game. Donald Duck takes the lead and hits the ball, but Harpo Marx hits the ball back at him and the momentum behind the two to get the ball ends with them colliding.
Donald yells insults at him for knocking him off, but Harpo responds by punching him with boxers' mitts that he hides in his clothes, burns Donald with a blowtorch and uses a noisemaker to push him away, back to his donkey. The ball lands right next to him and he tries to hit it but the team takes it away. Frustrated, he tries to get his donkey to move but it sits on him, laughing. It then kicks him into the ground where the ball lands on his tail and he is trampled by the other players (including Ollie, who finally manages to get back in the game). Donald throws a tantrum and accidentally swallows the ball, causing the teams to chase after him to get it out. Harpo hits him first, using the head of his ostrich, and the Big Bad Wolf manages to briefly get the ball out by hitting him but it bounces back inside Donald. All of the players from both teams try to hit him which eventually causes him to dig into the sand to escape. Donald tries to hide inside a pole but the teams continue to try to hit him out. Finally, he rips the pole off its base and leads both teams toward referee Jack Holt, which causes everyone to collide and make the horses end up riding their owners and continue the game in that way.
Characters[]
Referee[]
Team: Mickey Mousers[]
- Mickey Mouse (voiced by Walt Disney)
- Goofy ("The Goof", as he is referred to on the scoreboard)
- Big Bad Wolf
- Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash)
- Jenny the Burro (voiced by Clarence Nash)
Team: Movie Stars[]
Cameos[]
Characters[]
- Pluto
- The Three Little Pigs
- Fifi the Peke
- Clarabelle Cow
- Horace Horsecollar (during the end only)
- Two Orphans
- Wise Little Hen
- The Flying Mouse
- The Flying Mouse's Mother
- Peter Penguin
- Polly Penguin
- Max Hare (voiced by Ned Norton)
- King Midas
- Goldie
- Ambrose
- Dirty Bill
- Cock Robin
- Jenny Wren
- Legs Sparrow
- The Easter Rabbits
Celebrities[]
- Charles Laughton
- Clark Gable
- Eddie Cantor
- Edna May Oliver
- Greta Garbo
- Harold Lloyd
- Shirley Temple
- WC Fields
Trivia[]
- Ironically, the character with the least amount of screen time in this short is Mickey himself.
- Tanglefoot, Mickey's horse from the Mickey Mouse comic strip, appears on the poster for this short, despite that he does not actually appear in the film itself.
- This is one of six cartoons that plays at the Main Street Cinema at Disneyland, albeit without sound or color (like a silent movie).
- Donald Duck is the only speaking character who only says "polo" all the time.
- Will Rogers was originally going to be one of the celebrities on the polo team, but he tragically died in a plane crash, and was replaced by Charlie Chaplin.
- Most of the celebrities' horses are also caricatures of themselves.
- As surviving animation drafts show, there was going to be an extra audience scene with a caricature of Mae West sitting with Hop the Grasshopper from The Grasshopper and the Ants (complete with a snippet of "The World Owes Me a Living" playing in the background).[1]
- The golf ball stuck in Donald is probably still stuck inside him to this day, this might be one of the reasons why he is still angry today.
Goofs[]
- Some scenes of Laurel and Hardy playing polo are interspersed with Laurel struggling to get Hardy on his horse.
Releases[]
Television[]
- The Mickey Mouse Club, December 28, 1956
- The Mouse Factory, episode #13: "Horses"
- Walt Disney's Mickey and Donald, episode #11
- Donald Duck Presents, episode #2
- The Magical World of Disney, episode #33.2: "Disney's All-American Sports Nuts"
- Lifestyles of the Rich and Animated
- Mickey's Mouse Tracks, episode #16
- Donald's Quack Attack, episode #68
- The Ink and Paint Club, #1.14: "Early Donald"
- Have a Laugh!, episode #42
- Treasures from the Disney Vault, June 2, 2017
Home video[]
VHS
- Walt Disney Cartoon Classics: Limited Gold Editions: Life with Mickey
DVD
- Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color
- Walt Disney's Classic Cartoon Favorites: Extreme Sports Fun
Have a Laugh! changes[]
The following scenes were deleted from the short release due to time constraints:
- The scoreboard showing the two teams playing each other.
- Goofy's arrival.
- The Big Bad Wolf and Donald Duck's arrivals are shortened.
- The celebrities in the audience cheering the arrival of the Movie Stars.
- The scenes of Max Hare and Edna May Oliver, Clarabelle Cow and Clark Gable seated together.
- The Big Bad Wolf pulling ahead of the players and hitting the ball a few times.
- Laurel trying to put Hardy in his saddle is shortened.
- The entire second half of Laurel getting Hardy on his horse and Hardy trying to get his horse to move.
- The Wolf's mallet breaking, so he uses his windy breath to hit the ball, followed by him blowing the Three Little Pigs and Shirley Temple over when they razz him.
- Donald and Harpo Marx getting into a fight.
- Donald teeing up the ball to hit, only for it to get hit away, followed by him struggling to make his donkey move.
- The ball landing on Donald's exposed tail like a tee, and him getting trampled by the other players' horses, resulting him getting covered in horseshoes.
- Donald having accidentally swallowed the ball, he gets whacked by the Wolf into Harpo's ostrich's tailfeathers, followed by Harpo using the ostrich's head to knock Donald off.
- Donald burrowing underground and up through a pole to avoid getting hit again.
Gallery[]
